They actually called each other
Olga and Jacob and Jane, which was most surprising and almost painful.
Lucia (perhaps because she had not known about it soon enough) had been
a little satirical about the engagement, rather as if it was a slight
on her that Jacob had not been content with celibacy and Jane with her
friendship, but she was sure she wished them both "nothing but well."
Indeed the moment she got over the shock of seeing them so intimate
with Olga, she could not have been surpassed in cordiality.
"We see but little of our old friends now," she said to Olga and Jane
jointly, "but we must excuse their desire for solitude in their first
glow of their happiness. Peppino and I remember that sweet time, oh,
ever so long ago."
This might have been tact, or it might have been cat. That Peppino and
she sympathised as they remembered their beautiful time was tact, that
it was so long ago was cat. Altogether it might be described as a cat
chewing tact. But there was a slight air of patronage about it, and if
there was one thing Mrs Weston would not, and could not and did not
even intend to stand, it was that. Besides it had reached her ears that
Mrs Lucas had said something about there being no difficulty in finding
bridesmaids younger than the bride.
"Fancy! How clever of you to remember so long ago," she said. "But,
then, you have the most marvellous memory, dear, and keep it
wonderfully!"
Olga intervened.
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