The Man Between | Page 8

Amelia Edith Barr
the contrary, I thought he was very; luxurious and extravagant."
"Where Bryce is concerned, yes; toward everyone else his conduct is
too mean to consider. Why, father makes him an allowance of $20,000
a year and he empties father's cigar boxes whenever he can do so
without----"
"Let us talk about Mr. Stanhope he is far more interesting. When are
you going to marry him?"
"In the Spring. Father is going to give me some money and I have the
fortune Grandmother Cahill left me. It has been well invested, and
father told me this morning I was a fairly rich little woman. Basil has
some private fortune, also his stipend--we shall do very well. Basil's
family is one of the finest among the old Boston aristocrats, and he is
closely connected with the English Stanhopes, who rank with the
greatest of the nobility."
"I wish Americans would learn to rely on their own nobility. I am tired
of their everlasting attempts to graft on some English noble family. No
matter how great or clever a man may be, you are sure to read of his
descent from some Scottish chief or English earl."
"They can't help their descent, Ethel."
"They need not pin all they have done on to it. Often father frets me in
the same way. If he wins a difficult case, he does it naturally, because

he is a Rawdon. He is handsome, gentlemanly, honorable, even a
perfect horseman, all because, being a Rawdon, he was by nature and
inheritance compelled to such perfection. It is very provoking, Dora,
and if I were you I would not allow Basil to begin a song about `the
English Stanhopes.' Aunt Ruth and I get very tired often of the English
Rawdons, and are really thankful for the separating Atlantic."
"I don't think I shall feel in that way, Ethel. I like the nobility; so does
father, he says the Dennings are a fine old family."
"Why talk of genealogies when there is such a man as Basil Stanhope
to consider? Let us grant him perfection and agree that he is to marry
you in the Spring; well then, there is the ceremony, and the wedding
garments! Of course it is to be a church wedding?"
"We shall be married in Basil's own church. I can hardly eat or sleep
for thinking of the joy and the triumph of it! There will be women there
ready to eat their hearts with envy--I believe indeed, Ethel, that every
woman in the church is in love with Basil."
"You have said that before, and I am sure you are wrong. A great many
of them are married and are in love with their own husbands; and the
kind of girls who go to St. Jude's are not the kind who marry clergymen.
Mr. Stanhope's whole income would hardly buy their gloves and
parasols."
"I don't think you are pleased that I am going to marry. You must not
be jealous of Basil. I shall love you just the same."
"Under no conditions, Dora, would I allow jealousy to trouble my life.
All the same, you will not love me after your marriage as you have
loved me in the past. I shall not expect it."
Passionate denials of this assertion, reminiscences of the past,
assurances for the future followed, and Ethel accepted them without
dispute and without faith. But she understood that the mere
circumstance of her engagement was all that Dora could manage at
present; and that the details of the marriage merged themselves

constantly in the wonderful fact that Basil Stanhope loved her, and that
some time, not far off, she was going to be his wife. This joyful
certainty filled her heart and her comprehension, and she had a natural
reluctance to subject it to the details of the social and religious
ceremonies necessary, Such things permitted others to participate in her
joy, and she resented the idea. For a time she wished to keep her lover
in a world where no other thought might trouble the thought of Dora.
Ethel understood her friend's mood, and was rather relieved when her
carriage arrived. She felt that her presence was preventing Dora's
absolute surrender of herself to thoughts of her lover, and all the way
home she marveled at the girl's infatuation, and wondered if it would be
possible for her to fall into such a dotage of love for any man. She
answered this query positively-- "No, if I should lose my heart, I shall
not therefore lose my head"--and then, before she could finish assuring
herself of her determinate wisdom, some mocking lines she had often
quoted to love-sick girls went laughing through her memory--
"O Woman! Woman! O our frail, frail sex! No wonder tragedies are
made from
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