The Man Between: An International Romance

As this flirtation progressed—for on Dora’s part it was only vanity and flirtation—Ethel grew more and more uneasy. She almost wished for some trifling overt act which would give her an excuse for warning Dora; and one day, after three weeks of such philandering, the opportunity came.

“I think you permit Fred Mostyn to take too much liberty with you, Dora,” she said as soon as they were in Dora’s parlor, and as she spoke she threw off her coat in a temper which effectively emphasized the words.

“I have been expecting this ill-nature, Ethel. You were cross all the time we were at lunch. You spoiled all our pleasure Pray, what have I been doing wrong with Fred Mostyn?”

“It was Fred who did wrong. His compliments to you were outrageous. He has no right to say such things, and you have no right to listen to them.”

“I am not to blame if he compliments me instead of you. He was simply polite, but then it was to the wrong person.”

“Of course it was. Such politeness he had no right to offer you.”

“It would have been quite proper if offered you, I suppose?”

“It would not. It would have been a great impertinence. I have given him neither claim nor privilege to address me as ‘My lovely Ethel!’ He called you many times ‘My lovely Dora!’ You are not his lovely Dora. When he put on your coat, he drew you closer than was proper; and I saw him take your hand and hold it in a clasp—not necessary.”

“Why do you listen and watch? It is vulgar. You told me so yourself. And I am lovely. Basil says that as well as Fred. Do you want a man to lie and say I am ugly?”

“You are fencing the real question. He had no business to use the word ‘my.’ You are engaged to Basil Stanhope, not to Fred Mostyn.”

“I am Basil’s lovely fiancee; I am Fred’s lovely friend.”

“Oh! I hope Fred understands the difference.”

“Of course he does. Some people are always thinking evil.”

“I was thinking of Mr. Stanhope’s rights.”

“Thank you, Ethel; but I can take care of Mr. Stanhope’s rights without your assistance. If you had said you were thinking of Ethel Rawdon’s rights you would have been nearer the truth.”

“Dora, I will not listen–”

“Oh, you shall listen to me! I know that you expected Fred to fall in love with you, but if he did not like to do so, am I to blame?” Ethel was resuming her coat at this point in the conversation, and Dora understood the proud silence with which the act was being accomplished. Then a score of good reasons for preventing such a definite quarrel flashed through her selfish little mind, and she threw her arms around Ethel and begged a thousand pardons for her rudeness. And Ethel had also reasons for avoiding dissension at this time. A break in their friendship now would bring Dora forward to explain, and Dora had a wonderful cleverness in presenting her own side of any question. Ethel shrunk from her innuendoes concerning Fred, and she knew that Basil would be made to consider her a meddling, jealous girl who willingly saw evil in Dora’s guileless enjoyment of a clever man’s company.

To be misunderstood, to be blamed and pitied, to be made a pedestal for Dora’s superiority, was a situation not to be contemplated. It was better to look over Dora’s rudeness in the flush of Dora’s pretended sorrow for it. So they forgave each other, or said they did, and then Dora explained herself. She declared that she had not the least intention of any wrong. “You see, Ethel, what a fool the man is about me. Somebody says we ought to treat a fool according to his folly. That is all I was doing. I am sure Basil is so far above Fred Mostyn that I could never put them in comparison—and Basil knows it. He trusts me.”

“Very well, Dora. If Basil knows it, and trusts you, I have no more to say. I am now sorry I named the subject.”

“Never mind, we will forget that it was named. The fact is, Ethel, I want all the fun I can get now. When I am Basil’s wife I shall have to be very sedate, and of course not even pretend to know if any other man admires me. Little lunches with Fred, theater and opera parties, and even dances will be over for me. Oh, dear, how much I am giving up for Basil! And sometimes I think he never realizes how dreadful it must be for me.”

“You will have your lover all the time then. Surely his constant companionship will atone for all you relinquish.”

“Take off your coat and hat, Ethel, and sit down comfortably. I don’t know about Basil’s constant companionship. Tete-a-tetes are tiresome affairs sometimes.”

“Yes,” replied Ethel, as she half-reluctantly removed her coat, “they were a bore undoubtedly even in Paradise. I wonder if Eve was tired of Adam’s conversation, and if that made her listen to—the other party.”

“I am so glad you mentioned that circumstance, Ethel. I shall remember it. Some day, no doubt, I shall have to remind Basil of the failure of Adam to satisfy Eve’s idea of perfect companionship.” And Dora put her pretty, jeweled hands up to her ears and laughed a low, musical laugh with a childish note of malice running through it.

This pseudo-reconciliation was not conducive to pleasant intercourse. After a short delay Ethel made an excuse for an early departure, and Dora accepted it without her usual remonstrance. The day had been one of continual friction, and Dora’s irritable pettishness hard to bear, because it had now lost that childish unreason which had always induced Ethel’s patience, for Dora had lately put away all her ignorant immaturities. She had become a person of importance, and had realized the fact. The young ladies of St. Jude’s had made a pet of their revered rector’s love, and the elder ladies had also shown a marked interest in her. The Dennings’ fine house was now talked about and visited. Men of high financial power respected Mr. Dan Denning, and advised the social recognition of his family; and Mrs. Denning was not now found more eccentric than many other of the new rich, who had been tolerated in the ranks of the older plutocrats. Even Bryce had made the standing he desired. He was seen with the richest and idlest young men, and was invited to the best houses. Those fashionable women who had marriageable daughters considered him not ineligible, and men temporarily hampered for cash knew that they could find smiling assistance for a consideration at Bryce’s little office on William Street.

These and other points of reflection troubled Ethel, and she was glad the long trial was nearing its end, for she knew quite well the disagreement of that evening had done no good. Dora would certainly repeat their conversation, in her own way of interpreting it, to both Basil Stanhope and Fred Mostyn. More than likely both Bryce and Mrs. Denning would also hear how her innocent kindness had been misconstrued; and in each case she could imagine the conversation that took place, and the subsequent bestowal of pitying, scornful or angry feeling that would insensibly find its way to her consciousness without any bird of the air to carry it.

She felt, too, that reprisals of any kind were out of the question. They were not only impolitic, they were difficult. Her father had an aversion to Dora, and was likely to seize the first opportunity for requesting Ethel to drop the girl’s acquaintance. Ruth also had urged her to withdraw from any active part in the wedding, strengthening her advice with the assurance that when a friendship began to decline it ought to be abandoned at once. There was only her grandmother to go to, and at first she did not find her at all interested in the trouble. She had just had a dispute with her milkman, was inclined to give him all her suspicions and all her angry words—“an impertinent, cheating creature,” she said; and then Ethel had to hear the history of the month’s cream and of the milkman’s extortion, with the old lady’s characteristic declaration:

“I told him plain what I thought of his ways, but I paid him every cent I owed him. Thank God, I am not unreasonable!”

Neither was she unreasonable when Ethel finally got her to listen to her own serious grievance with Dora.

“If you will have a woman for a friend, Ethel, you must put up with womanly ways; and it is best to keep your mouth shut concerning such ways. I hate to see you whimpering and whining about wrongs you have been cordially inviting for weeks and months and years.”

“Grandmother!”

“Yes, you have been sowing thorns for yourself, and then you go unshod over them. I mean that Dora has this fine clergyman, and Fred Mostyn, and her brother, and mother, and father all on her side; all of them sure that Dora can do no wrong, all of them sure that Ethel, poor girl, must be mistaken, or prudish, or jealous, or envious.”

“Oh, grandmother, you are too cruel.”

“Why didn’t you have a few friends on your own side?”

“Father and Ruth never liked Dora. And Fred—I told you how Fred acted as soon as he saw her!”

“There was Royal Wheelock, James Clifton, or that handsome Dick Potter. Why didn’t you ask them to join you at your lunches and dances? You ought to have pillared your own side. A girl without her beaux is always on the wrong side if the girl with beaux is against her.”

“It was the great time of Dora’s life. I wished her to have all the glory of it.”

“All her own share—that was right. All of your share, also—that was as wrong as it could be.”

“Clifton is yachting, Royal and I had a little misunderstanding, and Dick Potter is too effusive.”

“But Dick’s effusiveness would have been a good thing for Fred’s effusiveness. Two men can’t go on a complimentary ran-tan at the same table. They freeze one another out. That goes without saying. But Dora’s indiscretions are none of your business while she is under her father’s roof; and I don’t know if she hadn’t a friend in the world, if they would be your business. I have always been against people trying to do the work of THEM that are above us. We are told THEY seek and THEY save, and it’s likely they will look after Dora in spite of her being so unknowing of herself as to marry a priest in a surplice, when a fool in motley would have been more like the thing.”

“I don’t want to quarrel with Dora. After all, I like her. We have been friends a long time.”

“Well, then, don’t make an enemy of her. One hundred friends are too few against one enemy. One hundred friends will wish you well, and one enemy will DO you ill. God love you, child! Take the world as you find it. Only God can make it any better. When is this blessed wedding to come off?”

“In two weeks. You got cards, did you not?”

“I believe I did. They don’t matter. Let Dora and her flirtations alone, unless you set your own against them. Like cures like. If the priest sees nothing wrong–”

“He thinks all she does is perfect.”

“I dare say. Priests are a soft lot, they’ll believe anything. He’s love-blind at present. Some day, like the prophet of Pethor,[1 - One of the Hebrew prophets.] he will get his eyes opened. As for Fred Mostyn, I shall have a good deal to say about him by and by, so I’ll say nothing now.”

“You promised, grandmother, not to talk to me any more about Fred.”

“It was a very inconsiderate promise, a very irrational promise! I am sorry I made it—and I don’t intend to keep it.”

“Well, it takes two to hold a conversation, grandmother.”

“To be sure it does. But if I talk to you, I hope to goodness you will have the decency to answer me. I wouldn’t believe anything different.” And she looked into Ethel’s face with such a smiling confidence in her good will and obedience, that Ethel could only laugh and give her twenty kisses as she stood up to put on her hat and coat.