The Man Between

"I am sure Dora meant no wrong. It is so natural for a lovely girl to show off a little. She will marry and forget Fred Mostyn lives."

"And Fred will forget?"

"Fred will not forget."

"Then I shall be very sorry for your father and grandmother."

"What have they to do with Fred marrying?"

"A great deal. Fred has been so familiar and homely the last two or three weeks, that they have come to look upon him as a future member of the family. It has been 'Cousin Ethel' and 'Aunt Ruth' and even 'grandmother' and 'Cousin Fred,' and no objections have been made to the use of such personal terms. I think your father hopes for a closer tie between you and Fred Mostyn than cousinship."

"Whatever might have been is over. Do you imagine I could consent to be the secondary deity, to come after Dora--Dora of all the girls I have ever known? The idea is an insult to my heart and my intelligence. Nothing on earth could make me submit to such an indignity."

"I do not suppose, Ethel, that any wife is the first object of her husband's love."

"At least they tell her she is so, swear it an inch deep; and no woman is fool enough to look beyond that oath, but when she is sure that she is a second best! AH! That is not a position I will ever take in any man's heart knowingly."

"Of course, Fred Mostyn will have to marry."

"Of course, he will make a duty of the event. The line of Mostyns must be continued. England might go to ruin if the Mostyns perished off the English earth; but, Aunt Ruth, I count myself worthy of a better fate than to become a mere branch in the genealogical tree of the Mostyns. And that is all Fred Mostyn's wife will ever be to him, unless he marries Dora."

"But that very supposition implies tragedy, and it is most unlikely."

"Yes, for Dora is a good little thing. She has never been familiar with vice. She has even a horror of poor women divorced from impossible husbands. She believes her marriage will be watched by the angels, and recorded in heaven. Basil has instructed her to regard marriage as a holy sacrament, and I am sure he does the same."

"Then why should we forecast evil to their names? As for Cousin Fred, I dare say he is comfortably asleep."