“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.”