“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.