"But if I were you, I would give no one a reason for saying a word against me. Why should you?"
"Fred will supply them with reasons. I can't keep the man away from me. I don't believe I want to--he is very nice and useful."
"You are talking nonsense, things you don't mean, Dora. You are not such a foolish woman as to like to be seen with Fred Mostyn, that little monocular snob, after the aristocratic, handsome Basil Stanhope. The comparison is a mockery. Basil is the finest gentleman I ever saw. Socially, he is perfection, and----"
"He is only a clergyman."
"Even as a clergyman he is of religiously royal descent. There are generations of clergymen behind him, and he is a prince in the pulpit. Every man that knows him gives him the highest respect, every woman thinks you the most fortunate of wives. No one cares for Fred Mostyn. Even in his native place he is held in contempt. He had nine hundred votes to young Rawdon's twelve thousand."
"I don't mind that. I am going to the matinee to-morrow with Fred. He wanted to take me out in his auto this afternoon, but when I said I would go if you would he drew back. What is the reason? Did he make you offer of his hand? Did you refuse it?"
"He never made me an offer. I count that to myself as a great compliment. If he had done such a thing, he would certainly have been refused."
"I can tell that he really hates you. What dirty trick did you serve him about Rawdon Court?"
"So he called the release of Squire Rawdon a 'dirty trick'? It would have been a very dirty trick to have let Fred Mostyn get his way with Squire Rawdon."
"Of course, Ethel, when a man lends his money as an obligation he expects to get it back again."
"Mostyn got every farthing due him, and he wanted one of the finest manors in Eng-land in return for the obligation. He did not get it, thank God and my father!"
"He will not forget your father's interference."
"I hope he will remember it."
"Do you know who furnished the money to pay Fred? He says he is sure your father did not have it."
"Tell him to ask my father. He might even ask your father. Whether my father had the money or not was immaterial. Father could borrow any sum he wanted, I think."