"Oh, no, father. She is going to be married. That is all."
"That is enough. Who is the man?"
"Reverend Mr. Stanhope."
"Nonsense!"
"Positively."
"I never heard anything more ridiculous. That saintly young priest! Why, Dora will be tired to death of him in a month. And he? Poor fellow!"
"Why poor fellow? He is very much in love with her."
"It is hard to understand. St. Jerome's love 'pale with midnight prayer' would be more believable than the butterfly Dora. Goodness, gracious! The idea of that man being in love! It pulls him down a bit. I thought he never looked at a woman."
"Do you know him, father?"
"As many people know him--by good report. I know that he is a clergyman who believes what he preaches. I know a Wall Street broker who left St. Jude's church because Mr. Stanhope's sermons on Sunday put such a fine edge on his conscience that Mondays were dangerous days for him to do business on. And whatever Wall Street financiers think of the Bible personally, they do like a man who sticks to his colors, and who holds intact the truth committed to him. Stanhope does this emphatically; and he is so well trusted that if he wanted to build a new church he could get all the money necessary, from Wall Street men in an hour. And he is going to marry! Going to marry Dora Denning! It is 'extraordinary news,' indeed!"
Ethel was a little offended at such unusual surprise. "I think you don't quite understand Dora," she said. "It will be Mr. Stanhope's fault if she is not led in the right way; for if he only loves and pets her enough he may do all he wishes with her. I know, I have both coaxed and ordered her for four years--sometimes one way is best, and sometimes the other."
"How is a man to tell which way to take? What do her parents think of the marriage?"
"They are pleased with it."
"Pleased with it! Then I have nothing more to say, except that I hope they will not appeal to me on any question of divorce that may arise from such an unlikely marriage."
"They are only lovers yet, Edward," said Ruth. "It is not fair, or kind, to even think of divorce."
"My dear Ruth, the fashionable girl of today accepts marriage with the provision of divorce."