I--"
"Oh, dear me, Mr. Ulstervelt," cried Edith, breaking in, "you shan't say
anything mean about Mr. Brock. He's my husband's best friend."
"I didn't say it, Mrs. Medcroft. It was my mother." Brock was hiding a
smile behind his hand. "She knows him better than I. To tell the truth,
I've never met him, but I've seen him on the Fifth Avenue stages. You
_do_ look like him, though, by Jove."
"It's extraordinary how many people think I look like dear old Brock,"
said the false Roxbury. "But, on the other hand, most people think that
Brock looks like me, so what's the odds? Haw, haw! Ripping! Eh, Mr.
Rodney?"
"Ripping? Ripping what? Good God, am I ripping anything?" gasped Mr.
Rodney, who was fussy and fat and generally futile. He seemed to grow
suddenly uncomfortable, as if ripping was a habit with him.
Dinner was a success. Brock shone with a refulgence that bedimmed all
expectations. His wife was delighted; in all of the four years of
married life, Roxbury had never been so brilliant, so deliciously
English (to use her own expression). Constance tingled with pride. Of
late, she had experienced unusual difficulty in diverting her gaze from
the handsome impostor, and her thoughts were ever of him--in
justification of a platonic interest, of course, no more than that.
To-night her eyes and thoughts were for him alone,--a circumstance
which, could he have felt sure, would have made him wildly happy,
instead of inordinately furious in his complete misunderstanding of her
manner toward Freddie Ulstervelt, who had no compunction about making
love to two girls at the same time.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64