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Updated: June 11, 2025
But it's rather curious, isn't it, what power one little woman can wield over a man's life, even the life of a man who is as far as possible from being a "woman's man"? Ellaline de Nesville pretty well spoiled my early youth, or would if I hadn't freed myself to take up other interests. She burdens the remainder of my young years by making me, willy nilly, the guardian of her child.
I promised to write to Ellaline, as soon as I'd anything to tell worth telling; and I suppose I must do it to-day; yet I dread to, and can't make up my mind to begin. I don't like to praise a person whom she regards as a monster; still, I've nothing to say against him; and I'm sure she'll be cross if I don't run him down. I think I shall state facts baldly.
Ellaline is too French at heart not to feel that this advice is good though she adds in her letter that she, of course, trusts darling Honoré completely; so she has accepted the invitation. The only trouble is, she wants more money at once. She must let golden louis run through her fingers like water, for I sent her nearly all Sir Lionel handed me before we started on the trip.
It would have done mine great harm if I hadn't had a friend like you to groan and grumble to. You understand how I've always felt about this child she wished me to care for. I was certain that Ellaline Number 2 would grow up as like Ellaline Number 1 as this summer's rose is like last summer's, which bloomed on the same bush.
We arrived at Newcastle this afternoon, finding Burden already here. I didn't think the meeting between him and Ellaline particularly cordial, but appearances are deceiving where girls are concerned, as I have lately been reminded in more ways than one.
I told him I couldn't quite answer for you, as you had always hoped your one boy might fall in love with a rich girl; but that I was sure Dick adored Ellaline. I asked if I should write to you, when Dick did; and he said, half reluctantly, perhaps I had better. Poor wretch, he was afraid I might succeed in persuading you!
On the way here, however, there was the beautiful City Cross in the High Street. It would have been a disgrace not to stop for a look at it, even though we could return; and Ellaline was most enthusiastic. Senter, though maybe better instructed, is more blasée. Indeed, though she admires the right things, she is essentially the modern woman, whose interest is all in the present and future.
A happy man would never tire of it, I think. An unhappy one might prefer Brighton or Monte Carlo. I am neither one nor the other. So I prefer a motor-car. We are on the wing again to-morrow. I must now go to our sitting-room, which looks over the sea, and play a rubber of bridge with Mrs. Senter, Emily, and Burden. Ellaline doesn't play.
Both blows coming together were too much for Mademoiselle de Nesville, who was fascinating and pretty, but apparently a frightful little cat as well as flirt, so she promptly bolted with an intimate friend of her fiancé, a Mr. Frederic Lethbridge, rich and "well connected." They ran off and were married in Scotland, as Ellaline the second expects to be.
If it hadn't been for meeting Ellaline, and Ellaline falling a victim to my modest charms, and insisting upon Madame de Maluet's taking me as a teacher of singing for her "celebrated finishing school for Young Ladies," what would have become of us, dearest, with you so delicate, me so young, and both of us so poor and alone in a big world? I really don't know, and you've often said you didn't.
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