In short, he promised a complete reformation, even
saying that if Ethelyn would select some person who was an fait in those
matters in which he was so remiss, he would watch and copy that man to
the letter. Would she name someone? And Ethelyn named her cousin Frank,
while Richard felt a flush of something like resentment that he should
be required to imitate a person whom in his secret heart he despised as
dandyish, and weak, and silly, and "namby-pamby," as he would probably
have expressed it if he had not forsworn slang phrases of every kind.
But Richard had pledged his word, and meant to keep it; and so it was to
all appearances a very happy and loving couple which, when the dinner
gong sounded, walked into the dining room with Mrs. Dr. Van Buren's set,
Ethelyn's handsome blue silk sweeping far behind her, and her white bare
arm just touching the coat-sleeve of her husband, who was not insensible
to the impression made by the beautiful woman at his side.
There were no lectures that night, for Richard had done his best,
talking at least twenty times with both Mrs. Cameron and Mrs.
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