Mary Roberts Rinehart

When a Man Marries Mary Roberts Rinehart

Book Excerpt: ...his letters to me. He would read one and say: "Here's a crackerjack, Kit," and pass it to me. And after I had read it we would lay it on the firelog, and Jim would say, "I am not worthy of her, Kit. I wonder if I can make her happy?" Or--"Did you know that the Duke of Belford proposed to her in London last winter?"Of course, one has to take the woman's word about a thing like that, but the Duke of Belford had been mad about Maude Richard all that winter. You can see that the burning of the letters, which was meant to be reminiscently sentimental, a sort of how-silly-we-were-but-it-is-all-over-now occasion, became actually a two hours' eulogy of Bella. And just when I was bored to death, the Mercer girls dropped in and heard Jim begin to read one commencing "dearest Kit." And the next day after the rehearsal dinner, they told Bella!There was very nearly no wedding at all. Bella came to see me in a frenzy the next morning and threw Jim and his two-hundred odd pounds in my face, and althou...