A Woman-Hater Part 39

"Of course not," said Zoe; "only we must not say so. He indulges _us_ in our whims."

Warm partisan of immortal justice, when it was lucky enough to be backed by her affections, Miss Vizard rose directly after dinner, and, with a fine imitation of ardor, said she could lose no more time--she must go and put on her bonnet. "You will come with me, f.a.n.n.y?"

When I was a girl, or a boy--I forget which, it is so long ago--a young lady thus invited by an affectionate friend used to do one of two things; nine times out of ten she sacrificed her inclination, and went; the tenth, she would make sweet, engaging excuses, and beg off. But the girls of this day have invented "silent volition." When you ask them to do anything they don't quite like, they look you in the face, bland but full, and neither speak nor move. Miss Dover was a proficient in this graceful form of refusal by dead silence, and resistance by placid inertia. She just looked like the full moon in Zoe's face, and never budged. Zoe, being also a girl of the day, needed no interpretation. "Oh, very well," said she, "disobliging thing!"--with perfect good humor, mind you.

Vizard, however, was not pleased.

"You go with her, Ned," said he. "Miss Dover prefers to stay and smoke a cigar with me."

Miss Dover's face reddened, but she never budged. And it ended in Zoe taking Severne with her to call on Rhoda Gale.

Rhoda Gale stayed in the garden till sunset, and then went to her lodgings slowly, for they had no attraction--a dark room; no supper; a hard landlady, half disposed to turn her out.

Dr. Rhoda Gale never reflected much in the streets; they were to her a field of minute observation; but, when she got home she sat down and thought over what she had been saying and doing, and puzzled over the character of the man who had relieved her hunger and elicited her autobiography. She pa.s.sed him in review; settled in her mind that he was a strong character; a manly man, who did not waste words; wondered a little at the way he had made her do whatever he pleased; blushed a little at the thought of having been so communicative; yet admired the man for having drawn her out so; and wondered whether she should see him again. She hoped she should. But she did not feel sure.

She sat half an hour thus--with one knee raised a little, and her hands interlaced--by a fire-place with a burned-out coal in it; and by-and-by she felt hungry again. But she had no food, and no money.

She looked hard at her ring, and profited a little by contact with the st.u.r.dy good sense of Vizard.

She said to herself, "Men understand one another. I believe father would be angry with me for not."

Then she looked tenderly and wistfully at the ring, and kissed it, and murmured, "Not to-night." You see she hoped she might have a letter in the morning, and so respite her ring.

Then she made light of it, and said to herself, "No matter; 'qui dort, dine.'"

But as it was early for bed, and she could not be long idle, sipping no knowledge, she took up the last good German work that she had bought when she had money, and proceeded to read. She had no candle, but she had a lucifer-match or two, and an old newspaper. With this she made long spills, and lighted one, and read two pages by that paper torch, and lighted another before it was out, and then another, and so on in succession, fighting for knowledge against poverty, as she had fought for it against perfidy.

While she was thus absorbed, a carriage drew up at the door. She took no notice of that; but presently there was a rustling of silk on the stairs, and two voices, and then a tap at the door. "Come in," said she; and Zoe entered just as the last spill burned out.

Rhoda Gale rose in a dark room; but a gas-light over the way just showed her figure. "Miss Gale?" said Zoe, timidly.

"I am Miss Gale," said Rhoda, quietly, but firmly.

"I am Miss Vizard--the gentleman's sister that you met in Leicester Square to-day;" and she took a cautious step toward her.

Rhoda's cheeks burned.

"Miss Vizard," she said, "excuse my receiving you so; but you may have heard I am very poor. My last candle is gone. But perhaps the landlady would lend me one. I don't know. She is very disobliging, and very cruel."

"Then she shall not have the honor of lending you a candle," said Zoe, with one of her gushes. "Now, to tell the truth," said she, altering to the cheerful, "I'm rather glad. I would rather talk to you in the dark for a little, just at first. May I?" By this time she had gradually crept up to Rhoda.

"I am afraid you _must,"_ said Rhoda. "But at least I can offer you a seat."

Zoe sat down, and there was an awkward silence.

"Oh, dear," said Zoe; "I don't know how to begin. I wish you would give me your hand, as I can't see your face."

"With all my heart: there."

(Almost in a whisper) "He has told me."

Rhoda put the other hand to her face, though it was so dark.

"Oh, Miss Gale, how _could_ you? Only think! Suppose you had killed yourself, or made yourself very ill. Your mother would have come directly and found you so; and only think how unhappy you would have made her."

"Can I have forgotten my mother?" asked Rhoda of herself, but aloud.

"Not willfully, I am sure. But you know geniuses are not always wise in these little things. They want some good humdrum soul to advise them in the common affairs of life. That want is supplied you now; for _I_ am here--ha-ha!"

"You are no more commonplace than I am; much less now, I'll be bound."

"We will put that to the test," said Zoe, adroitly enough. _"My_ view of all this is--that here is a young lady in want of money _for a time,_ as everybody is now and then, and that the sensible course is to borrow some till your mother comes over with her ap.r.o.nful of dollars. Now, I have twenty pounds to lend, and, if you are so mighty sensible as you say, you won't refuse to borrow it."

"Oh, Miss Vizard, you are very good; but I am afraid and ashamed to borrow. I never did such a thing."

"Time you began, then. _I_ have--often. But it is no use arguing. You _must--_or you will get poor me finely scolded. Perhaps he was on his good behavior with you, being a stranger; but at home they expect to be obeyed. He will be sure to say it was my stupidity, and that _he_ would have made you directly."

"Do tell!" cried Rhoda, surprised into an idiom; "as if I'd have taken money from _him!"_

"Why, of course not; but between _us_ it is nothing at all. There:" and she put the money into Rhoda's hand, and then held both hand and money rather tightly imprisoned in her larger palm, and began to chatter, so as to leave the other no opening. "Oh, blessed darkness! how easy it makes things! does it not? I am glad there was no candle; we should have been fencing and blus.h.i.+ng ever so long, and made such a fuss about nothing--and--"

This prattle was interrupted by Rhoda Gale putting her right wrist round Zoe's neck, and laying her forehead on her shoulder with a little sob. So then they both distilled the inevitable dew-drops.

But as Rhoda was not much given that way, she started up, and said, "Darkness? No; I must see the face that has come here to help me, and not humiliate me. That is the first use I'll make of the money. I am afraid you are rather plain, or you couldn't be so good as all this."

"No," said Zoe. "I'm not reckoned plain; only as black as a coal."

"All the more to my taste," said Rhoda, and flew out of the room, and nearly stumbled over a figure seated on a step of the staircase. "Who are you?" said she, sharply.

"My name is Severne."

"And what are you doing there?"

"Waiting for Miss Vizard."

"Come in, then."

"She told me not."

"Then I tell you _to._ The idea! Miss Vizard!"

"Yes!"

"Please have Mr. Severne in. Here he is sitting--like Grief--on the steps. I will soon be back."

She flew to the landlady. "Mrs. Grip, I want a candle."

"Well, the shops are open," said the woman, rudely.