GOING home in the carriage, Zoe was silent, but Severne talked nineteen
to the dozen. Had his object been to hinder his companion's mind from
dwelling too long on one thing, he could not have rattled the dice of
small talk more industriously. His words would fill pages; his topics
were, that Miss Gale was an extraordinary woman, but too masculine for
his taste, and had made her own troubles setting up doctress, when her
true line was governess--for boys. He was also glib and satirical upon
that favorite butt, a friend.
“Who but a _soi-disant_ woman-hater would pick up a strange virago and
send his sister to her with twenty pounds? I'll tell you what it is, Miss
Vizard--”
Here Miss Vizard, who had sat dead silent under a flow of words, which is
merely indicated above, laid her hand on his arm to stop the flux for a
moment, and said, quietly, _“Do_ you know her? tell me.”
“Know her! How should I?”
“I thought you might have met her--abroad.”
“Well, it is possible, of course, but very unlikely. If I did, I never
spoke to her, or I should have remembered her. _Don't you think so?”_
“She seemed very positive; and I think she is an accurate person. She
seemed quite surprised and mortified when you said 'No.'”
“Well, you know, of course it is a mortifying thing when a lady claims a
gentleman's acquaintance, and the gentleman doesn't admit it. But what
could I do? I couldn't tell a lie about it--could I?”
“Of course not.”
“I was off my guard, and rudish; but you were not. What tact! what
delicacy! what high breeding and angelic benevolence! And so clever,
too!”
“Oh, fie! you listened!”
“You left the door ajar, and I could not bear to lose a word that dropped
from those lips so near me. Yes, I listened, and got such a lesson as
only a noble, gentle lady could give. I shall never forget your womanly
art, and the way you contrived to make the benefaction sound nothing. 'We
are all of us at low water in turns, and for a time, especially me, Zoe
Vizard; so here's a trifling loan.' A loan! you'll never see a shilling
of it again! No matter. What do angels want of money?”
“Oh, pray,” said Zoe, “you make me blush!”
“Then I wish there was more light to see it--yes, an angel. Do you think
I can't see you have done all this for a lady you do not really approve?
Fancy--a she doctor!”
“My dear friend,” said Zoe, with a little juvenile pomposity, “one ought
not to judge one's intellectual superiors hastily, and this lady is
ours”--then, gliding back to herself, “and it is my nature to approve
what those I love approve--when it is not downright wrong, you know.”
“Oh, of course it is not wrong; but is it wise?”
Zoe did not answer: the question puzzled her.
“Come,” said he, “I'll be frank, and speak out in time. I don't think you
know your brother Harrington. He is very inflammable.”
“Inflammable! What! Harrington? Well, yes; for I've seen smoke issue from
his mouth--ha! ha!”
“Ha! ha! I'll pass that off for mine, some day when you are not by. But,
seriously, your brother is the very man to make a fool of himself with a
certain kind of woman. He despises the whole sex--in theory, and he is
very hard upon ordinary women, and does not appreciate their good
qualities. But, when he meets a remarkable woman, he catches fire like
tow. He fell in love with Mademoiselle Klosking.”
“Oh, not in love!”
“I beg your pardon. Now, this is between you and me--he was in love with
her, madly in love. He was only saved by our coming away. If those two
had met and made acquaintance, he would have been at her mercy. I don't
say any harm would have come of it; but I do say that would have depended
on the woman, and not on the man.”
Zoe looked very serious, and said nothing. But her long silence showed
him his words had told.
“And now,” said he, after a judicious pause, “here is another remarkable
woman; the last in the world I should fancy, or Vizard either, perhaps,
if he met her in society. But the whole thing occurs in the way to catch
him. He finds a lady fainting with hunger; he feeds her; and that softens
his heart to her. Then she tells him the old story--victim of the world's
injustice--and he is deeply interested in her. She can see that; she is
as keen as a razor. If those two meet a few more times, he will be at her
mercy; and then won't she throw physic to the dogs, and jump at a husband
six feet high, and twelve thousand acres! I don't study women with a
microscope, as our woman-hater does, but I notice a few things about
them; and one is, that their eccentricities all give way at the first
offer of marriage. I believe they are only adopted in desperation, to get
married. What beautiful woman is ever eccentric? catch her! she can get a
husband without. That doctress will prescribe Harrington a wedding-ring;
and, if he swallows it, it will be her last prescription. She will send
out for the family doctor after that, like other wives.”
“You alarm me,” said Zoe. “Pray do not make me unjust. This is a lady
with a fine mind, and, not a designing woman.”
“Oh, I don't say she has laid any plans; but these things are always
extemporized the moment the chance comes. You can count beforehand on the
instinct of every woman who is clever and needy, and on Vizard's peculiar
weakness for women out of the common. He is hard upon the whole sex; but
he is no match for individuals. He owned as much himself to me one day.
You are not angry with me!”
“No, no. Angry with _you?”_
“It is you I think of in all this. He is a fine fellow, and you are proud
of him. I wouldn't have him marry to mortify you. For myself, while the
sister honors me with her regard, I really don't much care who has the
brother and the acres. I have the best of the bargain.”
Zoe disputed this--in order to make him say it several times.
He did, and proved it in terms that made her cheeks red with modesty and
gratified pride; and by the time they had got home, he had flattered
everything but pride, love, and happiness out of her heart, poor girl.
The world is like the Law, full of implied contracts: we give and take,
without openly agreeing to. Subtle Severne counted on this, and was not
disappointed. Zoe rewarded him for his praises, and her happiness, by
falling into his views about Rhoda Gale. Only she did it in her own
lady-like way, and not plump.
She came up to Harrington and kissed him, and said, “Thank you, dear, for
sending me on a good errand. I found her in a very mean apartment,
without fire or candle.”
“I thought as much,” said Vizard.
“Did she take the money?”
“Yes--as a loan.”
“Make any difficulties?”
“A little, dear.”
Severne put in his word. “Now, if you want to know all the tact and
delicacy with which it was done, you must come to me; for Miss Vizard is
not going to give you any idea of it.”
“Be quiet, sir, or I shall be very angry. I lent her the money, dear, and
her troubles are at an end; for her mother will certainly join her before
she has spent your twenty pounds. Oh! and she had not parted with her
ring; that is a comfort, is it not?”
“You are a good-hearted girl, Zoe,” said Vizard, approvingly; then,
recovering himself, “But don't you be blinded by sentiment. She deserves
a good hiding for not parting with her ring. Where is the sense of
starving, with thirty pounds on your finger?”
Zoe smiled, and said his words were harder than his deeds.
“Because he doesn't mean a word he says,” put in Fanny Dover, uneasy at
the long cessation of her tongue, for all conversation with Don Cigar had
proved impracticable.
“Are you there still, my Lady Disdain?” said Vizard. “I thought you were
gone to bed.”
“You might well think that. I had nothing to keep me up.”
Said Zoe, rather smartly, “Oh, yes, you had--Curiosity;” then, turning to
her brother, “In short, you make your mind quite easy. You have lent your
money, or given it, to a worthy person, but a little wrong-headed.
However”--with a telegraphic glance at Severne--“she is very
accomplished; a linguist: she need never be in want; and she will soon
have her mother to help her and advise her. Perhaps Mrs. Gale has an
income; if not, Miss Gale, with her abilities, will easily find a place
in some house of business, or else take to teaching. If I was them, I
would set up a school.”
Unanimity is rare in this world; but Zoe's good sense carried every vote.
Her prompter, Severne, nodded approval. Fanny said, “Why, of course;” and
Vizard, who it was feared might prove refractory, assented even more
warmly than the others. “Yes,” said he, “that will be the end of it. You
relieve me of a weight. Really, when she told me that fable of learning
maltreated, honorable ambition punished, justice baffled by trickery, and
virtue vilified, and did not cry like the rest of you, except at her
father dying in New York the day she won her diploma at Montpelier, I
forgave the poor girl her petticoats; indeed, I lost sight of them. She
seemed to me a very brave little fellow, damnably ill used, and I said,
'This is not to be borne. Here is a fight, and justice down under dirty
feet.' What, ho!” (roaring at the top of his voice).
_Zoe and Fanny_ (screaming, and pinching Ned Severne right and left).
“Ah! ah!”
“Vizard to the rescue!”
“But, with the evening, cool reflection came. A sister, youthful, but
suddenly sagacious (with a gleam of suspicion), very suddenly has stilled
the waves of romance, and the lips of beauty have uttered common sense.
Shall they utter it in vain? Never! It may be years before they do it
again. We must not slight rare phenomena. Zoe _locuta est--_Eccentricity
must be suppressed. Doctresses, warned by a little starvation, must take
the world as it is, and teach little girls and boys languages, and physic
them with arithmetic and the globes: these be drugs that do not kill;
they only make life a burden. I don't think we have laid out our twenty
pounds badly, Zoe, and there is an end of it. The incident is emptied, as
the French say, and (lighting bed-candles) the ladies retire with the
honors of war. Zoe has uttered good sense, and Miss Dover has done the
next best thing; she has said very little--”
Miss Dover shot in contemptuously, “I had no companion--”
--“For want of a fool to speak her mind to.”