Well, I guess hed know it if we didnt, said the girl.
I remember how secretive you were last year. You kept everything to yourself.
Well, I know what I want, the young lady pursued.
He watched her button one of her gloves deftly, using a hairpin released from some mysterious office under her bonnet. There was a moments silence, after which they looked up at each other. Ive an idea you dont want me, said George Flack.
Oh yes, I doas a friend.
Of all the mean ways of trying to get rid of a man thats the meanest! he rang out.
Wheres the meanness when I suppose youre not so ridiculous as to wish to be anything more!
More to your sister, do you meanor to yourself?
My sister IS myselfI havent got any other, said Delia Dosson.
Any other sister?
Dont be idiotic. Are you still in the same business? the girl went on.
Well, I forget which one I WAS in.
Why, something to do with that newspaperdont you remember?
Yes, but it isnt that paper any moreits a different one.
Do you go round for newsin the same way?
Well, I try to get the people what they want. Its hard work, said the young man.
Well, I suppose if you didnt some one else would. They will have it, wont they?
Yes, they will have it. The wants of the people, however, appeared at the present moment to interest Mr. Flack less than his own. He looked at his watch and remarked that the old gentleman didnt seem to have much authority.
What do you mean by that? the girl asked.
Why with Miss Francie. Shes taking her time, or rather, I mean, shes taking mine.
Well, if you expect to do anything with her you must give her plenty of that, Delia returned.
All right: Ill give her all I have. And Miss Dossons interlocutor leaned back in his chair with folded arms, as to signify how much, if it came to that, she might have to count with his patience. But she sat there easy and empty, giving no sign and fearing no future. He was the first indeed to turn again to restlessness: at the end of a few moments he asked the young lady if she didnt suppose her father had told her sister who it was.
Do you think thats all thats required? she made answer with cold gaiety. But she added more familiarly: Probably thats the reason. Shes so shy.
Oh yesshe used to look it.
No, thats her peculiarity, that she never looks it and yet suffers everything.
Well, you make it up for her then, Miss Delia, the young man ventured to declare. You dont suffer much.
No, for Francie Im all there. I guess I could act for her.
He had a pause. You act for her too much. If it wasnt for you I think I could do something.
Well, youve got to kill me first! Delia Dosson replied.
Ill come down on you somehow in the Reverberator he went on.
But the threat left her calm. Oh thats not what the people want.
No, unfortunately they dont care anything about MY affairs.
Well, we do: were kinder than most, Francie and I, said the girl. But we desire to keep your affairs quite distinct from ours.
Oh youryours: if I could only discover what they are! cried George Flack. And during the rest of the time that they waited the young journalist tried to find out. If an observer had chanced to be present for the quarter of an hour that elapsed, and had had any attention to give to these vulgar young persons, he would have wondered perhaps at there being so much mystery on one side and so much curiosity on the otherwondered at least at the elaboration of inscrutable projects on the part of a girl who looked to the casual eye as if she were stolidly passive. Fidelia Dosson, whose name had been shortened, was twenty-five years old and had a large white face, in which the eyes were far apart. Her forehead was high but her mouth was small, her hair was light and colourless and a certain inelegant thickness of figure made her appear shorter than she was. Elegance indeed had not been her natural portion, and the Bon Marche and other establishments had to make up for that. To a casual sisters eye they would scarce have appeared to have acquitted themselves of their office, but even a woman wouldnt have guessed how little Fidelia cared. She always looked the same; all the contrivances of Paris couldnt fill out that blank, and she held them, for herself, in no manner of esteem. It was a plain clean round pattern face, marked for recognition among so many only perhaps by a small figure, the sprig on a china plate, that might have denoted deep obstinacy; and yet, with its settled smoothness, it was neither stupid nor hard. It was as calm as a room kept dusted and aired for candid earnest occasions, the meeting of unanimous committees and the discussion of flourishing businesses. If she had been a young manand she had a little the head of oneit would probably have been thought of her that she was likely to become a Doctor or a Judge.
An observer would have gathered, further, that Mr. Flacks acquaintance with Mr. Dosson and his daughters had had its origin in his crossing the Atlantic eastward in their company more than a year before, and in some slight association immediately after disembarking, but that each party had come and gone a good deal since thencome and gone however without meeting again. It was to be inferred that in this interval Miss Dosson had led her father and sister back to their native land and had then a second time directed their course to Europe. This was a new departure, said Mr. Flack, or rather a new arrival: he understood that it wasnt, as he called it, the same old visit. She didnt repudiate the accusation, launched by her companion as if it might have been embarrassing, of having spent her time at home in Boston, and even in a suburban quarter of it: she confessed that as Bostonians they had been capable of that. But now they had come abroad for longerever so much: what they had gone home for was to make arrangements for a European stay of which the limits were not to be told. So far as this particular future opened out to her she freely acknowledged it. It appeared to meet with George Flacks approvalhe also had a big undertaking on that side and it might require years, so that it would be pleasant to have his friends right there. He knew his way round in Parisor any place like thatmuch better than round Boston; if they had been poked away in one of those clever suburbs they would have been lost to him.
Oh, well, youll see as much as you want of usthe way youll have to take us, Delia Dosson said: which led the young man to ask which that way was and to guess he had never known but one way to take anythingwhich was just as it came. Oh well, youll see what youll make of it, the girl returned; and she would give for the present no further explanation of her somewhat chilling speech. In spite if it however she professed an interest in Mr. Flacks announced undertakingan interest springing apparently from an interest in the personage himself. The man of wonderments and measurements we have smuggled into the scene would have gathered that Miss Dossons attention was founded on a conception of Mr. Flacks intrinsic brilliancy. Would his own impression have justified that?would he have found such a conception contagious? I forbear to ridicule the thought, for that would saddle me with the care of showing what right our officious observer might have had to his particular standard. Let us therefore simply note that George Flack had grounds for looming publicly large to an uninformed young woman. He was connected, as she supposed, with literature, and wasnt a sympathy with literature one of the many engaging attributes of her so generally attractive little sister? If Mr. Flack was a writer Francie was a reader: hadnt a trail of forgotten Tauchnitzes marked the former line of travel of the party of three? The elder girl grabbed at them on leaving hotels and railway-carriages, but usually found that she had brought odd volumes. She considered however that as a family they had an intellectual link with the young journalist, and would have been surprised if she had heard the advantage of his acquaintance questioned.