Celibates | Page 5

in this broiling sun in fifteen. ... By the way, have you looked at the glass this morning?'
'No; I am tired of looking at it. It never moves from "set fair."'
'It is intolerably hot--can you sleep at night?'
'No; I didn't get to sleep till after two. I lay awake thinking of Mrs. Fargus.'
'I never saw you talk to a woman like that before. I wonder what you see in her. She's very plain. I daresay she's very clever, but she never says anything--at least not to me.'
'She talks fast enough on her own subjects. You didn't try to draw her out. She requires drawing out. ... But it wasn't so much Mrs. Fargus as having a woman in the house. It makes one's life so different; one feels more at ease. I think I ought to have a companion.'
'Have a middle-aged lady here, who would bore me with her conversation all through dinner when I come home from the City tired and worn out!'
'But you don't think that your conversation when you "come home from the City tired and worn out" has no interest whatever for me; that this has turned out a good investment; that the shares have gone up, and will go up again? I should like to know how I am to interest myself in all that. What has it to do with me?'
'What has it to do with you! How do you think that this house and grounds, carriages and horses and servants, glasshouses without end, are paid for? Do I ever grumble about the dressmakers' bills?--and heaven knows they are high enough. I believe all your hats and hosiery are put down to house expenses, but I never grumble. I let you have everything you want--horses, carriages, dresses, servants. You ought to be the happiest girl in the world in this beautiful place.'
'Beautiful place! I hate the place; I hate it--a nasty, gaudy, vulgar place, in a vulgar suburb, where nothing but money-grubbing is thought of from morning, noon, till night; how much percentage can be got out of everything; cut down the salaries of the employees; work everything on the most economic basis; it does not matter what the employees suffer so long as seven per cent. dividend is declared at the end of the year. I hate the place.'
'My dear, dear Mildred, what are you saying? I never heard you talk like this before. Mrs. Fargus has been filling your head with nonsense. I wish I had never asked her to the house; absurd little creature, with her eternal talk about culture, her cropped hair, and her spectacles glimmering. What nonsense she has filled your head with!'
'Mrs. Fargus is a very clever woman. ... I think I should like go to Girton.'
'Go to Girton!'
'Yes, go to Girton. I've never had any proper education. I should like to learn Greek. Living here, cooped up with a man all one's life isn't my idea. I should like to see more of my own sex. Mrs. Fargus told me about the emulation of the class-rooms, about the gymnasium, about the dances the girls had in each other's rooms. She never enjoyed any dances like those. She said that I must feel lonely living in a house without another woman.'
'I know what it'll be. I shall never hear the end of Mrs. Fargus. I wish I'd never asked them.'
'Men are so selfish! If by any chance they do anything that pleases any one but themselves, how they regret it.'
Harold was about the middle height, but he gave the impression of a small man. He was good-looking; but his features were without charm, for his mind was uninteresting--a dry, barren mind, a somewhat stubbly mind--but there was an honest kindliness in his little eyes which was absent from his sister's. The conversation had paused, and he glanced quickly every now and then at her pretty, wistful face, expressive at this moment of much irritated and nervous dissatisfaction; also an irritated obstinacy lurked in her eyes, and, knowing how obstinate she was in her ideas, Harold sincerely dreaded that she might go off to Girton to learn Greek--any slightest word might precipitate the catastrophe.
'I think at least that I might have a companion,' she said at last.
'Of course you can have a companion if you like, Mildred; but I thought you were going to marry Alfred Stanby?'
'You objected to him; you said he had nothing--that he couldn't afford to marry.'
'Yes, until he got his appointment; but I hear now that he's nearly certain of it.'
'I don't think I could marry Alfred.'
'You threw Lumly over, who was an excellent match, for Alfred. So long as Alfred wasn't in a position to marry you, you would hear of no one else, and now--but you don't mean to say you are going