Celibates | Page 5

we go through a little scene of fears and doubts; you have never yet missed it, I may
safely assume you will not miss it this morning.'
'I'm afraid I shall have to order the cart, and I like to get a walk if possible in the
morning.'
'I can walk it in twelve minutes.'
'I shouldn't like to walk it 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