The Reverberator | Page 3

round for news--in the same way?"
"Well, I try to get the people what they want. It's hard work," said the young man.
"Well, I suppose if you didn't some one else would. They will have it, won't 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 didn't seem to have much authority.
"What do you mean by that?" the girl asked.
"Why with Miss Francie. She's taking her time, or rather, I mean, she's taking mine."
"Well, if you expect to do anything with her you must give her plenty of that," Delia returned.
"All right: I'll give her all I have." And Miss Dosson's 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 didn't suppose her father had told her sister who it was.
"Do you think that's all that's required?" she made answer with cold gaiety. But she added more familiarly: "Probably that's the reason. She's so shy."
"Oh yes--she used to look it."
"No, that's 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 don't suffer much."
"No, for Francie I'm all there. I guess I could act for her."
He had a pause. "You act for her too much. If it wasn't for you I think I could do something."
"Well, you've got to kill me first!" Delia Dosson replied.
"I'll come down on you somehow in the Reverberator" he went on.
But the threat left her calm. "Oh that's not what the people want."
"No, unfortunately they don't care anything about MY affairs."
"Well, we do: we're kinder than most, Francie and I," said the girl. "But we desire to keep your affairs quite distinct from ours."
"Oh your--yours: 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 other--wondered 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 sister's eye they would scarce have appeared to have acquitted themselves of their office, but even a woman wouldn't have guessed how little Fidelia cared. She always looked the same; all the contrivances of Paris couldn't 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 man--and she had a little the head of one--it 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. Flack's 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 then--come 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