The Village by the River | Page 6

"When shall you get in? and where shall you stand for? and may I help in the election?"
Paul laughed louder than before. "There's a deal to be done before I can even think of standing for any place. First, I must accumulate enough capital to bring me in a small independent income. You know we have not much now."
"You can have anything and everything that belongs to me; I mean to earn my living somehow," declared Sally, sturdily.
"Thank you. I don't mean to start that way; and money comes in slowly to a barrister, although I am getting on fairly well. Then I will stand for any place that will return me, after learning my honestly expressed political opinions. Each man has his pet hobby, and I feel that mine is the bettering of the condition of the masses."
"That will make you popular," said Sally.
"And I don't care a fig for popularity. I want to help to leave the average condition of the people better than it is at present. The contrast between the very rich and the very poor of our land is something too awful to contemplate."
His talk, which he had begun half in play, had ended in deadly earnest; and Sally laid her hand mischievously over his eyes.
"Then don't contemplate it--at any rate just now, when I am so merry and happy. You've not answered my last question. May I help in your election? It would be such fun."
"I think not, Sally," Paul said smiling again.
"Oh, what a mass of inconsistency!--when you were saying only to-day that you saw no just cause or impediment why women should not do anything for which they have a special fitness. Now I feel politics will be my speciality, and I would not canvass for any one unless I quite understood their views."
"Well, my Parliamentary career is in the far future," Paul interposed; "and certainly I should not give my sanction to your undertaking any work of that kind at present. You are much too young, and much too----"
"Pretty, were you going to add?" broke in Sally, with a ripple of laughter. "I'm afraid not: enthusiastic would be the more likely adjective for you to use concerning me. Besides I don't think I am pretty. 'My dear,' said that candid old Miss Sykes to me the other day, 'you might have been very good-looking if all your features were as good as your eyes.' Why do ladies of a certain age take it for granted that they can say what they choose to the budding young woman? It annoys me frightfully. Oh, Paul!" with a sudden lowering of her voice, "talking of pretty, there's a perfectly lovely girl who is seated with her mother at the third table from ours. Don't turn your head too quickly or she will think we are talking of her; and then you can keep your head turned in the direction of the band. Her profile comes in between it and you."
Paul did as he was bid. Sally was right, the girl to whom she directed his attention was lovely beyond compare; and yet there was something in her face that failed to satisfy him. The very perfection, too, of everything about her, gave him a feeling of unconscious irritation.
"Well?" asked Sally, when he turned back to her.
"She's beautiful, certainly; but I don't like her."
"It's just because you did not discover her first."
Paul did not trouble to answer; there was a general stir amongst the company. The concert was drawing to a close, and the burghers of Brussels began to think of home and bed. The wives slipped their knitting into their pocket; the husbands bestowed a passing nod and guttural good night to each other as they moved away; and the twinkling lights began to be extinguished one by one. In the crowd at the entrance Paul and Sally found themselves close to the girl whom Sally had so greatly admired. She was talking in low, clear tones to her mother.
"Ought not to have come? What nonsense, mother! It has been quite an amusing experience to see the way these people pass their evenings; they are quite nice and respectable. I confess now I should be glad to see our carriage. I feel I'm getting smoke-dried like bacon--or ham, is it?"
It was evident that the elder of the two ladies was rather frightened and losing her head.
"I'll not do this again without a man of our own," she said with nervous irritability.
Paul stepped forward, raising his hat. "Is your carriage anywhere about? Can I get it for you?"
"Oh, thank you so much. It's a private one from the Hotel de Flandres, and I told the man to stop here."
"Unfortunately the police regulations interfere with your orders," Paul said, with a slight smile. "He must take