Then came dinner, and two of the party absent. Vizard heard their voices going like mill-clacks at this sacred hour, and summoned them rather roughly, as stated above. His back was to Zoe, and she rubbed her hands gayly to Severne, and sent him a flying whisper: "Oh, what fun! We are the culprits, and they are the ones scolded."Dinner waited ten minutes, and then the defaulters appeared. Nothing was said, but Vizard looked rather glum; and Aunt Maitland cast a vicious look at Severne and Zoe: they had made a forced march, and outflanked her. She sat down, and bided her time, like a fowler waiting till the ducks come within shot.
But the conversation was commonplace, inconsecutive, shifty, and vague, and it was two hours before anything came within shot: all this time not a soul suspected the ambushed fowler.
At last, Vizard, having thrown out one of his hints that the fair *** are imperfect, Fanny, being under the influence of Miss Maitland's revelations, ventured to suggest that they had no more faults than men, and _certainly_ were not more deceitful.
"Indeed?" said Vizard. "Not--more--_deceitful!_ Do you speak from experience?""Oh, no, no," said Fanny, getting rather frightened. "I only think so, somehow.""Well, but you must have a reason. May I respectfully inquire whether more men have jilted you than you have jilted?"'You may inquire as respectfully as you like; but I shan't tell you.""That is right, Miss Dover," said Severne; "don't you put up with his nonsense. He knows nothing about it: women are angels, compared with men.
The wonder is, how they can waste so much truth and constancy and beauty upon the foul ***. To my mind, there is only one thing we beat you in; we do stick by each other rather better than you do. You are truer to us. We are a little truer to each other.""Not a little," suggested Vizard, dryly.
"For my part," said Zoe, blushing pink at her boldness in advancing an opinion on so large a matter, "I think these comparisons are rather narrow-minded. What have we to do with bad people, male or female? A good man is good, and a good woman is good. Still, I do think that women have greater hearts to love, and men, perhaps, greater hearts for friendship:"then, blushing roseate, "even in the short time we have been here we have seen two gentlemen give up pleasure for self-denying friendship. Lord Uxmoor gave us all up for a sick friend. Mr. Severne did more, perhaps;for he lost that divine singer. You will never hear her now, Mr.
Severne."
The Maitland gun went off: "A sick friend! Mr. Severne? Ha, ha, ha! You silly girl, he has got no sick friend. He was at the gaming-table. That was his sick friend."It was an effective discharge. It winged a duck or two. It killed, as follows: the tranquillity--the good humor--and the content of the little party.
Severne started, and stared, and lost color, and then cast at Vizard a venomous look never seen on his face before; for he naturally concluded that Vizard had betrayed him.
Zoe was amazed, looked instantly at Severne, saw it was true, and turned pale at his evident discomfiture. Her lover had been guilty of deceit--mean and rather heartless deceit.
Even Fanny winced at the pointblank denunciation of a young man, who was himself polite to everybody. She would have done it in a very different way--insinuations, innuendo, etc.
"They have found you out, old fellow," said Vizard, merrily; "but you need not look as if you had robbed a church. Hang it all! a fellow has got a right to gamble, if he chooses. Anyway, he paid for his whistle;for he lost three hundred pounds."
"Three hundred pounds!" cried the terrible old maid. "Where ever did he get them to lose?"Severne divined that he had nothing to gain by fiction here; so he said, sullenly, "I got them from Vizard; but I gave him value for them.""You need not publish our private transactions, Ned," said Vizard. "Miss Maitland, this is really not in your department.""Oh, yes, it is," said she; "and so you'll find."This pertinacity looked like defiance. Vizard rose from his chair, bowed ironically, with the air of a man not disposed for a hot argument.
"In that case--with permission--I'll withdraw to my veranda and, in that [he struck a light] peaceful--[here he took a suck] shade--""You will meditate on the charms of Ina Klosking."Vizard received this poisoned arrow in the small of the back, as he was sauntering out. He turned like a shot, as if a man had struck him, and, for a single moment, he looked downright terrible and wonderfully unlike the easy-going Harrington Vizard. But he soon recovered himself. "What!
you listen, do you?" said he; and turned contemptuously on his heel without another word.
There was an uneasy, chilling pause. Miss Maitland would have given something to withdraw her last shot. Fanny was very uncomfortable and fixed her eyes on the table. Zoe, deeply shocked at Severne's deceit, was now amazed and puzzled about her brother. "Ina Klosking!" inquired she;"who is that?"
"Ask Mr. Severne," said Miss Maitland, sturdily.
Now Mr. Severne was sitting silent, but with restless eyes, meditating how he should get over that figment of his about the sick friend.
Zoe turned round on him, fixed her glorious eyes full upon his face, and said, rather imperiously, "Mr. Severne, who is Ina Klosking?"Mr. Severne looked up blankly in her face, and said nothing.
She colored at not being answered, and repeated her question (all this time Fanny's eyes were fixed on the young man even more keenly than Zoe's), "Who--and what--is Ina Klosking?""She is a public singer."
"Do you know her?"
"Yes; I heard her sing at Vienna."
"Yes, yes; but do you know her to speak to?"He considered half a moment, and then said he had not that honor. "But,"said he, rather hurriedly, "somebody or other told me she had come out at the opera here and made a hit.""What in--Siebel?"