FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  
the morning of an execution. The servant appeared with the hat and coat, and then, still as on the morning of an execution, when the condemned, I believe, is offered a breakfast, Mrs. Fyne, anxious that the white-faced girl should swallow something warm (if she could) before leaving her house for an interminable drive through raw cold air in a damp four-wheeler--Mrs. Fyne broke the awful silence: "You really must try to eat something," in her best resolute manner. She turned to the "odious person" with the same determination. "Perhaps you will sit down and have a cup of coffee, too." The worthy "employer of labour" sat down. He might have been awed by Mrs. Fyne's peremptory manner--for she did not think of conciliating him then. He sat down, provisionally, like a man who finds himself much against his will in doubtful company. He accepted ungraciously the cup handed to him by Mrs. Fyne, took an unwilling sip or two and put it down as if there were some moral contamination in the coffee of these "swells." Between whiles he directed mysteriously inexpressive glances at little Fyne, who, I gather, had no breakfast that morning at all. Neither had the girl. She never moved her hands from her lap till her appointed guardian got up, leaving his cup half full. "Well. If you don't mean to take advantage of this lady's kind offer I may just as well take you home at once. I want to begin my day--I do." After a few more dumb, leaden-footed minutes while Flora was putting on her hat and jacket, the Fynes without moving, without saying anything, saw these two leave the room. "She never looked back at us," said Mrs. Fyne. "She just followed him out. I've never had such a crushing impression of the miserable dependence of girls--of women. This was an extreme case. But a young man--any man--could have gone to break stones on the roads or something of that kind--or enlisted--or--" It was very true. Women can't go forth on the high roads and by-ways to pick up a living even when dignity, independence, or existence itself are at stake. But what made me interrupt Mrs. Fyne's tirade was my profound surprise at the fact of that respectable citizen being so willing to keep in his home the poor girl for whom it seemed there was no place in the world. And not only willing but anxious. I couldn't credit him with generous impulses. For it seemed obvious to me from what I had learned that, to put it mildly, he was not a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146  
147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
morning
 

manner

 

coffee

 

leaving

 

anxious

 
breakfast
 
execution
 

impression

 
miserable
 

crushing


footed

 

moving

 
leaden
 

minutes

 
putting
 

dependence

 
jacket
 
looked
 

citizen

 

respectable


interrupt

 

tirade

 

profound

 

surprise

 

impulses

 

obvious

 

learned

 

mildly

 

generous

 

credit


couldn

 
stones
 

enlisted

 

extreme

 

dignity

 
independence
 

existence

 
living
 

glances

 
resolute

turned
 

odious

 
silence
 
person
 

labour

 

peremptory

 
employer
 

worthy

 
determination
 

Perhaps