“I have heard that; but I don't believe it. I know it makes me awfully happy whenever you say a kind word of me.”
“That is far from proving your wisdom,” said Zoe; “and, instead of dwelling on my perfections, which do not exist, I wish you would tell me things.”
“What things?”
“How can I tell till I hear them? Well, then, things about yourself.”
“That is a poor subject.”
“Let me be the judge.”
“Oh, there are lots of fellows who are always talking about themselves: let me be an exception.”
This answer puzzled Zoe, and she was silent, and put on a cold look. She was not accustomed to be refused anything reasonable.
Severne examined her closely, and saw he was expected to obey her. He then resolved to prepare, in a day or two, an autobiography full of details that should satisfy Zoe's curiosity, and win her admiration and her love. But he could not do it all in a moment, because his memory of his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He said, “Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about yourself—since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the Archipelago? or are you descended from Bacchus and Ariadne?”
“If you want sensible answers, ask sensible questions,” said Zoe, trying to frown him down with her black brows; but her sweet cheek would tint itself, and her sweet mouth smile and expose much intercoral ivory.
“Well, then,” said he, “I will ask you a prosaic question, and I only hope you won't think it impertinent. How—ever—did such a strangely assorted party as yours come to travel together? And if Vizard has turned woman-hater, as he pretends, how comes he to be at the head of a female party who are not all of them—” he hesitated.
“Go on, Mr. Severne; not all of them what?” said Zoe, prepared to stand up for her sex.
“Not perfect?”
“That is a very cautious statement, and—there—you are as slippery as an eel; there is no getting hold of you. Well, never mind, I will set you an example of communicativeness, and reveal this mystery hidden as yet from mankind.”
“Speak, dread queen; thy servant heareth.”
“Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Severne, you amuse me.”
“You only interest me,” was the soft reply.
Zoe blushed pink, but turned it off. “Then why do you not attend to my interesting narrative, instead of—Well, then, it began with my asking the dear fellow to take me a tour, especially to Rome.”
“You wanted to see the statues of your ancestors, and shame them.”
“Much obliged; I was not quite such a goose. I wanted to see the Tiber, and the Colosseum, and Trajan's Pillar, and the Tarpeian Rock, and the one everlasting city that binds ancient and modern history together.”
She flashed her great eyes on him, and he was dumb. She had risen above the region of his ideas. Having silenced her commentator, she returned to her story, “Well, dear Harrington said 'yes' directly. So then I told Fanny, and she said, 'Oh, do take me with you?' Now, of course I was only too glad to have Fanny; she is my relation, and my friend.”
“Happy girl!”
“Be quiet, please. So I asked Harrington to let me have Fanny with us, and you should have seen his face. What, he travel with a couple of us! He—I don't see why I should tell you what the monster said.”
“Oh, yes, please do.”
“You won't go telling anybody else, then?”
“Not a living soul, upon my honor.”
“Well, then,” he said—she began to blush like a rose—“that he looked on me as a mere female in embryo; I had not yet developed the vices of my sex. But Fanny Dover was a ripe flirt, and she would set me flirting, and how could he manage the pair? In short, sir, he refused to take us, and gave his reasons, such as they were, poor dear! Then I had to tell Fanny. Then she began to cry, and told me to go without her. But I would not do that, when I had once asked her. Then she clung round my neck, and kissed me, and begged me to be cross and sullen, and tire out dear Harrington.”
“That is like her.”
“How do you know?” said Zoe sharply.
“Oh, I have studied her character.”
“When, pray?” said Zoe, ironically, yet blushing a little, because her secret meaning was, “You are always at my apron strings, and have no time to fathom Fanny.”
“When I have nothing better to do—when you are out of the room.”
“Well, I shall be out of the room very soon, if you say another word.”
“And serve me right, too. I am a fool to talk when you allow me to listen.”
“He is incorrigible!” said Zoe, pathetically. “Well, then, I refused to pout at Harrington. It is not as if he had no reason to distrust women, poor dear darling. I invited Fanny to stay a month with us; and, when once she was in the house, she soon got over me, and persuaded me to play sad, and showed me how to do it. So we wore long faces, and sweet resignation, and were never cross, but kept turning tearful eyes upon our victim.”
“Ha! ha! How absurd of Vizard to tell you that two women would be too much for one man.”
“No, it was the truth; and girls are artful creatures, especially when they put their heads together. But hear the end of all our cunning. One day, after dinner, Harrington asked us to sit opposite him; so we did, and felt guilty. He surveyed us in silence a little while, and then he said, 'My young friends, you have played your little game pretty well, especially you, Zoe, that are a novice in the fine arts compared with Miss Dover.' Histrionic talent ought to be rewarded; he would relent, and take us abroad, on one condition: there must be a chaperone. 'All the better,' said we hypocrites, eagerly; 'and who?'”
“'Oh, a person equal to the occasion—an old maid as bitter against men as ever grapes were sour. She would follow us upstairs, downstairs, and into my lady's chamber. She would have an eye at the key-hole by day, and an ear by night, when we went up to bed and talked over the events of our frivolous day.' In short, he enumerated our duenna's perfections till our blood ran cold; and it was ever so long before he would tell us who it was—Aunt Maitland. We screamed with surprise. They are like cat and dog, and never agree, except to differ. We sought an explanation of this strange choice. He obliged us. It was not for his gratification he took the old cat; it was for us. She would relieve him of a vast responsibility. The vices of her character would prove too strong for the little faults of ours, which were only volatility, frivolity, flirtation—I will not tell you what he said.”
“I seem to hear Harrington talking,” said Severne. “What on earth makes him so hard upon women? Would you mind telling me that?”
“Never ask me that question again,” said Zoe, with sudden gravity.
“Well, I won't; I'll get it out of him.”
“If you say a word to him about it, I shall be shocked and offended.”
She was pale and red by turns; but Severne bowed his head with a respectful submission that disarmed her directly. She turned her head away, and Severne, watching her, saw her eyes fill.
“How is it,” said she thoughtfully, and looking away from him, “that men leave out their sisters when they sum up womankind? Are not we women too? My poor brother quite forgets he has one woman who will never, never desert nor deceive him; dear,