"No," said Mrs. Fyne. "I rang the bell and told one of the maids to go
and bring the hat and coat out of the cab. And then we waited."
I don't think that there ever was such waiting unless possibly in a jail
at some moment or other on 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 an impulsive person.