She believed it, she affirmed it. He understood thoroughly at last, and
at once the interior of that cab, of an aspect so pacific in the eyes of
the people on the pavements, became the scene of a great agitation. The
generosity of Roderick Anthony--the son of the poet--affected the
ex-financier de Barral in a manner which must have brought home to Flora
de Barral the extreme arduousness of the business of being a woman. Being
a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of
dealings with men. This man--the man inside the cab--cast oft his stiff
placidity and behaved like an animal. I don't mean it in an offensive
sense. What he did was to give way to an instinctive panic. Like some
wild creature scared by the first touch of a net falling on its back, old
de Barral began to struggle, lank and angular, against the empty air--as
much of it as there was in the cab--with staring eyes and gasping mouth
from which his daughter shrank as far as she could in the confined space.
"Stop the cab. Stop him I tell you. Let me get out!" were the strangled
exclamations she heard. Why? What for? To do what? He would hear
nothing. She cried to him "Papa! Papa! What do you want to do?" And
all she got from him was: "Stop. I must get out. I want to think. I
must get out to think."
It was a mercy that he didn't attempt to open the door at once. He only
stuck his head and shoulders out of the window crying to the cabman. She
saw the consequences, the cab stopping, a crowd collecting around a
raving old gentleman . . . In this terrible business of being a woman so
full of fine shades, of delicate perplexities (and very small rewards)
you can never know what rough work you may have to do, at any moment.
Without hesitation Flora seized her father round the body and pulled
back--being astonished at the ease with which she managed to make him
drop into his seat again. She kept him there resolutely with one hand
pressed against his breast, and leaning across him, she, in her turn put
her head and shoulders out of the window. By then the cab had drawn up
to the curbstone and was stopped. "No! I've changed my mind. Go on
please where you were told first. To the docks."
She wondered at the steadiness of her own voice. She heard a grunt from
the driver and the cab began to roll again. Only then she sank into her
place keeping a watchful eye on her companion. He was hardly anything
more by this time. Except for her childhood's impressions he was just--a
man. Almost a stranger. How was one to deal with him? And there was
the other too. Also almost a stranger. The trade of being a woman was
very difficult. Too difficult. Flora closed her eyes saying to herself:
"If I think too much about it I shall go mad." And then opening them she
asked her father if the prospect of living always with his daughter and
being taken care of by her affection away from the world, which had no
honour to give to his grey hairs, was such an awful prospect.