Chance

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.