So he and Zoe went to the train. Neither said much on the way to Homburg;
for they were both brooding. Vizard's good sense and right feeling were
beginning to sting him a little for calling on the Klosking at all, and a
great deal for using the enthusiasm of an inexperienced girl to obtain an
introduction to a public singer. He sat moody in his corner, taking
himself to task. Zoe's thoughts ran in quite another channel; but she was
no easier in her mind. It really seemed as if Severne had given her the
slip. Probably he would explain his conduct; but, then, that Fanny should
foretell he would avoid her company, rather than call on Mademoiselle
Klosking, and that Fanny should be right--this made the thing serious,
and galled Zoe to the quick: she was angry with Fanny for prophesying
truly; she was rather angry with Severne for not coming, and more angry
with him for making good Fanny's prediction.
Zoe Vizard was a good girl and a generous girl, but she was not a humble
girl: she had a great deal of pride, and her share of vanity, and here
both were galled. Besides that, it seemed to her most strange and
disheartening that Fanny, who did not love Severne, should be able to
foretell his conduct better than she, who did love him: such foresight
looked like greater insight. All this humiliated and also puzzled her
strangely; and so she sat brooding as deeply as her brother.
As for Vizard, by the time they got to Homburg he had made up his mind.
As they got out of the train, he said, “Look here, I am ashamed of
myself. I have a right to play the fool alone; but I have no business to
drag my sister into it. We will go somewhere else. There are lots of
things to see. I give up the Klosking.”
Zoe stared at him a moment, and then answered, with cold decision, “No,
dear; you must allow me to call on her, now I am here. She won't bite
_me.”_
“Well, but it is a strange thing to do.”
“What does that matter? We are abroad.”
“Come, Zoe, I am much obliged to you; but give it up.”
“No, dear.”
Harrington smiled at her pretty peremptoriness, and misunderstood it.
“This is carrying sisterly love a long way,” said he. “I must try and
rise to your level. I won't go with you.”
“Then I shall go alone.”
“What if I forbid you, miss?”
She tapped him on the cheek with her fingers. “Don't affect the tyrant,
dear; you can't manage it. Fanny said something that has mortified me. I
shall go. You can do as you like. But, stop; where does she live?”
“Suppose I decline to tell you? I am seized with a virtuous fit--a
regular paroxysm.”
“Then I shall go to the opera and inquire, dear. But” (coaxingly) “you
will tell me, dear.”
“There,” said Harrington, “you wicked, tempting girl, my sham virtue has
oozed away, and my real mania triumphs. She lives at 'The Golden Star.' I
was weak enough to send Harris in last night to learn.” Zoe smiled.
He hailed a conveyance; and they started at once for “The Golden Star.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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