“We will, then,” said our Reporter, “dismiss the possibility—which I confess is scarcely to be indulged in even by such a man as myself. As to your being beautiful, a rose might as reasonably complain that nature had invested it with grace of form and loveliness of colour.” Mrs. Holdfast blushed at this compliment. “You are right in saying that such an idea as Frederick Holdfast being alive is too horrible to contemplate. The American newspaper says that his body was identified by a gentleman who knew him in Oxford, and who happened to be travelling through the State of Minnesota. It is a strange coincidence—nothing more—that on the precise day on which Frederick Holdfast ended his career, a friend should have been travelling in that distant State, and should have given a name to the dead stranger who was found near the laughing waters of Minnie-ha-ha.”
Mrs. Holdfast replied with a sweet smile. “Yes, it is a strange coincidence; but young gentlemen now-a-days have numbers of acquaintances, hundreds I should say. And everybody travels now—people think nothing of going to America or Canada. It is just packing up their Gladstone bag, and off they go, as happy as you please. I couldn’t do it. I hate the sea; I hate everything that makes me uncomfortable. I love pleasure. Strange, isn’t it, for me, a country girl, to be so fond of life and gaiety, and dancing and theatres? But we can’t help our natures, can we? I would if I could, for you must think me a dreadful, dreadful creature for talking in this way just after my husband has been brutally killed! Don’t think ill of me—don’t! It is not my fault, and I am suffering dreadfully, dreadfully, though I do let my light heart run away with me!”
“How can I think ill of you?” said our Reporter; “you are child and woman in one.”
“Really!” she cried, looking up into his face with a beaming smile. “Are you really, really in earnest?”
“You may believe me,” replied our Reporter, “for my errand here is not a personal one, but in pursuance of my professional duties; and although you charm me out of myself, I must be faithful.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Holdfast, “that is the way of you men. So stern, and strict, and proper, that you never forget yourself. It is because you are strong, and wise—but you miss a great deal—yes, indeed, indeed you do! It would spoil the sunshine if one stopped while one was enjoying the light and warmth, to ask why, and what, and wherefore. Don’t you think it would? Such a volatile, impressionable creature as Lydia Holdfast does not stop to do such a wise and foolish thing—we can be both wise and foolish in a breath, let me tell you. No; I enjoy, and am happy, without wanting to know why. There! I am showing myself to you, as if you were my oldest friend. You would not do the same by me. You are steadier, and wiser, and not half so happy—no, not half, not half so happy! O, I wish I had been born a man!”
Amused, and, as he had declared to her, charmed out of himself, our Reporter said, somewhat jocosely,
“Why, what would you have done if you had been born a man instead of a woman?”
“I am afraid,” she said, in a half-whisper, and with her finger on her lips, as though enjoining him not to betray her, “I am afraid I should have been a dreadful rake.”
Our Reporter resisted the beguilement of the current into which the conversation had drifted, although he would have been entitled to much excuse had he dallied a little in this vein with the charming and child-like woman.