“What cannot women be? What! are you one of those who take us for a clique? Don't you know more than half mankind are women?”
“Alas!”
“Alas for them!” said Rhoda, sharply.
“Well, well,” said Vizard, putting on sudden humility, “don't let us quarrel. I hate quarreling—where I'm sure to get the worst. Ay, friendship is a fine thing, in men or women; a far nobler sentiment than love. You will not admit that, of course, being a woman.”
“Oh, yes, I will,” said she. “Why, I have observed love attentively; and I pronounce it a fever of the mind. It disturbs the judgment and perverts the conscience. You side with the beloved, right or wrong. What personal degradation! I observe, too, that a grand passion is a grand misfortune: they are always in a storm of hope, fears, doubt, jealousy, rapture, rage, and the end deceit, or else satiety. Friendship is steady and peaceful; not much jealousy, no heart-burnings. It strengthens with time, and survives the small-pox and a wooden leg. It doubles our joys, and divides our grief, and lights and warms our lives with a steady flame. Solem e mundo tollunt, qui tollunt amicitiam.”
“Halloo!” cried Vizard. “What! you know Latin too?”
“Why, of course—a smattering; or how could I read Pliny, and Celsus, and ever so much more rubbish that custom chucks down before the gates of knowledge, and says, 'There—before you go the right road, you ought to go the wrong; it is usual. Study now, with the reverence they don't deserve, the non-observers of antiquity.'”
“Spare me the ancients, Miss Gale,” said Vizard, “and reveal me the girl of the period. When I was so ill-bred as to interrupt you, you had left France, crowned with laurels, and were just invading Britain.”
Something in his words or his tone discouraged the subtle observer, and she said, coldly, “Excuse me: I have hardly the courage. My British history is a tale of injustice, suffering, insult, and, worst of all, defeat. I cannot promise to relate it with that composure whoever pretends to science ought: the wound still bleeds.”
Then Vizard was vexed with himself, and looked grave and concerned. He said, gently, “Miss Gale, I am sorry to give you pain; but what you have told me is so new and interesting, I shall be disappointed if you withhold the rest: besides, you know it gives no lasting pain to relate our griefs. Come, come—be brave, and tell me.”