Severne put in his word. “Now, if you want to know all the tact and delicacy with which it was done, you must come to me; for Miss Vizard is not going to give you any idea of it.”
“Be quiet, sir, or I shall be very angry. I lent her the money, dear, and her troubles are at an end; for her mother will certainly join her before she has spent your twenty pounds. Oh! and she had not parted with her ring; that is a comfort, is it not?”
“You are a good-hearted girl, Zoe,” said Vizard, approvingly; then, recovering himself, “But don't you be blinded by sentiment. She deserves a good hiding for not parting with her ring. Where is the sense of starving, with thirty pounds on your finger?”
Zoe smiled, and said his words were harder than his deeds.
“Because he doesn't mean a word he says,” put in Fanny Dover, uneasy at the long cessation of her tongue, for all conversation with Don Cigar had proved impracticable.
“Are you there still, my Lady Disdain?” said Vizard. “I thought you were gone to bed.”
“You might well think that. I had nothing to keep me up.”
Said Zoe, rather smartly, “Oh, yes, you had—Curiosity;” then, turning to her brother, “In short, you make your mind quite easy. You have lent your money, or given it, to a worthy person, but a little wrong-headed. However”—with a telegraphic glance at Severne—“she is very accomplished; a linguist: she need never be in want; and she will soon have her mother to help her and advise her. Perhaps Mrs. Gale has an income; if not, Miss Gale, with her abilities, will easily find a place in some house of business, or else take to teaching. If I was them, I would set up a school.”
Unanimity is rare in this world; but Zoe's good sense carried every vote. Her prompter, Severne, nodded approval. Fanny said, “Why, of course;” and Vizard, who it was feared might prove refractory, assented even more warmly than the others. “Yes,” said he, “that will be the end of it. You relieve me of a weight. Really, when she told me that fable of learning maltreated, honorable ambition punished, justice baffled by trickery, and virtue vilified, and did not cry like the rest of you, except at her father dying in New York the day she won her diploma at Montpelier, I forgave the poor girl her petticoats; indeed, I lost sight of them. She seemed to me a very brave little fellow, damnably ill used, and I said, 'This is not to be borne. Here is a fight, and justice down under dirty feet.' What, ho!” (roaring at the top of his voice).
Zoe and Fanny (screaming, and pinching Ned Severne right and left). “Ah! ah!”