“Stop!” cried Pennell, so vehemently that the passers-by turned their heads to look at him, “I don’t believe it, and if it is true, I do not wish to hear it! Miss Brandt may be all that you say—I am not in a position to contradict your assertions—but to me she represents only a friendless and unprotected woman, who has a right to our sympathy and respect.”
“A friendless woman!” sneered Captain Pullen, “yes! and a doosid good-looking one into the bargain, eh, my dear fellow, and much of your sympathy and respect she would command if she were ugly and humpbacked. O! I know you, Pennell! It’s no use your coming the benevolent Samaritan over me! You have an eye for a jimper waist and a trim ancle as well as most men. But I fancy your interest is rather thrown away in this quarter. Miss Brandt has a thorny path before her. She is a young lady who will have her own way, and with the glorious example of the Baroness the way is not likely to be too carefully chosen. To tell the truth, old boy, I ran away because I was afraid of falling into the trap. The girl wishes intensely to be married, and she is not a girl whom men will marry, and so—we need go no further. Only, I should not be surprised if, notwithstanding her fortune and her beauty, we should find Miss Harriet Brandt figuring before long, amongst the free lances of London.”
“And you would have done your best to send her there!” replied Anthony Pennell indignantly, as he stopped on the doorstep of his Piccadilly chambers. “But I am glad to say that your folly has been frustrated this time, and Miss Brandt sees you as you are! Good-night!” and without further discussion, he turned on his heel and walked upstairs.
“By Jove!” thought Ralph, as he too went on his way, “I believe old Anthony is smitten with the girl himself, though he has only seen her once! That was the most remarkable thing about her—the ease with which she seemed to attract, looking so innocent all the while, and the deadly strength with which she resisted one’s efforts to get free again. Perhaps it is as well after all that I should not meet her. I don’t believe I could trust myself, only speaking of her seems to have revived the old sensation of being drawn against my will—hypnotised, I suppose the scientists would call it—to be near her, to touch her, to embrace her, until all power of resistance is gone. But I do hope old Anthony is not going to be hypnotised. He’s too good for that.”
Meanwhile Pennell, having reached his rooms, lighted the gas, threw himself into an armchair, and rested his head upon his hands.
“Poor little girl!” he murmured to himself. “Poor little girl!”
Anthony Pennell was a Socialist in the best and truest sense of the world. He loved his fellow creatures, both high and low, better than he loved himself. He wanted all to share alike—to be equally happy, equally comfortable—to help and be helped, to rest and depend upon one another. He knew that the dream was only a dream—that it would never be fulfilled in his time, nor any other; that some men would be rich and some poor as long as the world lasts, and that what one man can do to alleviate the misery and privation and suffering with which we are surrounded, is very little. What little Pennell could do, however, to prove that his theories were not mere talk, he did. He made a large income by his popular writings and the greater part of it went to relieve the want of his humbler friends, not through governors and secretaries and the heads of charitable Societies, but from his own hand to theirs. But his Socialism went further and higher than this. Money was not the only thing which his fellow creatures required—they wanted love, sympathy, kindness, and consideration—and these he gave also, wherever he found that there was need. He set his face pertinaciously against all scandal and back-biting, and waged a perpetual warfare against the tyranny of men over women; the ill-treatment of children; and the barbarities practised upon dumb animals and all living things. He was a liberal-minded man, with a heart large enough and tender enough to belong to a woman—with a horror of cruelty and a great compassion for everything that was incapable of defending itself. He was always writing in defence of the People, calling the attention of those in authority to their misfortunes; their evil chances; their lack of opportunity; and their patience under tribulation. For this purpose and in order to know them thoroughly, he had gone and lived amongst them; shared their filthy dens in Whitechapel, partaken of their unappetising food in Stratford; and watched them at their labour in Homerton. His figure and his kindly face were well-known in some of the worst and most degraded parts of London, and he could pass anywhere, without fear of a hand being lifted up against him, or an oath called after him in salutation. Anthony Pennell was, in fact, a general lover—a lover of Mankind.
And that is why he leant his head upon his hand as he ejaculated with reference to Harriet Brandt, “Poor little girl.”
It seemed so terrible in his eyes that just because she was friendless, and an orphan, just because her parents had been, perhaps, unworthy, just because she had a dark stream mingling with her blood, just because she needed the more sympathy and kindness, the more protection and courtesy, she should be considered fit prey for the sensualist—a fit subject to wipe men’s feet upon!
What difference did it make to Harriet Brandt herself, that she was marked with an hereditary taint? Did it render her less beautiful, less attractive, less graceful and accomplished? Were the sins of the fathers ever to be visited upon the children?—was no sympathetic fellow-creature to be found to say, “If it is so, let us forget it! It is not your fault nor mine! Our duty is to make each other’s lives as happy as possible and trust the rest to God.”