“They can help each other along in their work,” I admitted.
“They can be fond of each other,” said Miss Bliss.
She ceased rocking and looked out of the window, the shrewd eyes growing dreamy. Our appearance of depression returned, a shade darker than before. Mrs. Stregazzi and Berwick might have shown a dashing disregard for public opinion, but there was no reason for us to look as if we had heard of their mutual destruction in a railway accident. If we had been waiting for their mutilated remains we couldn’t have appeared more melancholy. Miss Bliss heaved a sigh and observed:
“It’s a great thing to have some one fond of you.”
Lizzie and I didn’t answer, but we gave ear as if the Delphic oracle had spoken and we were trying to extract balm from its words.
“And it’s a great thing to be fond of some one yourself.”
Our silence gave assent, but the oracle’s wisdom did not seem to cheer us. We sat sunk in our chairs, eying her morosely. Her imagination roused, she ranged over the advantages of the married state:
“Just think how lovely it would be to know there was some one who cared whether you were sick or well, or happy or blue. Wouldn’t it be great to have some one come home in the evening who was going to be awfully glad to see you and who you were just crazy to have come? And when work was slack and you were losing your sleep about money, wouldn’t it be grand to know there was a feller who could chip in and pay the bills? Oh, gee—” she dropped her eyelids with the ecstatic expression of one who glimpses ineffable radiances. “Well, I guess yes.”
An answering “yes” came faintly from me. The ecstatic expression flashed away, and she turned, all brusk negation:
“Oh, Mrs. Drake, you don’t know what it is. You’re well fixed with money of your own. But girls like us”—she pointed to Lizzie, then brought her finger back to her own knee upon which she tapped in bitter emphasis—“we’ve got only ourselves. We’ve got to make good or go under. And it’s fight, fight, fight. I’ve had to do something I hated since I was sixteen and now she”—with a nod at Lizzie, “has got to do something she hates.”