“Oh, Ethel!”
“And then,” Ethel went on, altogether ignoring the slightly shocked look on her friend’s face, “he said that, perhaps, a word might be put in somewhere and something done for George. He didn’t say any more, but I gathered that cabinet ministers occasionally range themselves round a newspaper office, seeking whom they may oblige.”
“Oh, Ethel!” exclaimed Florence again, “that is just your little exaggerated way.”
“Well, at any rate, he thinks he can do something, and he evidently wants to be good to us.”
“He seems to delight in doing kind things,” Florence answered; “you know how good he was about Walter.”
“He ought to have married Mrs. Baines. He would have been much better than Alfred Wimple”—with which wise remark Ethel went away, full of her own happiness, and Florence sat down and thought over Mr. Fisher’s generosity.
“He is always doing kind things,” she said to herself. “It was he who sent Walter to India, and perhaps set him up for the rest of his life; and he who gave that horrid Mr. Wimple work, only to find himself cheated and insulted in return. I can’t think what I shall do whenever I meet Mr. Wimple.” But she swiftly dismissed that disagreeable person from her mind, and returned to the consideration of Mr. Fisher’s virtues. “He is so unselfish,” she thought. “It isn’t every one who would try to help on the man for whom he had been refused. Yet it is very odd that, with all his goodness, Mr. Fisher is not a bit fascinating; I quite understand Ethel’s refusing him. I have an idea that few go out of their way to be good to him. Some people seem to live in the world to give out kindness, and others only to take it in.” The reflection felt like a self-reproach. She did so little for others herself, and yet she was always longing to do more in life than merely to take her own share of its enjoyment. She wanted most to help Aunt Anne; she longed to see her, to comfort and soothe her, and perhaps to lend her a little money. She felt convinced that Aunt Anne must want some money by this time, and that she was miserable with Mr. Wimple. “I am so afraid he isn’t kind to her,” she said to herself; “I am certain he hasn’t married her for love—there is some horrid reason that we are not clever enough to guess. I only wish she had never left Mrs. North; she was so happy there, and looked so grand driving about and giving presents; and perhaps if she had stayed she might, eventually, have been able to pay for them.” Then, almost against her will, Mrs. North’s face was before her again. She could see it quite plainly, lovely and restless, but with a sad look in the blue eyes that was like an appeal for kindness. “I feel as if there were an aching in her heart for something she has missed in life. But perhaps that is nonsense, or it is only that I don’t understand her—we are so different. I have half a mind to go and call on her. I wonder if she would care to see me?”
Some more hesitation, some curiosity and kindly feeling, and then Florence put on her prim little bonnet and her best furs, for she remembered Mrs. North’s magnificent array and felt that it would not do to look shabby. She took the train from Portland Road to South Kensington, and walked slowly to Cornwall Gardens.
“I won’t leave Walter’s card,” she thought, “or any cards at all if she is out; for, though I am glad to go and see her, I don’t want to be on visiting terms.”
But Mrs. North was at home, and Florence was shown into a gorgeous drawing-room, all over draperies, and bits of colour, and tall palms, and pots of lovely flowers. In the midst of them sat Mrs. North, a little lonely figure by a piled-up wood fire, for the early spring day was cold and dreary. She rose as her visitor entered, and came just a step forward. She was lovelier than ever. With a cry of joyful surprise, she held out her hands to Florence.