“For reasons,” murmured Eveleen.
“Yes, Eveleen, for reasons; one of them being that you’ve always done your best to make it clear how absurd it would be for me to attempt to court any man who was in the least desirable. Yet now these men have courted me!—you’ve seen it with your own eyes!—to the ruination of your tempers! At sight of me they’ve thrown themselves at my head before your very faces, pressed on me the offerings which were designed for you, implored my acceptance of the seats which you had hoped to occupy. And they have left the house, ignoring your existence—as mine has been wont to be ignored; thinking only of me, looking forward rapturously to the evening they hope to spend in my society. And they shall spend it, too. I’ll sit in all those seats, turn and turn about, one after the other; and I’ll be admired by all the theatre—or, at least, by all the men in it. You wait and you shall see; or, if you don’t see, afterwards you shall hear. It will amuse you hugely, I haven’t the slightest doubt. And I’ll dine with them. You know, mamma, that Major Tibbet can be trusted to order a dinner; and though I mayn’t do it such justice as you would, I’ll do my best. And I should like to see any of you try to stop me. How would you propose to do it? Physically, I’m a match for all of you together. In a muscular sense, I’m a splendid animal. Compared to me you’re like dolls, soft as putty—you pride yourselves on it!—while I’m comparatively as hard as iron. I could drop you out of the window, one after the other, or all together, with the greatest ease.”
Audrey touched my arm.
“Norah, don’t talk like that.”
“I am only putting a purely supposititious case, my dearest Audrey. What is more, if any of you were to seek to stay me with so much as a word, when those men come I’d make my complaint to them; then you’d see what it means for a man to be bewitched by a woman. At a word from me there’s nothing they would not do. I’ve but to raise my finger, and they’d cast what you call decency to the winds. Then you’d see the natural man; it would surprise you. They’re just my slaves. And now that I have made the position clear to you, and my intentions plain, I shall have much pleasure—in leaving you the room.”
I left it. I fancy I left them in rather a curious frame of mind as well.
CHAPTER XII.
MISS NORAH’S SOLILOQUY
I do not know that I was wholly proud of myself as I went up to my room—not even so proud as I had led those dear creatures in the drawing-room to suppose. I imagine I must really be an odd kind of creature, because I am not at all sure that it is not vulgar to make man, either in a general or particular sense, the entire end and object of their existence, as so many women—who think themselves very far from vulgar—do. To be perfectly frank, I have no opinion whatever of man. Perhaps that is because he has none of me. Up to the present, he emphatically does not seem to have. But that only places me in the position of the onlooker who sees most of the game. I have seen some games, I give you my word for it. And I have come to the conclusion that man is useful, in his way; generous, sometimes; of service, occasionally, as a husband and a father; and that, as a sort of courier, or Cook’s conductor, looking after the wants, ways, and whims of women, not altogether to be despised. But he is frightfully earthy, and has a most amazing conceit of himself. And why so many women—delightful, charming women—should spend their whole lives in endeavouring to please him, and swell with pride when they fancy they have succeeded in doing so—that is beyond my comprehension.
I was not so clear as I should like to have been that there was not a smack of vulgarity about my passages with those five men. It was undeniably vulgar to crow, as if I had done something to crow about; and I was uncomfortably conscious of a tendency towards an attitude of mind which I should describe as cock-a-doodle. Because, after all, what had I done? Simply caused those five men to behave with peculiar and unpardonable rudeness to my mother and sisters, and—well, not too nicely towards me. For I could not regard it as a compliment that they should hustle each other, and nearly snap each other’s nose off, in their eagerness for my society. Or, rather, if it were a compliment, it was not the kind I cared for. At least, I did not think it was.
Yet—it was amusing. Really funny. When I thought how silly and awkward those men had looked, and of the nonsense they had talked, and of each one’s ridiculous anxiety to appropriate me to himself, I put my hands up to my face and laughed. And then mamma’s and the girls’ faces! their undignified attitudes of disgust, bewilderment, wonder! Oh, dear me, how I did laugh! If they had heard me downstairs they must have been convinced that my brain really was unhinged at last. When I had finished laughing, it did not seem as though I had enjoyed the joke enough. I jumped up, picked up the hem of my skirt, and jigged about the room. I am big and clumsy, and I daresay I do not dance well, but, just then, I danced to please myself. And I pleased myself immensely. It was as though I had suddenly become inspired by the conviction that I was the most delightful creature in the world. It was absurd. I realised at the time it was absurd. But there was the conviction, all the same. And if a girl cannot think well of herself when she has bowled over five men, as if they were nine-pins, when can she? I have known a four foot six woman carry herself as if she were six foot four, merely because some whippersnapper of a boy has asked her to dance twice in a single evening.