第37章
"Glorious!" she cried, and clasped her hands. "And see! what a background to the emerald grass outside and the ruby flowers. They seem to come into the room through those monster windows.""Splendid!" said Harrington, to whom all this was literally Greek. "I'm so excited, I'll order dinner.""Dinner!" said Zoe, disdainfully; and sat down and eyed the Moresque walls around her, and the beauties of nature outside, and brought them together in one picture.
Harrington was a long time in conclave with M. Chevet. Then Zoe became impatient.
"Oh, do leave off ordering dinner," said she, "and take me out to that other paradise."The Chevet shrugged his shoulders with pity. Vizard shrugged his too, to soothe him; and, after a few more hurried words, took the lover of color into the garden. It was delicious, with green slopes, and rich foliage, and flowers, and enlivened by bright silk dresses, sparkling fitfully among the green leaves, or flaming out boldly in the sun; and, as luck would have it, before Zoe had taken ten steps upon the greensward, the band of fifty musicians struck up, and played as fifty men rarely play together out of Germany.
Zoe was enchanted. She walked on air, and beamed as bright as any flower in the place.
After her first ejaculation at the sudden music, she did not speak for a good while; her content was so great. At last she said, "And do they leave this paradise to gamble in a room?""Leave it? They shun it. The gamblers despise the flowers.""How perverse people are! Excitement! Who wants any more than this?""Zoe," said Vizard, "innocent excitement can never compete with vicious.""What, is it really wicked to play?"
"I don't know about wicked; you girls always run to the biggest word.
But, if avarice is a vice, gambling cannot be virtuous; for the root of gambling is mere avarice, weak avarice. Come, my young friend, _as we're quite alone,_ I'll drop Thersites, and talk sense to you, for once.
Child, there are two roads to wealth; one is by the way of industry, skill, vigilance, and self-denial; and these are virtues, though sometimes they go with tricks of trade, hardness of heart, and taking advantage of misfortune, to buy cheap and sell dear. The other road to wealth is by bold speculation, with risk of proportionate loss; in short, by gambling with cards, or without them. Now, look into the mind of the gambler--he wants to make money, contrary to nature, and unjustly. He wants to be rewarded without merit, to make a fortune in a moment, and without industry, vigilance, true skill, or self-denial. 'A penny saved is a penny gained' does not enter his creed. Strip the thing of its disguise, it is avarice, sordid avarice; and I call it weak avarice, because the gambler relies on chance alone, yet accepts uneven chances, and hopes that Fortune will be as much in love with him as he is with himself. What silly egotism! You admire the Kursaal, and you are right;then do just ask yourself why is there nothing to pay for so many expensive enjoyments: and very little to pay for concerts and balls; low prices at the opera, which never pays its own expenses; even Chevet's dinners are reasonable, if you avoid his sham Johannisberg. All these cheap delights, the gold, the colors, the garden, the music, the lights, are paid for by the losses of feeble-minded Avarice. But, there--I said all this to Ned Severne, and I might as well have preached sense to the wind.""Harrington, I will not play. I am much happier walking with my good brother--""Faute de mieux."
Zoe blushed, but would not hear--"And it is so good of you to make a friend of me, and talk sense. Oh! see--a lady with two blues! Come and look at her."Before they had taken five steps, Zoe stopped short and said, "It is Fanny Dover, I declare. She has not seen us yet. She is short-sighted.
Come here." And the impetuous maid dragged him off behind a tuft of foliage.
When she had got him there she said hotly that it was too bad.
"Oh, is it?" said he, very calmly. "What?""Why, don't you see what she has done? You, so sensible, to be so slow about women's ways; and you are always pretending to know them. Why, she has gone and bought that costume with the money you gave her to play with.""Sensible girl!"
"Dishonest girl, _I_ call her."
"There you go to your big words. No, no. A little money was given her for a bad purpose. She has used it for a frivolous one. That is 'a step in the right direction'--jargon of the day.""But to receive money for one purpose, and apply it to another, is--what do you call it--_chose?--de'tournement des fonds_--what is the English word? I've been abroad till I've forgotten English. Oh, Iknow--embezzlement."
"Well, that is a big word for a small transaction; you have not dug in the mine of the vernacular for nothing.""Harrington, if you don't mind, I do; so please come. I'll talk to her.""Stop a moment," said Vizard, very gravely. "You will not say one word to her.""And why not, pray?"
"Because it would be unworthy of us, and cruel to her; barbarously cruel.
What! call her to account before that old woman and me?""Why not? She is flaunting her blues before you two, and plenty more.""Feminine logic, Zoe. The point is this--she is poor. You must know that.