'An object-lesson in practical religion, isn't that something?'
'Practical! Good Heaven! A handful of complacent, expensively educated young people playing at reform. The poor wanting work, wanting decent housing--wanting _bread_--and offered a little cultivated companionship.'
'Reading? I've been visiting George at his Settlement. I've been intruding myself on the privacy of the poor once a week with you--and I'm done with it! Personally I don't get enough out of it to reconcile me to their getting so little.'
'You're burning,' observed the toneless voice from the head of the table.
'Yes, I believe I was a little hot,' Vida laughed as she drew her smoking skirt away from the fire. But she still stood close to the cheerful blaze, one foot on the fender, the green cloth skirt drawn up, leaving the more delicate fabric of her silk petticoat to meet the fiery ordeal. 'If it annoys you to hear me say that's my view of charity, why, don't make me talk about it;' but the face she turned for an instant over her shoulder was far gentler than her words. 'And don't in future'--she was again looking down into the fire, and she spoke slowly as one who delivers a reluctant ultimatum--'don't ask me to help, except with money. _That_ doesn't cost so much.'
'I am disappointed.' Nothing further, but the sound of a chair moved back, eloquent somehow of a discouragement deeper than words conveyed.
Vida turned swiftly, and, coming back to her sister, laid an arm about her shoulder.
'I'm a perfect monster! But you know, my dear, you rather goaded me into saying all this by looking such a martyr when I've tried to get out of going----'
'Very well, I won't ask you again.' But the toneless rejoinder was innocent of rancour. Janet Fox-Moore gave the impression of being too chilled, too drained of the generous life-forces, even for anger.
'Besides,' said Vida, hurriedly, 'I'd nearly forgotten; there's the final practising at eleven.'
'_I'd_ forgotten your charity concert was so near!' As Mrs. Fox-Moore gathered up her letters, she gave way for the first time to a wintry little smile.
'The concert's mine, I admit, but the charity's the bishop's. What absurd things we women fill up the holes in our lives with!' Vida said, as she followed her sister into the hall. 'Do you know the real reason I'm getting up this foolish concert?'