Free The Reverberator by Henry James

no need of encouraging Mr. Flack in order to prove to herself that she was notbullied. She didn’t care whether she were bullied or not; and she was perfectly capable of letting her sister believe that she had carried mildness to the point of giving up a man she had a secret sentiment for in order to oblige that large-brained young lady. She was not clear herself as to whether it might not be so; her pride, what she had of it, lay in an undistributed, inert form quite at the bottom of her heart and she had never yet invented any consoling theory to cover her want of a high spirit. She felt, as she looked up at Mr. Flack, that she didn’t care even if he should think that she sacrificed him to a childish subservience. His bright eyes were hard, as if he could almost guess how cynical she was, and she turned her own again towards her retreating companions. “They are going to dinner; we oughtn’t to be dawdling here,” she said.
    “Well, if they are going to dinner they’ll have to eat the napkins. I ordered it and I know when it will be ready,” George Flack replied. “Besides they are not going to dinner, they are going to walk in the park. Don’t you worry, we sha’n’t lose them. I wish we could!” the young man added, smiling.
    “You wish we could?”
    “I should like to feel that you were under my particular protection.”
    “Well, I don’t know what the dangers are,” said Francie, setting herself in motion again. She went after the others, but at the end of a few steps he stopped her again.
    “You won’t have confidence. I wish you would believe what I tell you.”
    “You haven’t told me anything.” And she turned her back to him, looking away at the splendid view. “I admire the scenery,” she added in a moment.
    “Oh, bother the scenery! I want to tell you something about myself, if I could flatter myself that you would take any interest in it.” He had thrust his cane, waist-high, into the low wall of the terrace, and he leaned against it, screwing the point gently round with both hands.
    “I’ll take an interest if I can understand,” said Francie.
    “You can understand easy enough, if you’ll try. I’ve got some news from America to-day that has pleased me very much. The
Reverberator
has taken a jump.”
    This was not what Francie had expected, but it was better. “Taken a jump?” she repeated.
    “It has gone straight up. It’s in the second hundred thousand.”
    “Hundred thousand dollars?” said Francie.
    “No, Miss Francie, copies. That’s the circulation. But the dollars are footing up, too.”
    “And do they all come to you?”
    “Precious few of them! I wish they did; it’s a pleasant property.”
    “Then it isn’t yours?” she asked, turning round to him. It was an impulse of sympathy that made her look at him now, for she already knew how much he had the success of his newspaper at heart. He had once told her he loved the
Reverberator
as he had loved his first jack-knife.
    “Mine? You don’t mean to say you suppose I own it!” George Flack exclaimed. The light projected upon her innocence by these words was so strong that the girl blushed, and he went on more tenderly—“It’s a pretty sight, the way you and your sister take that sort of thing for granted. Do you think property grows on you, like a moustache? Well, it seems as if it had, on your father. If I owned the
Reverberator
I shouldn’t be stumping round here; I’d givemy attention to another branch of the business. That is I would give my attention to all, but I wouldn’t go round with the cart. But I’m going to get hold of it, and I want you to help me,” the young man went on; “that’s just what I wanted to speak to you about. It’s a big thing already and I mean to make it bigger: the most universal society-paper the world has seen. That’s where the future lies, and the man who sees it first is the man who’ll make his pile. It’s a field for enlightened enterprise that hasn’t