Her appearance, at all events, was not "too matter-of-fact."
Her speech, however, with its slight West-Country burr, was
matter-of-fact enough, concerned entirely with how long she would
have to sit, and the pay she was to get for it. In the middle of their
conversation she sank down on the floor, and Hilary was driven to
restore her with biscuits and liqueur, which in his haste he took for
brandy. It seemed she had not eaten since her breakfast the day before,
which had consisted of a cup of tea. In answer to his remonstrance, she
made this matter-of-fact remark:
"If you haven't money, you can't buy things.... There's no one I can ask
up here; I'm a stranger."
"Then you haven't been getting work?"
"No," the little model answered sullenly; "I don't want to sit as most
of them want me to till I'm obliged." The blood rushed up in her face
with startling vividness, then left it white again.
'Ah!' thought Hilary, 'she has had experience already.'
Both he and his wife were accessible to cases of distress, but the
nature of their charity was different. Hilary was constitutionally
unable to refuse his aid to anything that held out a hand for it. Bianca
(whose sociology was sounder), while affirming that charity was wrong,
since in a properly constituted State no one should need help, referred
her cases, like Stephen, to the "Society for the Prevention of Begging,"
which took much time and many pains to ascertain the worst.
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