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Reade, Charles, 1814-1884

"A Woman-Hater"

Severne will not go."
"That he will: I made a point of it."
"You did, dear? but still he will not go."
There was something in this, and in Fanny's tone, that startled Zoe, and
puzzled her sorely. She turned round upon her with flashing eye, and
said, "No mysteries, please, dear. Why won't he go with me wherever I ask
him to go? or, rather, what makes you think he won't?"
Said Fanny, thoughtfully: "I could not tell you, all in a moment, why I
feel so positive. One puts little things together that are nothing apart:
one observes faces; I do, at least. You don't seem, to me, to be so quick
at that as most girls. But, Zoe dear, you know very well one often knows
a thing for certain, yet one doesn't know exactly what makes one know
it."
Now Zoe's _amour propre_ was wounded by Fanny's suggestion that Severne
would not go to Homburg, or, indeed, to the world's end with her; so she
drew herself up in her grand way, and folded her arms and said, a little
haughtily, "Then tell me what is it you know about _him_ and me, without
knowing how on earth you know it."
The supercilious tone and grand manner nettled Fanny, and it wasn't
"brooch day;" she stood up to her lofty cousin like a little game-cock.


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