At last, without one penny of that small sum of threepence, which she had mentally fixed on as the price of a domestic truce, she had got back to within fifteen minutes' walk of Moon Street. Her anxiety had made her more eager perhaps, and had given a strange tremor to her voice and made her eyes more eloquent in their silent pathos, when two young men pushed by her, walking fast and conversing, but she did not let them pass without repeating the oft-repeated words.
"No, indeed, you little fraud!" exclaimed one of the young men; while his companion, glancing back, looked curiously into her face.
"Stop a moment," he said to his friend. "Don't be afraid, I'm not going to pay. But, I say, just look at her eyes--good eyes, aren't they?"
The other turned round laughing, and stared hard at her face. Fan reddened and dropped her eyes. Finally he took a penny from his pocket and held it up before her. "Take," he said. She took the penny, thanking him with a grateful glance, whereupon he laughed and turned away, remarking that he had got his money's worth.
She was nearly back to her own street again before anyone else noticed her; then she met a very large important-looking gentleman, with a lady at his side--a small, thin, meagre woman, with a dried yellow face, wearing spectacles. The lady stopped very deliberately before Fan, and scrutinised her face.
"Come along," said her husband or companion. "You are not going to stop to talk to that wretched little beggar, I hope."
"Yes, I am, so please be quiet.--Now, my girl, are you not ashamed to come out begging in the streets--do you not know that it is very wrong of you?"
"I'm not begging--I'm selling matches," answered Fan sullenly, and looking down.
"You might have known that she'd say that, so come on, and don't waste more time," said the impatient gentleman.
"Don't hurry me, Charles," returned the lady. "You know perfectly well that I never bestow alms indiscriminately, so that you have nothing to fear.--Now, my girl, why do you come out selling matches, as you call it? It is only a pretext, because you really do not sell them, you know. Do your parents send you out--are they so poor?"
Then Fan repeated the words she had been instructed to use on occasions like the present, which she had repeated so often that they had lost all meaning to her. "Father's out of work and mother's ill, and I came out because we're starving."