Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

10. CHAPTER TEN (continued)

Fanny sat forward now. She had been leaning back in her chair, her hands grasping its arms, her face a lovely, mobile thing, across which laughter, and pity, and sympathy and surprise rippled and played. It hardened now, and set. She looked down at her hands, and clasped them in her lap, then up at him. "In that case, you can forsake the strenuous life with a free conscience. You need never climb another mountain, or wrestle with another--er--hippopotamus. That little girl in the red cap is dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. She died a year ago. If the one who has taken her place were to pass you on the street today, and see you beset by forty thieves, she'd not even stop. Not she. She'd say, `Let him fight it out alone. It's none of your business. You've got your own fights to handle.'"

"Why--Fanny. You don't mean that, do you? What could have made her like that?"

"She just discovered that fighting for others didn't pay. She just happened to know some one else who had done that all her life and--it killed her."

"Her mother?"

"Yes."

A little silence. "Fanny, let's play outdoors tomorrow, will you? All day."

Involuntarily Fanny glanced around the room. Papers, catalogues, files, desk, chair, typewriter. "I'm afraid I've forgotten how."

"I'll teach you. You look as if you could stand a little of it."

"I must be a pretty sight. You're the second man to tell me that in two days."

Heyl leaned forward a little. "That so? Who's the other one?"

"Fenger, the General Manager."