Chance - A Tale in Two Parts
by Joseph Conrad
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

CHANCE--A TALE IN TWO PARTS

by Joseph Conrad

PART I--THE DAMSEL

CHAPTER ONE--YOUNG POWELL AND HIS CHANCE

I believe he had seen us out of the window coming off to dine in the
dinghy of a fourteen-ton yawl belonging to Marlow my host and
skipper. We helped the boy we had with us to haul the boat up on
the landing-stage before we went up to the riverside inn, where we
found our new acquaintance eating his dinner in dignified loneliness
at the head of a long table, white and inhospitable like a snow
bank.

The red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers
under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the
dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew
him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which
he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending
band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames. But the
first time he addressed the waiter sharply as 'steward' we knew him
at once for a sailor as well as a yachtsman.

Presently he had occasion to reprove that same waiter for the
slovenly manner in which the dinner was served. He did it with
considerable energy and then turned to us.

"If we at sea," he declared, "went about our work as people ashore
high and low go about theirs we should never make a living. No one
would employ us. And moreover no ship navigated and sailed in the
happy-go-lucky manner people conduct their business on shore would
ever arrive into port."

Since he had retired from the sea he had been astonished to discover
that the educated people were not much better than the others. No
one seemed to take any proper pride in his work: from plumbers who
were simply thieves to, say, newspaper men (he seemed to think them
a specially intellectual class) who never by any chance gave a
correct version of the simplest affair. This universal inefficiency
of what he called "the shore gang" he ascribed in general to the
want of responsibility and to a sense of security.

"They see," he went on, "that no matter what they do this tight
little island won't turn turtle with them or spring a leak and go to
the bottom with their wives and children."

From this point the conversation took a special turn relating
exclusively to sea-life. On that subject he got quickly in touch
with Marlow who in his time had followed the sea. They kept up a
lively exchange of reminiscences while I listened. They agreed that
the happiest time in their lives was as youngsters in good ships,
with no care in the world but not to lose a watch below when at sea
and not a moment's time in going ashore after work hours when in
harbour. They agreed also as to the proudest moment they had known
in that calling which is never embraced on rational and practical
grounds, because of the glamour of its romantic associations. It
was the moment when they had passed successfully their first
examination and left the seamanship Examiner with the little
precious slip of blue paper in their hands.

"That day I wouldn't have called the Queen my cousin," declared our
new acquaintance enthusiastically.

At that time the Marine Board examinations took place at the St.
Katherine's Dock House on Tower Hill, and he informed us that he had
a special affection for the view of that historic locality, with the
Gardens to the left, the front of the Mint to the right, the
miserable tumble-down little houses farther away, a cabstand, boot-
blacks squatting on the edge of the pavement and a pair of big
policemen gazing with an air of superiority at the doors of the
Black Horse public-house across the road. This was the part of the
world, he said, his eyes first took notice of, on the finest day of
his life. He had emerged from the main entrance of St. Katherine's
Dock House a full-fledged second mate after the hottest time of his
life with Captain R-, the most dreaded of the three seamanship
Examiners who at the time were responsible for the merchant service
officers qualifying in the Port of London.

"We all who were preparing to pass," he said, "used to shake in our
shoes at the idea of going before him. He kept me for an hour and a
half in the torture chamber and behaved as though he hated me. He
kept his eyes shaded with one of his hands. Suddenly he let it drop
saying, "You will do!"  Before I realised what he meant he was
pushing the blue slip across the table. I jumped up as if my chair
had caught fire.

"Thank you, sir," says I, grabbing the paper.

"Good morning, good luck to you," he growls at me.

"The old doorkeeper fussed out of the cloak-room with my hat. They
always do. But he looked very hard at me before he ventured to ask
in a sort of timid whisper: "Got through all right, sir?"  For all
answer I dropped a half-crown into his soft broad palm. "Well,"
says he with a sudden grin from ear to ear, "I never knew him keep
any of you gentlemen so long. He failed two second mates this
morning before your turn came. Less than twenty minutes each:
that's about his usual time."

"I found myself downstairs without being aware of the steps as if I
had floated down the staircase. The finest day in my life. The day
you get your first command is nothing to it. For one thing a man is
not so young then and for another with us, you know, there is
nothing much more to expect. Yes, the finest day of one's life, no
doubt, but then it is just a day and no more. What comes after is
about the most unpleasant time for a youngster, the trying to get an
officer's berth with nothing much to show but a brand-new
certificate. It is surprising how useless you find that piece of
ass's skin that you have been putting yourself in such a state
about. It didn't strike me at the time that a Board of Trade
certificate does not make an officer, not by a long long way. But
the slippers of the ships I was haunting with demands for a job knew
that very well. I don't wonder at them now, and I don't blame them
either. But this 'trying to get a ship' is pretty hard on a
youngster all the same . . . "

He went on then to tell us how tired he was and how discouraged by
this lesson of disillusion following swiftly upon the finest day of
his life. He told us how he went the round of all the ship-owners'
offices in the City where some junior clerk would furnish him with
printed forms of application which he took home to fill up in the
evening. He used to run out just before midnight to post them in
the nearest pillar-box. And that was all that ever came of it. In
his own words: he might just as well have dropped them all properly
addressed and stamped into the sewer grating.

Then one day, as he was wending his weary way to the docks, he met a
friend and former shipmate a little older than himself outside the
Fenchurch Street Railway Station.

He craved for sympathy but his friend had just "got a ship" that
very morning and was hurrying home in a state of outward joy and
inward uneasiness usual to a sailor who after many days of waiting
suddenly gets a berth. This friend had the time to condole with him
but briefly. He must be moving. Then as he was running off, over
his shoulder as it were, he suggested: "Why don't you go and speak
to Mr. Powell in the Shipping Office."  Our friend objected that he
did not know Mr. Powell from Adam. And the other already pretty
near round the corner shouted back advice: "Go to the private door
of the Shipping Office and walk right up to him. His desk is by the
window. Go up boldly and say I sent you."

Our new acquaintance looking from one to the other of us declared:
"Upon my word, I had grown so desperate that I'd have gone boldly up
to the devil himself on the mere hint that he had a second mate's
job to give away."

It was at this point that interrupting his flow of talk to light his
pipe but holding us with his eye he inquired whether we had known
Powell. Marlow with a slight reminiscent smile murmured that he
"remembered him very well."

Then there was a pause. Our new acquaintance had become involved in
a vexatious difficulty with his pipe which had suddenly betrayed his
trust and disappointed his anticipation of self-indulgence. To keep
the ball rolling I asked Marlow if this Powell was remarkable in any
way.

"He was not exactly remarkable," Marlow answered with his usual
nonchalance. "In a general way it's very difficult for one to
become remarkable. People won't take sufficient notice of one,
don't you know. I remember Powell so well simply because as one of
the Shipping Masters in the Port of London he dispatched me to sea
on several long stages of my sailor's pilgrimage. He resembled
Socrates. I mean he resembled him genuinely: that is in the face.
A philosophical mind is but an accident. He reproduced exactly the
familiar bust of the immortal sage, if you will imagine the bust
with a high top hat riding far on the back of the head, and a black
coat over the shoulders. As I never saw him except from the other
side of the long official counter bearing the five writing desks of
the five Shipping Masters, Mr. Powell has remained a bust to me."

Our new acquaintance advanced now from the mantelpiece with his pipe
in good working order.

"What was the most remarkable about Powell," he enunciated
dogmatically with his head in a cloud of smoke, "is that he should
have had just that name. You see, my name happens to be Powell
too."

It was clear that this intelligence was not imparted to us for
social purposes. It required no acknowledgment. We continued to
gaze at him with expectant eyes.

He gave himself up to the vigorous enjoyment of his pipe for a
silent minute or two. Then picking up the thread of his story he
told us how he had started hot foot for Tower Hill. He had not been
that way since the day of his examination--the finest day of his
life--the day of his overweening pride. It was very different now.
He would not have called the Queen his cousin, still, but this time
it was from a sense of profound abasement. He didn't think himself
good enough for anybody's kinship. He envied the purple-nosed old
cab-drivers on the stand, the boot-black boys at the edge of the
pavement, the two large bobbies pacing slowly along the Tower
Gardens railings in the consciousness of their infallible might, and
the bright scarlet sentries walking smartly to and fro before the
Mint. He envied them their places in the scheme of world's labour.
And he envied also the miserable sallow, thin-faced loafers blinking
their obscene eyes and rubbing their greasy shoulders against the
door-jambs of the Black Horse pub, because they were too far gone to
feel their degradation.

I must render the man the justice that he conveyed very well to us
the sense of his youthful hopelessness surprised at not finding its
place in the sun and no recognition of its right to live.

He went up the outer steps of St. Katherine's Dock House, the very
steps from which he had some six weeks before surveyed the cabstand,
the buildings, the policemen, the boot-blacks, the paint, gilt, and
plateglass of the Black Horse, with the eye of a Conqueror. At the
time he had been at the bottom of his heart surprised that all this
had not greeted him with songs and incense, but now (he made no
secret of it) he made his entry in a slinking fashion past the
doorkeeper's glass box. "I hadn't any half-crowns to spare for
tips," he remarked grimly. The man, however, ran out after him
asking: "What do you require?" but with a grateful glance up at the
first floor in remembrance of Captain R-'s examination room (how
easy and delightful all that had been) he bolted down a flight
leading to the basement and found himself in a place of dusk and
mystery and many doors. He had been afraid of being stopped by some
rule of no-admittance. However he was not pursued.

The basement of St. Katherine's Dock House is vast in extent and
confusing in its plan. Pale shafts of light slant from above into
the gloom of its chilly passages. Powell wandered up and down there
like an early Christian refugee in the catacombs; but what little
faith he had in the success of his enterprise was oozing out at his
finger-tips. At a dark turn under a gas bracket whose flame was
half turned down his self-confidence abandoned him altogether.

"I stood there to think a little," he said. "A foolish thing to do
because of course I got scared. What could you expect? It takes
some nerve to tackle a stranger with a request for a favour. I
wished my namesake Powell had been the devil himself. I felt
somehow it would have been an easier job. You see, I never believed
in the devil enough to be scared of him; but a man can make himself
very unpleasant. I looked at a lot of doors, all shut tight, with a
growing conviction that I would never have the pluck to open one of
them. Thinking's no good for one's nerve. I concluded I would give
up the whole business. But I didn't give up in the end, and I'll
tell you what stopped me. It was the recollection of that
confounded doorkeeper who had called after me. I felt sure the
fellow would be on the look-out at the head of the stairs. If he
asked me what I had been after, as he had the right to do, I
wouldn't know what to answer that wouldn't make me look silly if no
worse. I got very hot. There was no chance of slinking out of this
business.

"I had lost my bearings somehow down there. Of the many doors of
various sizes, right and left, a good few had glazed lights above;
some however must have led merely into lumber rooms or such like,
because when I brought myself to try one or two I was disconcerted
to find that they were locked. I stood there irresolute and uneasy
like a baffled thief. The confounded basement was as still as a
grave and I became aware of my heart beats. Very uncomfortable
sensation. Never happened to me before or since. A bigger door to
the left of me, with a large brass handle looked as if it might lead
into the Shipping Office. I tried it, setting my teeth. "Here
goes!"

"It came open quite easily. And lo! the place it opened into was
hardly any bigger than a cupboard. Anyhow it wasn't more than ten
feet by twelve; and as I in a way expected to see the big shadowy
cellar-like extent of the Shipping Office where I had been once or
twice before, I was extremely startled. A gas bracket hung from the
middle of the ceiling over a dark, shabby writing-desk covered with
a litter of yellowish dusty documents. Under the flame of the
single burner which made the place ablaze with light, a plump,
little man was writing hard, his nose very near the desk. His head
was perfectly bald and about the same drab tint as the papers. He
appeared pretty dusty too.

"I didn't notice whether there were any cobwebs on him, but I
shouldn't wonder if there were because he looked as though he had
been imprisoned for years in that little hole. The way he dropped
his pen and sat blinking my way upset me very much. And his dungeon
was hot and musty; it smelt of gas and mushrooms, and seemed to be
somewhere 120 feet below the ground. Solid, heavy stacks of paper
filled all the corners half-way up to the ceiling. And when the
thought flashed upon me that these were the premises of the Marine
Board and that this fellow must be connected in some way with ships
and sailors and the sea, my astonishment took my breath away. One
couldn't imagine why the Marine Board should keep that bald, fat
creature slaving down there. For some reason or other I felt sorry
and ashamed to have found him out in his wretched captivity. I
asked gently and sorrowfully: "The Shipping Office, please."

He piped up in a contemptuous squeaky voice which made me start:
"Not here. Try the passage on the other side. Street side. This
is the Dock side. You've lost your way . . . "

He spoke in such a spiteful tone that I thought he was going to
round off with the words: "You fool" . . . and perhaps he meant to.
But what he finished sharply with was: "Shut the door quietly after
you."

And I did shut it quietly--you bet. Quick and quiet. The
indomitable spirit of that chap impressed me. I wonder sometimes
whether he has succeeded in writing himself into liberty and a
pension at last, or had to go out of his gas-lighted grave straight
into that other dark one where nobody would want to intrude. My
humanity was pleased to discover he had so much kick left in him,
but I was not comforted in the least. It occurred to me that if Mr.
Powell had the same sort of temper . . . However, I didn't give
myself time to think and scuttled across the space at the foot of
the stairs into the passage where I'd been told to try. And I tried
the first door I came to, right away, without any hanging back,
because coming loudly from the hall above an amazed and scandalized
voice wanted to know what sort of game I was up to down there.
"Don't you know there's no admittance that way?" it roared. But if
there was anything more I shut it out of my hearing by means of a
door marked PRIVATE on the outside. It let me into a six-feet wide
strip between a long counter and the wall, taken off a spacious,
vaulted room with a grated window and a glazed door giving daylight
to the further end. The first thing I saw right in front of me were
three middle-aged men having a sort of romp together round about
another fellow with a thin, long neck and sloping shoulders who
stood up at a desk writing on a large sheet of paper and taking no
notice except that he grinned quietly to himself. They turned very
sour at once when they saw me. I heard one of them mutter 'Hullo!
What have we here?'

"'I want to see Mr. Powell, please,' I said, very civil but firm; I
would let nothing scare me away now. This was the Shipping Office
right enough. It was after 3 o'clock and the business seemed over
for the day with them. The long-necked fellow went on with his
writing steadily. I observed that he was no longer grinning. The
three others tossed their heads all together towards the far end of
the room where a fifth man had been looking on at their antics from
a high stool. I walked up to him as boldly as if he had been the
devil himself. With one foot raised up and resting on the cross-bar
of his seat he never stopped swinging the other which was well clear
of the stone floor. He had unbuttoned the top of his waistcoat and
he wore his tall hat very far at the back of his head. He had a
full unwrinkled face and such clear-shining eyes that his grey beard
looked quite false on him, stuck on for a disguise. You said just
now he resembled Socrates--didn't you? I don't know about that.
This Socrates was a wise man, I believe?"

"He was," assented Marlow. "And a true friend of youth. He
lectured them in a peculiarly exasperating manner. It was a way he
had."

"Then give me Powell every time," declared our new acquaintance
sturdily. "He didn't lecture me in any way. Not he. He said:
'How do you do?' quite kindly to my mumble. Then says he looking
very hard at me: 'I don't think I know you--do I?'

"No, sir," I said and down went my heart sliding into my boots, just
as the time had come to summon up all my cheek. There's nothing
meaner in the world than a piece of impudence that isn't carried off
well. For fear of appearing shamefaced I started about it so free
and easy as almost to frighten myself. He listened for a while
looking at my face with surprise and curiosity and then held up his
hand. I was glad enough to shut up, I can tell you.

"Well, you are a cool hand," says he. "And that friend of yours
too. He pestered me coming here every day for a fortnight till a
captain I'm acquainted with was good enough to give him a berth.
And no sooner he's provided for than he turns you on. You
youngsters don't seem to mind whom you get into trouble."

"It was my turn now to stare with surprise and curiosity. He hadn't
been talking loud but he lowered his voice still more.

"Don't you know it's illegal?"

"I wondered what he was driving at till I remembered that procuring
a berth for a sailor is a penal offence under the Act. That clause
was directed of course against the swindling practices of the
boarding-house crimps. It had never struck me it would apply to
everybody alike no matter what the motive, because I believed then
that people on shore did their work with care and foresight.

"I was confounded at the idea, but Mr. Powell made me soon see that
an Act of Parliament hasn't any sense of its own. It has only the
sense that's put into it; and that's precious little sometimes. He
didn't mind helping a young man to a ship now and then, he said, but
if we kept on coming constantly it would soon get about that he was
doing it for money.

"A pretty thing that would be: the Senior Shipping-Master of the
Port of London hauled up in a police court and fined fifty pounds,"
says he. "I've another four years to serve to get my pension. It
could be made to look very black against me and don't you make any
mistake about it," he says.

"And all the time with one knee well up he went on swinging his
other leg like a boy on a gate and looking at me very straight with
his shining eyes. I was confounded I tell you. It made me sick to
hear him imply that somebody would make a report against him.

"Oh!" I asked shocked, "who would think of such a scurvy trick,
sir?"  I was half disgusted with him for having the mere notion of
it.

"Who?" says he, speaking very low. "Anybody. One of the office
messengers maybe. I've risen to be the Senior of this office and we
are all very good friends here, but don't you think that my
colleague that sits next to me wouldn't like to go up to this desk
by the window four years in advance of the regulation time? Or even
one year for that matter. It's human nature."

"I could not help turning my head. The three fellows who had been
skylarking when I came in were now talking together very soberly,
and the long-necked chap was going on with his writing still. He
seemed to me the most dangerous of the lot. I saw him sideface and
his lips were set very tight. I had never looked at mankind in that
light before. When one's young human nature shocks one. But what
startled me most was to see the door I had come through open slowly
and give passage to a head in a uniform cap with a Board of Trade
badge. It was that blamed old doorkeeper from the hall. He had run
me to earth and meant to dig me out too. He walked up the office
smirking craftily, cap in hand.

"What is it, Symons?" asked Mr. Powell.

"I was only wondering where this 'ere gentleman 'ad gone to, sir.
He slipped past me upstairs, sir."

I felt mighty uncomfortable.

"That's all right, Symons. I know the gentleman," says Mr. Powell
as serious as a judge.

"Very well, sir. Of course, sir. I saw the gentleman running races
all by 'isself down 'ere, so I . . ."

"It's all right I tell you," Mr. Powell cut him short with a wave of
his hand; and, as the old fraud walked off at last, he raised his
eyes to me. I did not know what to do: stay there, or clear out,
or say that I was sorry.

"Let's see," says he, "what did you tell me your name was?"

"Now, observe, I hadn't given him my name at all and his question
embarrassed me a bit. Somehow or other it didn't seem proper for me
to fling his own name at him as it were. So I merely pulled out my
new certificate from my pocket and put it into his hand unfolded, so
that he could read CHARLES POWELL written very plain on the
parchment.

"He dropped his eyes on to it and after a while laid it quietly on
the desk by his side. I didn't know whether he meant to make any
remark on this coincidence. Before he had time to say anything the
glass door came open with a bang and a tall, active man rushed in
with great strides. His face looked very red below his high silk
hat. You could see at once he was the skipper of a big ship.

"Mr. Powell after telling me in an undertone to wait a little
addressed him in a friendly way.

"I've been expecting you in every moment to fetch away your
Articles, Captain. Here they are all ready for you."  And turning
to a pile of agreements lying at his elbow he took up the topmost of
them. From where I stood I could read the words: "Ship Ferndale"
written in a large round hand on the first page.

"No, Mr. Powell, they aren't ready, worse luck," says that skipper.
"I've got to ask you to strike out my second officer."  He seemed
excited and bothered. He explained that his second mate had been
working on board all the morning. At one o'clock he went out to get
a bit of dinner and didn't turn up at two as he ought to have done.
Instead there came a messenger from the hospital with a note signed
by a doctor. Collar bone and one arm broken. Let himself be
knocked down by a pair horse van while crossing the road outside the
dock gate, as if he had neither eyes nor ears. And the ship ready
to leave the dock at six o'clock to-morrow morning!

"Mr. Powell dipped his pen and began to turn the leaves of the
agreement over. "We must then take his name off," he says in a kind
of unconcerned sing-song.

"What am I to do?" burst out the skipper. "This office closes at
four o'clock. I can't find a man in half an hour."

"This office closes at four," repeats Mr. Powell glancing up and
down the pages and touching up a letter here and there with perfect
indifference.

"Even if I managed to lay hold some time to-day of a man ready to go
at such short notice I couldn't ship him regularly here--could I?"

"Mr. Powell was busy drawing his pen through the entries relating to
that unlucky second mate and making a note in the margin.

"You could sign him on yourself on board," says he without looking
up. "But I don't think you'll find easily an officer for such a
pier-head jump."

"Upon this the fine-looking skipper gave signs of distress. The
ship mustn't miss the next morning's tide. He had to take on board
forty tons of dynamite and a hundred and twenty tons of gunpowder at
a place down the river before proceeding to sea. It was all
arranged for next day. There would be no end of fuss and
complications if the ship didn't turn up in time . . . I couldn't
help hearing all this, while wishing him to take himself off,
because I wanted to know why Mr. Powell had told me to wait. After
what he had been saying there didn't seem any object in my hanging
about. If I had had my certificate in my pocket I should have tried
to slip away quietly; but Mr. Powell had turned about into the same
position I found him in at first and was again swinging his leg. My
certificate open on the desk was under his left elbow and I couldn't
very well go up and jerk it away.

"I don't know," says he carelessly, addressing the helpless captain
but looking fixedly at me with an expression as if I hadn't been
there. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you that I know of a
disengaged second mate at hand."

"Do you mean you've got him here?" shouts the other looking all over
the empty public part of the office as if he were ready to fling
himself bodily upon anything resembling a second mate. He had been
so full of his difficulty that I verify believe he had never noticed
me. Or perhaps seeing me inside he may have thought I was some
understrapper belonging to the place. But when Mr. Powell nodded in
my direction he became very quiet and gave me a long stare. Then he
stooped to Mr. Powell's ear--I suppose he imagined he was
whispering, but I heard him well enough.

"Looks very respectable."

"Certainly," says the shipping-master quite calm and staring all the
time at me. "His name's Powell."

"Oh, I see!" says the skipper as if struck all of a heap. "But is
he ready to join at once?"

"I had a sort of vision of my lodgings--in the North of London, too,
beyond Dalston, away to the devil--and all my gear scattered about,
and my empty sea-chest somewhere in an outhouse the good people I
was staying with had at the end of their sooty strip of garden. I
heard the Shipping Master say in the coolest sort of way:

"He'll sleep on board to-night."

"He had better," says the Captain of the Ferndale very businesslike,
as if the whole thing were settled. I can't say I was dumb for joy
as you may suppose. It wasn't exactly that. I was more by way of
being out of breath with the quickness of it. It didn't seem
possible that this was happening to me. But the skipper, after he
had talked for a while with Mr. Powell, too low for me to hear
became visibly perplexed.

"I suppose he had heard I was freshly passed and without experience
as an officer, because he turned about and looked me over as if I
had been exposed for sale.

"He's young," he mutters. "Looks smart, though . . . You're smart
and willing (this to me very sudden and loud) and all that, aren't
you?"

"I just managed to open and shut my mouth, no more, being taken
unawares. But it was enough for him. He made as if I had deafened
him with protestations of my smartness and willingness.

"Of course, of course. All right."  And then turning to the
Shipping Master who sat there swinging his leg, he said that he
certainly couldn't go to sea without a second officer. I stood by
as if all these things were happening to some other chap whom I was
seeing through with it. Mr. Powell stared at me with those shining
eyes of his. But that bothered skipper turns upon me again as
though he wanted to snap my head off.

"You aren't too big to be told how to do things--are you? You've a
lot to learn yet though you mayn't think so."

"I had half a mind to save my dignity by telling him that if it was
my seamanship he was alluding to I wanted him to understand that a
fellow who had survived being turned inside out for an hour and a
half by Captain R- was equal to any demand his old ship was likely
to make on his competence. However he didn't give me a chance to
make that sort of fool of myself because before I could open my
mouth he had gone round on another tack and was addressing himself
affably to Mr. Powell who swinging his leg never took his eyes off
me.

"I'll take your young friend willingly, Mr. Powell. If you let him
sign on as second-mate at once I'll take the Articles away with me
now."

"It suddenly dawned upon me that the innocent skipper of the
Ferndale had taken it for granted that I was a relative of the
Shipping Master! I was quite astonished at this discovery, though
indeed the mistake was natural enough under the circumstances. What
I ought to have admired was the reticence with which this
misunderstanding had been established and acted upon. But I was too
stupid then to admire anything. All my anxiety was that this should
be cleared up. I was ass enough to wonder exceedingly at Mr. Powell
failing to notice the misapprehension. I saw a slight twitch come
and go on his face; but instead of setting right that mistake the
Shipping Master swung round on his stool and addressed me as
'Charles.'  He did. And I detected him taking a hasty squint at my
certificate just before, because clearly till he did so he was not
sure of my christian name. "Now then come round in front of the
desk, Charles," says he in a loud voice.

"Charles! At first, I declare to you, it didn't seem possible that
he was addressing himself to me. I even looked round for that
Charles but there was nobody behind me except the thin-necked chap
still hard at his writing, and the other three Shipping Masters who
were changing their coats and reaching for their hats, making ready
to go home. It was the industrious thin-necked man who without
laying down his pen lifted with his left hand a flap near his desk
and said kindly:

"Pass this way."

I walked through in a trance, faced Mr. Powell, from whom I learned
that we were bound to Port Elizabeth first, and signed my name on
the Articles of the ship Ferndale as second mate--the voyage not to
exceed two years.

"You won't fail to join--eh?" says the captain anxiously. "It would
cause no end of trouble and expense if you did. You've got a good
six hours to get your gear together, and then you'll have time to
snatch a sleep on board before the crew joins in the morning."

"It was easy enough for him to talk of getting ready in six hours
for a voyage that was not to exceed two years. He hadn't to do that
trick himself, and with his sea-chest locked up in an outhouse the
key of which had been mislaid for a week as I remembered. But
neither was I much concerned. The idea that I was absolutely going
to sea at six o'clock next morning hadn't got quite into my head
yet. It had been too sudden.

"Mr. Powell, slipping the Articles into a long envelope, spoke up
with a sort of cold half-laugh without looking at either of us.

"Mind you don't disgrace the name, Charles."

"And the skipper chimes in very kindly:

"He'll do well enough I dare say. I'll look after him a bit."

"Upon this he grabs the Articles, says something about trying to run
in for a minute to see that poor devil in the hospital, and off he
goes with his heavy swinging step after telling me sternly: "Don't
you go like that poor fellow and get yourself run over by a cart as
if you hadn't either eyes or ears."

"Mr. Powell," says I timidly (there was by then only the thin-necked
man left in the office with us and he was already by the door,
standing on one leg to turn the bottom of his trousers up before
going away). "Mr. Powell," says I, "I believe the Captain of the
Ferndale was thinking all the time that I was a relation of yours."

"I was rather concerned about the propriety of it, you know, but Mr.
Powell didn't seem to be in the least.

"Did he?" says he. "That's funny, because it seems to me too that
I've been a sort of good uncle to several of you young fellows
lately. Don't you think so yourself? However, if you don't like it
you may put him right--when you get out to sea."  At this I felt a
bit queer. Mr. Powell had rendered me a very good service:- because
it's a fact that with us merchant sailors the first voyage as
officer is the real start in life. He had given me no less than
that. I told him warmly that he had done for me more that day than
all my relations put together ever did.

"Oh, no, no," says he. "I guess it's that shipment of explosives
waiting down the river which has done most for you. Forty tons of
dynamite have been your best friend to-day, young man."

"That was true too, perhaps. Anyway I saw clearly enough that I had
nothing to thank myself for. But as I tried to thank him, he
checked my stammering.

"Don't be in a hurry to thank me," says he. "The voyage isn't
finished yet."

Our new acquaintance paused, then added meditatively: "Queer man.
As if it made any difference. Queer man."

"It's certainly unwise to admit any sort of responsibility for our
actions, whose consequences we are never able to foresee," remarked
Marlow by way of assent.

"The consequence of his action was that I got a ship," said the
other. "That could not do much harm," he added with a laugh which
argued a probably unconscious contempt of general ideas.

But Marlow was not put off. He was patient and reflective. He had
been at sea many years and I verily believe he liked sea-life
because upon the whole it is favourable to reflection. I am
speaking of the now nearly vanished sea-life under sail. To those
who may be surprised at the statement I will point out that this
life secured for the mind of him who embraced it the inestimable
advantages of solitude and silence. Marlow had the habit of
pursuing general ideas in a peculiar manner, between jest and
earnest.

"Oh, I wouldn't suggest," he said, "that your namesake Mr. Powell,
the Shipping Master, had done you much harm. Such was hardly his
intention. And even if it had been he would not have had the power.
He was but a man, and the incapacity to achieve anything distinctly
good or evil is inherent in our earthly condition. Mediocrity is
our mark. And perhaps it's just as well, since, for the most part,
we cannot be certain of the effect of our actions."

"I don't know about the effect," the other stood up to Marlow
manfully. "What effect did you expect anyhow? I tell you he did
something uncommonly kind."

"He did what he could," Marlow retorted gently, "and on his own
showing that was not a very great deal. I cannot help thinking that
there was some malice in the way he seized the opportunity to serve
you. He managed to make you uncomfortable. You wanted to go to
sea, but he jumped at the chance of accommodating your desire with a
vengeance. I am inclined to think your cheek alarmed him. And this
was an excellent occasion to suppress you altogether. For if you
accepted he was relieved of you with every appearance of humanity,
and if you made objections (after requesting his assistance, mind
you) it was open to him to drop you as a sort of impostor. You
might have had to decline that berth for some very valid reason.
From sheer necessity perhaps. The notice was too uncommonly short.
But under the circumstances you'd have covered yourself with
ignominy."

Our new friend knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"Quite a mistake," he said. "I am not of the declining sort, though
I'll admit it was something like telling a man that you would like a
bath and in consequence being instantly knocked overboard to sink or
swim with your clothes on. However, I didn't feel as if I were in
deep water at first. I left the shipping office quietly and for a
time strolled along the street as easy as if I had a week before me
to fit myself out. But by and by I reflected that the notice was
even shorter than it looked. The afternoon was well advanced; I had
some things to get, a lot of small matters to attend to, one or two
persons to see. One of them was an aunt of mine, my only relation,
who quarrelled with poor father as long as he lived about some silly
matter that had neither right nor wrong to it. She left her money
to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's
sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to
begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in
my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my
skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it
was a hard matter to keep on sitting there I can tell you, while we
rolled up and down the streets, pulling up here and there, the
parcels accumulating round me and the engine in my head gathering
more way every minute. The composure of the people on the pavements
was provoking to a degree, and as to the people in shops, they were
benumbed, more than half frozen--imbecile. Funny how it affects you
to be in a peculiar state of mind: everybody that does not act up
to your excitement seems so confoundedly unfriendly. And my state
of mind what with the hurry, the worry and a growing exultation was
peculiar enough. That engine in my head went round at its top speed
hour after hour till eleven at about at night it let up on me
suddenly at the entrance to the Dock before large iron gates in a
dead wall."

These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting his
things off the roof of his machine into young Powell's arms, drove
away leaving him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and a
few parcels on the pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow
thoroughfare he told us. A mean row of houses on the other side
looked empty: there wasn't the smallest gleam of light in them.
The white-hot glare of a gin palace a good way off made the
intervening piece of the street pitch black. Some human shapes
appearing mysteriously, as if they had sprung up from the dark
ground, shunned the edge of the faint light thrown down by the
gateway lamps. These figures were wary in their movements and
perfectly silent of foot, like beasts of prey slinking about a camp
fire. Powell gathered up his belongings and hovered over them like
a hen over her brood. A gruffly insinuating voice said:

"Let's carry your things in, Capt'in! I've got my pal 'ere."

He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a
torn cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his
hobnailed boots was enormous and coffinlike. His pal, who didn't
come up much higher than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a
pale face with a long drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He
seemed to have just scrambled out of a dust-bin in a tam-o'shanter
cap and a tattered soldier's coat much too long for him. Being so
deadly white he looked like a horrible dirty invalid in a ragged
dressing gown. The coat flapped open in front and the rest of his
apparel consisted of one brace which crossed his naked, bony chest,
and a pair of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if dazed by the faint
light, while his patron, the old bandit, glowered at young Powell
from under his beetling brow.

"Say the word, Capt'in. The bobby'll let us in all right. 'E knows
both of us."

"I didn't answer him," continued Mr. Powell. "I was listening to
footsteps on the other side of the gate, echoing between the walls
of the warehouses as if in an uninhabited town of very high
buildings dark from basement to roof. You could never have guessed
that within a stone's throw there was an open sheet of water and big
ships lying afloat. The few gas lamps showing up a bit of brick
work here and there, appeared in the blackness like penny dips in a
range of cellars--and the solitary footsteps came on, tramp, tramp.
A dock policeman strode into the light on the other side of the
gate, very broad-chested and stern.

"Hallo! What's up here?"

"He was really surprised, but after some palaver he let me in
together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled at
them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang. I
was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in
the darkness of the street in such a short time and without my being
aware of it. Directly we were through they came surging against the
bars, silent, like a mob of ugly spectres. But suddenly, up the
street somewhere, perhaps near that public-house, a row started as
if Bedlam had broken loose: shouts, yells, an awful shrill shriek--
and at that noise all these heads vanished from behind the bars.

"Look at this," marvelled the constable. "It's a wonder to me they
didn't make off with your things while you were waiting."

"I would have taken good care of that," I said defiantly. But the
constable wasn't impressed.

"Much you would have done. The bag going off round one dark corner;
the chest round another. Would you have run two ways at once? And
anyhow you'd have been tripped up and jumped upon before you had run
three yards. I tell you you've had a most extraordinary chance that
there wasn't one of them regular boys about to-night, in the High
Street, to twig your loaded cab go by. Ted here is honest . . . You
are on the honest lay, Ted, ain't you?"

"Always was, orficer," said the big ruffian with feeling. The other
frail creature seemed dumb and only hopped about with the edge of
its soldier coat touching the ground.

"Oh yes, I dare say," said the constable. "Now then, forward, march
. . . He's that because he ain't game for the other thing," he
confided to me. "He hasn't got the nerve for it. However, I ain't
going to lose sight of them two till they go out through the gate.
That little chap's a devil. He's got the nerve for anything, only
he hasn't got the muscle. Well! Well! You've had a chance to get
in with a whole skin and with all your things."

"I was incredulous a little. It seemed impossible that after
getting ready with so much hurry and inconvenience I should have
lost my chance of a start in life from such a cause. I asked:

"Does that sort of thing happen often so near the dock gates?"

"Often! No! Of course not often. But it ain't often either that a
man comes along with a cabload of things to join a ship at this time
of night. I've been in the dock police thirteen years and haven't
seen it done once."

"Meantime we followed my sea-chest which was being carried down a
sort of deep narrow lane, separating two high warehouses, between
honest Ted and his little devil of a pal who had to keep up a trot
to the other's stride. The skirt of his soldier's coat floating
behind him nearly swept the ground so that he seemed to be running
on castors. At the corner of the gloomy passage a rigged jib boom
with a dolphin-striker ending in an arrow-head stuck out of the
night close to a cast iron lamp-post. It was the quay side. They
set down their load in the light and honest Ted asked hoarsely:

"Where's your ship, guv'nor?"

"I didn't know. The constable was interested at my ignorance.

"Don't know where your ship is?" he asked with curiosity. "And you
the second officer! Haven't you been working on board of her?"

"I couldn't explain that the only work connected with my appointment
was the work of chance. I told him briefly that I didn't know her
at all. At this he remarked:

"So I see. Here she is, right before you. That's her."

"At once the head-gear in the gas light inspired me with interest
and respect; the spars were big, the chains and ropes stout and the
whole thing looked powerful and trustworthy. Barely touched by the
light her bows rose faintly alongside the narrow strip of the quay;
the rest of her was a black smudge in the darkness. Here I was face
to face with my start in life. We walked in a body a few steps on a
greasy pavement between her side and the towering wall of a
warehouse and I hit my shins cruelly against the end of the gangway.
The constable hailed her quietly in a bass undertone 'Ferndale
there!'  A feeble and dismal sound, something in the nature of a
buzzing groan, answered from behind the bulwarks.

"I distinguished vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood, perhaps,
resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another
broken-down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound
proceeded from it I concluded it must be the head of the shipkeeper.
The stalwart constable jeered in a mock-official manner.

"Second officer coming to join. Move yourself a bit."

"The truth of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach
(you know that's the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for it
was borne upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second
officer of a ship just like any other second officer, to that
constable. I was moved by this solid evidence of my new dignity.
Only his tone offended me. Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was
looking for. Thereupon he lost all interest in me, humorous or
otherwise, and walked away driving sternly before him the honest
Ted, who went off grumbling to himself like a hungry ogre, and his
horrible dumb little pal in the soldier's coat, who, from first to
last, never emitted the slightest sound.

"It was very dark on the quarter deck of the Ferndale between the
deep bulwarks overshadowed by the break of the poop and frowned upon
by the front of the warehouse. I plumped down on to my chest near
the after hatch as if my legs had been jerked from under me. I felt
suddenly very tired and languid. The shipkeeper, whom I could
hardly make out hung over the capstan in a fit of weak pitiful
coughing. He gasped out very low 'Oh! dear! Oh! dear!' and
struggled for breath so long that I got up alarmed and irresolute.

"I've been took like this since last Christmas twelvemonth. It
ain't nothing."

"He seemed a hundred years old at least. I never saw him properly
because he was gone ashore and out of sight when I came on deck in
the morning; but he gave me the notion of the feeblest creature that
ever breathed. His voice was thin like the buzzing of a mosquito.
As it would have been cruel to demand assistance from such a shadowy
wreck I went to work myself, dragging my chest along a pitch-black
passage under the poop deck, while he sighed and moaned around me as
if my exertions were more than his weakness could stand. At last as
I banged pretty heavily against the bulkheads he warned me in his
faint breathless wheeze to be more careful.

"What's the matter?" I asked rather roughly, not relishing to be
admonished by this forlorn broken-down ghost.

"Nothing! Nothing, sir," he protested so hastily that he lost his
poor breath again and I felt sorry for him. "Only the captain and
his missus are sleeping on board. She's a lady that mustn't be
disturbed. They came about half-past eight, and we had a permit to
have lights in the cabin till ten to-night."

"This struck me as a considerable piece of news. I had never been
in a ship where the captain had his wife with him. I'd heard
fellows say that captains' wives could work a lot of mischief on
board ship if they happened to take a dislike to anyone; especially
the new wives if young and pretty. The old and experienced wives on
the other hand fancied they knew more about the ship than the
skipper himself and had an eye like a hawk's for what went on. They
were like an extra chief mate of a particularly sharp and unfeeling
sort who made his report in the evening. The best of them were a
nuisance. In the general opinion a skipper with his wife on board
was more difficult to please; but whether to show off his authority
before an admiring female or from loving anxiety for her safety or
simply from irritation at her presence--nobody I ever heard on the
subject could tell for certain.

"After I had bundled in my things somehow I struck a match and had a
dazzling glimpse of my berth; then I pitched the roll of my bedding
into the bunk but took no trouble to spread it out. I wasn't sleepy
now, neither was I tired. And the thought that I was done with the
earth for many many months to come made me feel very quiet and self-
contained as it were. Sailors will understand what I mean."

Marlow nodded. "It is a strictly professional feeling," he
commented. "But other professions or trades know nothing of it. It
is only this calling whose primary appeal lies in the suggestion of
restless adventure which holds out that deep sensation to those who
embrace it. It is difficult to define, I admit."

"I should call it the peace of the sea," said Mr. Charles Powell in
an earnest tone but looking at us as though he expected to be met by
a laugh of derision and were half prepared to salve his reputation
for common sense by joining in it. But neither of us laughed at Mr.
Charles Powell in whose start in life we had been called to take a
part. He was lucky in his audience.

"A very good name," said Marlow looking at him approvingly. "A
sailor finds a deep feeling of security in the exercise of his
calling. The exacting life of the sea has this advantage over the
life of the earth that its claims are simple and cannot be evaded."

"Gospel truth," assented Mr. Powell. "No! they cannot be evaded."

That an excellent understanding should have established itself
between my old friend and our new acquaintance was remarkable
enough. For they were exactly dissimilar--one individuality
projecting itself in length and the other in breadth, which is
already a sufficient ground for irreconcilable difference. Marlow
who was lanky, loose, quietly composed in varied shades of brown
robbed of every vestige of gloss, had a narrow, veiled glance, the
neutral bearing and the secret irritability which go together with a
predisposition to congestion of the liver. The other, compact,
broad and sturdy of limb, seemed extremely full of sound organs
functioning vigorously all the time in order to keep up the
brilliance of his colouring, the light curl of his coal-black hair
and the lustre of his eyes, which asserted themselves roundly in an
open, manly face. Between two such organisms one would not have
expected to find the slightest temperamental accord. But I have
observed that profane men living in ships like the holy men gathered
together in monasteries develop traits of profound resemblance.
This must be because the service of the sea and the service of a
temple are both detached from the vanities and errors of a world
which follows no severe rule. The men of the sea understand each
other very well in their view of earthly things, for simplicity is a
good counsellor and isolation not a bad educator. A turn of mind
composed of innocence and scepticism is common to them all, with the
addition of an unexpected insight into motives, as of disinterested
lookers-on at a game. Mr. Powell took me aside to say,

"I like the things he says."

"You understand each other pretty well," I observed.

"I know his sort," said Powell, going to the window to look at his
cutter still riding to the flood. "He's the sort that's always
chasing some notion or other round and round his head just for the
fun of the thing."

"Keeps them in good condition," I said.

"Lively enough I dare say," he admitted.

"Would you like better a man who let his notions lie curled up?"

"That I wouldn't," answered our new acquaintance. Clearly he was
not difficult to get on with. "I like him, very well," he
continued, "though it isn't easy to make him out. He seems to be up
to a thing or two. What's he doing?"

I informed him that our friend Marlow had retired from the sea in a
sort of half-hearted fashion some years ago.

Mr. Powell's comment was: "Fancied had enough of it?"

"Fancied's the very word to use in this connection," I observed,
remembering the subtly provisional character of Marlow's long
sojourn amongst us. From year to year he dwelt on land as a bird
rests on the branch of a tree, so tense with the power of brusque
flight into its true element that it is incomprehensible why it
should sit still minute after minute. The sea is the sailor's true
element, and Marlow, lingering on shore, was to me an object of
incredulous commiseration like a bird, which, secretly, should have
lost its faith in the high virtue of flying.

CHAPTER TWO--THE FYNES AND THE GIRL-FRIEND

We were on our feet in the room by then, and Marlow, brown and
deliberate, approached the window where Mr. Powell and I had
retired. "What was the name of your chance again?" he asked. Mr.
Powell stared for a moment.

"Oh! The Ferndale. A Liverpool ship. Composite built."

"Ferndale," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "Ferndale."

"Know her?"

"Our friend," I said, "knows something of every ship. He seems to
have gone about the seas prying into things considerably."

Marlow smiled.

"I've seen her, at least once."

"The finest sea-boat ever launched," declared Mr. Powell sturdily.
"Without exception."

"She looked a stout, comfortable ship," assented Marlow.
"Uncommonly comfortable. Not very fast tho'."

"She was fast enough for any reasonable man--when I was in her,"
growled Mr. Powell with his back to us.

"Any ship is that--for a reasonable man," generalized Marlow in a
conciliatory tone. "A sailor isn't a globe-trotter."

"No," muttered Mr. Powell.

"Time's nothing to him," advanced Marlow.

"I don't suppose it's much," said Mr. Powell. "All the same a quick
passage is a feather in a man's cap."

"True. But that ornament is for the use of the master only. And by
the by what was his name?"

"The master of the Ferndale? Anthony. Captain Anthony."

"Just so. Quite right," approved Marlow thoughtfully. Our new
acquaintance looked over his shoulder.

"What do you mean? Why is it more right than if it had been Brown?"

"He has known him probably," I explained. "Marlow here appears to
know something of every soul that ever went afloat in a sailor's
body."

Mr. Powell seemed wonderfully amenable to verbal suggestions for
looking again out of the window, he muttered:

"He was a good soul."

This clearly referred to Captain Anthony of the Ferndale. Marlow
addressed his protest to me.

"I did not know him. I really didn't. He was a good soul. That's
nothing very much out of the way--is it? And I didn't even know
that much of him. All I knew of him was an accident called Fyne.

At this Mr. Powell who evidently could be rebellious too turned his
back squarely on the window.

"What on earth do you mean?" he asked. "An--accident--called Fyne,"
he repeated separating the words with emphasis.

Marlow was not disconcerted.

"I don't mean accident in the sense of a mishap. Not in the least.
Fyne was a good little man in the Civil Service. By accident I mean
that which happens blindly and without intelligent design. That's
generally the way a brother-in-law happens into a man's life."

Marlow's tone being apologetic and our new acquaintance having again
turned to the window I took it upon myself to say:

"You are justified. There is very little intelligent design in the
majority of marriages; but they are none the worse for that.
Intelligence leads people astray as far as passion sometimes. I
know you are not a cynic."

Marlow smiled his retrospective smile which was kind as though he
bore no grudge against people he used to know.

"Little Fyne's marriage was quite successful. There was no design
at all in it. Fyne, you must know, was an enthusiastic pedestrian.
He spent his holidays tramping all over our native land. His tastes
were simple. He put infinite conviction and perseverance into his
holidays. At the proper season you would meet in the fields, Fyne,
a serious-faced, broad-chested, little man, with a shabby knap-sack
on his back, making for some church steeple. He had a horror of
roads. He wrote once a little book called the 'Tramp's Itinerary,'
and was recognised as an authority on the footpaths of England. So
one year, in his favourite over-the-fields, back-way fashion he
entered a pretty Surrey village where he met Miss Anthony. Pure
accident, you see. They came to an understanding, across some
stile, most likely. Little Fyne held very solemn views as to the
destiny of women on this earth, the nature of our sublunary love,
the obligations of this transient life and so on. He probably
disclosed them to his future wife. Miss Anthony's views of life
were very decided too but in a different way. I don't know the
story of their wooing. I imagine it was carried on clandestinely
and, I am certain, with portentous gravity, at the back of copses,
behind hedges . . .

"Why was it carried on clandestinely?" I inquired.

"Because of the lady's father. He was a savage sentimentalist who
had his own decided views of his paternal prerogatives. He was a
terror; but the only evidence of imaginative faculty about Fyne was
his pride in his wife's parentage. It stimulated his ingenuity too.
Difficult--is it not?--to introduce one's wife's maiden name into
general conversation. But my simple Fyne made use of Captain
Anthony for that purpose, or else I would never even have heard of
the man. "My wife's sailor-brother" was the phrase. He trotted out
the sailor-brother in a pretty wide range of subjects: Indian and
colonial affairs, matters of trade, talk of travels, of seaside
holidays and so on. Once I remember "My wife's sailor-brother
Captain Anthony" being produced in connection with nothing less
recondite than a sunset. And little Fyne never failed to add "The
son of Carleon Anthony, the poet--you know."  He used to lower his
voice for that statement, and people were impressed or pretended to
be."

The late Carleon Anthony, the poet, sang in his time of the domestic
and social amenities of our age with a most felicitous
versification, his object being, in his own words, "to glorify the
result of six thousand years' evolution towards the refinement of
thought, manners and feelings."  Why he fixed the term at six
thousand years I don't know. His poems read like sentimental novels
told in verse of a really superior quality. You felt as if you were
being taken out for a delightful country drive by a charming lady in
a pony carriage. But in his domestic life that same Carleon Anthony
showed traces of the primitive cave-dweller's temperament. He was a
massive, implacable man with a handsome face, arbitrary and exacting
with his dependants, but marvellously suave in his manner to
admiring strangers. These contrasted displays must have been
particularly exasperating to his long-suffering family. After his
second wife's death his boy, whom he persisted by a mere whim in
educating at home, ran away in conventional style and, as if
disgusted with the amenities of civilization, threw himself,
figuratively speaking, into the sea. The daughter (the elder of the
two children) either from compassion or because women are naturally
more enduring, remained in bondage to the poet for several years,
till she too seized a chance of escape by throwing herself into the
arms, the muscular arms, of the pedestrian Fyne. This was either
great luck or great sagacity. A civil servant is, I should imagine,
the last human being in the world to preserve those traits of the
cave-dweller from which she was fleeing. Her father would never
consent to see her after the marriage. Such unforgiving selfishness
is difficult to understand unless as a perverse sort of refinement.
There were also doubts as to Carleon Anthony's complete sanity for
some considerable time before he died.

Most of the above I elicited from Marlow, for all I knew of Carleon
Anthony was his unexciting but fascinating verse. Marlow assured me
that the Fyne marriage was perfectly successful and even happy, in
an earnest, unplayful fashion, being blessed besides by three
healthy, active, self-reliant children, all girls. They were all
pedestrians too. Even the youngest would wander away for miles if
not restrained. Mrs. Fyne had a ruddy out-of-doors complexion and
wore blouses with a starched front like a man's shirt, a stand-up
collar and a long necktie. Marlow had made their acquaintance one
summer in the country, where they were accustomed to take a cottage
for the holidays . . .

At this point we were interrupted by Mr. Powell who declared that he
must leave us. The tide was on the turn, he announced coming away
from the window abruptly. He wanted to be on board his cutter
before she swung and of course he would sleep on board. Never slept
away from the cutter while on a cruise. He was gone in a moment,
unceremoniously, but giving us no offence and leaving behind an
impression as though we had known him for a long time. The
ingenuous way he had told us of his start in life had something to
do with putting him on that footing with us. I gave no thought to
seeing him again.

Marlow expressed a confident hope of coming across him before long.

"He cruises about the mouth of the river all the summer. He will be
easy to find any week-end," he remarked ringing the bell so that we
might settle up with the waiter.

Later on I asked Marlow why he wished to cultivate this chance
acquaintance. He confessed apologetically that it was the commonest
sort of curiosity. I flatter myself that I understand all sorts of
curiosity. Curiosity about daily facts, about daily things, about
daily men. It is the most respectable faculty of the human mind--in
fact I cannot conceive the uses of an incurious mind. It would be
like a chamber perpetually locked up. But in this particular case
Mr. Powell seemed to have given us already a complete insight into
his personality such as it was; a personality capable of perception
and with a feeling for the vagaries of fate, but essentially simple
in itself.

Marlow agreed with me so far. He explained however that his
curiosity was not excited by Mr. Powell exclusively. It originated
a good way further back in the fact of his accidental acquaintance
with the Fynes, in the country. This chance meeting with a man who
had sailed with Captain Anthony had revived it. It had revived it
to some purpose, to such purpose that to me too was given the
knowledge of its origin and of its nature. It was given to me in
several stages, at intervals which are not indicated here. On this
first occasion I remarked to Marlow with some surprise:

"But, if I remember rightly you said you didn't know Captain
Anthony."

"No. I never saw the man. It's years ago now, but I seem to hear
solemn little Fyne's deep voice announcing the approaching visit of
his wife's brother "the son of the poet, you know."  He had just
arrived in London from a long voyage, and, directly his occupations
permitted, was coming down to stay with his relatives for a few
weeks. No doubt we two should find many things to talk about by
ourselves in reference to our common calling, added little Fyne
portentously in his grave undertones, as if the Mercantile Marine
were a secret society.

You must understand that I cultivated the Fynes only in the country,
in their holiday time. This was the third year. Of their existence
in town I knew no more than may be inferred from analogy. I played
chess with Fyne in the late afternoon, and sometimes came over to
the cottage early enough to have tea with the whole family at a big
round table. They sat about it, an unsmiling, sunburnt company of
very few words indeed. Even the children were silent and as if
contemptuous of each other and of their elders. Fyne muttered
sometimes deep down in his chest some insignificant remark. Mrs.
Fyne smiled mechanically (she had splendid teeth) while distributing
tea and bread and butter. A something which was not coldness, nor
yet indifference, but a sort of peculiar self-possession gave her
the appearance of a very trustworthy, very capable and excellent
governess; as if Fyne were a widower and the children not her own
but only entrusted to her calm, efficient, unemotional care. One
expected her to address Fyne as Mr. When she called him John it
surprised one like a shocking familiarity. The atmosphere of that
holiday was--if I may put it so--brightly dull. Healthy faces, fair
complexions, clear eyes, and never a frank smile in the whole lot,
unless perhaps from a girl-friend.

The girl-friend problem exercised me greatly. How and where the
Fynes got all these pretty creatures to come and stay with them I
can't imagine. I had at first the wild suspicion that they were
obtained to amuse Fyne. But I soon discovered that he could hardly
tell one from the other, though obviously their presence met with
his solemn approval. These girls in fact came for Mrs. Fyne. They
treated her with admiring deference. She answered to some need of
theirs. They sat at her feet. They were like disciples. It was
very curious. Of Fyne they took but scanty notice. As to myself I
was made to feel that I did not exist.

After tea we would sit down to chess and then Fyne's everlasting
gravity became faintly tinged by an attenuated gleam of something
inward which resembled sly satisfaction. Of the divine frivolity of
laughter he was only capable over a chess-board. Certain positions
of the game struck him as humorous, which nothing else on earth
could do . . .

"He used to beat you," I asserted with confidence.

"Yes. He used to beat me," Marlow owned up hastily.

So he and Fyne played two games after tea. The children romped
together outside, gravely, unplayfully, as one would expect from
Fyne's children, and Mrs. Fyne would be gone to the bottom of the
garden with the girl-friend of the week. She always walked off
directly after tea with her arm round the girl-friend's waist.
Marlow said that there was only one girl-friend with whom he had
conversed at all. It had happened quite unexpectedly, long after he
had given up all hope of getting into touch with these reserved
girl-friends.

One day he saw a woman walking about on the edge of a high quarry,
which rose a sheer hundred feet, at least, from the road winding up
the hill out of which it had been excavated. He shouted warningly
to her from below where he happened to be passing. She was really
in considerable danger. At the sound of his voice she started back
and retreated out of his sight amongst some young Scotch firs
growing near the very brink of the precipice.

"I sat down on a bank of grass," Marlow went on. "She had given me
a turn. The hem of her skirt seemed to float over that awful sheer
drop, she was so close to the edge. An absurd thing to do. A
perfectly mad trick--for no conceivable object! I was reflecting on
the foolhardiness of the average girl and remembering some other
instances of the kind, when she came into view walking down the
steep curve of the road. She had Mrs. Fyne's walking-stick and was
escorted by the Fyne dog. Her dead white face struck me with
astonishment, so that I forgot to raise my hat. I just sat and
stared. The dog, a vivacious and amiable animal which for some
inscrutable reason had bestowed his friendship on my unworthy self,
rushed up the bank demonstratively and insinuated himself under my
arm.

The girl-friend (it was one of them) went past some way as though
she had not seen me, then stopped and called the dog to her several
times; but he only nestled closer to my side, and when I tried to
push him away developed that remarkable power of internal resistance
by which a dog makes himself practically immovable by anything short
of a kick. She looked over her shoulder and her arched eyebrows
frowned above her blanched face. It was almost a scowl. Then the
expression changed. She looked unhappy. "Come here!" she cried
once more in an angry and distressed tone. I took off my hat at
last, but the dog hanging out his tongue with that cheerfully
imbecile expression some dogs know so well how to put on when it
suits their purpose, pretended to be deaf.

She cried from the distance desperately.

"Perhaps you will take him to the cottage then. I can't wait."

"I won't be responsible for that dog," I protested getting down the
bank and advancing towards her. She looked very hurt, apparently by
the desertion of the dog. "But if you let me walk with you he will
follow us all right," I suggested.

She moved on without answering me. The dog launched himself
suddenly full speed down the road receding from us in a small cloud
of dust. It vanished in the distance, and presently we came up with
him lying on the grass. He panted in the shade of the hedge with
shining eyes but pretended not to see us. We had not exchanged a
word so far. The girl by my side gave him a scornful glance in
passing.

"He offered to come with me," she remarked bitterly.

"And then abandoned you!" I sympathized. "It looks very
unchivalrous. But that's merely his want of tact. I believe he
meant to protest against your reckless proceedings. What made you
come so near the edge of that quarry? The earth might have given
way. Haven't you noticed a smashed fir tree at the bottom? Tumbled
over only the other morning after a night's rain."

"I don't see why I shouldn't be as reckless as I please."

I was nettled by her brusque manner of asserting her folly, and I
told her that neither did I as far as that went, in a tone which
almost suggested that she was welcome to break her neck for all I
cared. This was considerably more than I meant, but I don't like
rude girls. I had been introduced to her only the day before--at
the round tea-table--and she had barely acknowledged the
introduction. I had not caught her name but I had noticed her fine,
arched eyebrows which, so the physiognomists say, are a sign of
courage.

I examined her appearance quietly. Her hair was nearly black, her
eyes blue, deeply shaded by long dark eyelashes. She had a little
colour now. She looked straight before her; the corner of her lip
on my side drooped a little; her chin was fine, somewhat pointed. I
went on to say that some regard for others should stand in the way
of one's playing with danger. I urged playfully the distress of the
poor Fynes in case of accident, if nothing else. I told her that
she did not know the bucolic mind. Had she given occasion for a
coroner's inquest the verdict would have been suicide, with the
implication of unhappy love. They would never be able to understand
that she had taken the trouble to climb over two post-and-rail
fences only for the fun of being reckless. Indeed even as I talked
chaffingly I was greatly struck myself by the fact.

She retorted that once one was dead what horrid people thought of
one did not matter. It was said with infinite contempt; but
something like a suppressed quaver in the voice made me look at her
again. I perceived then that her thick eyelashes were wet. This
surprising discovery silenced me as you may guess. She looked
unhappy. And--I don't know how to say it--well--it suited her. The
clouded brow, the pained mouth, the vague fixed glance! A victim.
And this characteristic aspect made her attractive; an individual
touch--you know.

The dog had run on ahead and now gazed at us by the side of the
Fyne's garden-gate in a tense attitude and wagging his stumpy tail
very, very slowly, with an air of concentrated attention. The girl-
friend of the Fynes bolted violently through the aforesaid gate and
into the cottage leaving me on the road--astounded.

A couple of hours afterwards I returned to the cottage for chess as
usual. I saw neither the girl nor Mrs. Fyne then. We had our two
games and on parting I warned Fyne that I was called to town on
business and might be away for some time. He regretted it very
much. His brother-in-law was expected next day but he didn't know
whether he was a chess-player. Captain Anthony ("the son of the
poet--you know") was of a retiring disposition, shy with strangers,
unused to society and very much devoted to his calling, Fyne
explained. All the time they had been married he could be induced
only once before to come and stay with them for a few days. He had
had a rather unhappy boyhood; and it made him a silent man. But no
doubt, concluded Fyne, as if dealing portentously with a mystery, we
two sailors should find much to say to one another.

This point was never settled. I was detained in town from week to
week till it seemed hardly worth while to go back. But as I had
kept on my rooms in the farm-house I concluded to go down again for
a few days.

It was late, deep dusk, when I got out at our little country
station. My eyes fell on the unmistakable broad back and the
muscular legs in cycling stockings of little Fyne. He passed along
the carriages rapidly towards the rear of the train, which presently
pulled out and left him solitary at the end of the rustic platform.
When he came back to where I waited I perceived that he was much
perturbed, so perturbed as to forget the convention of the usual
greetings. He only exclaimed Oh! on recognizing me, and stopped
irresolute. When I asked him if he had been expecting somebody by
that train he didn't seem to know. He stammered disconnectedly. I
looked hard at him. To all appearances he was perfectly sober;
moreover to suspect Fyne of a lapse from the proprieties high or
low, great or small, was absurd. He was also a too serious and
deliberate person to go mad suddenly. But as he seemed to have
forgotten that he had a tongue in his head I concluded I would leave
him to his mystery. To my surprise he followed me out of the
station and kept by my side, though I did not encourage him. I did
not however repulse his attempts at conversation. He was no longer
expecting me, he said. He had given me up. The weather had been
uniformly fine--and so on. I gathered also that the son of the poet
had curtailed his stay somewhat and gone back to his ship the day
before.

That information touched me but little. Believing in heredity in
moderation I knew well how sea-life fashions a man outwardly and
stamps his soul with the mark of a certain prosaic fitness--because
a sailor is not an adventurer. I expressed no regret at missing
Captain Anthony and we proceeded in silence till, on approaching the
holiday cottage, Fyne suddenly and unexpectedly broke it by the
hurried declaration that he would go on with me a little farther.

"Go with you to your door," he mumbled and started forward to the
little gate where the shadowy figure of Mrs. Fyne hovered, clearly
on the lookout for him. She was alone. The children must have been
already in bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her
vague but unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the
little garden.

I heard Fyne exclaim "Nothing" and then Mrs. Fyne's well-trained,
responsible voice uttered the words, "It's what I have said," with
incisive equanimity. By that time I had passed on, raising my hat.
Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling
gait which must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrian
faculties. I am sure that all his muscular person must have
suffered from awful physical boredom; but he did not attempt to
charm it away by conversation. He preserved a portentous and dreary
silence. And I was bored too. Suddenly I perceived the menace of
even worse boredom. Yes! He was so silent because he had something
to tell me.

I became extremely frightened. But man, reckless animal, is so made
that in him curiosity, the paltriest curiosity, will overcome all
terrors, every disgust, and even despair itself. To my laconic
invitation to come in for a drink he answered by a deep, gravely
accented: "Thanks, I will" as though it were a response in church.
His face as seen in the lamplight gave me no clue to the character
of the impending communication; as indeed from the nature of things
it couldn't do, its normal expression being already that of the
utmost possible seriousness. It was perfect and immovable; and for
a certainty if he had something excruciatingly funny to tell me it
would be all the same.

He gazed at me earnestly and delivered himself of some weighty
remarks on Mrs. Fyne's desire to befriend, counsel, and guide young
girls of all sorts on the path of life. It was a voluntary mission.
He approved his wife's action and also her views and principles in
general.

All this with a solemn countenance and in deep measured tones. Yet
somehow I got an irresistible conviction that he was exasperated by
something in particular. In the unworthy hope of being amused by
the misfortunes of a fellow-creature I asked him point-blank what
was wrong now.

What was wrong was that a girl-friend was missing. She had been
missing precisely since six o'clock that morning. The woman who did
the work of the cottage saw her going out at that hour, for a walk.
The pedestrian Fyne's ideas of a walk were extensive, but the girl
did not turn up for lunch, nor yet for tea, nor yet for dinner. She
had not turned up by footpath, road or rail. He had been reluctant
to make inquiries. It would have set all the village talking. The
Fynes had expected her to reappear every moment, till the shades of
the night and the silence of slumber had stolen gradually over the
wide and peaceful rural landscape commanded by the cottage.

After telling me that much Fyne sat helpless in unconclusive agony.
Going to bed was out of the question--neither could any steps be
taken just then. What to do with himself he did not know!

I asked him if this was the same young lady I saw a day or two
before I went to town? He really could not remember. Was she a
girl with dark hair and blue eyes? I asked further. He really
couldn't tell what colour her eyes were. He was very unobservant
except as to the peculiarities of footpaths, on which he was an
authority.

I thought with amazement and some admiration that Mrs. Fyne's young
disciples were to her husband's gravity no more than evanescent
shadows. However, with but little hesitation Fyne ventured to
affirm that--yes, her hair was of some dark shade.

"We had a good deal to do with that girl first and last," he
explained solemnly; then getting up as if moved by a spring he
snatched his cap off the table. "She may be back in the cottage,"
he cried in his bass voice. I followed him out on the road.

It was one of those dewy, clear, starry nights, oppressing our
spirit, crushing our pride, by the brilliant evidence of the awful
loneliness, of the hopeless obscure insignificance of our globe lost
in the splendid revelation of a glittering, soulless universe. I
hate such skies. Daylight is friendly to man toiling under a sun
which warms his heart; and cloudy soft nights are more kindly to our
littleness. I nearly ran back again to my lighted parlour; Fyne
fussing in a knicker-bocker suit before the hosts of heaven, on a
shadowy earth, about a transient, phantom-like girl, seemed too
ridiculous to associate with. On the other hand there was something
fascinating in the very absurdity. He cut along in his best
pedestrian style and I found myself let in for a spell of severe
exercise at eleven o'clock at night.

In the distance over the fields and trees smudging and blotching the
vast obscurity, one lighted window of the cottage with the blind up
was like a bright beacon kept alight to guide the lost wanderer.
Inside, at the table bearing the lamp, we saw Mrs. Fyne sitting with
folded arms and not a hair of her head out of place. She looked
exactly like a governess who had put the children to bed; and her
manner to me was just the neutral manner of a governess. To her
husband, too, for that matter.

Fyne told her that I was fully informed. Not a muscle of her ruddy
smooth handsome face moved. She had schooled herself into that sort
of thing. Having seen two successive wives of the delicate poet
chivied and worried into their graves, she had adopted that cool,
detached manner to meet her gifted father's outbreaks of selfish
temper. It had now become a second nature. I suppose she was
always like that; even in the very hour of elopement with Fyne.
That transaction when one remembered it in her presence acquired a
quaintly marvellous aspect to one's imagination. But somehow her
self-possession matched very well little Fyne's invariable
solemnity.

I was rather sorry for him. Wasn't he worried! The agony of
solemnity. At the same time I was amused. I didn't take a gloomy
view of that "vanishing girl" trick. Somehow I couldn't. But I
said nothing. None of us said anything. We sat about that big
round table as if assembled for a conference and looked at each
other in a sort of fatuous consternation. I would have ended by
laughing outright if I had not been saved from that impropriety by
poor Fyne becoming preposterous.

He began with grave anguish to talk of going to the police in the
morning, of printing descriptive bills, of setting people to drag
the ponds for miles around. It was extremely gruesome. I murmured
something about communicating with the young lady's relatives. It
seemed to me a very natural suggestion; but Fyne and his wife
exchanged such a significant glance that I felt as though I had made
a tactless remark.

But I really wanted to help poor Fyne; and as I could see that,
manlike, he suffered from the present inability to act, the passive
waiting, I said: "Nothing of this can be done till to-morrow. But
as you have given me an insight into the nature of your thoughts I
can tell you what may be done at once. We may go and look at the
bottom of the old quarry which is on the level of the road, about a
mile from here."

The couple made big eyes at this, and then I told them of my meeting
with the girl. You may be surprised but I assure you I had not
perceived this aspect of it till that very moment. It was like a
startling revelation; the past throwing a sinister light on the
future. Fyne opened his mouth gravely and as gravely shut it.
Nothing more. Mrs. Fyne said, "You had better go," with an air as
if her self-possession had been pricked with a pin in some secret
place.

And I--you know how stupid I can be at times--I perceived with
dismay for the first time that by pandering to Fyne's morbid fancies
I had let myself in for some more severe exercise. And wasn't I
sorry I spoke! You know how I hate walking--at least on solid,
rural earth; for I can walk a ship's deck a whole foggy night
through, if necessary, and think little of it. There is some
satisfaction too in playing the vagabond in the streets of a big
town till the sky pales above the ridges of the roofs. I have done
that repeatedly for pleasure--of a sort. But to tramp the
slumbering country-side in the dark is for me a wearisome nightmare
of exertion.

With perfect detachment Mrs. Fyne watched me go out after her
husband. That woman was flint.

The fresh night had a smell of soil, of turned-up sods like a grave-
-an association particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of
confinement and narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope
of being buried at sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up
consciously after he has been, as it does happen, decoyed by some
chance into the toils of the land. A strong grave-like sniff. The
ditch by the side of the road must have been freshly dug in front of
the cottage.

Once clear of the garden Fyne gathered way like a racing cutter.
What was a mile to him--or twenty miles? You think he might have
gone shrinkingly on such an errand. But not a bit of it. The force
of pedestrian genius I suppose. I raced by his side in a mood of
profound self-derision, and infinitely vexed with that minx.
Because dead or alive I thought of her as a minx . . ."

I smiled incredulously at Marlow's ferocity; but Marlow pausing with
a whimsically retrospective air, never flinched.

"Yes, yes. Even dead. And now you are shocked. You see, you are
such a chivalrous masculine beggar. But there is enough of the
woman in my nature to free my judgment of women from glamorous
reticency. And then, why should I upset myself? A woman is not
necessarily either a doll or an angel to me. She is a human being,
very much like myself. And I have come across too many dead souls
lying so to speak at the foot of high unscaleable places for a
merely possible dead body at the bottom of a quarry to strike my
sincerity dumb.

The cliff-like face of the quarry looked forbiddingly impressive. I
will admit that Fyne and I hung back for a moment before we made a
plunge off the road into the bushes growing in a broad space at the
foot of the towering limestone wall. These bushes were heavy with
dew. There were also concealed mudholes in there. We crept and
tumbled and felt about with our hands along the ground. We got wet,
scratched, and plastered with mire all over our nether garments.
Fyne fell suddenly into a strange cavity--probably a disused lime-
kiln. His voice uplifted in grave distress sounded more than
usually rich, solemn and profound. This was the comic relief of an
absurdly dramatic situation. While hauling him out I permitted
myself to laugh aloud at last. Fyne, of course, didn't.

I need not tell you that we found nothing after a most conscientious
search. Fyne even pushed his way into a decaying shed half-buried
in dew-soaked vegetation. He struck matches, several of them too,
as if to make absolutely sure that the vanished girl-friend of his
wife was not hiding there. The short flares illuminated his grave,
immovable countenance while I let myself go completely and laughed
in peals.

I asked him if he really and truly supposed that any sane girl would
go and hide in that shed; and if so why?

Disdainful of my mirth he merely muttered his basso-profundo
thankfulness that we had not found her anywhere about there. Having
grown extremely sensitive (an effect of irritation) to the
tonalities, I may say, of this affair, I felt that it was only an
imperfect, reserved, thankfulness, with one eye still on the
possibilities of the several ponds in the neighbourhood. And I
remember I snorted, I positively snorted, at that poor Fyne.

What really jarred upon me was the rate of his walking. Differences
in politics, in ethics and even in aesthetics need not arouse angry
antagonism. One's opinion may change; one's tastes may alter--in
fact they do. One's very conception of virtue is at the mercy of
some felicitous temptation which may be sprung on one any day. All
these things are perpetually on the swing. But a temperamental
difference, temperament being immutable, is the parent of hate.
That's why religious quarrels are the fiercest of all. My
temperament, in matters pertaining to solid land, is the temperament
of leisurely movement, of deliberate gait. And there was that
little Fyne pounding along the road in a most offensive manner; a
man wedded to thick-soled, laced boots; whereas my temperament
demands thin shoes of the lightest kind. Of course there could
never have been question of friendship between us; but under the
provocation of having to keep up with his pace I began to dislike
him actively. I begged sarcastically to know whether he could tell
me if we were engaged in a farce or in a tragedy. I wanted to
regulate my feelings which, I told him, were in an unbecoming state
of confusion.

But Fyne was as impervious to sarcasm as a turtle. He tramped on,
and all he did was to ejaculate twice out of his deep chest,
vaguely, doubtfully.

"I am afraid . . . I am afraid! . . . "

This was tragic. The thump of his boots was the only sound in a
shadowy world. I kept by his side with a comparatively ghostly,
silent tread. By a strange illusion the road appeared to run up
against a lot of low stars at no very great distance, but as we
advanced new stretches of whitey-brown ribbon seemed to come up from
under the black ground. I observed, as we went by, the lamp in my
parlour in the farmhouse still burning. But I did not leave Fyne to
run in and put it out. The impetus of his pedestrian excellence
carried me past in his wake before I could make up my mind.

"Tell me, Fyne," I cried, "you don't think the girl was mad--do
you?"

He answered nothing. Soon the lighted beacon-like window of the
cottage came into view. Then Fyne uttered  a solemn: "Certainly
not," with profound assurance. But immediately after he added a
"Very highly strung young person indeed," which unsettled me again.
Was it a tragedy?

"Nobody ever got up at six o'clock in the morning to commit
suicide," I declared crustily. "It's unheard of! This is a farce."

As a matter of fact it was neither farce nor tragedy.

Coming up to the cottage we had a view of Mrs. Fyne inside still
sitting in the strong light at the round table with folded arms. It
looked as though she had not moved her very head by as much as an
inch since we went away. She was amazing in a sort of unsubtle way;
crudely amazing--I thought. Why crudely? I don't know. Perhaps
because I saw her then in a crude light. I mean this materially--in
the light of an unshaded lamp. Our mental conclusions depend so
much on momentary physical sensations--don't they? If the lamp had
been shaded I should perhaps have gone home after expressing
politely my concern at the Fynes' unpleasant predicament.

Losing a girl-friend in that manner is unpleasant. It is also
mysterious. So mysterious that a certain mystery attaches to the
people to whom such a thing does happen. Moreover I had never
really understood the Fynes; he with his solemnity which extended to
the very eating of bread and butter; she with that air of detachment
and resolution in breasting the common-place current of their
unexciting life, in which the cutting of bread and butter appeared
to me, by a long way, the most dangerous episode. Sometimes I
amused myself by supposing that to their minds this world of ours
must be wearing a perfectly overwhelming aspect, and that their
heads contained respectively awfully serious and extremely desperate
thoughts--and trying to imagine what an exciting time they must be
having of it in the inscrutable depths of their being. This last
was difficult to a volatile person (I am sure that to the Fynes I
was a volatile person) and the amusement in itself was not very
great; but still--in the country--away from all mental stimulants! .
. . My efforts had invested them with a sort of amusing profundity.

But when Fyne and I got back into the room, then in the searching,
domestic, glare of the lamp, inimical to the play of fancy, I saw
these two stripped of every vesture it had amused me to put on them
for fun. Queer enough they were. Is there a human being that isn't
that--more or less secretly? But whatever their secret, it was
manifest to me that it was neither subtle nor profound. They were a
good, stupid, earnest couple and very much bothered. They were
that--with the usual unshaded crudity of average people. There was
nothing in them that the lamplight might not touch without the
slightest risk of indiscretion.

Directly we had entered the room Fyne announced the result by saying
"Nothing" in the same tone as at the gate on his return from the
railway station. And as then Mrs. Fyne uttered an incisive "It's
what I've said," which might have been the veriest echo of her words
in the garden. We three looked at each other as if on the brink of
a disclosure. I don't know whether she was vexed at my presence.
It could hardly be called intrusion--could it? Little Fyne began
it. It had to go on. We stood before her, plastered with the same
mud (Fyne was a sight!), scratched by the same brambles, conscious
of the same experience. Yes. Before her. And she looked at us
with folded arms, with an extraordinary fulness of assumed
responsibility. I addressed her.

"You don't believe in an accident, Mrs. Fyne, do you?"

She shook her head in curt negation while, caked in mud and
inexpressibly serious-faced, Fyne seemed to be backing her up with
all the weight of his solemn presence. Nothing more absurd could be
conceived. It was delicious. And I went on in deferential accents:
"Am I to understand then that you entertain the theory of suicide?"

I don't know that I am liable to fits of delirium but by a sudden
and alarming aberration while waiting for her answer I became
mentally aware of three trained dogs dancing on their hind legs. I
don't know why. Perhaps because of the pervading solemnity.
There's nothing more solemn on earth than a dance of trained dogs.

"She has chosen to disappear. That's all."

In these words Mrs. Fyne answered me. The aggressive tone was too
much for my endurance. In an instant I found myself out of the
dance and down on all-fours so to speak, with liberty to bark and
bite.

"The devil she has," I cried. "Has chosen to . . . Like this, all
at once, anyhow, regardless . . . I've had the privilege of meeting
that reckless and brusque young lady and I must say that with her
air of an angry victim . . . "

"Precisely," Mrs. Fyne said very unexpectedly like a steel trap
going off. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on
to finish my tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most
inconsiderate wrong-headed girl that I ever . . . "

"Why should a girl be more considerate than anyone else? More than
any man, for instance?" inquired Mrs. Fyne with a still greater
assertion of responsibility in her bearing.

Of course I exclaimed at this, not very loudly it is true, but
forcibly. Were then the feelings of friends, relations and even of
strangers to be disregarded? I asked Mrs. Fyne if she did not think
it was a sort of duty to show elementary consideration not only for
the natural feelings but even for the prejudices of one's fellow-
creatures.

Her answer knocked me over.

"Not for a woman."

Just like that. I confess that I went down flat. And while in that
collapsed state I learned the true nature of Mrs. Fyne's feminist
doctrine. It was not political, it was not social. It was a knock-
me-down doctrine--a practical individualistic doctrine. You would
not thank me for expounding it to you at large. Indeed I think that
she herself did not enlighten me fully. There must have been things
not fit for a man to hear. But shortly, and as far as my
bewilderment allowed me to grasp its naive atrociousness, it was
something like this: that no consideration, no delicacy, no
tenderness, no scruples should stand in the way of a woman (who by
the mere fact of her sex was the predestined victim of conditions
created by men's selfish passions, their vices and their abominable
tyranny) from taking the shortest cut towards securing for herself
the easiest possible existence. She had even the right to go out of
existence without considering anyone's feelings or convenience since
some women's existences were made impossible by the shortsighted
baseness of men.

I looked at her, sitting before the lamp at one o'clock in the
morning, with her mature, smooth-cheeked face of masculine shape
robbed of its freshness by fatigue; at her eyes dimmed by this
senseless vigil. I looked also at Fyne; the mud was drying on him;
he was obviously tired. The weariness of solemnity. But he
preserved an unflinching, endorsing, gravity of expression.
Endorsing it all as became a good, convinced husband.

"Oh! I see," I said. "No consideration . . . Well I hope you like
it."

They amused me beyond the wildest imaginings of which I was capable.
After the first shock, you understand, I recovered very quickly.
The order of the world was safe enough. He was a civil servant and
she his good and faithful wife. But when it comes to dealing with
human beings anything, anything may be expected. So even my
astonishment did not last very long. How far she developed and
illustrated that conscienceless and austere doctrine to the girl-
friends, who were mere transient shadows to her husband, I could not
tell. Any length I supposed. And he looked on, acquiesced,
approved, just for that very reason--because these pretty girls were
but shadows to him. O! Most virtuous Fyne! He cast his eyes down.
He didn't like it. But I eyed him with hidden animosity for he had
got me to run after him under somewhat false pretences.

Mrs. Fyne had only smiled at me very expressively, very self-
confidently. "Oh I quite understand that you accept the fullest
responsibility," I said. "I am the only ridiculous person in this--
this--I don't know how to call it--performance. However, I've
nothing more to do here, so I'll say good-night--or good morning,
for it must be past one."

But before departing, in common decency, I offered to take any wires
they might write. My lodgings were nearer the post-office than the
cottage and I would send them off the first thing in the morning. I
supposed they would wish to communicate, if only as to the disposal
of the luggage, with the young lady's relatives . . .

Fyne, he looked rather downcast by then, thanked me and declined.

"There is really no one," he said, very grave.

"No one," I exclaimed.

"Practically," said curt Mrs. Fyne.

And my curiosity was aroused again.

"Ah! I see. An orphan."

Mrs. Fyne looked away weary and sombre, and Fyne said "Yes"
impulsively, and then qualified the affirmative by the quaint
statement: "To a certain extent."

I became conscious of a languid, exhausted embarrassment, bowed to
Mrs. Fyne, and went out of the cottage to be confronted outside its
door by the bespangled, cruel revelation of the Immensity of the
Universe. The night was not sufficiently advanced for the stars to
have paled; and the earth seemed to me more profoundly asleep--
perhaps because I was alone now. Not having Fyne with me to set the
pace I let myself drift, rather than walk, in the direction of the
farmhouse. To drift is the only reposeful sort of motion (ask any
ship if it isn't) and therefore consistent with thoughtfulness. And
I pondered: How is one an orphan "to a certain extent"?

No amount of solemnity could make such a statement other than
bizarre. What a strange condition to be in. Very likely one of the
parents only was dead? But no; it couldn't be, since Fyne had said
just before that "there was really no one" to communicate with. No
one! And then remembering Mrs. Fyne's snappy "Practically" my
thoughts fastened upon that lady as a more tangible object of
speculation.

I wondered--and wondering I doubted--whether she really understood
herself the theory she had propounded to me. Everything may be
said--indeed ought to be said--providing we know how to say it. She
probably did not. She was not intelligent enough for that. She had
no knowledge of the world. She had got hold of words as a child
might get hold of some poisonous pills and play with them for "dear,
tiny little marbles."  No! The domestic-slave daughter of Carleon
Anthony and the little Fyne of the Civil Service (that flower of
civilization) were not intelligent people. They were commonplace,
earnest, without smiles and without guile. But he had his
solemnities and she had her reveries, her lurid, violent, crude
reveries. And I thought with some sadness that all these revolts
and indignations, all these protests, revulsions of feeling, pangs
of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness of sensual
beings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour,
sensations--the only riches of our world of senses. A poet may be a
simple being but he is bound to be various and full of wiles,
ingenious and irritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the
ingenuity of the late bard of civilization would be able to invent
for the tormenting of his dependants. Poets not being generally
foresighted in practical affairs, no vision of consequences would
restrain him. Yes. The Fynes were excellent people, but Mrs. Fyne
wasn't the daughter of a domestic tyrant for nothing. There were no
limits to her revolt. But they were excellent people. It was clear
that they must have been extremely good to that girl whose position
in the world seemed somewhat difficult, with her face of a victim,
her obvious lack of resignation and the bizarre status of orphan "to
a certain extent."

Such were my thoughts, but in truth I soon ceased to trouble about
all these people. I found that my lamp had gone out leaving behind
an awful smell. I fled from it up the stairs and went to bed in the
dark. My slumbers--I suppose the one good in pedestrian exercise,
confound it, is that it helps our natural callousness--my slumbers
were deep, dreamless and refreshing.

My appetite at breakfast was not affected by my ignorance of the
facts, motives, events and conclusions. I think that to understand
everything is not good for the intellect. A well-stocked
intelligence weakens the impulse to action; an overstocked one leads
gently to idiocy. But Mrs. Fyne's individualist woman-doctrine,
naively unscrupulous, flitted through my mind. The salad of
unprincipled notions she put into these girl-friends' heads! Good
innocent creature, worthy wife, excellent mother (of the strict
governess type), she was as guileless of consequences as any
determinist philosopher ever was.

As to honour--you know--it's a very fine medieval inheritance which
women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. Since it may be laid as
a general principle that women always get what they want we must
suppose they didn't want it. In addition they are devoid of
decency. I mean masculine decency. Cautiousness too is foreign to
them--the heavy reasonable cautiousness which is our glory. And if
they had it they would make of it a thing of passion, so that its
own mother--I mean the mother of cautiousness--wouldn't recognize
it. Prudence with them is a matter of thrill like the rest of
sublunary contrivances. "Sensation at any cost," is their secret
device. All the virtues are not enough for them; they want also all
the crimes for their own. And why? Because in such completeness
there is power--the kind of thrill they love most . . . "

"Do you expect me to agree to all this?" I interrupted.

"No, it isn't necessary," said Marlow, feeling the check to his
eloquence but with a great effort at amiability. "You need not even
understand it. I continue: with such disposition what prevents
women--to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied
descriptively to his captain--what prevents them from "coming on
deck and playing hell with the ship" generally, is that something in
them precise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as
inspiration; their femininity in short which they think they can get
rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never will. Therefore we may
conclude that, for all their enterprises, the world is and remains
safe enough. Feeling, in my character of a lover of peace, soothed
by that conclusion I prepared myself to enjoy a fine day.

And it was a fine day; a delicious day, with the horror of the
Infinite veiled by the splendid tent of blue; a day innocently
bright like a child with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young
girl, suave in welcoming one's respects like--like a Roman prelate.
I love such days. They are perfection for remaining indoors. And I
enjoyed it temperamentally in a chair, my feet up on the sill of the
open window, a book in my hands and the murmured harmonies of wind
and sun in my heart making an accompaniment to the rhythms of my
author. Then looking up from the page I saw outside a pair of grey
eyes thatched by ragged yellowy-white eyebrows gazing at me solemnly
over the toes of my slippers. There was a grave, furrowed brow
surmounting that portentous gaze, a brown tweed cap set far back on
the perspiring head.

"Come inside," I cried as heartily as my sinking heart would permit.

After a short but severe scuffle with his dog at the outer door,
Fyne entered. I treated him without ceremony and only waved my hand
towards a chair. Even before he sat down he gasped out:

"We've heard--midday post."

Gasped out! The grave, immovable Fyne of the Civil Service, gasped!
This was enough, you'll admit, to cause me to put my feet to the
ground swiftly. That fellow was always making me do things in
subtle discord with my meditative temperament. No wonder that I had
but a qualified liking for him. I said with just a suspicion of
jeering tone:

"Of course. I told you last night on the road that it was a farce
we were engaged in."

He made the little parlour resound to its foundations with a note of
anger positively sepulchral in its depth of tone. "Farce be hanged!
She has bolted with my wife's brother, Captain Anthony."  This
outburst was followed by complete subsidence. He faltered miserably
as he added from force of habit: "The son of the poet, you know."

A silence fell. Fyne's several expressions were so many examples of
varied consistency. This was the discomfiture of solemnity. My
interest of course was revived.

"But hold on," I said. "They didn't go together. Is it a suspicion
or does she actually say that . . . "

"She has gone after him," stated Fyne in comminatory tones. "By
previous arrangement. She confesses that much."

He added that it was very shocking. I asked him whether he should
have preferred them going off together; and on what ground he based
that preference. This was sheer fun for me in regard of the fact
that Fyne's too was a runaway match, which even got into the papers
in its time, because the late indignant poet had no discretion and
sought to avenge this outrage publicly in some absurd way before a
bewigged judge. The dejected gesture of little Fyne's hand disarmed
my mocking mood. But I could not help expressing my surprise that
Mrs. Fyne had not detected at once what was brewing. Women were
supposed to have an unerring eye.

He told me that his wife had been very much engaged in a certain
work. I had always wondered how she occupied her time. It was in
writing. Like her husband she too published a little book. Much
later on I came upon it. It had nothing to do with pedestrianism.
It was a sort of hand-book for women with grievances (and all women
had them), a sort of compendious theory and practice of feminine
free morality. It made you laugh at its transparent simplicity.
But that authorship was revealed to me much later. I didn't of
course ask Fyne what work his wife was engaged on; but I marvelled
to myself at her complete ignorance of the world, of her own sex and
of the other kind of sinners. Yet, where could she have got any
experience? Her father had kept her strictly cloistered. Marriage
with Fyne was certainly a change but only to another kind of
claustration. You may tell me that the ordinary powers of
observation ought to have been enough. Why, yes! But, then, as she
had set up for a guide and teacher, there was nothing surprising for
me in the discovery that she was blind. That's quite in order. She
was a profoundly innocent person; only it would not have been proper
to tell her husband so.

CHAPTER THREE--THRIFT--AND THE CHILD

But there was nothing improper in my observing to Fyne that, last
night, Mrs. Fyne seemed to have some idea where that enterprising
young lady had gone to. Fyne shook his head. No; his wife had been
by no means so certain as she had pretended to be. She merely had
her reasons to think, to hope, that the girl might have taken a room
somewhere in London, had buried herself in town--in readiness or
perhaps in horror of the approaching day -

He ceased and sat solemnly dejected, in a brown study. "What day?"
I asked at last; but he did not hear me apparently. He diffused
such portentous gloom into the atmosphere that I lost patience with
him.

"What on earth are you so dismal about?" I cried, being genuinely
surprised and puzzled. "One would think the girl was a state
prisoner under your care."

And suddenly I became still more surprised at myself, at the way I
had somehow taken for granted things which did appear queer when one
thought them out.

"But why this secrecy? Why did they elope--if it is an elopement?
Was the girl afraid of your wife? And your brother-in-law? What on
earth possesses him to make a clandestine match of it? Was he
afraid of your wife too?"

Fyne made an effort to rouse himself.

"Of course my brother-in-law, Captain Anthony, the son of . . . "
He checked himself as if trying to break a bad habit. "He would be
persuaded by her. We have been most friendly to the girl!"

"She struck me as a foolish and inconsiderate little person. But
why should you and your wife take to heart so strongly mere folly--
or even a want of consideration?"

"It's the most unscrupulous action," declared Fyne weightily--and
sighed.

"I suppose she is poor," I observed after a short silence. "But
after all . . . "

"You don't know who she is."  Fyne had regained his average
solemnity.

I confessed that I had not caught her name when his wife had
introduced us to each other. "It was something beginning with an S-
wasn't it?"  And then with the utmost coolness Fyne remarked that it
did not matter. The name was not her name.

"Do you mean to say that you made a young lady known to me under a
false name?" I asked, with the amused feeling that the days of
wonders and portents had not passed away yet. That the eminently
serious Fynes should do such an exceptional thing was simply
staggering. With a more hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne
was sure that I would not demand an apology for this irregularity if
I knew what her real name was. A sort of warmth crept into his deep
tone.

"We have tried to befriend that girl in every way. She is the
daughter and only child of de Barral."

Evidently he expected to produce a sensation; he kept his eyes fixed
upon me prepared for some sign of it. But I merely returned his
intense, awaiting gaze. For a time we stared at each other.
Conscious of being reprehensibly dense I groped in the darkness of
my mind: De Barral, De Barral--and all at once noise and light
burst on me as if a window of my memory had been suddenly flung open
on a street in the City. De Barral! But could it be the same?
Surely not!

"The financier?" I suggested half incredulous.

"Yes," said Fyne; and in this instance his native solemnity of tone
seemed to be strangely appropriate. "The convict."

Marlow looked at me, significantly, and remarked in an explanatory
tone:

"One somehow never thought of de Barral as having any children, or
any other home than the offices of the "Orb"; or any other
existence, associations or interests than financial. I see you
remember the crash . . . "

"I was away in the Indian Seas at the time," I said. "But of
course--"

"Of course," Marlow struck in. "All the world . . . You may wonder
at my slowness in recognizing the name. But you know that my memory
is merely a mausoleum of proper names. There they lie inanimate,
awaiting the magic touch--and not very prompt in arising when
called, either. The name is the first thing I forget of a man. It
is but just to add that frequently it is also the last, and this
accounts for my possession of a good many anonymous memories. In de
Barral's case, he got put away in my mausoleum in company with so
many names of his own creation that really he had to throw off a
monstrous heap of grisly bones before he stood before me at the call
of the wizard Fyne. The fellow had a pretty fancy in names: the
"Orb" Deposit Bank, the "Sceptre" Mutual Aid Society, the "Thrift
and Independence" Association. Yes, a very pretty taste in names;
and nothing else besides--absolutely nothing--no other merit. Well
yes. He had another name, but that's pure luck--his own name of de
Barral which he did not invent. I don't think that a mere Jones or
Brown could have fished out from the depths of the Incredible such a
colossal manifestation of human folly as that man did. But it may
be that I am underestimating the alacrity of human folly in rising
to the bait. No doubt I am. The greed of that absurd monster is
incalculable, unfathomable, inconceivable. The career of de Barral
demonstrates that it will rise to a naked hook. He didn't lure it
with a fairy tale. He hadn't enough imagination for it . . . "

"Was he a foreigner?" I asked. "It's clearly a French name. I
suppose it WAS his name?"

"Oh, he didn't invent it. He was born to it, in Bethnal Green, as
it came out during the proceedings. He was in the habit of alluding
to his Scotch connections. But every great man has done that. The
mother, I believe, was Scotch, right enough. The father de Barral
whatever his origins retired from the Customs Service (tide-waiter I
think), and started lending money in a very, very small way in the
East End to people connected with the docks, stevedores, minor
barge-owners, ship-chandlers, tally clerks, all sorts of very small
fry. He made his living at it. He was a very decent man I believe.
He had enough influence to place his only son as junior clerk in the
account department of one of the Dock Companies. "Now, my boy," he
said to him, "I've given you a fine start."  But de Barral didn't
start. He stuck. He gave perfect satisfaction. At the end of
three years he got a small rise of salary and went out courting in
the evenings. He went courting the daughter of an old sea-captain
who was a churchwarden of his parish and lived in an old badly
preserved Georgian house with a garden: one of these houses
standing in a reduced bit of "grounds" that you discover in a
labyrinth of the most sordid streets, exactly alike and composed of
six-roomed hutches.

Some of them were the vicarages of slum parishes. The old sailor
had got hold of one cheap, and de Barral got hold of his daughter--
which was a good bargain for him. The old sailor was very good to
the young couple and very fond of their little girl. Mrs. de Barral
was an equable, unassuming woman, at that time with a fund of simple
gaiety, and with no ambitions; but, woman-like, she longed for
change and for something interesting to happen now and then. It was
she who encouraged de Barral to accept the offer of a post in the
west-end branch of a great bank. It appears he shrank from such a
great adventure for a long time. At last his wife's arguments
prevailed. Later on she used to say: 'It's the only time he ever
listened to me; and I wonder now if it hadn't been better for me to
die before I ever made him go into that bank.'

You may be surprised at my knowledge of these details. Well, I had
them ultimately from Mrs. Fyne. Mrs. Fyne while yet Miss Anthony,
in her days of bondage, knew Mrs. de Barral in her days of exile.
Mrs. de Barral was living then in a big stone mansion with mullioned
windows in a large damp park, called the Priory, adjoining the
village where the refined poet had built himself a house.

These were the days of de Barral's success. He had bought the place
without ever seeing it and had packed off his wife and child at once
there to take possession. He did not know what to do with them in
London. He himself had a suite of rooms in an hotel. He gave there
dinner parties followed by cards in the evening. He had developed
the gambling passion--or else a mere card mania--but at any rate he
played heavily, for relaxation, with a lot of dubious hangers on.

Meantime Mrs. de Barral, expecting him every day, lived at the
Priory, with a carriage and pair, a governess for the child and many
servants. The village people would see her through the railings
wandering under the trees with her little girl lost in her strange
surroundings. Nobody ever came near her. And there she died as
some faithful and delicate animals die--from neglect, absolutely
from neglect, rather unexpectedly and without any fuss. The village
was sorry for her because, though obviously worried about something,
she was good to the poor and was always ready for a chat with any of
the humble folks. Of course they knew that she wasn't a lady--not
what you would call a real lady. And even her acquaintance with
Miss Anthony was only a cottage-door, a village-street acquaintance.
Carleon Anthony was a tremendous aristocrat (his father had been a
"restoring" architect) and his daughter was not allowed to associate
with anyone but the county young ladies. Nevertheless in defiance
of the poet's wrathful concern for undefiled refinement there were
some quiet, melancholy strolls to and fro in the great avenue of
chestnuts leading to the park-gate, during which Mrs. de Barral came
to call Miss Anthony 'my dear'--and even 'my poor dear.'  The lonely
soul had no one to talk to but that not very happy girl. The
governess despised her. The housekeeper was distant in her manner.
Moreover Mrs. de Barral was no foolish gossiping woman. But she
made some confidences to Miss Anthony. Such wealth was a terrific
thing to have thrust upon one she affirmed. Once she went so far as
to confess that she was dying with anxiety. Mr. de Barral (so she
referred to him) had been an excellent husband and an exemplary
father but "you see my dear I have had a great experience of him. I
am sure he won't know what to do with all that money people are
giving to him to take care of for them. He's as likely as not to do
something rash. When he comes here I must have a good long serious
talk with him, like the talks we often used to have together in the
good old times of our life."  And then one day a cry of anguish was
wrung from her: 'My dear, he will never come here, he will never,
never come!'

She was wrong. He came to the funeral, was extremely cut up, and
holding the child tightly by the hand wept bitterly at the side of
the grave. Miss Anthony, at the cost of a whole week of sneers and
abuse from the poet, saw it all with her own eyes. De Barral clung
to the child like a drowning man. He managed, though, to catch the
half-past five fast train, travelling to town alone in a reserved
compartment, with all the blinds down . . . "

"Leaving the child?" I said interrogatively.

"Yes. Leaving . . . He shirked the problem. He was born that way.
He had no idea what to do with her or for that matter with anything
or anybody including himself. He bolted back to his suite of rooms
in the hotel. He was the most helpless . . . She might have been
left in the Priory to the end of time had not the high-toned
governess threatened to send in her resignation. She didn't care
for the child a bit, and the lonely, gloomy Priory had got on her
nerves. She wasn't going to put up with such a life and, having
just come out of some ducal family, she bullied de Barral in a very
lofty fashion. To pacify her he took a splendidly furnished house
in the most expensive part of Brighton for them, and now and then
ran down for a week-end, with a trunk full of exquisite sweets and
with his hat full of money. The governess spent it for him in extra
ducal style. She was nearly forty and harboured a secret taste for
patronizing young men of sorts--of a certain sort. But of that Mrs.
Fyne of course had no personal knowledge then; she told me however
that even in the Priory days she had suspected her of being an
artificial, heartless, vulgar-minded woman with the lowest possible
ideals. But de Barral did not know it. He literally did not know
anything . . . "

"But tell me, Marlow," I interrupted, "how do you account for this
opinion? He must have been a personality in a sense--in some one
sense surely. You don't work the greatest material havoc of a
decade at least, in a commercial community, without having something
in you."

Marlow shook his head.

"He was a mere sign, a portent. There was nothing in him. Just
about that time the word Thrift was to the fore. You know the power
of words. We pass through periods dominated by this or that word--
it may be development, or it may be competition, or education, or
purity or efficiency or even sanctity. It is the word of the time.
Well just then it was the word Thrift which was out in the streets
walking arm in arm with righteousness, the inseparable companion and
backer up of all such national catch-words, looking everybody in the
eye as it were. The very drabs of the pavement, poor things, didn't
escape the fascination . . . However! . . . Well the greatest
portion of the press were screeching in all possible tones, like a
confounded company of parrots instructed by some devil with a taste
for practical jokes, that the financier de Barral was helping the
great moral evolution of our character towards the newly-discovered
virtue of Thrift. He was helping it by all these great
establishments of his, which made the moral merits of Thrift
manifest to the most callous hearts, simply by promising to pay ten
per cent. interest on all deposits. And you didn't want necessarily
to belong to the well-to-do classes in order to participate in the
advantages of virtue. If you had but a spare sixpence in the world
and went and gave it to de Barral it was Thrift! It's quite likely
that he himself believed it. He must have. It's inconceivable that
he alone should stand out against the infatuation of the whole
world. He hadn't enough intelligence for that. But to look at him
one couldn't tell . . . "

"You did see him then?" I said with some curiosity.

"I did. Strange, isn't it? It was only once, but as I sat with the
distressed Fyne who had suddenly resuscitated his name buried in my
memory with other dead labels of the past, I may say I saw him
again, I saw him with great vividness of recollection, as he
appeared in the days of his glory or splendour. No! Neither of
these words will fit his success. There was never any glory or
splendour about that figure. Well, let us say in the days when he
was, according to the majority of the daily press, a financial force
working for the improvement of the character of the people. I'll
tell you how it came about.

At that time I used to know a podgy, wealthy, bald little man having
chambers in the Albany; a financier too, in his way, carrying out
transactions of an intimate nature and of no moral character; mostly
with young men of birth and expectations--though I dare say he
didn't withhold his ministrations from elderly plebeians either. He
was a true democrat; he would have done business (a sharp kind of
business) with the devil himself. Everything was fly that came into
his web. He received the applicants in an alert, jovial fashion
which was quite surprising. It gave relief without giving too much
confidence, which was just as well perhaps. His business was
transacted in an apartment furnished like a drawing-room, the walls
hung with several brown, heavily-framed, oil paintings. I don't
know if they were good, but they were big, and with their elaborate,
tarnished gilt-frames had a melancholy dignity. The man himself sat
at a shining, inlaid writing table which looked like a rare piece
from a museum of art; his chair had a high, oval, carved back,
upholstered in faded tapestry; and these objects made of the costly
black Havana cigar, which he rolled incessantly from the middle to
the left corner of his mouth and back again, an inexpressibly cheap
and nasty object. I had to see him several times in the interest of
a poor devil so unlucky that he didn't even have a more competent
friend than myself to speak for him at a very difficult time in his
life.

I don't know at what hour my private financier began his day, but he
used to give one appointments at unheard of times: such as a
quarter to eight in the morning, for instance. On arriving one
found him busy at that marvellous writing table, looking very fresh
and alert, exhaling a faint fragrance of scented soap and with the
cigar already well alight. You may believe that I entered on my
mission with many unpleasant forebodings; but there was in that fat,
admirably washed, little man such a profound contempt for mankind
that it amounted to a species of good nature; which, unlike the milk
of genuine kindness, was never in danger of turning sour. Then,
once, during a pause in business, while we were waiting for the
production of a document for which he had sent (perhaps to the
cellar?) I happened to remark, glancing round the room, that I had
never seen so many fine things assembled together out of a
collection. Whether this was unconscious diplomacy on my part, or
not, I shouldn't like to say--but the remark was true enough, and it
pleased him extremely. "It IS a collection," he said emphatically.
"Only I live right in it, which most collectors don't. But I see
that you know what you are looking at. Not many people who come
here on business do. Stable fittings are more in their way."

I don't know whether my appreciation helped to advance my friend's
business but at any rate it helped our intercourse. He treated me
with a shade of familiarity as one of the initiated.

The last time I called on him to conclude the transaction we were
interrupted by a person, something like a cross between a bookmaker
and a private secretary, who, entering through a door which was not
the anteroom door, walked up and stooped to whisper into his ear.

"Eh? What? Who, did you say?"

The nondescript person stooped and whispered again, adding a little
louder: "Says he won't detain you a moment."

My little man glanced at me, said "Ah! Well," irresolutely. I got
up from my chair and offered to come again later. He looked
whimsically alarmed. "No, no. It's bad enough to lose my money but
I don't want to waste any more of my time over your friend. We must
be done with this to-day. Just go and have a look at that garniture
de cheminee yonder. There's another, something like it, in the
castle of Laeken, but mine's much superior in design."

I moved accordingly to the other side of that big room. The
garniture was very fine. But while pretending to examine it I
watched my man going forward to meet a tall visitor, who said, "I
thought you would be disengaged so early. It's only a word or two"-
-and after a whispered confabulation of no more than a minute,
reconduct him to the door and shake hands ceremoniously. "Not at
all, not at all. Very pleased to be of use. You can depend
absolutely on my information"--"Oh thank you, thank you. I just
looked in."  "Certainly, quite right. Any time . . . Good morning."

I had a good look at the visitor while they were exchanging these
civilities. He was clad in black. I remember perfectly that he
wore a flat, broad, black satin tie in which was stuck a large cameo
pin; and a small turn down collar. His hair, discoloured and silky,
curled slightly over his ears. His cheeks were hairless and round,
and apparently soft. He held himself very upright, walked with
small steps and spoke gently in an inward voice. Perhaps from
contrast with the magnificent polish of the room and the neatness of
its owner, he struck me as dingy, indigent, and, if not exactly
humble, then much subdued by evil fortune.

I wondered greatly at my fat little financier's civility to that
dubious personage when he asked me, as we resumed our respective
seats, whether I knew who it was that had just gone out. On my
shaking my head negatively he smiled queerly, said "De Barral," and
enjoyed my surprise. Then becoming grave: "That's a deep fellow,
if you like. We all know where he started from and where he got to;
but nobody knows what he means to do."  He became thoughtful for a
moment and added as if speaking to himself, "I wonder what his game
is."

And, you know, there was no game, no game of any sort, or shape or
kind. It came out plainly at the trial. As I've told you before,
he was a clerk in a bank, like thousands of others. He got that
berth as a second start in life and there he stuck again, giving
perfect satisfaction. Then one day as though a supernatural voice
had whispered into his ear or some invisible fly had stung him, he
put on his hat, went out into the street and began advertising.
That's absolutely all that there was to it. He caught in the street
the word of the time and harnessed it to his preposterous chariot.

One remembers his first modest advertisements headed with the magic
word Thrift, Thrift, Thrift, thrice repeated; promising ten per
cent. on all deposits and giving the address of the Thrift and
Independence Aid Association in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Apparently
nothing more was necessary. He didn't even explain what he meant to
do with the money he asked the public to pour into his lap. Of
course he meant to lend it out at high rates of interest. He did
so--but he did it without system, plan, foresight or judgment. And
as he frittered away the sums that flowed in, he advertised for
more--and got it. During a period of general business prosperity he
set up The Orb Bank and The Sceptre Trust, simply, it seems for
advertising purposes. They were mere names. He was totally unable
to organize anything, to promote any sort of enterprise if it were
only for the purpose of juggling with the shares. At that time he
could have had for the asking any number of Dukes, retired Generals,
active M.P.'s, ex-ambassadors and so on as Directors to sit at the
wildest boards of his invention. But he never tried. He had no
real imagination. All he could do was to publish more
advertisements and open more branch offices of the Thrift and
Independence, of The Orb, of The Sceptre, for the receipt of
deposits; first in this town, then in that town, north and south--
everywhere where he could find suitable premises at a moderate rent.
For this was the great characteristic of the management. Modesty,
moderation, simplicity. Neither The Orb nor The Sceptre nor yet
their parent the Thrift and Independence had built for themselves
the usual palaces. For this abstention they were praised in silly
public prints as illustrating in their management the principle of
Thrift for which they were founded. The fact is that de Barral
simply didn't think of it. Of course he had soon moved from
Vauxhall Bridge Road. He knew enough for that. What he got hold of
next was an old, enormous, rat-infested brick house in a small
street off the Strand. Strangers were taken in front of the meanest
possible, begrimed, yellowy, flat brick wall, with two rows of
unadorned window-holes one above the other, and were exhorted with
bated breath to behold and admire the simplicity of the head-
quarters of the great financial force of the day. The word THRIFT
perched right up on the roof in giant gilt letters, and two enormous
shield-like brass-plates curved round the corners on each side of
the doorway were the only shining spots in de Barral's business
outfit. Nobody knew what operations were carried on inside except
this--that if you walked in and tendered your money over the counter
it would be calmly taken from you by somebody who would give you a
printed receipt. That and no more. It appears that such knowledge
is irresistible. People went in and tendered; and once it was taken
from their hands their money was more irretrievably gone from them
than if they had thrown it into the sea. This then, and nothing
else was being carried on in there . . . "

"Come, Marlow," I said, "you exaggerate surely--if only by your way
of putting things. It's too startling."

"I exaggerate!" he defended himself. "My way of putting things! My
dear fellow I have merely stripped the rags of business verbiage and
financial jargon off my statements. And you are startled! I am
giving you the naked truth. It's true too that nothing lays itself
open to the charge of exaggeration more than the language of naked
truth. What comes with a shock is admitted with difficulty. But
what will you say to the end of his career?

It was of course sensational and tolerably sudden. It began with
the Orb Deposit Bank. Under the name of that institution de Barral
with the frantic obstinacy of an unimaginative man had been
financing an Indian prince who was prosecuting a claim for immense
sums of money against the government. It was an enormous number of
scores of lakhs--a miserable remnant of his ancestors' treasures--
that sort of thing. And it was all authentic enough. There was a
real prince; and the claim too was sufficiently real--only
unfortunately it was not a valid claim. So the prince lost his case
on the last appeal and the beginning of de Barral's end became
manifest to the public in the shape of a half-sheet of note paper
wafered by the four corners on the closed door of The Orb offices
notifying that payment was stopped at that establishment.

Its consort The Sceptre collapsed within the week. I won't say in
American parlance that suddenly the bottom fell out of the whole of
de Barral concerns. There never had been any bottom to it. It was
like the cask of Danaides into which the public had been pleased to
pour its deposits. That they were gone was clear; and the
bankruptcy proceedings which followed were like a sinister farce,
bursts of laughter in a setting of mute anguish--that of the
depositors; hundreds of thousands of them. The laughter was
irresistible; the accompaniment of the bankrupt's public
examination.

I don't know if it was from utter lack of all imagination or from
the possession in undue proportion of a particular kind of it, or
from both--and the three alternatives are possible--but it was
discovered that this man who had been raised to such a height by the
credulity of the public was himself more gullible than any of his
depositors. He had been the prey of all sorts of swindlers,
adventurers, visionaries and even lunatics. Wrapping himself up in
deep and imbecile secrecy he had gone in for the most fantastic
schemes: a harbour and docks on the coast of Patagonia, quarries in
Labrador--such like speculations. Fisheries to feed a canning
Factory on the banks of the Amazon was one of them. A principality
to be bought in Madagascar was another. As the grotesque details of
these incredible transactions came out one by one ripples of
laughter ran over the closely packed court--each one a little louder
than the other. The audience ended by fairly roaring under the
cumulative effect of absurdity. The Registrar laughed, the
barristers laughed, the reporters laughed, the serried ranks of the
miserable depositors watching anxiously every word, laughed like one
man. They laughed hysterically--the poor wretches--on the verge of
tears.

There was only one person who remained unmoved. It was de Barral
himself. He preserved his serene, gentle expression, I am told (for
I have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at the
people with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint to
the world of the man's overweening, unmeasurable conceit, hidden
hitherto under a diffident manner. It could be seen too in his
dogged assertion that if he had been given enough time and a lot
more money everything would have come right. And there were some
people (yes, amongst his very victims) who more than half believed
him, even after the criminal prosecution which soon followed. When
placed in the dock he lost his steadiness as if some sustaining
illusion had gone to pieces within him suddenly. He ceased to be
himself in manner completely, and even in disposition, in so far
that his faded neutral eyes matching his discoloured hair so well,
were discovered then to be capable of expressing a sort of underhand
hate. He was at first defiant, then insolent, then broke down and
burst into tears; but it might have been from rage. Then he calmed
down, returned to his soft manner of speech and to that unassuming
quiet bearing which had been usual with him even in his greatest
days. But it seemed as though in this moment of change he had at
last perceived what a power he had been; for he remarked to one of
the prosecuting counsel who had assumed a lofty moral tone in
questioning him, that--yes, he had gambled--he liked cards. But
that only a year ago a host of smart people would have been only too
pleased to take a hand at cards with him. Yes--he went on--some of
the very people who were there accommodated with seats on the bench;
and turning upon the counsel "You yourself as well," he cried. He
could have had half the town at his rooms to fawn upon him if he had
cared for that sort of thing. "Why, now I think of it, it took me
most of my time to keep people, just of your sort, off me," he ended
with a good humoured--quite unobtrusive, contempt, as though the
fact had dawned upon him for the first time.

This was the moment, the only moment, when he had perhaps all the
audience in Court with him, in a hush of dreary silence. And then
the dreary proceedings were resumed. For all the outside excitement
it was the most dreary of all celebrated trials. The bankruptcy
proceedings had exhausted all the laughter there was in it. Only
the fact of wide-spread ruin remained, and the resentment of a mass
of people for having been fooled by means too simple to save their
self-respect from a deep wound which the cleverness of a consummate
scoundrel would not have inflicted. A shamefaced amazement attended
these proceedings in which de Barral was not being exposed alone.
For himself his only cry was: Time! Time! Time would have set
everything right. In time some of these speculations of his were
certain to have succeeded. He repeated this defence, this excuse,
this confession of faith, with wearisome iteration. Everything he
had done or left undone had been to gain time. He had hypnotized
himself with the word. Sometimes, I am told, his appearance was
ecstatic, his motionless pale eyes seemed to be gazing down the
vista of future ages. Time--and of course, more money. "Ah! If
only you had left me alone for a couple of years more," he cried
once in accents of passionate belief. "The money was coming in all
right."  The deposits you understand--the savings of Thrift. Oh yes
they had been coming in to the very last moment. And he regretted
them. He had arrived to regard them as his own by a sort of
mystical persuasion. And yet it was a perfectly true cry, when he
turned once more on the counsel who was beginning a question with
the words "You have had all these immense sums . . . "  with the
indignant retort "WHAT have I had out of them?"

"It was perfectly true. He had had nothing out of them--nothing of
the prestigious or the desirable things of the earth, craved for by
predatory natures. He had gratified no tastes, had known no luxury;
he had built no gorgeous palaces, had formed no splendid galleries
out of these "immense sums."  He had not even a home. He had gone
into these rooms in an hotel and had stuck there for years, giving
no doubt perfect satisfaction to the management. They had twice
raised his rent to show I suppose their high sense of his
distinguished patronage. He had bought for himself out of all the
wealth streaming through his fingers neither adulation nor love,
neither splendour nor comfort. There was something perfect in his
consistent mediocrity. His very vanity seemed to miss the
gratification of even the mere show of power. In the days when he
was most fully in the public eye the invincible obscurity of his
origins clung to him like a shadowy garment. He had handled
millions without ever enjoying anything of what is counted as
precious in the community of men, because he had neither the
brutality of temperament nor the fineness of mind to make him desire
them with the will power of a masterful adventurer . . . "

"You seem to have studied the man," I observed.,

"Studied," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "No! Not studied. I had
no opportunities. You know that I saw him only on that one occasion
I told you of. But it may be that a glimpse and no more is the
proper way of seeing an individuality; and de Barral was that, in
virtue of his very deficiencies for they made of him something quite
unlike one's preconceived ideas. There were also very few materials
accessible to a man like me to form a judgment from. But in such a
case I verify believe that a little is as good as a feast--perhaps
better. If one has a taste for that kind of thing the merest
starting-point becomes a coign of vantage, and then by a series of
logically deducted verisimilitudes one arrives at truth--or very
near the truth--as near as any circumstantial evidence can do. I
have not studied de Barral but that is how I understand him so far
as he could be understood through the din of the crash; the wailing
and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper contents bills, "The Thrift
Frauds. Cross-examination of the accused. Extra special"--blazing
fiercely; the charitable appeals for the victims, the grave tones of
the dailies rumbling with compassion as if they were the national
bowels. All this lasted a whole week of industrious sittings. A
pressman whom I knew told me "He's an idiot."  Which was possible.
Before that I overheard once somebody declaring that he had a
criminal type of face; which I knew was untrue. The sentence was
pronounced by artificial light in a stifling poisonous atmosphere.
Something edifying was said by the judge weightily, about the
retribution overtaking the perpetrator of "the most heartless frauds
on an unprecedented scale."  I don't understand these things much,
but it appears that he had juggled with accounts, cooked balance
sheets, had gathered in deposits months after he ought to have known
himself to be hopelessly insolvent, and done enough of other things,
highly reprehensible in the eyes of the law, to earn for himself
seven years' penal servitude. The sentence making its way outside
met with a good reception. A small mob composed mainly of people
who themselves did not look particularly clever and scrupulous,
leavened by a slight sprinkling of genuine pickpockets amused itself
by cheering in the most penetrating, abominable cold drizzle that I
remember. I happened to be passing there on my way from the East
End where I had spent my day about the Docks with an old chum who
was looking after the fitting out of a new ship. I am always eager,
when allowed, to call on a new ship. They interest me like charming
young persons.

I got mixed up in that crowd seething with an animosity as senseless
as things of the street always are, and it was while I was
laboriously making my way out of it that the pressman of whom I
spoke was jostled against me. He did me the justice to be
surprised. "What? You here! The last person in the world . . . If
I had known I could have got you inside. Plenty of room. Interest
been over for the last three days. Got seven years. Well, I am
glad."

"Why are you glad? Because he's got seven years?" I asked, greatly
incommoded by the pressure of a hulking fellow who was remarking to
some of his equally oppressive friends that the "beggar ought to
have been poleaxed."  I don't know whether he had ever confided his
savings to de Barral but if so, judging from his appearance, they
must have been the proceeds of some successful burglary. The
pressman by my side said 'No,' to my question. He was glad because
it was all over. He had suffered greatly from the heat and the bad
air of the court. The clammy, raw, chill of the streets seemed to
affect his liver instantly. He became contemptuous and irritable
and plied his elbows viciously making way for himself and me.

A dull affair this. All such cases were dull. No really dramatic
moments. The book-keeping of The Orb and all the rest of them was
certainly a burlesque revelation but the public did not care for
revelations of that kind. Dull dog that de Barral--he grumbled. He
could not or would not take the trouble to characterize for me the
appearance of that man now officially a criminal (we had gone across
the road for a drink) but told me with a sourly, derisive snigger
that, after the sentence had been pronounced the fellow clung to the
dock long enough to make a sort of protest. 'You haven't given me
time. If I had been given time I would have ended by being made a
peer like some of them.'  And he had permitted himself his very
first and last gesture in all these days, raising a hard-clenched
fist above his head.

The pressman disapproved of that manifestation. It was not his
business to understand it. Is it ever the business of any pressman
to understand anything? I guess not. It would lead him too far
away from the actualities which are the daily bread of the public
mind. He probably thought the display worth very little from a
picturesque point of view; the weak voice; the colourless
personality as incapable of an attitude as a bed-post, the very
fatuity of the clenched hand so ineffectual at that time and place--
no, it wasn't worth much. And then, for him, an accomplished
craftsman in his trade, thinking was distinctly "bad business."  His
business was to write a readable account. But I who had nothing to
write, I permitted myself to use my mind as we sat before our still
untouched glasses. And the disclosure which so often rewards a
moment of detachment from mere visual impressions gave me a thrill
very much approaching a shudder. I seemed to understand that, with
the shock of the agonies and perplexities of his trial, the
imagination of that man, whose moods, notions and motives wore
frequently an air of grotesque mystery--that his imagination had
been at last roused into activity. And this was awful. Just try to
enter into the feelings of a man whose imagination wakes up at the
very moment he is about to enter the tomb . . . "

"You must not think," went on Marlow after a pause, "that on that
morning with Fyne I went consciously in my mind over all this, let
us call it information; no, better say, this fund of knowledge which
I had, or rather which existed, in me in regard to de Barral.
Information is something one goes out to seek and puts away when
found as you might do a piece of lead: ponderous, useful,
unvibrating, dull. Whereas knowledge comes to one, this sort of
knowledge, a chance acquisition preserving in its repose a fine
resonant quality . . . But as such distinctions touch upon the
transcendental I shall spare you the pain of listening to them.
There are limits to my cruelty. No! I didn't reckon up carefully
in my mind all this I have been telling you. How could I have done
so, with Fyne right there in the room? He sat perfectly still,
statuesque in homely fashion, after having delivered himself of his
effective assent: "Yes. The convict," and I, far from indulging in
a reminiscent excursion into the past, remained sufficiently in the
present to muse in a vague, absent-minded way on the respectable
proportions and on the (upon the whole) comely shape of his great
pedestrian's calves, for he had thrown one leg over his knee,
carelessly, to conceal the trouble of his mind by an air of ease.
But all the same the knowledge was in me, the awakened resonance of
which I spoke just now; I was aware of it on that beautiful day, so
fresh, so warm and friendly, so accomplished--an exquisite courtesy
of the much abused English climate when it makes up its
meteorological mind to behave like a perfect gentleman. Of course
the English climate is never a rough. It suffers from spleen
somewhat frequently--but that is gentlemanly too, and I don't mind
going to meet him in that mood. He has his days of grey, veiled,
polite melancholy, in which he is very fascinating. How seldom he
lapses into a blustering manner, after all! And then it is mostly
in a season when, appropriately enough, one may go out and kill
something. But his fine days are the best for stopping at home, to
read, to think, to muse--even to dream; in fact to live fully,
intensely and quietly, in the brightness of comprehension, in that
receptive glow of the mind, the gift of the clear, luminous and
serene weather.

That day I had intended to live intensely and quietly, basking in
the weather's glory which would have lent enchantment to the most
unpromising of intellectual prospects. For a companion I had found
a book, not bemused with the cleverness of the day--a fine-weather
book, simple and sincere like the talk of an unselfish friend. But
looking at little Fyne seated in the room I understood that nothing
would come of my contemplative aspirations; that in one way or
another I should be let in for some form of severe exercise.
Walking, it would be, I feared, since, for me, that idea was
inseparably associated with the visual impression of Fyne. Where,
why, how, a rapid striding rush could be brought in helpful relation
to the good Fyne's present trouble and perplexity I could not
imagine; except on the principle that senseless pedestrianism was
Fyne's panacea for all the ills and evils bodily and spiritual of
the universe. It could be of no use for me to say or do anything.
It was bound to come. Contemplating his muscular limb encased in a
golf-stocking, and under the strong impression of the information he
had just imparted I said wondering, rather irrationally:

"And so de Barral had a wife and child! That girl's his daughter.
And how . . . "

Fyne interrupted me by stating again earnestly, as though it were
something not easy to believe, that his wife and himself had tried
to befriend the girl in every way--indeed they had! I did not doubt
him for a moment, of course, but my wonder at this was more
rational. At that hour of the morning, you mustn't forget, I knew
nothing as yet of Mrs. Fyne's contact (it was hardly more) with de
Barral's wife and child during their exile at the Priory, in the
culminating days of that man's fame.

Fyne who had come over, it was clear, solely to talk to me on that
subject, gave me the first hint of this initial, merely out of
doors, connection. "The girl was quite a child then," he continued.
"Later on she was removed out of Mrs. Fyne's reach in charge of a
governess--a very unsatisfactory person," he explained. His wife
had then--h'm--met him; and on her marriage she lost sight of the
child completely. But after the birth of Polly (Polly was the third
Fyne girl) she did not get on very well, and went to Brighton for
some months to recover her strength--and there, one day in the
street, the child (she wore her hair down her back still) recognized
her outside a shop and rushed, actually rushed, into Mrs. Fyne's
arms. Rather touching this. And so, disregarding the cold
impertinence of that . . . h'm . . . governess, his wife naturally
responded.

He was solemnly fragmentary. I broke in with the observation that
it must have been before the crash.

Fyne nodded with deepened gravity, stating in his bass tone -

"Just before," and indulged himself with a weighty period of solemn
silence.

De Barral, he resumed suddenly, was not coming to Brighton for week-
ends regularly, then. Must have been conscious already of the
approaching disaster. Mrs. Fyne avoided being drawn into making his
acquaintance, and this suited the views of the governess person,
very jealous of any outside influence. But in any case it would not
have been an easy matter. Extraordinary, stiff-backed, thin figure
all in black, the observed of all, while walking hand-in-hand with
the girl; apparently shy, but--and here Fyne came very near showing
something like insight--probably nursing under a diffident manner a
considerable amount of secret arrogance. Mrs. Fyne pitied Flora de
Barral's fate long before the catastrophe. Most unfortunate
guidance. Very unsatisfactory surroundings. The girl was known in
the streets, was stared at in public places as if she had been a
sort of princess, but she was kept with a very ominous consistency,
from making any acquaintances--though of course there were many
people no doubt who would have been more than willing to--h'm--make
themselves agreeable to Miss de Barral. But this did not enter into
the plans of the governess, an intriguing person hatching a most
sinister plot under her severe air of distant, fashionable
exclusiveness. Good little Fyne's eyes bulged with solemn horror as
he revealed to me, in agitated speech, his wife's more than
suspicions, at the time, of that, Mrs., Mrs. What's her name's
perfidious conduct. She actually seemed to have--Mrs. Fyne
asserted--formed a plot already to marry eventually her charge to an
impecunious relation of her own--a young man with furtive eyes and
something impudent in his manner, whom that woman called her nephew,
and whom she was always having down to stay with her.

"And perhaps not her nephew. No relation at all"--Fyne emitted with
a convulsive effort this, the most awful part of the suspicions Mrs.
Fyne used to impart to him piecemeal when he came down to spend his
week-ends gravely with her and the children. The Fynes, in their
good-natured concern for the unlucky child of the man busied in
stirring casually so many millions, spent the moments of their
weekly reunion in wondering earnestly what could be done to defeat
the most wicked of conspiracies, trying to invent some tactful line
of conduct in such extraordinary circumstances. I could see them,
simple, and scrupulous, worrying honestly about that unprotected big
girl while looking at their own little girls playing on the sea-
shore. Fyne assured me that his wife's rest was disturbed by the
great problem of interference.

"It was very acute of Mrs. Fyne to spot such a deep game," I said,
wondering to myself where her acuteness had gone to now, to let her
be taken unawares by a game so much simpler and played to the end
under her very nose. But then, at that time, when her nightly rest
was disturbed by the dread of the fate preparing for de Barral's
unprotected child, she was not engaged in writing a compendious and
ruthless hand-book on the theory and practice of life, for the use
of women with a grievance. She could as yet, before the task of
evolving the philosophy of rebellious action had affected her
intuitive sharpness, perceive things which were, I suspect,
moderately plain. For I am inclined to believe that the woman whom
chance had put in command of Flora de Barral's destiny took no very
subtle pains to conceal her game. She was conscious of being a
complete master of the situation, having once for all established
her ascendancy over de Barral. She had taken all her measures
against outside observation of her conduct; and I could not help
smiling at the thought what a ghastly nuisance the serious, innocent
Fynes must have been to her. How exasperated she must have been by
that couple falling into Brighton as completely unforeseen as a bolt
from the blue--if not so prompt. How she must have hated them!

But I conclude she would have carried out whatever plan she might
have formed. I can imagine de Barral accustomed for years to defer
to her wishes and, either through arrogance, or shyness, or simply
because of his unimaginative stupidity, remaining outside the social
pale, knowing no one but some card-playing cronies; I can picture
him to myself terrified at the prospect of having the care of a
marriageable girl thrust on his hands, forcing on him a complete
change of habits and the necessity of another kind of existence
which he would not even have known how to begin. It is evident to
me that Mrs. What's her name would have had her atrocious way with
very little trouble even if the excellent Fynes had been able to do
something. She would simply have bullied de Barral in a lofty
style. There's nothing more subservient than an arrogant man when
his arrogance has once been broken in some particular instance.

However there was no time and no necessity for any one to do
anything. The situation itself vanished in the financial crash as a
building vanishes in an earthquake--here one moment and gone the
next with only an ill-omened, slight, preliminary rumble. Well, to
say 'in a moment' is an exaggeration perhaps; but that everything
was over in just twenty-four hours is an exact statement. Fyne was
able to tell me all about it; and the phrase that would depict the
nature of the change best is: an instant and complete destitution.
I don't understand these matters very well, but from Fyne's
narrative it seemed as if the creditors or the depositors, or the
competent authorities, had got hold in the twinkling of an eye of
everything de Barral possessed in the world, down to his watch and
chain, the money in his trousers' pocket, his spare suits of
clothes, and I suppose the cameo pin out of his black satin cravat.
Everything! I believe he gave up the very wedding ring of his late
wife. The gloomy Priory with its damp park and a couple of farms
had been made over to Mrs. de Barral; but when she died (without
making a will) it reverted to him, I imagine. They got that of
course; but it was a mere crumb in a Sahara of starvation, a drop in
the thirsty ocean. I dare say that not a single soul in the world
got the comfort of as much as a recovered threepenny bit out of the
estate. Then, less than crumbs, less than drops, there were to be
grabbed, the lease of the big Brighton house, the furniture therein,
the carriage and pair, the girl's riding horse, her costly trinkets;
down to the heavily gold-mounted collar of her pedigree St. Bernard.
The dog too went: the most noble-looking item in the beggarly
assets.

What however went first of all or rather vanished was nothing in the
nature of an asset. It was that plotting governess with the trick
of a "perfect lady" manner (severely conventional) and the soul of a
remorseless brigand. When a woman takes to any sort of unlawful
man-trade, there's nothing to beat her in the way of thoroughness.
It's true that you will find people who'll tell you that this
terrific virulence in breaking through all established things, is
altogether the fault of men. Such people will ask you with a clever
air why the servile wars were always the most fierce, desperate and
atrocious of all wars. And you may make such answer as you can--
even the eminently feminine one, if you choose, so typical of the
women's literal mind "I don't see what this has to do with it!"  How
many arguments have been knocked over (I won't say knocked down) by
these few words! For if we men try to put the spaciousness of all
experiences into our reasoning and would fain put the Infinite
itself into our love, it isn't, as some writer has remarked, "It
isn't women's doing."  Oh no. They don't care for these things.
That sort of aspiration is not much in their way; and it shall be a
funny world, the world of their arranging, where the Irrelevant
would fantastically step in to take the place of the sober humdrum
Imaginative . . . "

I raised my hand to stop my friend Marlow.

"Do you really believe what you have said?" I asked, meaning no
offence, because with Marlow one never could be sure.

"Only on certain days of the year," said Marlow readily with a
malicious smile. "To-day I have been simply trying to be spacious
and I perceive I've managed to hurt your susceptibilities which are
consecrated to women. When you sit alone and silent you are
defending in your mind the poor women from attacks which cannot
possibly touch them. I wonder what can touch them? But to soothe
your uneasiness I will point out again that an Irrelevant world
would be very amusing, if the women take care to make it as charming
as they alone can, by preserving for us certain well-known, well-
established, I'll almost say hackneyed, illusions, without which the
average male creature cannot get on. And that condition is very
important. For there is nothing more provoking than the Irrelevant
when it has ceased to amuse and charm; and then the danger would be
of the subjugated masculinity in its exasperation, making some
brusque, unguarded movement and accidentally putting its elbow
through the fine tissue of the world of which I speak. And that
would be fatal to it. For nothing looks more irretrievably
deplorable than fine tissue which has been damaged. The women
themselves would be the first to become disgusted with their own
creation.

There was something of women's highly practical sanity and also of
their irrelevancy in the conduct of Miss de Barral's amazing
governess. It appeared from Fyne's narrative that the day before
the first rumble of the cataclysm the questionable young man arrived
unexpectedly in Brighton to stay with his "Aunt."  To all outward
appearance everything was going on normally; the fellow went out
riding with the girl in the afternoon as he often used to do--a
sight which never failed to fill Mrs. Fyne with indignation. Fyne
himself was down there with his family for a whole week and was
called to the window to behold the iniquity in its progress and to
share in his wife's feelings. There was not even a groom with them.
And Mrs. Fyne's distress was so strong at this glimpse of the
unlucky girl all unconscious of her danger riding smilingly by, that
Fyne began to consider seriously whether it wasn't their plain duty
to interfere at all risks--simply by writing a letter to de Barral.
He said to his wife with a solemnity I can easily imagine "You ought
to undertake that task, my dear. You have known his wife after all.
That's something at any rate."   On the other hand the fear of
exposing Mrs. Fyne to some nasty rebuff worried him exceedingly.
Mrs. Fyne on her side gave way to despondency. Success seemed
impossible. Here was a woman for more than five years in charge of
the girl and apparently enjoying the complete confidence of the
father. What, that would be effective, could one say, without
proofs, without . . . This Mr. de Barral must be, Mrs. Fyne
pronounced, either a very stupid or a downright bad man, to neglect
his child so.

You will notice that perhaps because of Fyne's solemn view of our
transient life and Mrs. Fyne's natural capacity for responsibility,
it had never occurred to them that the simplest way out of the
difficulty was to do nothing and dismiss the matter as no concern of
theirs. Which in a strict worldly sense it certainly was not. But
they spent, Fyne told me, a most disturbed afternoon, considering
the ways and means of dealing with the danger hanging over the head
of the girl out for a ride (and no doubt enjoying herself) with an
abominable scamp.

CHAPTER FOUR--THE GOVERNESS

And the best of it was that the danger was all over already. There
was no danger any more. The supposed nephew's appearance had a
purpose. He had come, full, full to trembling--with the bigness of
his news. There must have been rumours already as to the shaky
position of the de Barral's concerns; but only amongst those in the
very inmost know. No rumour or echo of rumour had reached the
profane in the West-End--let alone in the guileless marine suburb of
Hove. The Fynes had no suspicion; the governess, playing with cold,
distinguished exclusiveness the part of mother to the fabulously
wealthy Miss de Barral, had no suspicion; the masters of music, of
drawing, of dancing to Miss de Barral, had no idea; the minds of her
medical man, of her dentist, of the servants in the house, of the
tradesmen proud of having the name of de Barral on their books, were
in a state of absolute serenity. Thus, that fellow, who had
unexpectedly received a most alarming straight tip from somebody in
the City arrived in Brighton, at about lunch-time, with something
very much in the nature of a deadly bomb in his possession. But he
knew better than to throw it on the public pavement. He ate his
lunch impenetrably, sitting opposite Flora de Barral, and then, on
some excuse, closeted himself with the woman whom little Fyne's
charity described (with a slight hesitation of speech however) as
his "Aunt."

What they said to each other in private we can imagine. She came
out of her own sitting-room with red spots on her cheek-bones, which
having provoked a question from her "beloved" charge, were accounted
for by a curt "I have a headache coming on."  But we may be certain
that the talk being over she must have said to that young
blackguard: "You had better take her out for a ride as usual."  We
have proof positive of this in Fyne and Mrs. Fyne observing them
mount at the door and pass under the windows of their sitting-room,
talking together, and the poor girl all smiles; because she enjoyed
in all innocence the company of Charley. She made no secret of it
whatever to Mrs. Fyne; in fact, she had confided to her, long
before, that she liked him very much: a confidence which had filled
Mrs. Fyne with desolation and that sense of powerless anguish which
is experienced in certain kinds of nightmare. For how could she
warn the girl? She did venture to tell her once that she didn't
like Mr. Charley. Miss de Barral heard her with astonishment. How
was it possible not to like Charley? Afterwards with naive loyalty
she told Mrs. Fyne that, immensely as she was fond of her she could
not hear a word against Charley--the wonderful Charley.

The daughter of de Barral probably enjoyed her jolly ride with the
jolly Charley (infinitely more jolly than going out with a stupid
old riding-master), very much indeed, because the Fynes saw them
coming back at a later hour than usual. In fact it was getting
nearly dark. On dismounting, helped off by the delightful Charley,
she patted the neck of her horse and went up the steps. Her last
ride. She was then within a few days of her sixteenth birthday, a
slight figure in a riding habit, rather shorter than the average
height for her age, in a black bowler hat from under which her fine
rippling dark hair cut square at the ends was hanging well down her
back. The delightful Charley mounted again to take the two horses
round to the mews. Mrs. Fyne remaining at the window saw the house
door close on Miss de Barral returning from her last ride.

And meantime what had the governess (out of a nobleman's family) so
judiciously selected (a lady, and connected with well-known county
people as she said) to direct the studies, guard the health, form
the mind, polish the manners, and generally play the perfect mother
to that luckless child--what had she been doing? Well, having got
rid of her charge by the most natural device possible, which proved
her practical sense, she started packing her belongings, an act
which showed her clear view of the situation. She had worked
methodically, rapidly, and well, emptying the drawers, clearing the
tables in her special apartment of that big house, with something
silently passionate in her thoroughness; taking everything belonging
to her and some things of less unquestionable ownership, a jewelled
penholder, an ivory and gold paper knife (the house was full of
common, costly objects), some chased silver boxes presented by de
Barral and other trifles; but the photograph of Flora de Barral,
with the loving inscription, which stood on her writing desk, of the
most modern and expensive style, in a silver-gilt frame, she
neglected to take. Having accidentally, in the course of the
operations, knocked it off on the floor she let it lie there after a
downward glance. Thus it, or the frame at least, became, I suppose,
part of the assets in the de Barral bankruptcy.

At dinner that evening the child found her company dull and brusque.
It was uncommonly slow. She could get nothing from her governess
but monosyllables, and the jolly Charley actually snubbed the
various cheery openings of his "little chum"--as he used to call her
at times,--but not at that time. No doubt the couple were nervous
and preoccupied. For all this we have evidence, and for the fact
that Flora being offended with the delightful nephew of her
profoundly respected governess sulked through the rest of the
evening and was glad to retire early. Mrs., Mrs.--I've really
forgotten her name--the governess, invited her nephew to her
sitting-room, mentioning aloud that it was to talk over some family
matters. This was meant for Flora to hear, and she heard it--
without the slightest interest. In fact there was nothing
sufficiently unusual in such an invitation to arouse in her mind
even a passing wonder. She went bored to bed and being tired with
her long ride slept soundly all night. Her last sleep, I won't say
of innocence--that word would not render my exact meaning, because
it has a special meaning of its own--but I will say: of that
ignorance, or better still, of that unconsciousness of the world's
ways, the unconsciousness of danger, of pain, of humiliation, of
bitterness, of falsehood. An unconsciousness which in the case of
other beings like herself is removed by a gradual process of
experience and information, often only partial at that, with saving
reserves, softening doubts, veiling theories. Her unconsciousness
of the evil which lives in the secret thoughts and therefore in the
open acts of mankind, whenever it happens that evil thought meets
evil courage; her unconsciousness was to be broken into with profane
violence with desecrating circumstances, like a temple violated by a
mad, vengeful impiety. Yes, that very young girl, almost no more
than a child--this was what was going to happen to her. And if you
ask me, how, wherefore, for what reason? I will answer you: Why,
by chance! By the merest chance, as things do happen, lucky and
unlucky, terrible or tender, important or unimportant; and even
things which are neither, things so completely neutral in character
that you would wonder why they do happen at all if you didn't know
that they, too, carry in their insignificance the seeds of further
incalculable chances.

Of course, all the chances were that de Barral should have fallen
upon a perfectly harmless, naive, usual, inefficient specimen of
respectable governess for his daughter; or on a commonplace silly
adventuress who would have tried, say, to marry him or work some
other sort of common mischief in a small way. Or again he might
have chanced on a model of all the virtues, or the repository of all
knowledge, or anything equally harmless, conventional, and middle
class. All calculations were in his favour; but, chance being
incalculable, he fell upon an individuality whom it is much easier
to define by opprobrious names than to classify in a calm and
scientific spirit--but an individuality certainly, and a temperament
as well. Rare?  No. There is a certain amount of what I would
politely call unscrupulousness in all of us. Think for instance of
the excellent Mrs. Fyne, who herself, and in the bosom of her
family, resembled a governess of a conventional type. Only, her
mental excesses were theoretical, hedged in by so much humane
feeling and conventional reserves, that they amounted to no more
than mere libertinage of thought; whereas the other woman, the
governess of Flora de Barral, was, as you may have noticed, severely
practical--terribly practical. No! Hers was not a rare
temperament, except in its fierce resentment of repression; a
feeling which like genius or lunacy is apt to drive people into
sudden irrelevancy. Hers was feminine irrelevancy. A male genius,
a male ruffian, or even a male lunatic, would not have behaved
exactly as she did behave. There is a softness in masculine nature,
even the most brutal, which acts as a check.

While the girl slept those two, the woman of forty, an age in itself
terrible, and that hopeless young "wrong 'un" of twenty-three (also
well connected I believe) had some sort of subdued row in the
cleared rooms: wardrobes open, drawers half pulled out and empty,
trunks locked and strapped, furniture in idle disarray, and not so
much as a single scrap of paper left behind on the tables. The
maid, whom the governess and the pupil shared between them, after
finishing with Flora, came to the door as usual, but was not
admitted. She heard the two voices in dispute before she knocked,
and then being sent away retreated at once--the only person in the
house convinced at that time that there was "something up."

Dark and, so to speak, inscrutable spaces being met with in life
there must be such places in any statement dealing with life. In
what I am telling you of now--an episode of one of my humdrum
holidays in the green country, recalled quite naturally after all
the years by our meeting a man who has been a blue-water sailor--
this evening confabulation is a dark, inscrutable spot. And we may
conjecture what we like. I have no difficulty in imagining that the
woman--of forty, and the chief of the enterprise--must have raged at
large. And perhaps the other did not rage enough. Youth feels
deeply it is true, but it has not the same vivid sense of lost
opportunities. It believes in the absolute reality of time. And
then, in that abominable scamp with his youth already soiled,
withered like a plucked flower ready to be flung on some rotting
heap of rubbish, no very genuine feeling about anything could exist-
-not even about the hazards of his own unclean existence. A
sneering half-laugh with some such remark as: "We are properly sold
and no mistake" would have been enough to make trouble in that way.
And then another sneer, "Waste time enough over it too," followed
perhaps by the bitter retort from the other party "You seemed to
like it well enough though, playing the fool with that chit of a
girl."  Something of that sort. Don't you see it--eh . . . "

Marlow looked at me with his dark penetrating glance. I was struck
by the absolute verisimilitude of this suggestion. But we were
always tilting at each other. I saw an opening and pushed my
uncandid thrust.

"You have a ghastly imagination," I said with a cheerfully sceptical
smile.

"Well, and if I have," he returned unabashed. "But let me remind
you that this situation came to me unasked. I am like a puzzle-
headed chief-mate we had once in the dear old Samarcand when I was a
youngster. The fellow went gravely about trying to "account to
himself"--his favourite expression--for a lot of things no one would
care to bother one's head about. He was an old idiot but he was
also an accomplished practical seaman. I was quite a boy and he
impressed me. I must have caught the disposition from him."

"Well--go on with your accounting then," I said, assuming an air of
resignation.

"That's just it."  Marlow fell into his stride at once. "That's
just it. Mere disappointed cupidity cannot account for the
proceedings of the next morning; proceedings which I shall not
describe to you--but which I shall tell you of presently, not as a
matter of conjecture but of actual fact. Meantime returning to that
evening altercation in deadened tones within the private apartment
of Miss de Barral's governess, what if I were to tell you that
disappointment had most likely made them touchy with each other, but
that perhaps the secret of his careless, railing behaviour, was in
the thought, springing up within him with an emphatic oath of relief
"Now there's nothing to prevent me from breaking away from that old
woman."  And that the secret of her envenomed rage, not against this
miserable and attractive wretch, but against fate, accident and the
whole course of human life, concentrating its venom on de Barral and
including the innocent girl herself, was in the thought, in the fear
crying within her "Now I have nothing to hold him with . . . "

I couldn't refuse Marlow the tribute of a prolonged whistle "Phew!
So you suppose that . . . "

He waved his hand impatiently.

"I don't suppose. It was so. And anyhow why shouldn't you accept
the supposition. Do you look upon governesses as creatures above
suspicion or necessarily of moral perfection? I suppose their
hearts would not stand looking into much better than other people's.
Why shouldn't a governess have passions, all the passions, even that
of libertinage, and even ungovernable passions; yet suppressed by
the very same means which keep the rest of us in order: early
training--necessity--circumstances--fear of consequences; till there
comes an age, a time when the restraint of years becomes
intolerable--and infatuation irresistible . . . "

"But if infatuation--quite possible I admit," I argued, "how do you
account for the nature of the conspiracy."

"You expect a cogency of conduct not usual in women," said Marlow.
"The subterfuges of a menaced passion are not to be fathomed. You
think it is going on the way it looks, whereas it is capable, for
its own ends, of walking backwards into a precipice.

When one once acknowledges that she was not a common woman, then all
this is easily understood. She was abominable but she was not
common. She had suffered in her life not from its constant
inferiority but from constant self-repression. A common woman
finding herself placed in a commanding position might have formed
the design to become the second Mrs. de Barral. Which would have
been impracticable. De Barral would not have known what to do with
a wife. But even if by some impossible chance he had made advances,
this governess would have repulsed him with scorn. She had treated
him always as an inferior being with an assured, distant politeness.
In her composed, schooled manner she despised and disliked both
father and daughter exceedingly. I have a notion that she had
always disliked intensely all her charges including the two ducal
(if they were ducal) little girls with whom she had dazzled de
Barral. What an odious, ungratified existence it must have been for
a woman as avid of all the sensuous emotions which life can give as
most of her betters.

She had seen her youth vanish, her freshness disappear, her hopes
die, and now she felt her flaming middle-age slipping away from her.
No wonder that with her admirably dressed, abundant hair, thickly
sprinkled with white threads and adding to her elegant aspect the
piquant distinction of a powdered coiffure--no wonder, I say, that
she clung desperately to her last infatuation for that graceless
young scamp, even to the extent of hatching for him that amazing
plot. He was not so far gone in degradation as to make him utterly
hopeless for such an attempt. She hoped to keep him straight with
that enormous bribe. She was clearly a woman uncommon enough to
live without illusions--which, of course, does not mean that she was
reasonable. She had said to herself, perhaps with a fury of self-
contempt "In a few years I shall be too old for anybody. Meantime I
shall have him--and I shall hold him by throwing to him the money of
that ordinary, silly, little girl of no account."  Well, it was a
desperate expedient--but she thought it worth while. And besides
there is hardly a woman in the world, no matter how hard, depraved
or frantic, in whom something of the maternal instinct does not
survive, unconsumed like a salamander, in the fires of the most
abandoned passion. Yes there might have been that sentiment for him
too. There WAS no doubt. So I say again: No wonder! No wonder
that she raged at everything--and perhaps even at him, with
contradictory reproaches: for regretting the girl, a little fool
who would never in her life be worth anybody's attention, and for
taking the disaster itself with a cynical levity in which she
perceived a flavour of revolt.

And so the altercation in the night went on, over the irremediable.
He arguing "What's the hurry? Why clear out like this?" perhaps a
little sorry for the girl and as usual without a penny in his
pocket, appreciating the comfortable quarters, wishing to linger on
as long as possible in the shameless enjoyment of this already
doomed luxury. There was really no hurry for a few days. Always
time enough to vanish. And, with that, a touch of masculine
softness, a sort of regard for appearances surviving his
degradation: "You might behave decently at the last, Eliza."  But
there was no softness in the sallow face under the gala effect of
powdered hair, its formal calmness gone, the dark-ringed eyes
glaring at him with a sort of hunger. "No! No! If it is as you
say then not a day, not an hour, not a moment."  She stuck to it,
very determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl
philandering since the object of it was gone; angry with herself for
having suffered from it so much in the past, furious at its having
been all in vain.

But she was reasonable enough not to quarrel with him finally. What
was the good? She found means to placate him. The only means. As
long as there was some money to be got she had hold of him. "Now go
away. We shall do no good by any more of this sort of talk. I want
to be alone for a bit."  He went away, sulkily acquiescent. There
was a room always kept ready for him on the same floor, at the
further end of a short thickly carpeted passage.

How she passed the night, this woman with no illusions to help her
through the hours which must have been sleepless I shouldn't like to
say. It ended at last; and this strange victim of the de Barral
failure, whose name would never be known to the Official Receiver,
came down to breakfast, impenetrable in her everyday perfection.
From the very first, somehow, she had accepted the fatal news for
true. All her life she had never believed in her luck, with that
pessimism of the passionate who at bottom feel themselves to be the
outcasts of a morally restrained universe. But this did not make it
any easier, on opening the morning paper feverishly, to see the
thing confirmed. Oh yes! It was there. The Orb had suspended
payment--the first growl of the storm faint as yet, but to the
initiated the forerunner of a deluge. As an item of news it was not
indecently displayed. It was not displayed at all in a sense. The
serious paper, the only one of the great dailies which had always
maintained an attitude of reserve towards the de Barral group of
banks, had its "manner."  Yes! a modest item of news! But there was
also, on another page, a special financial article in a hostile tone
beginning with the words "We have always feared" and a guarded,
half-column leader, opening with the phrase: "It is a deplorable
sign of the times" what was, in effect, an austere, general rebuke
to the absurd infatuations of the investing public. She glanced
through these articles, a line here and a line there--no more was
necessary to catch beyond doubt the murmur of the oncoming flood.
Several slighting references by name to de Barral revived her
animosity against the man, suddenly, as by the effect of unforeseen
moral support. The miserable wretch! . . . "

"--You understand," Marlow interrupted the current of his narrative,
"that in order to be consecutive in my relation of this affair I am
telling you at once the details which I heard from Mrs. Fyne later
in the day, as well as what little Fyne imparted to me with his
usual solemnity during that morning call. As you may easily guess
the Fynes, in their apartments, had read the news at the same time,
and, as a matter of fact, in the same august and highly moral
newspaper, as the governess in the luxurious mansion a few doors
down on the opposite side of the street. But they read them with
different feelings. They were thunderstruck. Fyne had to explain
the full purport of the intelligence to Mrs. Fyne whose first cry
was that of relief. Then that poor child would be safe from these
designing, horrid people. Mrs. Fyne did not know what it might mean
to be suddenly reduced from riches to absolute penury. Fyne with
his masculine imagination was less inclined to rejoice extravagantly
at the girl's escape from the moral dangers which had been menacing
her defenceless existence. It was a confoundedly big price to pay.
What an unfortunate little thing she was! "We might be able to do
something to comfort that poor child at any rate for the time she is
here," said Mrs. Fyne. She felt under a sort of moral obligation
not to be indifferent. But no comfort for anyone could be got by
rushing out into the street at this early hour; and so, following
the advice of Fyne not to act hastily, they both sat down at the
window and stared feelingly at the great house, awful to their eyes
in its stolid, prosperous, expensive respectability with ruin
absolutely standing at the door.

By that time, or very soon after, all Brighton had the information
and formed a more or less just appreciation of its gravity. The
butler in Miss de Barral's big house had seen the news, perhaps
earlier than anybody within a mile of the Parade, in the course of
his morning duties of which one was to dry the freshly delivered
paper before the fire--an occasion to glance at it which no
intelligent man could have neglected. He communicated to the rest
of the household his vaguely forcible impression that something had
gone d-bly wrong with the affairs of "her father in London."

This brought an atmosphere of constraint through the house, which
Flora de Barral coming down somewhat later than usual could not help
noticing in her own way. Everybody seemed to stare so stupidly
somehow; she feared a dull day.

In the dining-room the governess in her place, a newspaper half-
concealed under the cloth on her lap, after a few words exchanged
with lips that seemed hardly to move, remaining motionless, her eyes
fixed before her in an enduring silence; and presently Charley
coming in to whom she did not even give a glance. He hardly said
good morning, though he had a half-hearted try to smile at the girl,
and sitting opposite her with his eyes on his plate and slight
quivers passing along the line of his clean-shaven jaw, he too had
nothing to say. It was dull, horribly dull to begin one's day like
this; but she knew what it was. These never-ending family affairs!
It was not for the first time that she had suffered from their
depressing after-effects on these two. It was a shame that the
delightful Charley should be made dull by these stupid talks, and it
was perfectly stupid of him to let himself be upset like this by his
aunt.

When after a period of still, as if calculating, immobility, her
governess got up abruptly and went out with the paper in her hand,
almost immediately afterwards followed by Charley who left his
breakfast half eaten, the girl was positively relieved. They would
have it out that morning whatever it was, and be themselves again in
the afternoon. At least Charley would be. To the moods of her
governess she did not attach so much importance.

For the first time that morning the Fynes saw the front door of the
awful house open and the objectionable young man issue forth, his
rascality visible to their prejudiced eyes in his very bowler hat
and in the smart cut of his short fawn overcoat. He walked away
rapidly like a man hurrying to catch a train, glancing from side to
side as though he were carrying something off. Could he be
departing for good? Undoubtedly, undoubtedly! But Mrs. Fyne's
fervent "thank goodness" turned out to be a bit, as the Americans--
some Americans--say "previous."  In a very short time the odious
fellow appeared again, strolling, absolutely strolling back, his hat
now tilted a little on one side, with an air of leisure and
satisfaction. Mrs. Fyne groaned not only in the spirit, at this
sight, but in the flesh, audibly; and asked her husband what it
might mean. Fyne naturally couldn't say. Mrs. Fyne believed that
there was something horrid in progress and meantime the object of
her detestation had gone up the steps and had knocked at the door
which at once opened to admit him.

He had been only as far as the bank.

His reason for leaving his breakfast unfinished to run after Miss de
Barral's governess, was to speak to her in reference to that very
errand possessing the utmost possible importance in his eyes. He
shrugged his shoulders at the nervousness of her eyes and hands, at
the half-strangled whisper "I had to go out. I could hardly contain
myself."  That was her affair. He was, with a young man's
squeamishness, rather sick of her ferocity. He did not understand
it. Men do not accumulate hate against each other in tiny amounts,
treasuring every pinch carefully till it grows at last into a
monstrous and explosive hoard. He had run out after her to remind
her of the balance at the bank. What about lifting that money
without wasting any more time? She had promised him to leave
nothing behind.

An account opened in her name for the expenses of the establishment
in Brighton, had been fed by de Barral with deferential lavishness.
The governess crossed the wide hall into a little room at the side
where she sat down to write the cheque, which he hastened out to go
and cash as if it were stolen or a forgery. As observed by the
Fynes, his uneasy appearance on leaving the house arose from the
fact that his first trouble having been caused by a cheque of
doubtful authenticity, the possession of a document of the sort made
him unreasonably uncomfortable till this one was safely cashed. And
after all, you know it was stealing of an indirect sort; for the
money was de Barral's money if the account was in the name of the
accomplished lady. At any rate the cheque was cashed. On getting
hold of the notes and gold he recovered his jaunty bearing, it being
well known that with certain natures the presence of money (even
stolen) in the pocket, acts as a tonic, or at least as a stimulant.
He cocked his hat a little on one side as though he had had a drink
or two--which indeed he might have had in reality, to celebrate the
occasion.

The governess had been waiting for his return in the hall,
disregarding the side-glances of the butler as he went in and out of
the dining-room clearing away the breakfast things. It was she,
herself, who had opened the door so promptly. "It's all right," he
said touching his breast-pocket; and she did not dare, the miserable
wretch without illusions, she did not dare ask him to hand it over.
They looked at each other in silence. He nodded significantly:
"Where is she now?" and she whispered "Gone into the drawing-room.
Want to see her again?" with an archly black look which he
acknowledged by a muttered, surly: "I am damned if I do. Well, as
you want to bolt like this, why don't we go now?"

She set her lips with cruel obstinacy and shook her head. She had
her idea, her completed plan. At that moment the Fynes, still at
the window and watching like a pair of private detectives, saw a man
with a long grey beard and a jovial face go up the steps helping
himself with a thick stick, and knock at the door. Who could he be?

He was one of Miss de Barral's masters. She had lately taken up
painting in water-colours, having read in a high-class woman's
weekly paper that a great many princesses of the European royal
houses were cultivating that art. This was the water-colour
morning; and the teacher, a veteran of many exhibitions, of a
venerable and jovial aspect, had turned up with his usual
punctuality. He was no great reader of morning papers, and even had
he seen the news it is very likely he would not have understood its
real purport. At any rate he turned up, as the governess expected
him to do, and the Fynes saw him pass through the fateful door.

He bowed cordially to the lady in charge of Miss de Barral's
education, whom he saw in the hall engaged in conversation with a
very good-looking but somewhat raffish young gentleman. She turned
to him graciously: "Flora is already waiting for you in the
drawing-room."

The cultivation of the art said to be patronized by princesses was
pursued in the drawing-room from considerations of the right kind of
light. The governess preceded the master up the stairs and into the
room where Miss de Barral was found arrayed in a holland pinafore
(also of the right kind for the pursuit of the art) and smilingly
expectant. The water-colour lesson enlivened by the jocular
conversation of the kindly, humorous, old man was always great fun;
and she felt she would be compensated for the tiresome beginning of
the day.

Her governess generally was present at the lesson; but on this
occasion she only sat down till the master and pupil had gone to
work in earnest, and then as though she had suddenly remembered some
order to give, rose quietly and went out of the room.

Once outside, the servants summoned by the passing maid without a
bell being rung, and quick, quick, let all this luggage be taken
down into the hall, and let one of you call a cab. She stood
outside the drawing-room door on the landing, looking at each piece,
trunk, leather cases, portmanteaus, being carried past her, her
brows knitted and her aspect so sombre and absorbed that it took
some little time for the butler to muster courage enough to speak to
her. But he reflected that he was a free-born Briton and had his
rights. He spoke straight to the point but in the usual respectful
manner.

"Beg you pardon, ma'am--but are you going away for good?"

He was startled by her tone. Its unexpected, unlady-like harshness
fell on his trained ear with the disagreeable effect of a false
note. "Yes. I am going away. And the best thing for all of you is
to go away too, as soon as you like. You can go now, to-day, this
moment. You had your wages paid you only last week. The longer you
stay the greater your loss. But I have nothing to do with it now.
You are the servants of Mr. de Barral--you know."

The butler was astounded by the manner of this advice, and as his
eyes wandered to the drawing-room door the governess extended her
arm as if to bar the way. "Nobody goes in there."  And that was
said still in another tone, such a tone that all trace of the
trained respectfulness vanished from the butler's bearing. He
stared at her with a frank wondering gaze. "Not till I am gone,"
she added, and there was such an expression on her face that the man
was daunted by the mystery of it. He shrugged his shoulders
slightly and without another word went down the stairs on his way to
the basement, brushing in the hall past Mr. Charles who hat on head
and both hands rammed deep into his overcoat pockets paced up and
down as though on sentry duty there.

The ladies' maid was the only servant upstairs, hovering in the
passage on the first floor, curious and as if fascinated by the
woman who stood there guarding the door. Being beckoned closer
imperiously and asked by the governess to bring out of the now empty
rooms the hat and veil, the only objects besides the furniture still
to be found there, she did so in silence but inwardly fluttered.
And while waiting uneasily, with the veil, before that woman who,
without moving a step away from the drawing-room door was pinning
with careless haste her hat on her head, she heard within a sudden
burst of laughter from Miss de Barral enjoying the fun of the water-
colour lesson given her for the last time by the cheery old man.

Mr. and Mrs. Fyne ambushed at their window--a most incredible
occupation for people of their kind--saw with renewed anxiety a cab
come to the door, and watched some luggage being carried out and put
on its roof. The butler appeared for a moment, then went in again.
What did it mean? Was Flora going to be taken to her father; or
were these people, that woman and her horrible nephew, about to
carry her off somewhere? Fyne couldn't tell. He doubted the last,
Flora having now, he judged, no value, either positive or
speculative. Though no great reader of character he did not credit
the governess with humane intentions. He confessed to me naively
that he was excited as if watching some action on the stage. Then
the thought struck him that the girl might have had some money
settled on her, be possessed of some means, of some little fortune
of her own and therefore -

He imparted this theory to his wife who shared fully his
consternation. "I can't believe the child will go away without
running in to say good-bye to us," she murmured. "We must find out!
I shall ask her."  But at that very moment the cab rolled away,
empty inside, and the door of the house which had been standing
slightly ajar till then was pushed to.

They remained silent staring at it till Mrs. Fyne whispered
doubtfully "I really think I must go over."  Fyne didn't answer for
a while (his is a reflective mind, you know), and then as if Mrs.
Fyne's whispers had an occult power over that door it opened wide
again and the white-bearded man issued, astonishingly active in his
movements, using his stick almost like a leaping-pole to get down
the steps; and hobbled away briskly along the pavement. Naturally
the Fynes were too far off to make out the expression of his face.
But it would not have helped them very much to a guess at the
conditions inside the house. The expression was humorously puzzled-
-nothing more.

For, at the end of his lesson, seizing his trusty stick and coming
out with his habitual vivacity, he very nearly cannoned just outside
the drawing-room door into the back of Miss de Barral's governess.
He stopped himself in time and she turned round swiftly. It was
embarrassing; he apologised; but her face was not startled; it was
not aware of him; it wore a singular expression of resolution. A
very singular expression which, as it were, detained him for a
moment. In order to cover his embarrassment, he made some inane
remark on the weather, upon which, instead of returning another
inane remark according to the tacit rules of the game, she only gave
him a smile of unfathomable meaning. Nothing could have been more
singular. The good-looking young gentleman of questionable
appearance took not the slightest notice of him in the hall. No
servant was to be seen. He let himself out pulling the door to
behind him with a crash as, in a manner, he was forced to do to get
it shut at all.

When the echo of it had died away the woman on the landing leaned
over the banister and called out bitterly to the man below "Don't
you want to come up and say good-bye."  He had an impatient movement
of the shoulders and went on pacing to and fro as though he had not
heard. But suddenly he checked himself, stood still for a moment,
then with a gloomy face and without taking his hands out of his
pockets ran smartly up the stairs. Already facing the door she
turned her head for a whispered taunt: "Come! Confess you were
dying to see her stupid little face once more,"--to which he
disdained to answer.

Flora de Barral, still seated before the table at which she had been
wording on her sketch, raised her head at the noise of the opening
door. The invading manner of their entrance gave her the sense of
something she had never seen before. She knew them well. She knew
the woman better than she knew her father. There had been between
them an intimacy of relation as great as it can possibly be without
the final closeness of affection. The delightful Charley walked in,
with his eyes fixed on the back of her governess whose raised veil
hid her forehead like a brown band above the black line of the
eyebrows. The girl was astounded and alarmed by the altogether
unknown expression in the woman's face. The stress of passion often
discloses an aspect of the personality completely ignored till then
by its closest intimates. There was something like an emanation of
evil from her eyes and from the face of the other, who, exactly
behind her and overtopping her by half a head, kept his eyelids
lowered in a sinister fashion--which in the poor girl, reached,
stirred, set free that faculty of unreasoning explosive terror lying
locked up at the bottom of all human hearts and of the hearts of
animals as well. With suddenly enlarged pupils and a movement as
instinctive almost as the bounding of a startled fawn, she jumped up
and found herself in the middle of the big room, exclaiming at those
amazing and familiar strangers.

"What do you want?"

You will note that she cried: What do you want? Not: What has
happened? She told Mrs. Fyne that she had received suddenly the
feeling of being personally attacked. And that must have been very
terrifying. The woman before her had been the wisdom, the
authority, the protection of life, security embodied and visible and
undisputed.

You may imagine then the force of the shock in the intuitive
perception not merely of danger, for she did not know what was
alarming her, but in the sense of the security being gone. And not
only security. I don't know how to explain it clearly. Look! Even
a small child lives, plays and suffers in terms of its conception of
its own existence. Imagine, if you can, a fact coming in suddenly
with a force capable of shattering that very conception itself. It
was only because of the girl being still so much of a child that she
escaped mental destruction; that, in other words she got over it.
Could one conceive of her more mature, while still as ignorant as
she was, one must conclude that she would have become an idiot on
the spot--long before the end of that experience. Luckily, people,
whether mature or not mature (and who really is ever mature?) are
for the most part quite incapable of understanding what is happening
to them: a merciful provision of nature to preserve an average
amount of sanity for working purposes in this world . . . "

"But we, my dear Marlow, have the inestimable advantage of
understanding what is happening to others," I struck in. "Or at
least some of us seem to. Is that too a provision of nature? And
what is it for? Is it that we may amuse ourselves gossiping about
each other's affairs? You for instance seem--"

"I don't know what I seem," Marlow silenced me, "and surely life
must be amused somehow. It would be still a very respectable
provision if it were only for that end. But from that same
provision of understanding, there springs in us compassion, charity,
indignation, the sense of solidarity; and in minds of any largeness
an inclination to that indulgence which is next door to affection.
I don't mean to say that I am inclined to an indulgent view of the
precious couple which broke in upon an unsuspecting girl. They came
marching in (it's the very expression she used later on to Mrs.
Fyne) but at her cry they stopped. It must have been startling
enough to them. It was like having the mask torn off when you don't
expect it. The man stopped for good; he didn't offer to move a step
further. But, though the governess had come in there for the very
purpose of taking the mask off for the first time in her life, she
seemed to look upon the frightened cry as a fresh provocation.
"What are you screaming for, you little fool?" she said advancing
alone close to the girl who was affected exactly as if she had seen
Medusa's head with serpentine locks set mysteriously on the
shoulders of that familiar person, in that brown dress, under that
hat she knew so well. It made her lose all her hold on reality.
She told Mrs. Fyne: "I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know
that I was frightened. If she had told me it was a joke I would
have laughed. If she had told me to put on my hat and go out with
her I would have gone to put on my hat and gone out with her and
never said a single word; I should have been convinced I had been
mad for a minute or so, and I would have worried myself to death
rather than breathe a hint of it to her or anyone. But the wretch
put her face close to mine and I could not move. Directly I had
looked into her eyes I felt grown on to the carpet."

It was years afterwards that she used to talk like this to Mrs.
Fyne--and to Mrs. Fyne alone. Nobody else ever heard the story from
her lips. But it was never forgotten. It was always felt; it
remained like a mark on her soul, a sort of mystic wound, to be
contemplated, to be meditated over. And she said further to Mrs.
Fyne, in the course of many confidences provoked by that
contemplation, that, as long as that woman called her names, it was
almost soothing, it was in a manner reassuring. Her imagination
had, like her body, gone off in a wild bound to meet the unknown;
and then to hear after all something which more in its tone than in
its substance was mere venomous abuse, had steadied the inward
flutter of all her being.

"She called me a little fool more times than I can remember. I! A
fool! Why, Mrs. Fyne! I do assure you I had never yet thought at
all; never of anything in the world, till then. I just went on
living. And one can't be a fool without one has at least tried to
think. But what had I ever to think about?"

"And no doubt," commented Marlow, "her life had been a mere life of
sensations--the response to which can neither be foolish nor wise.
It can only be temperamental; and I believe that she was of a
generally happy disposition, a child of the average kind. Even when
she was asked violently whether she imagined that there was anything
in her, apart from her money, to induce any intelligent person to
take any sort of interest in her existence, she only caught her
breath in one dry sob and said nothing, made no other sound, made no
movement. When she was viciously assured that she was in heart,
mind, manner and appearance, an utterly common and insipid creature,
she remained still, without indignation, without anger. She stood,
a frail and passive vessel into which the other went on pouring all
the accumulated dislike for all her pupils, her scorn of all her
employers (the ducal one included), the accumulated resentment, the
infinite hatred of all these unrelieved years of--I won't say
hypocrisy. The practice of perfect hypocrisy is a relief in itself,
a secret triumph of the vilest sort, no doubt, but still a way of
getting even with the common morality from which some of us appear
to suffer so much. No! I will say the years, the passionate,
bitter years, of restraint, the iron, admirably mannered restraint
at every moment, in a never-failing perfect correctness of speech,
glances, movements, smiles, gestures, establishing for her a high
reputation, an impressive record of success in her sphere. It had
been like living half strangled for years.

And all this torture for nothing, in the end! What looked at last
like a possible prize (oh, without illusions! but still a prize)
broken in her hands, fallen in the dust, the bitter dust, of
disappointment, she revelled in the miserable revenge--pretty safe
too--only regretting the unworthiness of the girlish figure which
stood for so much she had longed to be able to spit venom at, if
only once, in perfect liberty. The presence of the young man at her
back increased both her satisfaction and her rage. But the very
violence of the attack seemed to defeat its end by rendering the
representative victim as it were insensible. The cause of this
outrage naturally escaping the girl's imagination her attitude was
in effect that of dense, hopeless stupidity. And it is a fact that
the worst shocks of life are often received without outcries,
without gestures, without a flow of tears and the convulsions of
sobbing. The insatiable governess missed these signs exceedingly.
This pitiful stolidity was only a fresh provocation. Yet the poor
girl was deadly pale.

"I was cold," she used to explain to Mrs. Fyne. "I had had time to
get terrified. She had pushed her face so near mine and her teeth
looked as though she wanted to bite me. Her eyes seemed to have
become quite dry, hard and small in a lot of horrible wrinkles. I
was too afraid of her to shudder, too afraid of her to put my
fingers to my ears. I didn't know what I expected her to call me
next, but when she told me I was no better than a beggar--that there
would be no more masters, no more servants, no more horses for me--I
said to myself: Is that all? I should have laughed if I hadn't
been too afraid of her to make the least little sound."

It seemed that poor Flora had to know all the possible phases of
that sort of anguish, beginning with instinctive panic, through the
bewildered stage, the frozen stage and the stage of blanched
apprehension, down to the instinctive prudence of extreme terror--
the stillness of the mouse. But when she heard herself called the
child of a cheat and a swindler, the very monstrous unexpectedness
of this caused in her a revulsion towards letting herself go. She
screamed out all at once "You mustn't speak like this of Papa!"

The effort of it uprooted her from that spot where her little feet
seemed dug deep into the thick luxurious carpet, and she retreated
backwards to a distant part of the room, hearing herself repeat "You
mustn't, you mustn't" as if it were somebody else screaming. She
came to a chair and flung herself into it. Thereupon the somebody
else ceased screaming and she lolled, exhausted, sightless, in a
silent room, as if indifferent to everything and without a single
thought in her head.

The next few seconds seemed to last for ever so long; a black abyss
of time separating what was past and gone from the reappearance of
the governess and the reawakening of fear. And that woman was
forcing the words through her set teeth: "You say I mustn't, I
mustn't. All the world will be speaking of him like this to-morrow.
They will say it, and they'll print it. You shall hear it and you
shall read it--and then you shall know whose daughter you are."

Her face lighted up with an atrocious satisfaction. "He's nothing
but a thief," she cried, "this father of yours. As to you I have
never been deceived in you for a moment. I have been growing more
and more sick of you for years. You are a vulgar, silly nonentity,
and you shall go back to where you belong, whatever low place you
have sprung from, and beg your bread--that is if anybody's charity
will have anything to do with you, which I doubt--"

She would have gone on regardless of the enormous eyes, of the open
mouth of the girl who sat up suddenly with the wild staring
expression of being choked by invisible fingers on her throat, and
yet horribly pale. The effect on her constitution was so profound,
Mrs. Fyne told me, that she who as a child had a rather pretty
delicate colouring, showed a white bloodless face for a couple of
years afterwards, and remained always liable at the slightest
emotion to an extraordinary ghost-like whiteness. The end came in
the abomination of desolation of the poor child's miserable cry for
help: "Charley! Charley!" coming from her throat in hidden gasping
efforts. Her enlarged eyes had discovered him where he stood
motionless and dumb.

He started from his immobility, a hand withdrawn brusquely from the
pocket of his overcoat, strode up to the woman, seized her by the
arm from behind, saying in a rough commanding tone: "Come away,
Eliza."  In an instant the child saw them close together and remote,
near the door, gone through the door, which she neither heard nor
saw being opened or shut. But it was shut. Oh yes, it was shut.
Her slow unseeing glance wandered all over the room. For some time
longer she remained leaning forward, collecting her strength,
doubting if she would be able to stand. She stood up at last.
Everything about her spun round in an oppressive silence. She
remembered perfectly--as she told Mrs. Fyne--that clinging to the
arm of the chair she called out twice "Papa! Papa!"  At the thought
that he was far away in London everything about her became quite
still. Then, frightened suddenly by the solitude of that empty
room, she rushed out of it blindly.

With that fatal diffidence in well doing, inherent in the present
condition of humanity, the Fynes continued to watch at their window.
"It's always so difficult to know what to do for the best," Fyne
assured me. It is. Good intentions stand in their own way so much.
Whereas if you want to do harm to anyone you needn't hesitate. You
have only to go on. No one will reproach you with your mistakes or
call you a confounded, clumsy meddler. The Fynes watched the door,
the closed street door inimical somehow to their benevolent
thoughts, the face of the house cruelly impenetrable. It was just
as on any other day. The unchanged daily aspect of inanimate things
is so impressive that Fyne went back into the room for a moment,
picked up the paper again, and ran his eyes over the item of news.
No doubt of it. It looked very bad. He came back to the window and
Mrs. Fyne. Tired out as she was she sat there resolute and ready
for responsibility. But she had no suggestion to offer. People do
fear a rebuff wonderfully, and all her audacity was in her thoughts.
She shrank from the incomparably insolent manner of the governess.
Fyne stood by her side, as in those old-fashioned photographs of
married couples where you see a husband with his hand on the back of
his wife's chair. And they were about as efficient as an old
photograph, and as still, till Mrs. Fyne started slightly. The
street door had swung open, and, bursting out, appeared the young
man, his hat (Mrs. Fyne observed) tilted forward over his eyes.
After him the governess slipped through, turning round at once to
shut the door behind her with care. Meantime the man went down the
white steps and strode along the pavement, his hands rammed deep
into the pockets of his fawn overcoat. The woman, that woman of
composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a little run
to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him tried
to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs. Fyne saw the brusque half
turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact,
defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace
with his stride, and Mrs. Fyne watched them, walking independently,
turn the corner of the street side by side, disappear for ever.

The Fynes looked at each other eloquently, doubtfully: What do you
think of this? Then with common accord turned their eyes back to
the street door, closed, massive, dark; the great, clear-brass
knocker shining in a quiet slant of sunshine cut by a diagonal line
of heavy shade filling the further end of the street. Could the
girl be already gone? Sent away to her father? Had she any
relations? Nobody but de Barral himself ever came to see her, Mrs.
Fyne remembered; and she had the instantaneous, profound, maternal
perception of the child's loneliness--and a girl too! It was
irresistible. And, besides, the departure of the governess was not
without its encouraging influence. "I am going over at once to find
out," she declared resolutely but still staring across the street.
Her intention was arrested by the sight of that awful, sombrely
glistening door, swinging back suddenly on the yawning darkness of
the hall, out of which literally flew out, right out on the
pavement, almost without touching the white steps, a little figure
swathed in a holland pinafore up to the chin, its hair streaming
back from its head, darting past a lamp-post, past the red pillar-
box . . . "Here," cried Mrs. Fyne; "she's coming here! Run, John!
Run!"

Fyne bounded out of the room. This is his own word. Bounded! He
assured me with intensified solemnity that he bounded; and the sight
of the short and muscular Fyne bounding gravely about the
circumscribed passages and staircases of a small, very high class,
private hotel, would have been worth any amount of money to a man
greedy of memorable impressions. But as I looked at him, the desire
of laughter at my very lips, I asked myself: how many men could be
found ready to compromise their cherished gravity for the sake of
the unimportant child of a ruined financier with an ugly, black
cloud already wreathing his head. I didn't laugh at little Fyne. I
encouraged him: "You did!--very good . . . Well?"

His main thought was to save the child from some unpleasant
interference. There was a porter downstairs, page boys; some people
going away with their trunks in the passage; a railway omnibus at
the door, white-breasted waiters dodging about the entrance.

He was in time. He was at the door before she reached it in her
blind course. She did not recognize him; perhaps she did not see
him. He caught her by the arm as she ran past and, very sensibly,
without trying to check her, simply darted in with her and up the
stairs, causing no end of consternation amongst the people in his
way. They scattered. What might have been their thoughts at the
spectacle of a shameless middle-aged man abducting headlong into the
upper regions of a respectable hotel a terrified young girl
obviously under age, I don't know. And Fyne (he told me so) did not
care for what people might think. All he wanted was to reach his
wife before the girl collapsed. For a time she ran with him but at
the last flight of stairs he had to seize and half drag, half carry
her to his wife. Mrs. Fyne waited at the door with her quite
unmoved physiognomy and her readiness to confront any sort of
responsibility, which already characterized her, long before she
became a ruthless theorist. Relieved, his mission accomplished,
Fyne closed hastily the door of the sitting-room.

But before long both Fynes became frightened. After a period of
immobility in the arms of Mrs. Fyne, the girl, who had not said a
word, tore herself out from that slightly rigid embrace. She
struggled dumbly between them, they did not know why, soundless and
ghastly, till she sank exhausted on a couch. Luckily the children
were out with the two nurses. The hotel housemaid helped Mrs. Fyne
to put Flora de Barral to bed. She was as if gone speechless and
insane. She lay on her back, her face white like a piece of paper,
her dark eyes staring at the ceiling, her awful immobility broken by
sudden shivering fits with a loud chattering of teeth in the shadowy
silence of the room, the blinds pulled down, Mrs. Fyne sitting by
patiently, her arms folded, yet inwardly moved by the riddle of that
distress of which she could not guess the word, and saying to
herself: "That child is too emotional--much too emotional to be
ever really sound!"  As if anyone not made of stone could be
perfectly sound in this world. And then how sound? In what sense--
to resist what? Force or corruption? And even in the best armour
of steel there are joints a treacherous stroke can always find if
chance gives the opportunity.

General considerations never had the power to trouble Mrs. Fyne
much. The girl not being in a state to be questioned she waited by
the bedside. Fyne had crossed over to the house, his scruples
overcome by his anxiety to discover what really had happened. He
did not have to lift the knocker; the door stood open on the inside
gloom of the hall; he walked into it and saw no one about, the
servants having assembled for a fatuous consultation in the
basement. Fyne's uplifted bass voice startled them down there, the
butler coming up, staring and in his shirt sleeves, very suspicious
at first, and then, on Fyne's explanation that he was the husband of
a lady who had called several times at the house--Miss de Barral's
mother's friend--becoming humanely concerned and communicative, in a
man to man tone, but preserving his trained high-class servant's
voice: "Oh bless you, sir, no! She does not mean to come back.
She told me so herself"--he assured Fyne with a faint shade of
contempt creeping into his tone.

As regards their young lady nobody downstairs had any idea that she
had run out of the house. He dared say they all would have been
willing to do their very best for her, for the time being; but since
she was now with her mother's friends . . .

He fidgeted. He murmured that all this was very unexpected. He
wanted to know what he had better do with letters or telegrams which
might arrive in the course of the day.

"Letters addressed to Miss de Barral, you had better bring over to
my hotel over there," said Fyne beginning to feel extremely worried
about the future. The man said "Yes, sir," adding, "and if a letter
comes addressed to Mrs. . . . "

Fyne stopped him by a gesture. "I don't know . . . Anything you
like."

"Very well, sir."

The butler did not shut the street door after Fyne, but remained on
the doorstep for a while, looking up and down the street in the
spirit of independent expectation like a man who is again his own
master. Mrs. Fyne hearing her husband return came out of the room
where the girl was lying in bed. "No change," she whispered; and
Fyne could only make a hopeless sign of ignorance as to what all
this meant and how it would end.

He feared future complications--naturally; a man of limited means,
in a public position, his time not his own. Yes. He owned to me in
the parlour of my farmhouse that he had been very much concerned
then at the possible consequences. But as he was making this
artless confession I said to myself that, whatever consequences and
complications he might have imagined, the complication from which he
was suffering now could never, never have presented itself to his
mind. Slow but sure (for I conceive that the Book of Destiny has
been written up from the beginning to the last page) it had been
coming for something like six years--and now it had come. The
complication was there! I looked at his unshaken solemnity with the
amused pity we give the victim of a funny if somewhat ill-natured
practical joke.

"Oh hang it," he exclaimed--in no logical connection with what he
had been relating to me. Nevertheless the exclamation was
intelligible enough.

However at first there were, he admitted, no untoward complications,
no embarrassing consequences. To a telegram in guarded terms
dispatched to de Barral no answer was received for more than twenty-
four hours. This certainly caused the Fynes some anxiety. When the
answer arrived late on the evening of next day it was in the shape
of an elderly man. An unexpected sort of man. Fyne explained to me
with precision that he evidently belonged to what is most
respectable in the lower middle classes. He was calm and slow in
his speech. He was wearing a frock-coat, had grey whiskers meeting
under his chin, and declared on entering that Mr. de Barral was his
cousin. He hastened to add that he had not seen his cousin for many
years, while he looked upon Fyne (who received him alone) with so
much distrust that Fyne felt hurt (the person actually refusing at
first the chair offered to him) and retorted tartly that he, for his
part, had NEVER seen Mr. de Barral, in his life, and that, since the
visitor did not want to sit down, he, Fyne, begged him to state his
business as shortly as possible. The man in black sat down then
with a faint superior smile.

He had come for the girl. His cousin had asked him in a note
delivered by a messenger to go to Brighton at once and take "his
girl" over from a gentleman named Fyne and give her house-room for a
time in his family. And there he was. His business had not allowed
him to come sooner. His business was the manufacture on a large
scale of cardboard boxes. He had two grown-up girls of his own. He
had consulted his wife and so that was all right. The girl would
get a welcome in his home. His home most likely was not what she
had been used to but, etc. etc.

All the time Fyne felt subtly in that man's manner a derisive
disapproval of everything that was not lower middle class, a
profound respect for money, a mean sort of contempt for speculators
that fail, and a conceited satisfaction with his own respectable
vulgarity.

With Mrs. Fyne the manner of the obscure cousin of de Barral was but
little less offensive. He looked at her rather slyly but her cold,
decided demeanour impressed him. Mrs. Fyne on her side was simply
appalled by the personage, but did not show it outwardly. Not even
when the man remarked with false simplicity that Florrie--her name
was Florrie wasn't it? would probably miss at first all her grand
friends. And when he was informed that the girl was in bed, not
feeling well at all he showed an unsympathetic alarm. She wasn't an
invalid was she? No. What was the matter with her then?

An extreme distaste for that respectable member of society was
depicted in Fyne's face even as he was telling me of him after all
these years. He was a specimen of precisely the class of which
people like the Fynes have the least experience; and I imagine he
jarred on them painfully. He possessed all the civic virtues in
their very meanest form, and the finishing touch was given by a low
sort of consciousness he manifested of possessing them. His
industry was exemplary. He wished to catch the earliest possible
train next morning. It seems that for seven and twenty years he had
never missed being seated on his office-stool at the factory
punctually at ten o'clock every day. He listened to Mrs. Fyne's
objections with undisguised impatience. Why couldn't Florrie get up
and have her breakfast at eight like other people? In his house the
breakfast was at eight sharp. Mrs. Fyne's polite stoicism overcame
him at last. He had come down at a very great personal
inconvenience, he assured her with displeasure, but he gave up the
early train.

The good Fynes didn't dare to look at each other before this
unforeseen but perfectly authorized guardian, the same thought
springing up in their minds: Poor girl! Poor girl! If the women
of the family were like this too! . . . And of course they would be.
Poor girl! But what could they have done even if they had been
prepared to raise objections. The person in the frock-coat had the
father's note; he had shown it to Fyne. Just a request to take care
of the girl--as her nearest relative--without any explanation or a
single allusion to the financial catastrophe, its tone strangely
detached and in its very silence on the point giving occasion to
think that the writer was not uneasy as to the child's future.
Probably it was that very idea which had set the cousin so readily
in motion. Men had come before out of commercial crashes with
estates in the country and a comfortable income, if not for
themselves then for their wives. And if a wife could be made
comfortable by a little dexterous management then why not a
daughter? Yes. This possibility might have been discussed in the
person's household and judged worth acting upon.

The man actually hinted broadly that such was his belief and in face
of Fyne's guarded replies gave him to understand that he was not the
dupe of such reticences. Obviously he looked upon the Fynes as
being disappointed because the girl was taken away from them. They,
by a diplomatic sacrifice in the interests of poor Flora, had asked
the man to dinner. He accepted ungraciously, remarking that he was
not used to late hours. He had generally a bit of supper about
half-past eight or nine. However . . .

He gazed contemptuously round the prettily decorated dining-room.
He wrinkled his nose in a puzzled way at the dishes offered to him
by the waiter but refused none, devouring the food with a great
appetite and drinking ("swilling" Fyne called it) gallons of ginger
beer, which was procured for him (in stone bottles) at his request.
The difficulty of keeping up a conversation with that being
exhausted Mrs. Fyne herself, who had come to the table armed with
adamantine resolution. The only memorable thing he said was when,
in a pause of gorging himself "with these French dishes" he
deliberately let his eyes roam over the little tables occupied by
parties of diners, and remarked that his wife did for a moment think
of coming down with him, but that he was glad she didn't do so.
"She wouldn't have been at all happy seeing all this alcohol about.
Not at all happy," he declared weightily.

"You must have had a charming evening," I said to Fyne, "if I may
judge from the way you have kept the memory green."

"Delightful," he growled with, positively, a flash of anger at the
recollection, but lapsed back into his solemnity at once. After we
had been silent for a while I asked whether the man took away the
girl next day.

Fyne said that he did; in the afternoon, in a fly, with a few
clothes the maid had got together and brought across from the big
house. He only saw Flora again ten minutes before they left for the
railway station, in the Fynes' sitting-room at the hotel. It was a
most painful ten minutes for the Fynes. The respectable citizen
addressed Miss de Barral as "Florrie" and "my dear," remarking to
her that she was not very big "there's not much of you my dear" in a
familiarly disparaging tone. Then turning to Mrs. Fyne, and quite
loud "She's very white in the face. Why's that?"  To this Mrs. Fyne
made no reply. She had put the girl's hair up that morning with her
own hands. It changed her very much, observed Fyne. He, naturally,
played a subordinate, merely approving part. All he could do for
Miss de Barral personally was to go downstairs and put her into the
fly himself, while Miss de Barral's nearest relation, having been
shouldered out of the way, stood by, with an umbrella and a little
black bag, watching this proceeding with grim amusement, as it
seemed. It was difficult to guess what the girl thought or what she
felt. She no longer looked a child. She whispered to Fyne a faint
"Thank you," from the fly, and he said to her in very distinct tones
and while still holding her hand: "Pray don't forget to write fully
to my wife in a day or two, Miss de Barral."  Then Fyne stepped back
and the cousin climbed into the fly muttering quite audibly: "I
don't think you'll be troubled much with her in the future;" without
however looking at Fyne on whom he did not even bestow a nod. The
fly drove away.

CHAPTER FIVE--THE TEA-PARTY

"Amiable personality," I observed seeing Fyne on the point of
falling into a brown study. But I could not help adding with
meaning: "He hadn't the gift of prophecy though."

Fyne got up suddenly with a muttered "No, evidently not."  He was
gloomy, hesitating. I supposed that he would not wish to play chess
that afternoon. This would dispense me from leaving my rooms on a
day much too fine to be wasted in walking exercise. And I was
disappointed when picking up his cap he intimated to me his hope of
seeing me at the cottage about four o'clock--as usual.

"It wouldn't be as usual."  I put a particular stress on that
remark. He admitted, after a short reflection, that it would not
be. No. Not as usual. In fact it was his wife who hoped, rather,
for my presence. She had formed a very favourable opinion of my
practical sagacity.

This was the first I ever heard of it. I had never suspected that
Mrs. Fyne had taken the trouble to distinguish in me the signs of
sagacity or folly. The few words we had exchanged last night in the
excitement--or the bother--of the girl's disappearance, were the
first moderately significant words which had ever passed between us.
I had felt myself always to be in Mrs. Fyne's view her husband's
chess-player and nothing else--a convenience--almost an implement.

"I am highly flattered," I said. "I have always heard that there
are no limits to feminine intuition; and now I am half inclined to
believe it is so. But still I fail to see in what way my sagacity,
practical or otherwise, can be of any service to Mrs. Fyne. One
man's sagacity is very much like any other man's sagacity. And with
you at hand--"

Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed
straight at me his worried solemn eyes and struck in:

"Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will come--won't you?"

I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk
three miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day. If
the Fynes had been an average sociable couple one knows only because
leisure must be got through somehow, I would have made short work of
that special invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable
humanity had to be acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to have
my own way. So I proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure of
offering them a cup of tea at my rooms.

A short reflective pause--and Fyne accepted eagerly in his own and
his wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch
and then in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his
serious head went past my window on the other side of the hedge, its
troubled gaze fixed forward, and the mind inside obviously employed
in earnest speculation of an intricate nature. One at least of his
wife's girl-friends had become more than a mere shadow for him. I
surmised however that it was not of the girl-friend but of his wife
that Fyne was thinking. He was an excellent husband.

I prepared myself for the afternoon's hospitalities, calling in the
farmer's wife and reviewing with her the resources of the house and
the village. She was a helpful woman. But the resources of my
sagacity I did not review. Except in the gross material sense of
the afternoon tea I made no preparations for Mrs. Fyne.

It was impossible for me to make any such preparations. I could not
tell what sort of sustenance she would look for from my sagacity.
And as to taking stock of the wares of my mind no one I imagine is
anxious to do that sort of thing if it can be avoided. A vaguely
grandiose state of mental self-confidence is much too agreeable to
be disturbed recklessly by such a delicate investigation. Perhaps
if I had had a helpful woman at my elbow, a dear, flattering acute,
devoted woman . . . There are in life moments when one positively
regrets not being married. No! I don't exaggerate. I have said--
moments, not years or even days. Moments. The farmer's wife
obviously could not be asked to assist. She could not have been
expected to possess the necessary insight and I doubt whether she
would have known how to be flattering enough. She was being helpful
in her own way, with an extraordinary black bonnet on her head, a
good mile off by that time, trying to discover in the village shops
a piece of eatable cake. The pluck of women! The optimism of the
dear creatures!

And she managed to find something which looked eatable. That's all
I know as I had no opportunity to observe the more intimate effects
of that comestible. I myself never eat cake, and Mrs. Fyne, when
she arrived punctually, brought with her no appetite for cake. She
had no appetite for anything. But she had a thirst--the sign of
deep, of tormenting emotion. Yes it was emotion, not the brilliant
sunshine--more brilliant than warm as is the way of our discreet
self-repressed, distinguished, insular sun, which would not turn a
real lady scarlet--not on any account. Mrs. Fyne looked even cool.
She wore a white skirt and coat; a white hat with a large brim
reposed on her smoothly arranged hair. The coat was cut something
like an army mess-jacket and the style suited her. I dare say there
are many youthful subalterns, and not the worst-looking too, who
resemble Mrs. Fyne in the type of face, in the sunburnt complexion,
down to that something alert in bearing. But not many would have
had that aspect breathing a readiness to assume any responsibility
under Heaven. This is the sort of courage which ripens late in life
and of course Mrs. Fyne was of mature years for all her unwrinkled
face.

She looked round the room, told me positively that I was very
comfortable there; to which I assented, humbly, acknowledging my
undeserved good fortune.

"Why undeserved?" she wanted to know.

"I engaged these rooms by letter without asking any questions. It
might have been an abominable hole," I explained to her. "I always
do things like that. I don't like to be bothered. This is no great
proof of sagacity--is it? Sagacious people I believe like to
exercise that faculty. I have heard that they can't even help
showing it in the veriest trifles. It must be very delightful. But
I know nothing of it. I think that I have no sagacity--no practical
sagacity."

Fyne made an inarticulate bass murmur of protest. I asked after the
children whom I had not seen yet since my return from town. They
had been very well. They were always well. Both Fyne and Mrs. Fyne
spoke of the rude health of their children as if it were a result of
moral excellence; in a peculiar tone which seemed to imply some
contempt for people whose children were liable to be unwell at
times. One almost felt inclined to apologize for the inquiry. And
this annoyed me; unreasonably, I admit, because the assumption of
superior merit is not a very exceptional weakness. Anxious to make
myself disagreeable by way of retaliation I observed in accents of
interested civility that the dear girls must have been wondering at
the sudden disappearance of their mother's young friend. Had they
been putting any awkward questions about Miss Smith. Wasn't it as
Miss Smith that Miss de Barral had been introduced to me?

Mrs. Fyne, staring fixedly but also colouring deeper under her tan,
told me that the children had never liked Flora very much. She
hadn't the high spirits which endear grown-ups to healthy children,
Mrs. Fyne explained unflinchingly. Flora had been staying at the
cottage several times before. Mrs. Fyne assured me that she often
found it very difficult to have her in the house.

"But what else could we do?" she exclaimed.

That little cry of distress quite genuine in its inexpressiveness,
altered my feeling towards Mrs. Fyne. It would have been so easy to
have done nothing and to have thought no more about it. My liking
for her began while she was trying to tell me of the night she spent
by the girl's bedside, the night before her departure with her
unprepossessing relative. That Mrs. Fyne found means to comfort the
child I doubt very much. She had not the genius for the task of
undoing that which the hate of an infuriated woman had planned so
well.

You will tell me perhaps that children's impressions are not
durable. That's true enough. But here, child is only a manner of
speaking. The girl was within a few days of her sixteenth birthday;
she was old enough to be matured by the shock. The very effort she
had to make in conveying the impression to Mrs. Fyne, in remembering
the details, in finding adequate words--or any words at all--was in
itself a terribly enlightening, an ageing process. She had talked a
long time, uninterrupted by Mrs. Fyne, childlike enough in her
wonder and pain, pausing now and then to interject the pitiful
query: "It was cruel of her. Wasn't it cruel, Mrs. Fyne?"

For Charley she found excuses. He at any rate had not said
anything, while he had looked very gloomy and miserable. He
couldn't have taken part against his aunt--could he? But after all
he did, when she called upon him, take "that cruel woman away."  He
had dragged her out by the arm. She had seen that plainly. She
remembered it. That was it! The woman was mad. "Oh! Mrs. Fyne,
don't tell me she wasn't mad. If you had only seen her face . . . "

But Mrs. Fyne was unflinching in her idea that as much truth as
could be told was due in the way of kindness to the girl, whose fate
she feared would be to live exposed to the hardest realities of
unprivileged existences. She explained to her that there were in
the world evil-minded, selfish people. Unscrupulous people . . .
These two persons had been after her father's money. The best thing
she could do was to forget all about them.

"After papa's money? I don't understand," poor Flora de Barral had
murmured, and lay still as if trying to think it out in the silence
and shadows of the room where only a night-light was burning. Then
she had a long shivering fit while holding tight the hand of Mrs.
Fyne whose patient immobility by the bedside of that brutally
murdered childhood did infinite honour to her humanity. That vigil
must have been the more trying because I could see very well that at
no time did she think the victim particularly charming or
sympathetic. It was a manifestation of pure compassion, of
compassion in itself, so to speak, not many women would have been
capable of displaying with that unflinching steadiness. The
shivering fit over, the girl's next words in an outburst of sobs
were, "Oh! Mrs. Fyne, am I really such a horrid thing as she has
made me out to be?"

"No, no!" protested Mrs. Fyne. "It is your former governess who is
horrid and odious. She is a vile woman. I cannot tell you that she
was mad but I think she must have been beside herself with rage and
full of evil thoughts. You must try not to think of these
abominations, my dear child."

They were not fit for anyone to think of much, Mrs. Fyne commented
to me in a curt positive tone. All that had been very trying. The
girl was like a creature struggling under a net.

"But how can I forget? she called my father a cheat and a swindler!
Do tell me Mrs. Fyne that it isn't true. It can't be true. How can
it be true?"

She sat up in bed with a sudden wild motion as if to jump out and
flee away from the sound of the words which had just passed her own
lips. Mrs. Fyne restrained her, soothed her, induced her at last to
lay her head on her pillow again, assuring her all the time that
nothing this woman had had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken
to heart. The girl, exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It may be
she had noticed something evasive in Mrs. Fyne's assurances. After
a while, without stirring, she whispered brokenly:

"That awful woman told me that all the world would call papa these
awful names. Is it possible? Is it possible?"

Mrs. Fyne kept silent.

"Do say something to me, Mrs. Fyne," the daughter of de Barral
insisted in the same feeble whisper.

Again Mrs. Fyne assured me that it had been very trying. Terribly
trying. "Yes, thanks, I will."  She leaned back in the chair with
folded arms while I poured another cup of tea for her, and Fyne went
out to pacify the dog which, tied up under the porch, had become
suddenly very indignant at somebody having the audacity to walk
along the lane. Mrs. Fyne stirred her tea for a long time, drank a
little, put the cup down and said with that air of accepting all the
consequences:

"Silence would have been unfair. I don't think it would have been
kind either. I told her that she must be prepared for the world
passing a very severe judgment on her father . . . "

"Wasn't it admirable," cried Marlow interrupting his narrative.
"Admirable!"  And as I looked dubiously at this unexpected
enthusiasm he started justifying it after his own manner.

"I say admirable because it was so characteristic. It was perfect.
Nothing short of genius could have found better. And this was
nature! As they say of an artist's work: this was a perfect Fyne.
Compassion--judiciousness--something correctly measured. None of
your dishevelled sentiment. And right! You must confess that
nothing could have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava!
Brava!" but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out
to bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp
comical yapping was unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and
Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal
no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger
minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in
low, sepulchral tones when I appeared. The dog became at once
wildly demonstrative, half strangling himself in his collar, his
eyes and tongue hanging out in the excess of his incomprehensible
affection for me. This was before he caught sight of the cake in my
hand. A series of vertical springs high up in the air followed, and
then, when he got the cake, he instantly lost his interest in
everything else.

Fyne was slightly vexed with me. As kind a master as any dog could
wish to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs.
The Fyne dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of
repulsive biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in.
Fyne looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at
that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly
stimulated) I was reminded visually, with an almost painful
distinctness, of the ghostly white face of the girl I saw last
accompanied by that dog--deserted by that dog. I almost heard her
distressed voice as if on the verge of resentful tears calling to
the dog, the unsympathetic dog. Perhaps she had not the power of
evoking sympathy, that personal gift of direct appeal to the
feelings. I said to Fyne, mistrusting the supine attitude of the
dog:

"Why don't you let him come inside?"

Oh dear no! He couldn't think of it! I might indeed have saved my
breath, I knew it was one of the Fynes' rules of life, part of their
solemnity and responsibility, one of those things that were part of
their unassertive but ever present superiority, that their dog must
not be allowed in. It was most improper to intrude the dog into the
houses of the people they were calling on--if it were only a
careless bachelor in farmhouse lodgings and a personal friend of the
dog. It was out of the question. But they would let him bark one's
sanity away outside one's window. They were strangely consistent in
their lack of imaginative sympathy. I didn't insist but simply led
the way back to the parlour, hoping that no wayfarer would happen
along the lane for the next hour or so to disturb the dog's
composure.

Mrs. Fyne seated immovable before the table charged with plates,
cups, jugs, a cold teapot, crumbs, and the general litter of the
entertainment turned her head towards us.

"You see, Mr. Marlow," she said in an unexpectedly confidential
tone: "they are so utterly unsuited for each other."

At the moment I did not know how to apply this remark. I thought at
first of Fyne and the dog. Then I adjusted it to the matter in hand
which was neither more nor less than an elopement. Yes, by Jove!
It was something very much like an elopement--with certain unusual
characteristics of its own which made it in a sense equivocal. With
amused wonder I remembered that my sagacity was requisitioned in
such a connection. How unexpected! But we never know what tests
our gifts may be put to. Sagacity dictated caution first of all. I
believe caution to be the first duty of sagacity. Fyne sat down as
if preparing himself to witness a joust, I thought.

"Do you think so, Mrs. Fyne?" I said sagaciously. "Of course you
are in a position . . . "  I was continuing with caution when she
struck out vivaciously for immediate assent.

"Obviously! Clearly! You yourself must admit . . . "

"But, Mrs. Fyne," I remonstrated, "you forget that I don't know your
brother."

This argument which was not only sagacious but true, overwhelmingly
true, unanswerably true, seemed to surprise her.

I wondered why. I did not know enough of her brother for the
remotest guess at what he might be like. I had never set eyes on
the man. I didn't know him so completely that by contrast I seemed
to have known Miss de Barral--whom I had seen twice (altogether
about sixty minutes) and with whom I had exchanged about sixty
words--from the cradle so to speak. And perhaps, I thought, looking
down at Mrs. Fyne (I had remained standing) perhaps she thinks that
this ought to be enough for a sagacious assent.

She kept silent; and I looking at her with polite expectation, went
on addressing her mentally in a mood of familiar approval which
would have astonished her had it been audible: You my dear at any
rate are a sincere woman . . . "

"I call a woman sincere," Marlow began again after giving me a cigar
and lighting one himself, "I call a woman sincere when she
volunteers a statement resembling remotely in form what she really
would like to say, what she really thinks ought to be said if it
were not for the necessity to spare the stupid sensitiveness of men.
The women's rougher, simpler, more upright judgment, embraces the
whole truth, which their tact, their mistrust of masculine idealism,
ever prevents them from speaking in its entirety. And their tact is
unerring. We could not stand women speaking the truth. We could
not bear it. It would cause infinite misery and bring about most
awful disturbances in this rather mediocre, but still idealistic
fool's paradise in which each of us lives his own little life--the
unit in the great sum of existence. And they know it. They are
merciful. This generalization does not apply exactly to Mrs. Fyne's
outburst of sincerity in a matter in which neither my affections nor
my vanity were engaged. That's why, may be, she ventured so far.
For a woman she chose to be as open as the day with me. There was
not only the form but almost the whole substance of her thought in
what she said. She believed she could risk it. She had reasoned
somewhat in this way; there's a man, possessing a certain amount of
sagacity . . . "

Marlow paused with a whimsical look at me. The last few words he
had spoken with the cigar in his teeth. He took it out now by an
ample movement of his arm and blew a thin cloud.

"You smile? It would have been more kind to spare my blushes. But
as a matter of fact I need not blush. This is not vanity; it is
analysis. We'll let sagacity stand. But we must also note what
sagacity in this connection stands for. When you see this you shall
see also that there was nothing in it to alarm my modesty. I don't
think Mrs. Fyne credited me with the possession of wisdom tempered
by common sense. And had I had the wisdom of the Seven Sages of
Antiquity, she would not have been moved to confidence or
admiration. The secret scorn of women for the capacity to consider
judiciously and to express profoundly a meditated conclusion is
unbounded. They have no use for these lofty exercises which they
look upon as a sort of purely masculine game--game meaning a
respectable occupation devised to kill time in this man-arranged
life which must be got through somehow. What women's acuteness
really respects are the inept "ideas" and the sheeplike impulses by
which our actions and opinions are determined in matters of real
importance. For if women are not rational they are indeed acute.
Even Mrs. Fyne was acute. The good woman was making up to her
husband's chess-player simply because she had scented in him that
small portion of 'femininity,' that drop of superior essence of
which I am myself aware; which, I gratefully acknowledge, has saved
me from one or two misadventures in my life either ridiculous or
lamentable, I am not very certain which. It matters very little.
Anyhow misadventures. Observe that I say 'femininity,' a privilege-
-not 'feminism,' an attitude. I am not a feminist. It was Fyne who
on certain solemn grounds had adopted that mental attitude; but it
was enough to glance at him sitting on one side, to see that he was
purely masculine to his finger-tips, masculine solidly, densely,
amusingly,--hopelessly.

I did glance at him. You don't get your sagacity recognized by a
man's wife without feeling the propriety and even the need to glance
at the man now and again. So I glanced at him. Very masculine. So
much so that "hopelessly" was not the last word of it. He was
helpless. He was bound and delivered by it. And if by the obscure
promptings of my composite temperament I beheld him with malicious
amusement, yet being in fact, by definition and especially from
profound conviction, a man, I could not help sympathizing with him
largely. Seeing him thus disarmed, so completely captive by the
very nature of things I was moved to speak to him kindly.

"Well. And what do you think of it?"

"I don't know. How's one to tell? But I say that the thing is done
now and there's an end of it," said the masculine creature as
bluntly as his innate solemnity permitted.

Mrs. Fyne moved a little in her chair. I turned to her and remarked
gently that this was a charge, a criticism, which was often made.
Some people always ask: What could he see in her? Others wonder
what she could have seen in him? Expressions of unsuitability.

She said with all the emphasis of her quietly folded arms:

"I know perfectly well what Flora has seen in my brother."

I bowed my head to the gust but pursued my point.

"And then the marriage in most cases turns out no worse than the
average, to say the least of it."

Mrs. Fyne was disappointed by the optimistic turn of my sagacity.
She rested her eyes on my face as though in doubt whether I had
enough femininity in my composition to understand the case.

I waited for her to speak. She seemed to be asking herself; Is it
after all, worth while to talk to that man? You understand how
provoking this was. I looked in my mind for something appallingly
stupid to say, with the object of distressing and teasing Mrs. Fyne.
It is humiliating to confess a failure. One would think that a man
of average intelligence could command stupidity at will. But it
isn't so. I suppose it's a special gift or else the difficulty
consists in being relevant. Discovering that I could find no really
telling stupidity, I turned to the next best thing; a platitude. I
advanced, in a common-sense tone, that, surely, in the matter of
marriage a man had only himself to please.

Mrs. Fyne received this without the flutter of an eyelid. Fyne's
masculine breast, as might have been expected, was pierced by that
old, regulation shaft. He grunted most feelingly. I turned to him
with false simplicity. "Don't you agree with me?"

"The very thing I've been telling my wife," he exclaimed in his
extra-manly bass. "We have been discussing--"

A discussion in the Fyne menage! How portentous! Perhaps the very
first difference they had ever had: Mrs. Fyne unflinching and ready
for any responsibility, Fyne solemn and shrinking--the children in
bed upstairs; and outside the dark fields, the shadowy contours of
the land on the starry background of the universe, with the crude
light of the open window like a beacon for the truant who would
never come back now; a truant no longer but a downright fugitive.
Yet a fugitive carrying off spoils. It was the flight of a raider--
or a traitor? This affair of the purloined brother, as I had named
it to myself, had a very puzzling physiognomy. The girl must have
been desperate, I thought, hearing the grave voice of Fyne well
enough but catching the sense of his words not at all, except the
very last words which were:

"Of course, it's extremely distressing."

I looked at him inquisitively. What was distressing him? The
purloining of the son of the poet-tyrant by the daughter of the
financier-convict. Or only, if I may say so, the wind of their
flight disturbing the solemn placidity of the Fynes' domestic
atmosphere. My incertitude did not last long, for he added:

"Mrs. Fyne urges me to go to London at once."

One could guess at, almost see, his profound distaste for the
journey, his distress at a difference of feeling with his wife.
With his serious view of the sublunary comedy Fyne suffered from not
being able to agree solemnly with her sentiment as he was accustomed
to do, in recognition of having had his way in one supreme instance;
when he made her elope with him--the most momentous step imaginable
in a young lady's life. He had been really trying to acknowledge it
by taking the rightness of her feeling for granted on every other
occasion. It had become a sort of habit at last. And it is never
pleasant to break a habit. The man was deeply troubled. I said:
"Really! To go to London!"

He looked dumbly into my eyes. It was pathetic and funny. "And you
of course feel it would be useless," I pursued.

He evidently felt that, though he said nothing. He only went on
blinking at me with a solemn and comical slowness. "Unless it be to
carry there the family's blessing," I went on, indulging my chaffing
humour steadily, in a rather sneaking fashion, for I dared not look
at Mrs. Fyne, to my right. No sound or movement came from that
direction. "You think very naturally that to match mere good, sound
reasons, against the passionate conclusions of love is a waste of
intellect bordering on the absurd."

He looked surprised as if I had discovered something very clever.
He, dear man, had thought of nothing at all.

He simply knew that he did not want to go to London on that mission.
Mere masculine delicacy. In a moment he became enthusiastic.

"Yes! Yes! Exactly. A man in love . . . You hear, my dear? Here
you have an independent opinion--"

"Can anything be more hopeless," I insisted to the fascinated little
Fyne, "than to pit reason against love. I must confess however that
in this case when I think of that poor girl's sharp chin I wonder if
. . . "

My levity was too much for Mrs. Fyne. Still leaning back in her
chair she exclaimed:

"Mr. Marlow!"

As if mysteriously affected by her indignation the absurd Fyne dog
began to bark in the porch. It might have been at a trespassing
bumble-bee however. That animal was capable of any eccentricity.
Fyne got up quickly and went out to him. I think he was glad to
leave us alone to discuss that matter of his journey to London. A
sort of anti-sentimental journey. He, too, apparently, had
confidence in my sagacity. It was touching, this confidence. It
was at any rate more genuine than the confidence his wife pretended
to have in her husband's chess-player, of three successive holidays.
Confidence be hanged! Sagacity--indeed! She had simply marched in
without a shadow of misgiving to make me back her up. But she had
delivered herself into my hands . . . "

Interrupting his narrative Marlow addressed me in his tone between
grim jest and grim earnest:

"Perhaps you didn't know that my character is upon the whole rather
vindictive."

"No, I didn't know," I said with a grin. "That's rather unusual for
a sailor. They always seemed to me the least vindictive body of men
in the world."

"H'm! Simple souls," Marlow muttered moodily. "Want of
opportunity. The world leaves them alone for the most part. For
myself it's towards women that I feel vindictive mostly, in my small
way. I admit that it is small. But then the occasions in
themselves are not great. Mainly I resent that pretence of winding
us round their dear little fingers, as of right. Not that the
result ever amounts to much generally. There are so very few
momentous opportunities. It is the assumption that each of us is a
combination of a kid and an imbecile which I find provoking--in a
small way; in a very small way. You needn't stare as though I were
breathing fire and smoke out of my nostrils. I am not a women-
devouring monster. I am not even what is technically called "a
brute."  I hope there's enough of a kid and an imbecile in me to
answer the requirements of some really good woman eventually--some
day . . . Some day. Why do you gasp? You don't suppose I should be
afraid of getting married? That supposition would be offensive . .
. "

"I wouldn't dream of offending you," I said.

"Very well. But meantime please remember that I was not married to
Mrs. Fyne. That lady's little finger was none of my legal property.
I had not run off with it. It was Fyne who had done that thing.
Let him be wound round as much as his backbone could stand--or even
more, for all I cared. His rushing away from the discussion on the
transparent pretence of quieting the dog confirmed my notion of
there being a considerable strain on his elasticity. I confronted
Mrs. Fyne resolved not to assist her in her eminently feminine
occupation of thrusting a stick in the spokes of another woman's
wheel.

She tried to preserve her calm-eyed superiority. She was familiar
and olympian, fenced in by the tea-table, that excellent symbol of
domestic life in its lighter hour and its perfect security. In a
few severely unadorned words she gave me to understand that she had
ventured to hope for some really helpful suggestion from me. To
this almost chiding declaration--because my vindictiveness seldom
goes further than a bit of teasing--I said that I was really doing
my best. And being a physiognomist . . . "

"Being what?" she interrupted me.

"A physiognomist," I repeated raising my voice a little. "A
physiognomist, Mrs. Fyne. And on the principles of that science a
pointed little chin is a sufficient ground for interference. You
want to interfere--do you not?"

Her eyes grew distinctly bigger. She had never been bantered before
in her life. The late subtle poet's method of making himself
unpleasant was merely savage and abusive. Fyne had been always
solemnly subservient. What other men she knew I cannot tell but I
assume they must have been gentlemanly creatures. The girl-friends
sat at her feet. How could she recognize my intention. She didn't
know what to make of my tone.

"Are you serious in what you say?" she asked slowly. And it was
touching. It was as if a very young, confiding girl had spoken. I
felt myself relenting.

"No. I am not, Mrs. Fyne," I said. "I didn't know I was expected
to be serious as well as sagacious. No. That science is farcical
and therefore I am not serious. It's true that most sciences are
farcical except those which teach us how to put things together."

"The question is how to keep these two people apart," she struck in.
She had recovered. I admired the quickness of women's wit. Mental
agility is a rare perfection. And aren't they agile! Aren't they--
just! And tenacious! When they once get hold you may uproot the
tree but you won't shake them off the branch. In fact the more you
shake . . . But only look at the charm of contradictory perfections!
No wonder men give in--generally. I won't say I was actually
charmed by Mrs. Fyne. I was not delighted with her. What affected
me was not what she displayed but something which she could not
conceal. And that was emotion--nothing less. The form of her
declaration was dry, almost peremptory--but not its tone. Her voice
faltered just the least bit, she smiled faintly; and as we were
looking straight at each other I observed that her eyes were
glistening in a peculiar manner. She was distressed. And indeed
that Mrs. Fyne should have appealed to me at all was in itself the
evidence of her profound distress. "By Jove she's desperate too," I
thought. This discovery was followed by a movement of instinctive
shrinking from this unreasonable and unmasculine affair. They were
all alike, with their supreme interest aroused only by fighting with
each other about some man: a lover, a son, a brother.

"But do you think there's time yet to do anything?" I asked.

She had an impatient movement of her shoulders without detaching
herself from the back of the chair. Time! Of course? It was less
than forty-eight hours since she had followed him to London . . . I
am no great clerk at those matters but I murmured vaguely an
allusion to special licences. We couldn't tell what might have
happened to-day already. But she knew better, scornfully. Nothing
had happened.

"Nothing's likely to happen before next Friday week,--if then."

This was wonderfully precise. Then after a pause she added that she
should never forgive herself if some effort were not made, an
appeal.

"To your brother?" I asked.

"Yes. John ought to go to-morrow. Nine o'clock train."

"So early as that!" I said. But I could not find it in my heart to
pursue this discussion in a jocular tone. I submitted to her
several obvious arguments, dictated apparently by common sense but
in reality by my secret compassion. Mrs. Fyne brushed them aside,
with the semi-conscious egoism of all safe, established, existences.
They had known each other so little. Just three weeks. And of that
time, too short for the birth of any serious sentiment, the first
week had to be deducted. They would hardly look at each other to
begin with. Flora barely consented to acknowledge Captain Anthony's
presence. Good morning--good night--that was all--absolutely the
whole extent of their intercourse. Captain Anthony was a silent
man, completely unused to the society of girls of any sort and so
shy in fact that he avoided raising his eyes to her face at the
table. It was perfectly absurd. It was even inconvenient,
embarrassing to her--Mrs. Fyne. After breakfast Flora would go off
by herself for a long walk and Captain Anthony (Mrs. Fyne referred
to him at times also as Roderick) joined the children. But he was
actually too shy to get on terms with his own nieces.

This would have sounded pathetic if I hadn't known the Fyne children
who were at the same time solemn and malicious, and nursed a secret
contempt for all the world. No one could get on terms with those
fresh and comely young monsters! They just tolerated their parents
and seemed to have a sort of mocking understanding among themselves
against all outsiders, yet with no visible affection for each other.
They had the habit of exchanging derisive glances which to a shy man
must have been very trying. They thought their uncle no doubt a
bore and perhaps an ass.

I was not surprised to hear that very soon Anthony formed the habit
of crossing the two neighbouring fields to seek the shade of a clump
of elms at a good distance from the cottage. He lay on the grass
and smoked his pipe all the morning. Mrs. Fyne wondered at her
brother's indolent habits. He had asked for books it is true but
there were but few in the cottage. He read them through in three
days and then continued to lie contentedly on his back with no other
companion but his pipe. Amazing indolence! The live-long morning,
Mrs. Fyne, busy writing upstairs in the cottage, could see him out
of the window. She had a very long sight, and these elms were
grouped on a rise of the ground. His indolence was plainly exposed
to her criticism on a gentle green slope. Mrs. Fyne wondered at it;
she was disgusted too. But having just then 'commenced author,' as
you know, she could not tear herself away from the fascinating
novelty. She let him wallow in his vice. I imagine Captain Anthony
must have had a rather pleasant time in a quiet way. It was, I
remember, a hot dry summer, favourable to contemplative life out of
doors. And Mrs. Fyne was scandalized. Women don't understand the
force of a contemplative temperament. It simply shocks them. They
feel instinctively that it is the one which escapes best the
domination of feminine influences. The dear girls were exchanging
jeering remarks about "lazy uncle Roderick" openly, in her indulgent
hearing. And it was so strange, she told me, because as a boy he
was anything but indolent. On the contrary. Always active.

I remarked that a man of thirty-five was no longer a boy. It was an
obvious remark but she received it without favour. She told me
positively that the best, the nicest men remained boys all their
lives. She was disappointed not to be able to detect anything
boyish in her brother. Very, very sorry. She had not seen him for
fifteen years or thereabouts, except on three or four occasions for
a few hours at a time. No. Not a trace of the boy, he used to be,
left in him.

She fell silent for a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of
little Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like. His
dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days,
because I've never seen such staring solemnity as Fyne's except in a
very young baby. But where was he all that time? Didn't he suffer
contamination from the indolence of Captain Anthony, I inquired. I
was told that Mr. Fyne was very little at the cottage at the time.
Some colleague of his was convalescing after a severe illness in a
little seaside village in the neighbourhood and Fyne went off every
morning by train to spend the day with the elderly invalid who had
no one to look after him. It was a very praiseworthy excuse for
neglecting his brother-in-law "the son of the poet, you know," with
whom he had nothing in common even in the remotest degree. If
Captain Anthony (Roderick) had been a pedestrian it would have been
sufficient; but he was not. Still, in the afternoon, he went
sometimes for a slow casual stroll, by himself of course, the
children having definitely cold-shouldered him, and his only sister
being busy with that inflammatory book which was to blaze upon the
world a year or more afterwards. It seems however that she was
capable of detaching her eyes from her task now and then, if only
for a moment, because it was from that garret fitted out for a study
that one afternoon she observed her brother and Flora de Barral
coming down the road side by side. They had met somewhere
accidentally (which of them crossed the other's path, as the saying
is, I don't know), and were returning to tea together. She noticed
that they appeared to be conversing without constraint.

"I had the simplicity to be pleased," Mrs. Fyne commented with a dry
little laugh. "Pleased for both their sakes."  Captain Anthony
shook off his indolence from that day forth, and accompanied Miss
Flora frequently on her morning walks. Mrs. Fyne remained pleased.
She could now forget them comfortably and give herself up to the
delights of audacious thought and literary composition. Only a week
before the blow fell she, happening to raise her eyes from the
paper, saw two figures seated on the grass under the shade of the
elms. She could make out the white blouse. There could be no
mistake.

"I suppose they imagined themselves concealed by the hedge. They
forgot no doubt I was working in the garret," she said bitterly.
"Or perhaps they didn't care. They were right. I am rather a
simple person . . . "  She laughed again . . . "I was incapable of
suspecting such duplicity."

"Duplicity is a strong word, Mrs. Fyne--isn't it?" I expostulated.
"And considering that Captain Anthony himself . . . "

"Oh well--perhaps," she interrupted me. Her eyes which never
strayed away from mine, her set features, her whole immovable
figure, how well I knew those appearances of a person who has "made
up her mind."  A very hopeless condition that, specially in women.
I mistrusted her concession so easily, so stonily made. She
reflected a moment. "Yes. I ought to have said--ingratitude,
perhaps."

After having thus disengaged her brother and pushed the poor girl a
little further off as it were--isn't women's cleverness perfectly
diabolic when they are really put on their mettle?--after having
done these things and also made me feel that I was no match for her,
she went on scrupulously: "One doesn't like to use that word
either. The claim is very small. It's so little one could do for
her. Still . . . "

"I dare say," I exclaimed, throwing diplomacy to the winds. "But
really, Mrs. Fyne, it's impossible to dismiss your brother like this
out of the business . . . "

"She threw herself at his head," Mrs. Fyne uttered firmly.

"He had no business to put his head in the way, then," I retorted
with an angry laugh. I didn't restrain myself because her fixed
stare seemed to express the purpose to daunt me. I was not afraid
of her, but it occurred to me that I was within an ace of drifting
into a downright quarrel with a lady and, besides, my guest. There
was the cold teapot, the emptied cups, emblems of hospitality. It
could not be. I cut short my angry laugh while Mrs. Fyne murmured
with a slight movement of her shoulders, "He! Poor man! Oh come .
. . "

By a great effort of will I found myself able to smile amiably, to
speak with proper softness.

"My dear Mrs. Fyne, you forget that I don't know him--not even by
sight. It's difficult to imagine a victim as passive as all that;
but granting you the (I very nearly said: imbecility, but checked
myself in time) innocence of Captain Anthony, don't you think now,
frankly, that there is a little of your own fault in what has
happened. You bring them together, you leave your brother to
himself!"

She sat up and leaning her elbow on the table sustained her head in
her open palm casting down her eyes. Compunction? It was indeed a
very off-hand way of treating a brother come to stay for the first
time in fifteen years. I suppose she discovered very soon that she
had nothing in common with that sailor, that stranger, fashioned and
marked by the sea of long voyages. In her strong-minded way she had
scorned pretences, had gone to her writing which interested her
immensely. A very praiseworthy thing your sincere conduct,--if it
didn't at times resemble brutality so much. But I don't think it
was compunction. That sentiment is rare in women . . . "

"Is it?" I interrupted indignantly.

"You know more women than I do," retorted the unabashed Marlow.
"You make it your business to know them--don't you? You go about a
lot amongst all sorts of people. You are a tolerably honest
observer. Well, just try to remember how many instances of
compunction you have seen. I am ready to take your bare word for
it. Compunction! Have you ever seen as much as its shadow? Have
you ever? Just a shadow--a passing shadow! I tell you it is so
rare that you may call it non-existent. They are too passionate.
Too pedantic. Too courageous with themselves--perhaps. No I don't
think for a moment that Mrs. Fyne felt the slightest compunction at
her treatment of her sea-going brother. What HE thought of it who
can tell? It is possible that he wondered why he had been so
insistently urged to come. It is possible that he wondered
bitterly--or contemptuously--or humbly. And it may be that he was
only surprised and bored. Had he been as sincere in his conduct as
his only sister he would have probably taken himself off at the end
of the second day. But perhaps he was afraid of appearing brutal.
I am not far removed from the conviction that between the
sincerities of his sister and of his dear nieces, Captain Anthony of
the Ferndale must have had his loneliness brought home to his bosom
for the first time of his life, at an age, thirty-five or
thereabouts, when one is mature enough to feel the pang of such a
discovery. Angry or simply sad but certainly disillusioned he
wanders about and meets the girl one afternoon and under the sway of
a strong feeling forgets his shyness. This is no supposition. It
is a fact. There was such a meeting in which the shyness must have
perished before we don't know what encouragement, or in the
community of mood made apparent by some casual word. You remember
that Mrs. Fyne saw them one afternoon coming back to the cottage
together. Don't you think that I have hit on the psychology of the
situation? . . . "

"Doubtless . . . "  I began to ponder.

"I was very certain of my conclusions at the time," Marlow went on
impatiently. "But don't think for a moment that Mrs. Fyne in her
new attitude and toying thoughtfully with a teaspoon was about to
surrender. She murmured:

"It's the last thing I should have thought could happen."

"You didn't suppose they were romantic enough," I suggested dryly.

She let it pass and with great decision but as if speaking to
herself,

"Roderick really must be warned."

She didn't give me the time to ask of what precisely. She raised
her head and addressed me.

"I am surprised and grieved more than I can tell you at Mr. Fyne's
resistance. We have been always completely at one on every
question. And that we should differ now on a point touching my
brother so closely is a most painful surprise to me."  Her hand
rattled the teaspoon brusquely by an involuntary movement. "It is
intolerable," she added tempestuously--for Mrs. Fyne that is. I
suppose she had nerves of her own like any other woman.

Under the porch where Fyne had sought refuge with the dog there was
silence. I took it for a proof of deep sagacity. I don't mean on
the part of the dog. He was a confirmed fool.

I said:

"You want absolutely to interfere . . . ?"  Mrs. Fyne nodded just
perceptibly . . . "Well--for my part . . . but I don't really know
how matters stand at the present time. You have had a letter from
Miss de Barral. What does that letter say?"

"She asks for her valise to be sent to her town address," Mrs. Fyne
uttered reluctantly and stopped. I waited a bit--then exploded.

"Well! What's the matter? Where's the difficulty? Does your
husband object to that? You don't mean to say that he wants you to
appropriate the girl's clothes?"

"Mr. Marlow!"

"Well, but you talk of a painful difference of opinion with your
husband, and then, when I ask for information on the point, you
bring out a valise. And only a few moments ago you reproached me
for not being serious. I wonder who is the serious person of us two
now."

She smiled faintly and in a friendly tone, from which I concluded at
once that she did not mean to show me the girl's letter, she said
that undoubtedly the letter disclosed an understanding between
Captain Anthony and Flora de Barral.

"What understanding?" I pressed her. "An engagement is an
understanding."

"There is no engagement--not yet," she said decisively. "That
letter, Mr. Marlow, is couched in very vague terms. That is why--"

I interrupted her without ceremony.

"You still hope to interfere to some purpose. Isn't it so? Yes?
But how should you have liked it if anybody had tried to interfere
between you and Mr. Fyne at the time when your understanding with
each other could still have been described in vague terms?"

She had a genuine movement of astonished indignation. It is with
the accent of perfect sincerity that she cried out at me:

"But it isn't at all the same thing! How can you!"

Indeed how could I! The daughter of a poet and the daughter of a
convict are not comparable in the consequences of their conduct if
their necessity may wear at times a similar aspect. Amongst these
consequences I could perceive undesirable cousins for these dear
healthy girls, and such like, possible causes of embarrassment in
the future.

"No! You can't be serious," Mrs. Fyne's smouldering resentment
broke out again. "You haven't thought--"

"Oh yes, Mrs. Fyne! I have thought. I am still thinking. I am
even trying to think like you."

"Mr. Marlow," she said earnestly. "Believe me that I really am
thinking of my brother in all this . . . "  I assured her that I
quite believed she was. For there is no law of nature making it
impossible to think of more than one person at a time. Then I said:

"She has told him all about herself of course."

"All about her life," assented Mrs. Fyne with an air, however, of
making some mental reservation which I did not pause to investigate.
"Her life!" I repeated. "That girl must have had a mighty bad time
of it."

"Horrible," Mrs. Fyne admitted with a ready frankness very
creditable under the circumstances, and a warmth of tone which made
me look at her with a friendly eye. "Horrible! No! You can't
imagine the sort of vulgar people she became dependent on . . . You
know her father never attempted to see her while he was still at
large. After his arrest he instructed that relative of his--the
odious person who took her away from Brighton--not to let his
daughter come to the court during the trial. He refused to hold any
communication with her whatever."

I remembered what Mrs. Fyne had told me before of the view she had
years ago of de Barral clinging to the child at the side of his
wife's grave and later on of these two walking hand in hand the
observed of all eyes by the sea. Pictures from Dickens--pregnant
with pathos.

CHAPTER SIX--FLORA

"A very singular prohibition," remarked Mrs. Fyne after a short
silence. "He seemed to love the child."

She was puzzled. But I surmised that it might have been the
sullenness of a man unconscious of guilt and standing at bay to
fight his "persecutors," as he called them; or else the fear of a
softer emotion weakening his defiant attitude; perhaps, even, it was
a self-denying ordinance, in order to spare the girl the sight of
her father in the dock, accused of cheating, sentenced as a
swindler--proving the possession of a certain moral delicacy.

Mrs. Fyne didn't know what to think. She supposed it might have
been mere callousness. But the people amongst whom the girl had
fallen had positively not a grain of moral delicacy. Of that she
was certain. Mrs. Fyne could not undertake to give me an idea of
their abominable vulgarity. Flora used to tell her something of her
life in that household, over there, down Limehouse way. It was
incredible. It passed Mrs. Fyne's comprehension. It was a sort of
moral savagery which she could not have thought possible.

I, on the contrary, thought it very possible. I could imagine
easily how the poor girl must have been bewildered and hurt at her
reception in that household--envied for her past while delivered
defenceless to the tender mercies of people without any fineness
either of feeling or mind, unable to understand her misery, grossly
curious, mistaking her manner for disdain, her silent shrinking for
pride. The wife of the "odious person" was witless and fatuously
conceited. Of the two girls of the house one was pious and the
other a romp; both were coarse-minded--if they may be credited with
any mind at all. The rather numerous men of the family were dense
and grumpy, or dense and jocose. None in that grubbing lot had
enough humanity to leave her alone. At first she was made much of,
in an offensively patronising manner. The connection with the great
de Barral gratified their vanity even in the moment of the smash.
They dragged her to their place of worship, whatever it might have
been, where the congregation stared at her, and they gave parties to
other beings like themselves at which they exhibited her with
ignoble self-satisfaction. She did not know how to defend herself
from their importunities, insolence and exigencies. She lived
amongst them, a passive victim, quivering in every nerve, as if she
were flayed. After the trial her position became still worse. On
the least occasion and even on no occasions at all she was scolded,
or else taunted with her dependence. The pious girl lectured her on
her defects, the romping girl teased her with contemptuous
references to her accomplishments, and was always trying to pick
insensate quarrels with her about some "fellow" or other. The
mother backed up her girls invariably, adding her own silly,
wounding remarks. I must say they were probably not aware of the
ugliness of their conduct. They were nasty amongst themselves as a
matter of course; their disputes were nauseating in origin, in
manner, in the spirit of mean selfishness. These women, too, seemed
to enjoy greatly any sort of row and were always ready to combine
together to make awful scenes to the luckless girl on incredibly
flimsy pretences. Thus Flora on one occasion had been reduced to
rage and despair, had her most secret feelings lacerated, had
obtained a view of the utmost baseness to which common human nature
can descend--I won't say e propos de bottes as the French would
excellently put it, but literally e propos of some mislaid cheap
lace trimmings for a nightgown the romping one was making for
herself. Yes, that was the origin of one of the grossest scenes
which, in their repetition, must have had a deplorable effect on the
unformed character of the most pitiful of de Barral's victims. I
have it from Mrs. Fyne. The girl turned up at the Fynes' house at
half-past nine on a cold, drizzly evening. She had walked
bareheaded, I believe, just as she ran out of the house, from
somewhere in Poplar to the neighbourhood of Sloane Square--without
stopping, without drawing breath, if only for a sob.

"We were having some people to dinner," said the anxious sister of
Captain Anthony.

She had heard the front door bell and wondered what it might mean.
The parlourmaid managed to whisper to her without attracting
attention. The servants had been frightened by the invasion of that
wild girl in a muddy skirt and with wisps of damp hair sticking to
her pale cheeks. But they had seen her before. This was not the
first occasion, nor yet the last.

Directly she could slip away from her guests Mrs. Fyne ran upstairs.

"I found her in the night nursery crouching on the floor, her head
resting on the cot of the youngest of my girls. The eldest was
sitting up in bed looking at her across the room."

Only a nightlight was burning there. Mrs. Fyne raised her up, took
her over to Mr. Fyne's little dressing-room on the other side of the
landing, to a fire by which she could dry herself, and left her
there. She had to go back to her guests.

A most disagreeable surprise it must have been to the Fynes.
Afterwards they both went up and interviewed the girl. She jumped
up at their entrance. She had shaken her damp hair loose; her eyes
were dry--with the heat of rage.

I can imagine little Fyne solemnly sympathetic, solemnly listening,
solemnly retreating to the marital bedroom. Mrs. Fyne pacified the
girl, and, fortunately, there was a bed which could be made up for
her in the dressing-room.

"But--what could one do after all!" concluded Mrs. Fyne.

And this stereotyped exclamation, expressing the difficulty of the
problem and the readiness (at any rate) of good intentions, made me,
as usual, feel more kindly towards her.

Next morning, very early, long before Fyne had to start for his
office, the "odious personage" turned up, not exactly unexpected
perhaps, but startling all the same, if only by the promptness of
his action. From what Flora herself related to Mrs. Fyne, it seems
that without being very perceptibly less "odious" than his family he
had in a rather mysterious fashion interposed his authority for the
protection of the girl. "Not that he cares," explained Flora. "I
am sure he does not. I could not stand being liked by any of these
people. If I thought he liked me I would drown myself rather than
go back with him."

For of course he had come to take "Florrie" home. The scene was the
dining-room--breakfast interrupted, dishes growing cold, little
Fyne's toast growing leathery, Fyne out of his chair with his back
to the fire, the newspaper on the carpet, servants shut out, Mrs.
Fyne rigid in her place with the girl sitting beside her--the
"odious person," who had bustled in with hardly a greeting, looking
from Fyne to Mrs. Fyne as though he were inwardly amused at
something he knew of them; and then beginning ironically his
discourse. He did not apologize for disturbing Fyne and his "good
lady" at breakfast, because he knew they did not want (with a nod at
the girl) to have more of her than could be helped. He came the
first possible moment because he had his business to attend to. He
wasn't drawing a tip-top salary (this staring at Fyne) in a
luxuriously furnished office. Not he. He had risen to be an
employer of labour and was bound to give a good example.

I believe the fellow was aware of, and enjoyed quietly, the
consternation his presence brought to the bosom of Mr. and Mrs.
Fyne. He turned briskly to the girl. Mrs. Fyne confessed to me
that they had remained all three silent and inanimate. He turned to
the girl: "What's this game, Florrie? You had better give it up.
If you expect me to run all over London looking for you every time
you happen to have a tiff with your auntie and cousins you are
mistaken. I can't afford it."

Tiff--was the sort of definition to take one's breath away, having
regard to the fact that both the word convict and the word pauper
had been used a moment before Flora de Barral ran away from the
quarrel about the lace trimmings. Yes, these very words! So at
least the girl had told Mrs. Fyne the evening before. The word tiff
in connection with her tale had a peculiar savour, a paralysing
effect. Nobody made a sound. The relative of de Barral proceeded
uninterrupted to a display of magnanimity. "Auntie told me to tell
you she's sorry--there! And Amelia (the romping sister) shan't
worry you again. I'll see to that. You ought to be satisfied.
Remember your position."

Emboldened by the utter stillness pervading the room he addressed
himself to Mrs. Fyne with stolid effrontery:

"What I say is that people should be good-natured. She can't stand
being chaffed. She puts on her grand airs. She won't take a bit of
a joke from people as good as herself anyway. We are a plain lot.
We don't like it. And that's how trouble begins."

Insensible to the stony stare of three pairs of eyes, which, if the
stories of our childhood as to the power of the human eye are true,
ought to have been enough to daunt a tiger, that unabashed
manufacturer from the East End fastened his fangs, figuratively
speaking, into the poor girl and prepared to drag her away for a
prey to his cubs of both sexes. "Auntie has thought of sending you
your hat and coat. I've got them outside in the cab."

Mrs. Fyne looked mechanically out of the window. A four-wheeler
stood before the gate under the weeping sky. The driver in his
conical cape and tarpaulin hat, streamed with water. The drooping
horse looked as though it had been fished out, half unconscious,
from a pond. Mrs. Fyne found some relief in looking at that
miserable sight, away from the room in which the voice of the
amiable visitor resounded with a vulgar intonation exhorting the
strayed sheep to return to the delightful fold. "Come, Florrie,
make a move. I can't wait on you all day here."

Mrs. Fyne heard all this without turning her head away from the
window. Fyne on the hearthrug had to listen and to look on too. I
shall not try to form a surmise as to the real nature of the
suspense. Their very goodness must have made it very anxious. The
girl's hands were lying in her lap; her head was lowered as if in
deep thought; and the other went on delivering a sort of homily.
Ingratitude was condemned in it, the sinfulness of pride was pointed
out--together with the proverbial fact that it "goes before a fall."
There were also some sound remarks as to the danger of nonsensical
notions and the disadvantages of a quick temper. It sets one's best
friends against one. "And if anybody ever wanted friends in the
world it's you, my girl."  Even respect for parental authority was
invoked. "In the first hour of his trouble your father wrote to me
to take care of you--don't forget it. Yes, to me, just a plain man,
rather than to any of his fine West-End friends. You can't get over
that. And a father's a father no matter what a mess he's got
himself into. You ain't going to throw over your own father--are
you?"

It was difficult to say whether he was more absurd than cruel or
more cruel than absurd. Mrs. Fyne, with the fine ear of a woman,
seemed to detect a jeering intention in his meanly unctuous tone,
something more vile than mere cruelty. She glanced quickly over her
shoulder and saw the girl raise her two hands to her head, then let
them fall again on her lap. Fyne in front of the fire was like the
victim of an unholy spell--bereft of motion and speech but obviously
in pain. It was a short pause of perfect silence, and then that
"odious creature" (he must have been really a remarkable individual
in his way) struck out into sarcasm.

"Well? . . . "  Again a silence. "If you have fixed it up with the
lady and gentleman present here for your board and lodging you had
better say so. I don't want to interfere in a bargain I know
nothing of. But I wonder how your father will take it when he comes
out . . . or don't you expect him ever to come out?"

At that moment, Mrs. Fyne told me she met the girl's eyes. There
was that in them which made her shut her own. She also felt as
though she would have liked to put her fingers in her ears. She
restrained herself, however; and the "plain man" passed in his
appalling versatility from sarcasm to veiled menace.

"You have--eh? Well and good. But before I go home let me ask you,
my girl, to think if by any chance you throwing us over like this
won't be rather bad for your father later on? Just think it over."

He looked at his victim with an air of cunning mystery. She jumped
up so suddenly that he started back. Mrs. Fyne rose too, and even
the spell was removed from her husband. But the girl dropped again
into the chair and turned her head to look at Mrs. Fyne. This time
it was no accidental meeting of fugitive glances. It was a
deliberate communication. To my question as to its nature Mrs. Fyne
said she did not know. "Was it appealing?" I suggested. "No," she
said. "Was it frightened, angry, crushed, resigned?"  "No! No!
Nothing of these."  But it had frightened her. She remembered it to
this day. She had been ever since fancying she could detect the
lingering reflection of that look in all the girl's glances. In the
attentive, in the casual--even in the grateful glances--in the
expression of the softest moods.

"Has she her soft moods, then?" I asked with interest.

Mrs Fyne, much moved by her recollections, heeded not my inquiry.
All her mental energy was concentrated on the nature of that
memorable glance. The general tradition of mankind teaches us that
glances occupy a considerable place in the self-expression of women.
Mrs. Fyne was trying honestly to give me some idea, as much perhaps
to satisfy her own uneasiness as my curiosity. She was frowning in
the effort as you see sometimes a child do (what is delightful in
women is that they so often resemble intelligent children--I mean
the crustiest, the sourest, the most battered of them do--at times).
She was frowning, I say, and I was beginning to smile faintly at her
when all at once she came out with something totally unexpected.

"It was horribly merry," she said.

I suppose she must have been satisfied by my sudden gravity because
she looked at me in a friendly manner.

"Yes, Mrs. Fyne," I said, smiling no longer. "I see. It would have
been horrible even on the stage."

"Ah!" she interrupted me--and I really believe her change of
attitude back to folded arms was meant to check a shudder. "But it
wasn't on the stage, and it was not with her lips that she laughed."

"Yes. It must have been horrible," I assented. "And then she had
to go away ultimately--I suppose. You didn't say anything?"

"No," said Mrs. Fyne. "I rang the bell and told one of the maids to
go and bring the hat and coat out of the cab. And then we waited."

I don't think that there ever was such waiting unless possibly in a
jail at some moment or other on the morning of an execution. The
servant appeared with the hat and coat, and then, still as on the
morning of an execution, when the condemned, I believe, is offered a
breakfast, Mrs. Fyne, anxious that the white-faced girl should
swallow something warm (if she could) before leaving her house for
an interminable drive through raw cold air in a damp four-wheeler--
Mrs. Fyne broke the awful silence: "You really must try to eat
something," in her best resolute manner. She turned to the "odious
person" with the same determination. "Perhaps you will sit down and
have a cup of coffee, too."

The worthy "employer of labour" sat down. He might have been awed
by Mrs. Fyne's peremptory manner--for she did not think of
conciliating him then. He sat down, provisionally, like a man who
finds himself much against his will in doubtful company. He
accepted ungraciously the cup handed to him by Mrs. Fyne, took an
unwilling sip or two and put it down as if there were some moral
contamination in the coffee of these "swells."  Between whiles he
directed mysteriously inexpressive glances at little Fyne, who, I
gather, had no breakfast that morning at all. Neither had the girl.
She never moved her hands from her lap till her appointed guardian
got up, leaving his cup half full.

"Well. If you don't mean to take advantage of this lady's kind
offer I may just as well take you home at once. I want to begin my
day--I do."

After a few more dumb, leaden-footed minutes while Flora was putting
on her hat and jacket, the Fynes without moving, without saying
anything, saw these two leave the room.

"She never looked back at us," said Mrs. Fyne. "She just followed
him out. I've never had such a crushing impression of the miserable
dependence of girls--of women. This was an extreme case. But a
young man--any man--could have gone to break stones on the roads or
something of that kind--or enlisted--or--"

It was very true. Women can't go forth on the high roads and by-
ways to pick up a living even when dignity, independence, or
existence itself are at stake. But what made me interrupt Mrs.
Fyne's tirade was my profound surprise at the fact of that
respectable citizen being so willing to keep in his home the poor
girl for whom it seemed there was no place in the world. And not
only willing but anxious. I couldn't credit him with generous
impulses. For it seemed obvious to me from what I had learned that,
to put it mildly, he was not an impulsive person.

"I confess that I can't understand his motive," I exclaimed.

"This is exactly what John wondered at, at first," said Mrs. Fyne.
By that time an intimacy--if not exactly confidence--had sprung up
between us which permitted her in this discussion to refer to her
husband as John. "You know he had not opened his lips all that
time," she pursued. "I don't blame his restraint. On the contrary.
What could he have said? I could see he was observing the man very
thoughtfully."

"And so, Mr. Fyne listened, observed and meditated," I said.
"That's an excellent way of coming to a conclusion. And may I ask
at what conclusion he had managed to arrive? On what ground did he
cease to wonder at the inexplicable? For I can't admit humanity to
be the explanation. It would be too monstrous."

It was nothing of the sort, Mrs. Fyne assured me with some
resentment, as though I had aspersed little Fyne's sanity. Fyne
very sensibly had set himself the mental task of discovering the
self-interest. I should not have thought him capable of so much
cynicism. He said to himself that for people of that sort
(religious fears or the vanity of righteousness put aside) money--
not great wealth, but money, just a little money--is the measure of
virtue, of expediency, of wisdom--of pretty well everything. But
the girl was absolutely destitute. The father was in prison after
the most terribly complete and disgraceful smash of modern times.
And then it dawned upon Fyne that this was just it. The great
smash, in the great dust of vanishing millions! Was it possible
that they all had vanished to the last penny? Wasn't there,
somewhere, something palpable; some fragment of the fabric left?

"That's it," had exclaimed Fyne, startling his wife by this
explosive unseating of his lips less than half an hour after the
departure of de Barral's cousin with de Barral's daughter. It was
still in the dining-room, very near the time for him to go forth
affronting the elements in order to put in another day's work in his
country's service. All he could say at the moment in elucidation of
this breakdown from his usual placid solemnity was:

"The fellow imagines that de Barral has got some plunder put away
somewhere."

This being the theory arrived at by Fyne, his comment on it was that
a good many bankrupts had been known to have taken such a
precaution. It was possible in de Barral's case. Fyne went so far
in his display of cynical pessimism as to say that it was extremely
probable.

He explained at length to Mrs. Fyne that de Barral certainly did not
take anyone into his confidence. But the beastly relative had made
up his low mind that it was so. He was selfish and pitiless in his
stupidity, but he had clearly conceived the notion of making a claim
on de Barral when de Barral came out of prison on the strength of
having "looked after" (as he would have himself expressed it) his
daughter. He nursed his hopes, such as they were, in secret, and it
is to be supposed kept them even from his wife.

I could see it very well. That belief accounted for his mysterious
air while he interfered in favour of the girl. He was the only
protector she had. It was as though Flora had been fated to be
always surrounded by treachery and lies stifling every better
impulse, every instinctive aspiration of her soul to trust and to
love. It would have been enough to drive a fine nature into the
madness of universal suspicion--into any sort of madness. I don't
know how far a sense of humour will stand by one. To the foot of
the gallows, perhaps. But from my recollection of Flora de Barral I
feared that she hadn't much sense of humour. She had cried at the
desertion of the absurd Fyne dog. That animal was certainly free
from duplicity. He was frank and simple and ridiculous. The
indignation of the girl at his unhypocritical behaviour had been
funny but not humorous.

As you may imagine I was not very anxious to resume the discussion
on the justice, expediency, effectiveness or what not, of Fyne's
journey to London. It isn't that I was unfaithful to little Fyne
out in the porch with the dog. (They kept amazingly quiet there.
Could they have gone to sleep?)  What I felt was that either my
sagacity or my conscience would come out damaged from that campaign.
And no man will willingly put himself in the way of moral damage. I
did not want a war with Mrs. Fyne. I much preferred to hear
something more of the girl. I said:

"And so she went away with that respectable ruffian."

Mrs. Fyne moved her shoulders slightly--"What else could she have
done?"  I agreed with her by another hopeless gesture. It isn't so
easy for a girl like Flora de Barral to become a factory hand, a
pathetic seamstress or even a barmaid. She wouldn't have known how
to begin. She was the captive of the meanest conceivable fate. And
she wasn't mean enough for it. It is to be remarked that a good
many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate awaiting them
on this earth. As I don't want you to think that I am unduly
partial to the girl we shall say that she failed decidedly to endear
herself to that simple, virtuous and, I believe, teetotal household.
It's my conviction that an angel would have failed likewise. It's
no use going into details; suffice it to state that before the year
was out she was again at the Fynes' door.

This time she was escorted by a stout youth. His large pale face
wore a smile of inane cunning soured by annoyance. His clothes were
new and the indescribable smartness of their cut, a genre which had
never been obtruded on her notice before, astonished Mrs. Fyne, who
came out into the hall with her hat on; for she was about to go out
to hear a new pianist (a girl) in a friend's house. The youth
addressing Mrs. Fyne easily begged her not to let "that silly thing
go back to us any more."  There had been, he said, nothing but
"ructions" at home about her for the last three weeks. Everybody in
the family was heartily sick of quarrelling. His governor had
charged him to bring her to this address and say that the lady and
gentleman were quite welcome to all there was in it. She hadn't
enough sense to appreciate a plain, honest English home and she was
better out of it.

The young, pimply-faced fellow was vexed by this job his governor
had sprung on him. It was the cause of his missing an appointment
for that afternoon with a certain young lady. The lady he was
engaged to. But he meant to dash back and try for a sight of her
that evening yet "if he were to burst over it."  "Good-bye, Florrie.
Good luck to you--and I hope I'll never see your face again."

With that he ran out in lover-like haste leaving the hall-door wide
open. Mrs. Fyne had not found a word to say. She had been too much
taken aback even to gasp freely. But she had the presence of mind
to grab the girl's arm just as she, too, was running out into the
street--with the haste, I suppose, of despair and to keep I don't
know what tragic tryst.

"You stopped her with your own hand, Mrs. Fyne," I said. "I presume
she meant to get away. That girl is no comedian--if I am any
judge."

"Yes! I had to use some force to drag her in."

Mrs. Fyne had no difficulty in stating the truth. "You see I was in
the very act of letting myself out when these two appeared. So
that, when that unpleasant young man ran off, I found myself alone
with Flora. It was all I could do to hold her in the hall while I
called to the servants to come and shut the door."

As is my habit, or my weakness, or my gift, I don't know which, I
visualized the story for myself. I really can't help it. And the
vision of Mrs. Fyne dressed for a rather special afternoon function,
engaged in wrestling with a wild-eyed, white-faced girl had a
certain dramatic fascination.

"Really!" I murmured.

"Oh! There's no doubt that she struggled," said Mrs. Fyne. She
compressed her lips for a moment and then added: "As to her being a
comedian that's another question."

Mrs. Fyne had returned to her attitude of folded arms. I saw before
me the daughter of the refined poet accepting life whole with its
unavoidable conditions of which one of the first is the instinct of
self-preservation and the egoism of every living creature. "The
fact remains nevertheless that you--yourself--have, in your own
words, pulled her in," I insisted in a jocular tone, with a serious
intention.

"What was one to do," exclaimed Mrs. Fyne with almost comic
exasperation. "Are you reproaching me with being too impulsive?"

And she went on telling me that she was not that in the least. One
of the recommendations she always insisted on (to the girl-friends,
I imagine) was to be on guard against impulse. Always! But I had
not been there to see the face of Flora at the time. If I had it
would be haunting me to this day. Nobody unless made of iron would
have allowed a human being with a face like that to rush out alone
into the streets.

"And doesn't it haunt you, Mrs. Fyne?" I asked.

"No, not now," she said implacably. "Perhaps if I had let her go it
might have done . . . Don't conclude, though, that I think she was
playing a comedy then, because after struggling at first she ended
by remaining. She gave up very suddenly. She collapsed in our
arms, mine and the maid's who came running up in response to my
calls, and . . . "

"And the door was then shut," I completed the phrase in my own way.

"Yes, the door was shut," Mrs. Fyne lowered and raised her head
slowly.

I did not ask her for details. Of one thing I am certain, and that
is that Mrs. Fyne did not go out to the musical function that
afternoon. She was no doubt considerably annoyed at missing the
privilege of hearing privately an interesting young pianist (a girl)
who, since, had become one of the recognized performers. Mrs. Fyne
did not dare leave her house. As to the feelings of little Fyne
when he came home from the office, via his club, just half an hour
before dinner, I have no information. But I venture to affirm that
in the main they were kindly, though it is quite possible that in
the first moment of surprise he had to keep down a swear-word or
two.

The long and the short of it all is that next day the Fynes made up
their minds to take into their confidence a certain wealthy old
lady. With certain old ladies the passing years bring back a sort
of mellowed youthfulness of feeling, an optimistic outlook, liking
for novelty, readiness for experiment. The old lady was very much
interested: "Do let me see the poor thing!"  She was accordingly
allowed to see Flora de Barral in Mrs. Fyne's drawing-room on a day
when there was no one else there, and she preached to her with
charming, sympathetic authority: "The only way to deal with our
troubles, my dear child, is to forget them. You must forget yours.
It's very simple. Look at me. I always forget mine. At your age
one ought to be cheerful."

Later on when left alone with Mrs. Fyne she said to that lady: "I
do hope the child will manage to be cheerful. I can't have sad
faces near me. At my age one needs cheerful companions."

And in this hope she carried off Flora de Barral to Bournemouth for
the winter months in the quality of reader and companion. She had
said to her with kindly jocularity: "We shall have a good time
together. I am not a grumpy old woman."  But on their return to
London she sought Mrs. Fyne at once. She had discovered that Flora
was not naturally cheerful. When she made efforts to be it was
still worse. The old lady couldn't stand the strain of that. And
then, to have the whole thing out, she could not bear to have for a
companion anyone who did not love her. She was certain that Flora
did not love her. Why? She couldn't say. Moreover, she had caught
the girl looking at her in a peculiar way at times. Oh no!--it was
not an evil look--it was an unusual expression which one could not
understand. And when one remembered that her father was in prison
shut up together with a lot of criminals and so on--it made one
uncomfortable. If the child had only tried to forget her troubles!
But she obviously was incapable or unwilling to do so. And that was
somewhat perverse--wasn't it? Upon the whole, she thought it would
be better perhaps -

Mrs. Fyne assented hurriedly to the unspoken conclusion: "Oh
certainly! Certainly," wondering to herself what was to be done
with Flora next; but she was not very much surprised at the change
in the old lady's view of Flora de Barral. She almost understood
it.

What came next was a German family, the continental acquaintances of
the wife of one of Fyne's colleagues in the Home Office. Flora of
the enigmatical glances was dispatched to them without much
reflection. As it was not considered absolutely necessary to take
them into full confidence, they neither expected the girl to be
specially cheerful nor were they discomposed unduly by the
indescribable quality of her glances. The German woman was quite
ordinary; there were two boys to look after; they were ordinary,
too, I presume; and Flora, I understand, was very attentive to them.
If she taught them anything it must have been by inspiration alone,
for she certainly knew nothing of teaching. But it was mostly
"conversation" which was demanded from her. Flora de Barral
conversing with two small German boys, regularly, industriously,
conscientiously, in order to keep herself alive in the world which
held for her the past we know and the future of an even more
undesirable quality--seems to me a very fantastic combination. But
I believe it was not so bad. She was being, she wrote, mercifully
drugged by her task. She had learned to "converse" all day long,
mechanically, absently, as if in a trance. An uneasy trance it must
have been! Her worst moments were when off duty--alone in the
evening, shut up in her own little room, her dulled thoughts waking
up slowly till she started into the full consciousness of her
position, like a person waking up in contact with something
venomous--a snake, for instance--experiencing a mad impulse to fling
the thing away and run off screaming to hide somewhere.

At this period of her existence Flora de Barral used to write to
Mrs. Fyne not regularly but fairly often. I don't know how long she
would have gone on "conversing" and, incidentally, helping to
supervise the beautifully stocked linen closets of that well-to-do
German household, if the man of it had not developed in the
intervals of his avocations (he was a merchant and a thoroughly
domesticated character) a psychological resemblance to the
Bournemouth old lady. It appeared that he, too, wanted to be loved.

He was not, however, of a conquering temperament--a kiss-snatching,
door-bursting type of libertine. In the very act of straying from
the path of virtue he remained a respectable merchant. It would
have been perhaps better for Flora if he had been a mere brute. But
he set about his sinister enterprise in a sentimental, cautious,
almost paternal manner; and thought he would be safe with a pretty
orphan. The girl for all her experience was still too innocent, and
indeed not yet sufficiently aware of herself as a woman, to mistrust
these masked approaches. She did not see them, in fact. She
thought him sympathetic--the first expressively sympathetic person
she had ever met. She was so innocent that she could not understand
the fury of the German woman. For, as you may imagine, the wifely
penetration was not to be deceived for any great length of time--the
more so that the wife was older than the husband. The man with the
peculiar cowardice of respectability never said a word in Flora's
defence. He stood by and heard her reviled in the most abusive
terms, only nodding and frowning vaguely from time to time. It will
give you the idea of the girl's innocence when I say that at first
she actually thought this storm of indignant reproaches was caused
by the discovery of her real name and her relation to a convict.
She had been sent out under an assumed name--a highly recommended
orphan of honourable parentage. Her distress, her burning cheeks,
her endeavours to express her regret for this deception were taken
for a confession of guilt. "You attempted to bring dishonour to my
home," the German woman screamed at her.

Here's a misunderstanding for you! Flora de Barral, who felt the
shame but did not believe in the guilt of her father, retorted
fiercely, "Nevertheless I am as honourable as you are."  And then
the German woman nearly went into a fit from rage. "I shall have
you thrown out into the street."

Flora was not exactly thrown out into the street, I believe, but she
was bundled bag and baggage on board a steamer for London. Did I
tell you these people lived in Hamburg? Well yes--sent to the docks
late on a rainy winter evening in charge of some sneering lackey or
other who behaved to her insolently and left her on deck burning
with indignation, her hair half down, shaking with excitement and,
truth to say, scared as near as possible into hysterics. If it had
not been for the stewardess who, without asking questions, good
soul, took charge of her quietly in the ladies' saloon (luckily it
was empty) it is by no means certain she would ever have reached
England. I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I
know that a mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in
truth we who are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair.
Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere mental
weariness--not an act of savage energy but the final symptom of
complete collapse. The quiet, matter-of-fact attentions of a ship's
stewardess, who did not seem aware of other human agonies than sea-
sickness, who talked of the probable weather of the passage--it
would be a rough night, she thought--and who insisted in a
professionally busy manner, "Let me make you comfortable down below
at once, miss," as though she were thinking of nothing else but her
tip--was enough to dissipate the shades of death gathering round the
mortal weariness of bewildered thinking which makes the idea of non-
existence welcome so often to the young. Flora de Barral did lie
down, and it may be presumed she slept. At any rate she survived
the voyage across the North Sea and told Mrs. Fyne all about it,
concealing nothing and receiving no rebuke--for Mrs. Fyne's opinions
had a large freedom in their pedantry. She held, I suppose, that a
woman holds an absolute right--or possesses a perfect excuse--to
escape in her own way from a man-mismanaged world.

What is to be noted is that even in London, having had time to take
a reflective view, poor Flora was far from being certain as to the
true inwardness of her violent dismissal. She felt the humiliation
of it with an almost maddened resentment.

"And did you enlighten her on the point?" I ventured to ask.

Mrs. Fyne moved her shoulders with a philosophical acceptance of all
the necessities which ought not to be. Something had to be said,
she murmured. She had told the girl enough to make her come to the
right conclusion by herself.

"And she did?"

"Yes. Of course. She isn't a goose," retorted Mrs. Fyne tartly.

"Then her education is completed," I remarked with some bitterness.
"Don't you think she ought to be given a chance?"

Mrs. Fyne understood my meaning.

"Not this one," she snapped in a quite feminine way. "It's all very
well for you to plead, but I--"

"I do not plead. I simply asked. It seemed natural to ask what you
thought."

"It's what I feel that matters. And I can't help my feelings. You
may guess," she added in a softer tone, "that my feelings are mostly
concerned with my brother. We were very fond of each other. The
difference of our ages was not very great. I suppose you know he is
a little younger than I am. He was a sensitive boy. He had the
habit of brooding. It is no use concealing from you that neither of
us was happy at home. You have heard, no doubt . . . Yes? Well, I
was made still more unhappy and hurt--I don't mind telling you that.
He made his way to some distant relations of our mother's people who
I believe were not known to my father at all. I don't wish to judge
their action."

I interrupted Mrs. Fyne here. I had heard. Fyne was not very
communicative in general, but he was proud of his father-in-law--
"Carleon Anthony, the poet, you know."  Proud of his celebrity
without approving of his character. It was on that account, I
strongly suspect, that he seized with avidity upon the theory of
poetical genius being allied to madness, which he got hold of in
some idiotic book everybody was reading a few years ago. It struck
him as being truth itself--illuminating like the sun. He adopted it
devoutly. He bored me with it sometimes. Once, just to shut him
up, I asked quietly if this theory which he regarded as so
incontrovertible did not cause him some uneasiness about his wife
and the dear girls? He transfixed me with a pitying stare and
requested me in his deep solemn voice to remember the "well-
established fact" that genius was not transmissible.

I said only "Oh! Isn't it?" and he thought he had silenced me by an
unanswerable argument. But he continued to talk of his glorious
father-in-law, and it was in the course of that conversation that he
told me how, when the Liverpool relations of the poet's late wife
naturally addressed themselves to him in considerable concern,
suggesting a friendly consultation as to the boy's future, the
incensed (but always refined) poet wrote in answer a letter of mere
polished badinage which offended mortally the Liverpool people.
This witty outbreak of what was in fact mortification and rage
appeared to them so heartless that they simply kept the boy. They
let him go to sea not because he was in their way but because he
begged hard to be allowed to go.

"Oh! You do know," said Mrs. Fyne after a pause. "Well--I felt
myself very much abandoned. Then his choice of life--so
extraordinary, so unfortunate, I may say. I was very much grieved.
I should have liked him to have been distinguished--or at any rate
to remain in the social sphere where we could have had common
interests, acquaintances, thoughts. Don't think that I am estranged
from him. But the precise truth is that I do not know him. I was
most painfully affected when he was here by the difficulty of
finding a single topic we could discuss together."

While Mrs. Fyne was talking of her brother I let my thoughts wander
out of the room to little Fyne who by leaving me alone with his wife
had, so to speak, entrusted his domestic peace to my honour.

"Well, then, Mrs. Fyne, does it not strike you that it would be
reasonable under the circumstances to let your brother take care of
himself?"

"And suppose I have grounds to think that he can't take care of
himself in a given instance."  She hesitated in a funny, bashful
manner which roused my interest. Then:

"Sailors I believe are very susceptible," she added with forced
assurance.

I burst into a laugh which only increased the coldness of her
observing stare.

"They are. Immensely! Hopelessly! My dear Mrs. Fyne, you had
better give it up! It only makes your husband miserable."

"And I am quite miserable too. It is really our first difference .
. . "

"Regarding Miss de Barral?" I asked.

"Regarding everything. It's really intolerable that this girl
should be the occasion. I think he really ought to give way."

She turned her chair round a little and picking up the book I had
been reading in the morning began to turn the leaves absently.

Her eyes being off me, I felt I could allow myself to leave the
room. Its atmosphere had become hopeless for little Fyne's domestic
peace. You may smile. But to the solemn all things are solemn. I
had enough sagacity to understand that.

I slipped out into the porch. The dog was slumbering at Fyne's
feet. The muscular little man leaning on his elbow and gazing over
the fields presented a forlorn figure. He turned his head quickly,
but seeing I was alone, relapsed into his moody contemplation of the
green landscape.

I said loudly and distinctly: "I've come out to smoke a cigarette,"
and sat down near him on the little bench. Then lowering my voice:
"Tolerance is an extremely difficult virtue," I said. "More
difficult for some than heroism. More difficult than compassion."

I avoided looking at him. I knew well enough that he would not like
this opening. General ideas were not to his taste. He mistrusted
them. I lighted a cigarette, not that I wanted to smoke, but to
give another moment to the consideration of the advice--the
diplomatic advice I had made up my mind to bowl him over with. And
I continued in subdued tones.

"I have been led to make these remarks by what I have discovered
since you left us. I suspected from the first. And now I am
certain. What your wife cannot tolerate in this affair is Miss de
Barral being what she is."

He made a movement, but I kept my eyes away from him and went on
steadily. "That is--her being a woman. I have some idea of Mrs.
Fyne's mental attitude towards society with its injustices, with its
atrocious or ridiculous conventions. As against them there is no
audacity of action your wife's mind refuses to sanction. The
doctrine which I imagine she stuffs into the pretty heads of your
girl-guests is almost vengeful. A sort of moral fire-and-sword
doctrine. How far the lesson is wise is not for me to say. I don't
permit myself to judge. I seem to see her very delightful disciples
singeing themselves with the torches, and cutting their fingers with
the swords of Mrs. Fyne's furnishing."

"My wife holds her opinions very seriously," murmured Fyne suddenly.

"Yes. No doubt," I assented in a low voice as before. "But it is a
mere intellectual exercise. What I see is that in dealing with
reality Mrs. Fyne ceases to be tolerant. In other words, that she
can't forgive Miss de Barral for being a woman and behaving like a
woman. And yet this is not only reasonable and natural, but it is
her only chance. A woman against the world has no resources but in
herself. Her only means of action is to be what SHE IS. You
understand what I mean."

Fyne mumbled between his teeth that he understood. But he did not
seem interested. What he expected of me was to extricate him from a
difficult situation. I don't know how far credible this may sound,
to less solemn married couples, but to remain at variance with his
wife seemed to him a considerable incident. Almost a disaster.

"It looks as though I didn't care what happened to her brother," he
said. "And after all if anything . . . "

I became a little impatient but without raising my tone:

"What thing?" I asked. "The liability to get penal servitude is so
far like genius that it isn't hereditary. And what else can be
objected to the girl? All the energy of her deeper feelings, which
she would use up vainly in the danger and fatigue of a struggle with
society may be turned into devoted attachment to the man who offers
her a way of escape from what can be only a life of moral anguish.
I don't mention the physical difficulties."

Glancing at Fyne out of the corner of one eye I discovered that he
was attentive. He made the remark that I should have said all this
to his wife. It was a sensible enough remark. But I had given Mrs.
Fyne up. I asked him if his impression was that his wife meant to
entrust him with a letter for her brother?

No. He didn't think so. There were certain reasons which made Mrs.
Fyne unwilling to commit her arguments to paper. Fyne was to be
primed with them. But he had no doubt that if he persisted in his
refusal she would make up her mind to write.

"She does not wish me to go unless with a full conviction that she
is right," said Fyne solemnly.

"She's very exacting," I commented. And then I reflected that she
was used to it. "Would nothing less do for once?"

"You don't mean that I should give way--do you?" asked Fyne in a
whisper of alarmed suspicion.

As this was exactly what I meant, I let his fright sink into him.
He fidgeted. If the word may be used of so solemn a personage, he
wriggled. And when the horrid suspicion had descended into his very
heels, so to speak, he became very still. He sat gazing stonily
into space bounded by the yellow, burnt-up slopes of the rising
ground a couple of miles away. The face of the down showed the
white scar of the quarry where not more than sixteen hours before
Fyne and I had been groping in the dark with horrible apprehension
of finding under our hands the shattered body of a girl. For myself
I had in addition the memory of my meeting with her. She was
certainly walking very near the edge--courting a sinister solution.
But, now, having by the most unexpected chance come upon a man, she
had found another way to escape from the world. Such world as was
open to her--without shelter, without bread, without honour. The
best she could have found in it would have been a precarious dole of
pity diminishing as her years increased. The appeal of the
abandoned child Flora to the sympathies of the Fynes had been
irresistible. But now she had become a woman, and Mrs. Fyne was
presenting an implacable front to a particularly feminine
transaction. I may say triumphantly feminine. It is true that Mrs.
Fyne did not want women to be women. Her theory was that they
should turn themselves into unscrupulous sexless nuisances. An
offended theorist dwelt in her bosom somewhere. In what way she
expected Flora de Barral to set about saving herself from a most
miserable existence I can't conceive; but I verify believe that she
would have found it easier to forgive the girl an actual crime; say
the rifling of the Bournemouth old lady's desk, for instance. And
then--for Mrs. Fyne was very much of a woman herself--her sense of
proprietorship was very strong within her; and though she had not
much use for her brother, yet she did not like to see him annexed by
another woman. By a chit of a girl. And such a girl, too. Nothing
is truer than that, in this world, the luckless have no right to
their opportunities--as if misfortune were a legal disqualification.
Fyne's sentiments (as they naturally would be in a man) had more
stability. A good deal of his sympathy survived. Indeed I heard
him murmur "Ghastly nuisance," but I knew it was of the integrity of
his domestic accord that he was thinking. With my eyes on the dog
lying curled up in sleep in the middle of the porch I suggested in a
subdued impersonal tone: "Yes. Why not let yourself be persuaded?"

I never saw little Fyne less solemn. He hissed through his teeth in
unexpectedly figurative style that it would take a lot to persuade
him to "push under the head of a poor devil of a girl quite
sufficiently plucky"--and snorted. He was still gazing at the
distant quarry, and I think he was affected by that sight. I
assured him that I was far from advising him to do anything so
cruel. I am convinced he had always doubted the soundness of my
principles, because he turned on me swiftly as though he had been on
the watch for a lapse from the straight path.

"Then what do you mean? That I should pretend!"

"No! What nonsense! It would be immoral. I may however tell you
that if I had to make a choice I would rather do something immoral
than something cruel. What I meant was that, not believing in the
efficacy of the interference, the whole question is reduced to your
consenting to do what your wife wishes you to do. That would be
acting like a gentleman, surely. And acting unselfishly too,
because I can very well understand how distasteful it may be to you.
Generally speaking, an unselfish action is a moral action. I'll
tell you what. I'll go with you."

He turned round and stared at me with surprise and suspicion. "You
would go with me?" he repeated.

"You don't understand," I said, amused at the incredulous disgust of
his tone. "I must run up to town, to-morrow morning. Let us go
together. You have a set of travelling chessmen."

His physiognomy, contracted by a variety of emotions, relaxed to a
certain extent at the idea of a game. I told him that as I had
business at the Docks he should have my company to the very ship.

"We shall beguile the way to the wilds of the East by improving
conversation," I encouraged him.

"My brother-in-law is staying at an hotel--the Eastern Hotel," he
said, becoming sombre again. "I haven't the slightest idea where it
is."

"I know the place. I shall leave you at the door with the
comfortable conviction that you are doing what's right since it
pleases a lady and cannot do any harm to anybody whatever."

"You think so? No harm to anybody?" he repeated doubtfully.

"I assure you it's not the slightest use," I said with all possible
emphasis which seemed only to increase the solemn discontent of his
expression.

"But in order that my going should be a perfectly candid proceeding
I must first convince my wife that it isn't the slightest use," he
objected portentously.

"Oh, you casuist!" I said. And I said nothing more because at that
moment Mrs. Fyne stepped out into the porch. We rose together at
her appearance. Her clear, colourless, unflinching glance enveloped
us both critically. I sustained the chill smilingly, but Fyne
stooped at once to release the dog. He was some time about it; then
simultaneously with his recovery of upright position the animal
passed at one bound from profoundest slumber into most tumultuous
activity. Enveloped in the tornado of his inane scurryings and
barkings I took Mrs. Fyne's hand extended to me woodenly and bowed
over it with deference. She walked down the path without a word;
Fyne had preceded her and was waiting by the open gate. They passed
out and walked up the road surrounded by a low cloud of dust raised
by the dog gyrating madly about their two figures progressing side
by side with rectitude and propriety, and (I don't know why) looking
to me as if they had annexed the whole country-side. Perhaps it was
that they had impressed me somehow with the sense of their
superiority. What superiority? Perhaps it consisted just in their
limitations. It was obvious that neither of them had carried away a
high opinion of me. But what affected me most was the indifference
of the Fyne dog. He used to precipitate himself at full speed and
with a frightful final upward spring upon my waistcoat, at least
once at each of our meetings. He had neglected that ceremony this
time notwithstanding my correct and even conventional conduct in
offering him a cake; it seemed to me symbolic of my final separation
from the Fyne household. And I remembered against him how on a
certain day he had abandoned poor Flora de Barral--who was morbidly
sensitive.

I sat down in the porch and, maybe inspired by secret antagonism to
the Fynes, I said to myself deliberately that Captain Anthony must
be a fine fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have
been a dangerous trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made a
miserable, hopeless girl follow him clandestinely to London. It is
true that the girl had written since, only Mrs. Fyne had been
remarkably vague as to the contents. They were unsatisfactory.
They did not positively announce imminent nuptials as far as I could
make it out from her rather mysterious hints. But then her
inexperience might have led her astray. There was no fathoming the
innocence of a woman like Mrs. Fyne who, venturing as far as
possible in theory, would know nothing of the real aspect of things.
It would have been comic if she were making all this fuss for
nothing. But I rejected this suspicion for the honour of human
nature.

I imagined to myself Captain Anthony as simple and romantic. It was
much more pleasant. Genius is not hereditary but temperament may
be. And he was the son of a poet with an admirable gift of
individualising, of etherealizing the common-place; of making
touching, delicate, fascinating the most hopeless conventions of
the, so-called, refined existence.

What I could not understand was Mrs. Fyne's dog-in-the-manger
attitude. Sentimentally she needed that brother of hers so little!
What could it matter to her one way or another--setting aside common
humanity which would suggest at least a neutral attitude. Unless
indeed it was the blind working of the law that in our world of
chances the luckless MUST be put in the wrong somehow.

And musing thus on the general inclination of our instincts towards
injustice I met unexpectedly, at the turn of the road, as it were, a
shape of duplicity. It might have been unconscious on Mrs. Fyne's
part, but her leading idea appeared to me to be not to keep, not to
preserve her brother, but to get rid of him definitely. She did not
hope to stop anything. She had too much sense for that. Almost
anyone out of an idiot asylum would have had enough sense for that.
She wanted the protest to be made, emphatically, with Fyne's fullest
concurrence in order to make all intercourse for the future
impossible. Such an action would estrange the pair for ever from
the Fynes. She understood her brother and the girl too. Happy
together, they would never forgive that outspoken hostility--and
should the marriage turn out badly . . . Well, it would be just the
same. Neither of them would be likely to bring their troubles to
such a good prophet of evil.

Yes. That must have been her motive. The inspiration of a possibly
unconscious Machiavellism! Either she was afraid of having a
sister-in-law to look after during the husband's long absences; or
dreaded the more or less distant eventuality of her brother being
persuaded to leave the sea, the friendly refuge of his unhappy
youth, and to settle on shore, bringing to her very door this
undesirable, this embarrassing connection. She wanted to be done
with it--maybe simply from the fatigue of continuous effort in good
or evil, which, in the bulk of common mortals, accounts for so many
surprising inconsistencies of conduct.

I don't know that I had classed Mrs. Fyne, in my thoughts, amongst
common mortals. She was too quietly sure of herself for that. But
little Fyne, as I spied him next morning (out of the carriage
window) speeding along the platform, looked very much like a common,
flustered mortal who has made a very near thing of catching his
train: the starting wild eyes, the tense and excited face, the
distracted gait, all the common symptoms were there, rendered more
impressive by his native solemnity which flapped about him like a
disordered garment. Had he--I asked myself with interest--resisted
his wife to the very last minute and then bolted up the road from
the last conclusive argument, as though it had been a loaded gun
suddenly produced? I opened the carriage door, and a vigorous
porter shoved him in from behind just as the end of the rustic
platform went gliding swiftly from under his feet. He was very much
out of breath, and I waited with some curiosity for the moment he
would recover his power of speech. That moment came. He said "Good
morning" with a slight gasp, remained very still for another minute
and then pulled out of his pocket the travelling chessboard, and
holding it in his hand, directed at me a glance of inquiry.

"Yes. Certainly," I said, very much disappointed.

CHAPTER SEVEN--ON THE PAVEMENT

Fyne was not willing to talk; but as I had been already let into the
secret, the fair-minded little man recognized that I had some right
to information if I insisted on it. And I did insist, after the
third game. We were yet some way from the end of our journey.

"Oh, if you want to know," was his somewhat impatient opening. And
then he talked rather volubly. First of all his wife had not given
him to read the letter received from Flora (I had suspected him of
having it in his pocket), but had told him all about the contents.
It was not at all what it should have been even if the girl had
wished to affirm her right to disregard the feelings of all the
world. Her own had been trampled in the dirt out of all shape.
Extraordinary thing to say--I would admit, for a young girl of her
age. The whole tone of that letter was wrong, quite wrong. It was
certainly not the product of a--say, of a well-balanced mind.

"If she were given some sort of footing in this world," I said, "if
only no bigger than the palm of my hand, she would probably learn to
keep a better balance."

Fyne ignored this little remark. His wife, he said, was not the
sort of person to be addressed mockingly on a serious subject.
There was an unpleasant strain of levity in that letter, extending
even to the references to Captain Anthony himself. Such a
disposition was enough, his wife had pointed out to him, to alarm
one for the future, had all the circumstances of that preposterous
project been as satisfactory as in fact they were not. Other parts
of the letter seemed to have a challenging tone--as if daring them
(the Fynes) to approve her conduct. And at the same time implying
that she did not care, that it was for their own sakes that she
hoped they would "go against the world--the horrid world which had
crushed poor papa."

Fyne called upon me to admit that this was pretty cool--considering.
And there was another thing, too. It seems that for the last six
months (she had been assisting two ladies who kept a kindergarten
school in Bayswater--a mere pittance), Flora had insisted on
devoting all her spare time to the study of the trial. She had been
looking up files of old newspapers, and working herself up into a
state of indignation with what she called the injustice and the
hypocrisy of the prosecution. Her father, Fyne reminded me, had
made some palpable hits in his answers in Court, and she had
fastened on them triumphantly. She had reached the conclusion of
her father's innocence, and had been brooding over it. Mrs. Fyne
had pointed out to him the danger of this.

The train ran into the station and Fyne, jumping out directly it
came to a standstill, seemed glad to cut short the conversation. We
walked in silence a little way, boarded a bus, then walked again. I
don't suppose that since the days of his childhood, when surely he
was taken to see the Tower, he had been once east of Temple Bar. He
looked about him sullenly; and when I pointed out in the distance
the rounded front of the Eastern Hotel at the bifurcation of two
very broad, mean, shabby thoroughfares, rising like a grey stucco
tower above the lowly roofs of the dirty-yellow, two-storey houses,
he only grunted disapprovingly.

"I wouldn't lay too much stress on what you have been telling me," I
observed quietly as we approached that unattractive building. "No
man will believe a girl who has just accepted his suit to be not
well balanced,--you know."

"Oh! Accepted his suit," muttered Fyne, who seemed to have been
very thoroughly convinced indeed. "It may have been the other way
about."  And then he added: "I am going through with it."

I said that this was very praiseworthy but that a certain moderation
of statement . . . He waved his hand at me and mended his pace. I
guessed that he was anxious to get his mission over as quickly as
possible. He barely gave himself time to shake hands with me and
made a rush at the narrow glass door with the words Hotel Entrance
on it. It swung to behind his back with no more noise than the snap
of a toothless jaw.

The absurd temptation to remain and see what would come of it got
over my better judgment. I hung about irresolute, wondering how
long an embassy of that sort would take, and whether Fyne on coming
out would consent to be communicative. I feared he would be shocked
at finding me there, would consider my conduct incorrect,
conceivably treat me with contempt. I walked off a few paces.
Perhaps it would be possible to read something on Fyne's face as he
came out; and, if necessary, I could always eclipse myself
discreetly through the door of one of the bars. The ground floor of
the Eastern Hotel was an unabashed pub, with plate-glass fronts, a
display of brass rails, and divided into many compartments each
having its own entrance.

But of course all this was silly. The marriage, the love, the
affairs of Captain Anthony were none of my business. I was on the
point of moving down the street for good when my attention was
attracted by a girl approaching the hotel entrance from the west.
She was dressed very modestly in black. It was the white straw hat
of a good form and trimmed with a bunch of pale roses which had
caught my eye. The whole figure seemed familiar. Of course! Flora
de Barral. She was making for the hotel, she was going in. And
Fyne was with Captain Anthony! To meet him could not be pleasant
for her. I wished to save her from the awkwardness, and as I
hesitated what to do she looked up and our eyes happened to meet
just as she was turning off the pavement into the hotel doorway.
Instinctively I extended my arm. It was enough to make her stop. I
suppose she had some faint notion that she had seen me before
somewhere. She walked slowly forward, prudent and attentive,
watching my faint smile.

"Excuse me," I said directly she had approached me near enough.
"Perhaps you would like to know that Mr. Fyne is upstairs with
Captain Anthony at this moment."

She uttered a faint "Ah! Mr. Fyne!"  I could read in her eyes that
she had recognized me now. Her serious expression extinguished the
imbecile grin of which I was conscious. I raised my hat. She
responded with a slow inclination of the head while her luminous,
mistrustful, maiden's glance seemed to whisper, "What is this one
doing here?"

"I came up to town with Fyne this morning," I said in a businesslike
tone. "I have to see a friend in East India Dock. Fyne and I
parted this moment at the door here . . . "   The girl regarded me
with darkening eyes . . . "Mrs. Fyne did not come with her husband,"
I went on, then hesitated before that white face so still in the
pearly shadow thrown down by the hat-brim. "But she sent him," I
murmured by way of warning.

Her eyelids fluttered slowly over the fixed stare. I imagine she
was not much disconcerted by this development. "I live a long way
fr