第52章 THE TEA-PARTY(9)

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. Isuppose 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 Iquite 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.