Chance

"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 from here,"

she whispered.

I said perfunctorily, "Do you?" And we remained gazing at each other.

The uniform paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl.

It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest

possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion of colour; an equivalent, I

suppose, in any other girl to blushing like a peony while she told me

that Captain Anthony had arranged to show her the ship that morning.

It was easy to understand that she did not want to meet Fyne. And when I

mentioned in a discreet murmur that he had come because of her letter she

glanced at the hotel door quickly, and moved off a few steps to a

position where she could watch the entrance without being seen. I

followed her. At the junction of the two thoroughfares she stopped in

the thin traffic of the broad pavement and turned to me with an air of

challenge. "And so you know."

I told her that I had not seen the letter. I had only heard of it. She

was a little impatient. "I mean all about me."

Yes. I knew all about her. The distress of Mr. and Mrs. Fyne--especially

of Mrs. Fyne--was so great that they would have shared it with anybody

almost--not belonging to their circle of friends. I happened to be at

hand--that was all.