Chance

"You understand that I am not their friend. I am only a holiday

acquaintance."

"She was not very much upset?" queried Flora de Barral, meaning, of

course, Mrs. Fyne. And I admitted that she was less so than her

husband--and even less than myself. Mrs. Fyne was a very self-possessed

person which nothing could startle out of her extreme theoretical

position. She did not seem startled when Fyne and I proposed going to

the quarry.

"You put that notion into their heads," the girl said.

I advanced that the notion was in their heads already. But it was much

more vividly in my head since I had seen her up there with my own eyes,

tempting Providence.

She was looking at me with extreme attention, and murmured:

"Is that what you called it to them? Tempting . . . "

"No. I told them that you were making up your mind and I came along just

then. I told them that you were saved by me. My shout checked you . . .

" She moved her head gently from right to left in negation . . . "No?

Well, have it your own way."

I thought to myself: She has found another issue. She wants to forget

now. And no wonder. She wants to persuade herself that she had never

known such an ugly and poignant minute in her life. "After all," I

conceded aloud, "things are not always what they seem."

Her little head with its deep blue eyes, eyes of tenderness and anger

under the black arch of fine eyebrows was very still. The mouth looked

very red in the white face peeping from under the veil, the little

pointed chin had in its form something aggressive. Slight and even

angular in her modest black dress she was an appealing and--yes--she was

a desirable little figure.

Her lips moved very fast asking me: "And they believed you at once?"

"Yes, they believed me at once. Mrs. Fyne's word to us was "Go!"

A white gleam between the red lips was so short that I remained uncertain

whether it was a smile or a ferocious baring of little even teeth. The

rest of the face preserved its innocent, tense and enigmatical

expression. She spoke rapidly.

"No, it wasn't your shout. I had been there some time before you saw me.

And I was not there to tempt Providence, as you call it. I went up there

for--for what you thought I was going to do. Yes. I climbed two fences.

I did not mean to leave anything to Providence. There seem to be people

for whom Providence can do nothing. I suppose you are shocked to hear me

talk like that?"