"Going to take the old fellow to sea with them," I said. "Well I really
don't see what else they could have done with him. You told your brother-
in-law what you thought of it? I wonder how he took it."
"Very improperly," repeated Fyne. "His manner was offensive, derisive,
from the first. I don't mean he was actually rude in words. Hang it
all, I am not a contemptible ass. But he was exulting at having got hold
of a miserable girl."
"It is pretty certain that she will be much less poor and miserable," I
murmured.
It looked as if the exultation of Captain Anthony had got on Fyne's
nerves. "I told the fellow very plainly that he was abominably selfish
in this," he affirmed unexpectedly.
"You did! Selfish!" I said rather taken aback. "But what if the girl
thought that, on the contrary, he was most generous."
"What do you know about it," growled Fyne. The rents and slashes of his
solemnity were closing up gradually but it was going to be a surly
solemnity. "Generosity! I am disposed to give it another name. No. Not
folly," he shot out at me as though I had meant to interrupt him. "Still
another. Something worse. I need not tell you what it is," he added
with grim meaning.
"Certainly. You needn't--unless you like," I said blankly. Little Fyne
had never interested me so much since the beginning of the de
Barral-Anthony affair when I first perceived possibilities in him. The
possibilities of dull men are exciting because when they happen they
suggest legendary cases of "possession," not exactly by the devil but,
anyhow, by a strange spirit.
"I told him it was a shame," said Fyne. "Even if the girl did make eyes
at him--but I think with you that she did not. Yes! A shame to take
advantage of a girl's--a distresses girl that does not love him in the
least."
"You think it's so bad as that?" I said. "Because you know I don't."
"What can you think about it," he retorted on me with a solemn stare. "I
go by her letter to my wife."
"Ah! that famous letter. But you haven't actually read it," I said.
"No, but my wife told me. Of course it was a most improper sort of
letter to write considering the circumstances. It pained Mrs. Fyne to
discover how thoroughly she had been misunderstood. But what is written
is not all. It's what my wife could read between the lines. She says
that the girl is really terrified at heart."