Chance

We may well wonder what happened when, after Fyne had left him, the

hesitating girl went up at last and opened the door of that room where

our man, I am certain, was not extinguished. Oh no! Nor cold; whatever

else he might have been.

It is conceivable he might have cried at her in the first moment of

humiliation, of exasperation, "Oh, it's you! Why are you here? If I am

so odious to you that you must write to my sister to say so, I give you

back your word." But then, don't you see, it could not have been that. I

have the practical certitude that soon afterwards they went together in a

hansom to see the ship--as agreed. That was my reason for saying that

Flora de Barral did go to sea . . . "

"Yes. It seems conclusive," I agreed. "But even without that--if, as

you seem to think, the very desolation of that girlish figure had a sort

of perversely seductive charm, making its way through his compassion to

his senses (and everything is possible)--then such words could not have

been spoken."

"They might have escaped him involuntarily," observed Marlow. "However,

a plain fact settles it. They went off together to see the ship."

"Do you conclude from this that nothing whatever was said?" I inquired.

"I should have liked to see the first meeting of their glances upstairs

there," mused Marlow. "And perhaps nothing was said. But no man comes

out of such a 'wrangle' (as Fyne called it) without showing some traces

of it. And you may be sure that a girl so bruised all over would feel

the slightest touch of anything resembling coldness. She was

mistrustful; she could not be otherwise; for the energy of evil is so

much more forcible than the energy of good that she could not help

looking still upon her abominable governess as an authority. How could

one have expected her to throw off the unholy prestige of that long

domination? She could not help believing what she had been told; that

she was in some mysterious way odious and unlovable. It was cruelly

true--to her. The oracle of so many years had spoken finally. Only

other people did not find her out at once . . . I would not go so far as

to say she believed it altogether. That would be hardly possible. But

then haven't the most flattered, the most conceited of us their moments

of doubt? Haven't they? Well, I don't know. There may be lucky beings

in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves. For my own part

I'll tell you that once, many years ago now, it came to my knowledge that

a fellow I had been mixed up with in a certain transaction--a clever

fellow whom I really despised--was going around telling people that I was

a consummate hypocrite. He could know nothing of it. It suited his

humour to say so. I had given him no ground for that particular calumny.

Yet to this day there are moments when it comes into my mind, and

involuntarily I ask myself, 'What if it were true?' It's absurd, but it

has on one or two occasions nearly affected my conduct. And yet I was

not an impressionable ignorant young girl. I had taken the exact measure

of the fellow's utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for

me a person of prestige and power, like that awful governess to Flora de

Barral. See the might of suggestion? We live at the mercy of a

malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance of the air, sinks into our

very soul sometimes. Flora de Barral had been more astounded than

convinced by the first impetuosity of Roderick Anthony. She let herself

be carried along by a mysterious force which her person had called into

being, as her father had been carried away out of his depth by the

unexpected power of successful advertising.