Chance

Well I don't know. If it had come to that she would have been most

likely fished out, what with her natural want of luck and the good many

people on the quay and on board. And just where the Ferndale was

moored there hung on a wall (I know the berth) a coil of line, a pole,

and a life-buoy kept there on purpose to save people who tumble into the

dock. It's not so easy to get away from life's betrayals as she thought.

However it did not come to that. He followed her with his quick gliding

walk. Mr. Smith! The liberated convict de Barral passed off the solid

earth for the last time, vanished for ever, and there was Mr. Smith added

to that world of waters which harbours so many queer fishes. An old

gentleman in a silk hat, darting wary glances. He followed, because mere

existence has its claims which are obeyed mechanically. I have no doubt

he presented a respectable figure. Father-in-law. Nothing more

respectable. But he carried in his heart the confused pain of dismay and

affection, of involuntary repulsion and pity. Very much like his

daughter. Only in addition he felt a furious jealousy of the man he was

going to see.

A residue of egoism remains in every affection--even paternal. And this

man in the seclusion of his prison had thought himself into such a sense

of ownership of that single human being he had to think about, as may

well be inconceivable to us who have not had to serve a long (and

wickedly unjust) sentence of penal servitude. She was positively the

only thing, the one point where his thoughts found a resting-place, for

years. She was the only outlet for his imagination. He had not much of

that faculty to be sure, but there was in it the force of concentration.

He felt outraged, and perhaps it was an absurdity on his part, but I

venture to suggest rather in degree than in kind. I have a notion that

no usual, normal father is pleased at parting with his daughter. No. Not

even when he rationally appreciates "Jane being taken off his hands" or

perhaps is able to exult at an excellent match. At bottom, quite deep

down, down in the dark (in some cases only by digging), there is to be

found a certain repugnance . . . With mothers of course it is different.

Women are more loyal, not to each other, but to their common femininity

which they behold triumphant with a secret and proud satisfaction.

The circumstances of that match added to Mr. Smith's indignation. And if

he followed his daughter into that ship's cabin it was as if into a house

of disgrace and only because he was still bewildered by the suddenness of

the thing. His will, so long lying fallow, was overborne by her

determination and by a vague fear of that regained liberty.