Chance

After telling Mr. Powell not to go away the captain remained silent.

Suddenly Mrs. Anthony pushed back her loose hair with a decisive gesture

of her arms and moved still nearer to him. "Here's papa up yet," she

said, but she did not look towards Mr. Smith. "Why is it? And you? I

can't go on like this, Roderick--between you two. Don't."

Anthony interrupted her as if something had untied his tongue.

"Oh yes. Here's your father. And . . . Why not. Perhaps it is just as

well you came out. Between us two? Is that it? I won't pretend I don't

understand. I am not blind. But I can't fight any longer for what I

haven't got. I don't know what you imagine has happened. Something has

though. Only you needn't be afraid. No shadow can touch you--because I

give up. I can't say we had much talk about it, your father and I, but,

the long and the short of it is, that I must learn to live without

you--which I have told you was impossible. I was speaking the truth. But

I have done fighting, or waiting, or hoping. Yes. You shall go."

At this point Mr. Powell who (he confessed to me) was listening with

uncomprehending awe, heard behind his back a triumphant chuckling sound.

It gave him the shudders, he said, to mention it now; but at the time,

except for another chill down the spine, it had not the power to destroy

his absorption in the scene before his eyes, and before his ears too,

because just then Captain Anthony raised his voice grimly. Perhaps he

too had heard the chuckle of the old man.

"Your father has found an argument which makes me pause, if it does not

convince me. No! I can't answer it. I--I don't want to answer it. I

simply surrender. He shall have his way with you--and with me. Only,"

he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal

had been put down, "only it shall take a little time. I have never lied

to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance but my life. In a few

days, directly we get into port, the very moment we do, I, who have said

I could never let you go, I shall let you go."

To the innocent beholder Anthony seemed at this point to become

physically exhausted. My view is that the utter falseness of his, I may

say, aspirations, the vanity of grasping the empty air, had come to him

with an overwhelming force, leaving him disarmed before the other's mad

and sinister sincerity. As he had said himself he could not fight for

what he did not possess; he could not face such a thing as this for the

sake of his mere magnanimity. The normal alone can overcome the

abnormal. He could not even reproach that man over there. "I own myself

beaten," he said in a firmer tone. "You are free. I let you off since I

must."