Chance

Directly we had entered the room Fyne announced the result by saying

"Nothing" in the same tone as at the gate on his return from the railway

station. And as then Mrs. Fyne uttered an incisive "It's what I've

said," which might have been the veriest echo of her words in the garden.

We three looked at each other as if on the brink of a disclosure. I

don't know whether she was vexed at my presence. It could hardly be

called intrusion--could it? Little Fyne began it. It had to go on. We

stood before her, plastered with the same mud (Fyne was a sight!),

scratched by the same brambles, conscious of the same experience. Yes.

Before her. And she looked at us with folded arms, with an extraordinary

fulness of assumed responsibility. I addressed her.

"You don't believe in an accident, Mrs. Fyne, do you?"

She shook her head in curt negation while, caked in mud and inexpressibly

serious-faced, Fyne seemed to be backing her up with all the weight of

his solemn presence. Nothing more absurd could be conceived. It was

delicious. And I went on in deferential accents: "Am I to understand

then that you entertain the theory of suicide?"

I don't know that I am liable to fits of delirium but by a sudden and

alarming aberration while waiting for her answer I became mentally aware

of three trained dogs dancing on their hind legs. I don't know why.

Perhaps because of the pervading solemnity. There's nothing more solemn

on earth than a dance of trained dogs.

"She has chosen to disappear. That's all."

In these words Mrs. Fyne answered me. The aggressive tone was too much

for my endurance. In an instant I found myself out of the dance and down

on all-fours so to speak, with liberty to bark and bite.

"The devil she has," I cried. "Has chosen to . . . Like this, all at

once, anyhow, regardless . . . I've had the privilege of meeting that

reckless and brusque young lady and I must say that with her air of an

angry victim . . . "

"Precisely," Mrs. Fyne said very unexpectedly like a steel trap going

off. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on to finish my

tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most inconsiderate wrong-

headed girl that I ever . . . "

"Why should a girl be more considerate than anyone else? More than any

man, for instance?" inquired Mrs. Fyne with a still greater assertion of

responsibility in her bearing.