Chance

Mrs. Fyne had only smiled at me very expressively, very self-confidently.

"Oh I quite understand that you accept the fullest responsibility," I

said. "I am the only ridiculous person in this--this--I don't know how

to call it--performance. However, I've nothing more to do here, so I'll

say good-night--or good morning, for it must be past one."

But before departing, in common decency, I offered to take any wires they

might write. My lodgings were nearer the post-office than the cottage

and I would send them off the first thing in the morning. I supposed

they would wish to communicate, if only as to the disposal of the

luggage, with the young lady's relatives . . .

Fyne, he looked rather downcast by then, thanked me and declined.

"There is really no one," he said, very grave.

"No one," I exclaimed.

"Practically," said curt Mrs. Fyne.

And my curiosity was aroused again.

"Ah! I see. An orphan."

Mrs. Fyne looked away weary and sombre, and Fyne said "Yes" impulsively,

and then qualified the affirmative by the quaint statement: "To a certain

extent."

I became conscious of a languid, exhausted embarrassment, bowed to Mrs.

Fyne, and went out of the cottage to be confronted outside its door by

the bespangled, cruel revelation of the Immensity of the Universe. The

night was not sufficiently advanced for the stars to have paled; and the

earth seemed to me more profoundly asleep--perhaps because I was alone

now. Not having Fyne with me to set the pace I let myself drift, rather

than walk, in the direction of the farmhouse. To drift is the only

reposeful sort of motion (ask any ship if it isn't) and therefore

consistent with thoughtfulness. And I pondered: How is one an orphan "to

a certain extent"?

No amount of solemnity could make such a statement other than bizarre.

What a strange condition to be in. Very likely one of the parents only

was dead? But no; it couldn't be, since Fyne had said just before that

"there was really no one" to communicate with. No one! And then

remembering Mrs. Fyne's snappy "Practically" my thoughts fastened upon

that lady as a more tangible object of speculation.

I wondered--and wondering I doubted--whether she really understood

herself the theory she had propounded to me. Everything may be

said--indeed ought to be said--providing we know how to say it. She

probably did not. She was not intelligent enough for that. She had no

knowledge of the world. She had got hold of words as a child might get

hold of some poisonous pills and play with them for "dear, tiny little

marbles." No! The domestic-slave daughter of Carleon Anthony and the

little Fyne of the Civil Service (that flower of civilization) were not

intelligent people. They were commonplace, earnest, without smiles and

without guile. But he had his solemnities and she had her reveries, her

lurid, violent, crude reveries. And I thought with some sadness that all

these revolts and indignations, all these protests, revulsions of

feeling, pangs of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness of

sensual beings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour,

sensations--the only riches of our world of senses. A poet may be a

simple being but he is bound to be various and full of wiles, ingenious

and irritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the ingenuity of the

late bard of civilization would be able to invent for the tormenting of

his dependants. Poets not being generally foresighted in practical

affairs, no vision of consequences would restrain him. Yes. The Fynes

were excellent people, but Mrs. Fyne wasn't the daughter of a domestic

tyrant for nothing. There were no limits to her revolt. But they were

excellent people. It was clear that they must have been extremely good

to that girl whose position in the world seemed somewhat difficult, with

her face of a victim, her obvious lack of resignation and the bizarre

status of orphan "to a certain extent."