* * * * *

With that fatal diffidence in well doing, inherent in the present

condition of humanity, the Fynes continued to watch at their window.

"It's always so difficult to know what to do for the best," Fyne assured

me. It is. Good intentions stand in their own way so much. Whereas if

you want to do harm to anyone you needn't hesitate. You have only to go

on. No one will reproach you with your mistakes or call you a

confounded, clumsy meddler. The Fynes watched the door, the closed

street door inimical somehow to their benevolent thoughts, the face of

the house cruelly impenetrable. It was just as on any other day. The

unchanged daily aspect of inanimate things is so impressive that Fyne

went back into the room for a moment, picked up the paper again, and ran

his eyes over the item of news. No doubt of it. It looked very bad. He

came back to the window and Mrs. Fyne. Tired out as she was she sat

there resolute and ready for responsibility. But she had no suggestion

to offer. People do fear a rebuff wonderfully, and all her audacity was

in her thoughts. She shrank from the incomparably insolent manner of the

governess. Fyne stood by her side, as in those old-fashioned photographs

of married couples where you see a husband with his hand on the back of

his wife's chair. And they were about as efficient as an old photograph,

and as still, till Mrs. Fyne started slightly. The street door had swung

open, and, bursting out, appeared the young man, his hat (Mrs. Fyne

observed) tilted forward over his eyes. After him the governess slipped

through, turning round at once to shut the door behind her with care.

Meantime the man went down the white steps and strode along the pavement,

his hands rammed deep into the pockets of his fawn overcoat. The woman,

that woman of composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a

little run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him

tried to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs. Fyne saw the brusque

half turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact,

defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace with

his stride, and Mrs. Fyne watched them, walking independently, turn the

corner of the street side by side, disappear for ever.

The Fynes looked at each other eloquently, doubtfully: What do you think

of this? Then with common accord turned their eyes back to the street

door, closed, massive, dark; the great, clear-brass knocker shining in a

quiet slant of sunshine cut by a diagonal line of heavy shade filling the

further end of the street. Could the girl be already gone? Sent away to

her father? Had she any relations? Nobody but de Barral himself ever

came to see her, Mrs. Fyne remembered; and she had the instantaneous,

profound, maternal perception of the child's loneliness--and a girl too!

It was irresistible. And, besides, the departure of the governess was

not without its encouraging influence. "I am going over at once to find

out," she declared resolutely but still staring across the street. Her

intention was arrested by the sight of that awful, sombrely glistening

door, swinging back suddenly on the yawning darkness of the hall, out of

which literally flew out, right out on the pavement, almost without

touching the white steps, a little figure swathed in a holland pinafore

up to the chin, its hair streaming back from its head, darting past a

lamp-post, past the red pillar-box . . . "Here," cried Mrs. Fyne; "she's

coming here! Run, John! Run!"




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024