"Amiable personality," I observed seeing Fyne on the point of falling

into a brown study. But I could not help adding with meaning: "He hadn't

the gift of prophecy though."

Fyne got up suddenly with a muttered "No, evidently not." He was gloomy,

hesitating. I supposed that he would not wish to play chess that

afternoon. This would dispense me from leaving my rooms on a day much

too fine to be wasted in walking exercise. And I was disappointed when

picking up his cap he intimated to me his hope of seeing me at the

cottage about four o'clock--as usual.

"It wouldn't be as usual." I put a particular stress on that remark. He

admitted, after a short reflection, that it would not be. No. Not as

usual. In fact it was his wife who hoped, rather, for my presence. She

had formed a very favourable opinion of my practical sagacity.

This was the first I ever heard of it. I had never suspected that Mrs.

Fyne had taken the trouble to distinguish in me the signs of sagacity or

folly. The few words we had exchanged last night in the excitement--or

the bother--of the girl's disappearance, were the first moderately

significant words which had ever passed between us. I had felt myself

always to be in Mrs. Fyne's view her husband's chess-player and nothing

else--a convenience--almost an implement.

"I am highly flattered," I said. "I have always heard that there are no

limits to feminine intuition; and now I am half inclined to believe it is

so. But still I fail to see in what way my sagacity, practical or

otherwise, can be of any service to Mrs. Fyne. One man's sagacity is

very much like any other man's sagacity. And with you at hand--"

Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed straight at

me his worried solemn eyes and struck in: "Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will come--won't you?"

I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk three

miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day. If the Fynes

had been an average sociable couple one knows only because leisure must

be got through somehow, I would have made short work of that special

invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable humanity had to be

acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to have my own way. So I

proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure of offering them a cup of

tea at my rooms.




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