"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.