Chance

Marlow paused with a whimsical look at me. The last few words he had

spoken with the cigar in his teeth. He took it out now by an ample

movement of his arm and blew a thin cloud.

"You smile? It would have been more kind to spare my blushes. But as a

matter of fact I need not blush. This is not vanity; it is analysis.

We'll let sagacity stand. But we must also note what sagacity in this

connection stands for. When you see this you shall see also that there

was nothing in it to alarm my modesty. I don't think Mrs. Fyne credited

me with the possession of wisdom tempered by common sense. And had I had

the wisdom of the Seven Sages of Antiquity, she would not have been moved

to confidence or admiration. The secret scorn of women for the capacity

to consider judiciously and to express profoundly a meditated conclusion

is unbounded. They have no use for these lofty exercises which they look

upon as a sort of purely masculine game--game meaning a respectable

occupation devised to kill time in this man-arranged life which must be

got through somehow. What women's acuteness really respects are the

inept "ideas" and the sheeplike impulses by which our actions and

opinions are determined in matters of real importance. For if women are

not rational they are indeed acute. Even Mrs. Fyne was acute. The good

woman was making up to her husband's chess-player simply because she had

scented in him that small portion of 'femininity,' that drop of superior

essence of which I am myself aware; which, I gratefully acknowledge, has

saved me from one or two misadventures in my life either ridiculous or

lamentable, I am not very certain which. It matters very little. Anyhow

misadventures. Observe that I say 'femininity,' a privilege--not

'feminism,' an attitude. I am not a feminist. It was Fyne who on

certain solemn grounds had adopted that mental attitude; but it was

enough to glance at him sitting on one side, to see that he was purely

masculine to his finger-tips, masculine solidly, densely,

amusingly,--hopelessly.

I did glance at him. You don't get your sagacity recognized by a man's

wife without feeling the propriety and even the need to glance at the man

now and again. So I glanced at him. Very masculine. So much so that

"hopelessly" was not the last word of it. He was helpless. He was bound

and delivered by it. And if by the obscure promptings of my composite

temperament I beheld him with malicious amusement, yet being in fact, by

definition and especially from profound conviction, a man, I could not

help sympathizing with him largely. Seeing him thus disarmed, so

completely captive by the very nature of things I was moved to speak to

him kindly.