Chance

I looked at him inquisitively. What was distressing him? The purloining

of the son of the poet-tyrant by the daughter of the financier-convict.

Or only, if I may say so, the wind of their flight disturbing the solemn

placidity of the Fynes' domestic atmosphere. My incertitude did not last

long, for he added: "Mrs. Fyne urges me to go to London at once."

One could guess at, almost see, his profound distaste for the journey,

his distress at a difference of feeling with his wife. With his serious

view of the sublunary comedy Fyne suffered from not being able to agree

solemnly with her sentiment as he was accustomed to do, in recognition of

having had his way in one supreme instance; when he made her elope with

him--the most momentous step imaginable in a young lady's life. He had

been really trying to acknowledge it by taking the rightness of her

feeling for granted on every other occasion. It had become a sort of

habit at last. And it is never pleasant to break a habit. The man was

deeply troubled. I said: "Really! To go to London!"

He looked dumbly into my eyes. It was pathetic and funny. "And you of

course feel it would be useless," I pursued.

He evidently felt that, though he said nothing. He only went on blinking

at me with a solemn and comical slowness. "Unless it be to carry there

the family's blessing," I went on, indulging my chaffing humour steadily,

in a rather sneaking fashion, for I dared not look at Mrs. Fyne, to my

right. No sound or movement came from that direction. "You think very

naturally that to match mere good, sound reasons, against the passionate

conclusions of love is a waste of intellect bordering on the absurd."

He looked surprised as if I had discovered something very clever. He,

dear man, had thought of nothing at all.

He simply knew that he did not want to go to London on that mission. Mere

masculine delicacy. In a moment he became enthusiastic.

"Yes! Yes! Exactly. A man in love . . . You hear, my dear? Here you

have an independent opinion--"

"Can anything be more hopeless," I insisted to the fascinated little

Fyne, "than to pit reason against love. I must confess however that in

this case when I think of that poor girl's sharp chin I wonder if . . . "

My levity was too much for Mrs. Fyne. Still leaning back in her chair

she exclaimed: "Mr. Marlow!"

* * * * *

As if mysteriously affected by her indignation the absurd Fyne dog began

to bark in the porch. It might have been at a trespassing bumble-bee

however. That animal was capable of any eccentricity. Fyne got up

quickly and went out to him. I think he was glad to leave us alone to

discuss that matter of his journey to London. A sort of anti-sentimental

journey. He, too, apparently, had confidence in my sagacity. It was

touching, this confidence. It was at any rate more genuine than the

confidence his wife pretended to have in her husband's chess-player, of

three successive holidays. Confidence be hanged! Sagacity--indeed! She

had simply marched in without a shadow of misgiving to make me back her

up. But she had delivered herself into my hands . . . "