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thought and literary composition. Only a week before the blow fell, she, happening to raise her eyes from the paper, saw two figures seated on the grass under the shade of the elms. She could make out the white blouse. There could be no mistake. "I suppose they imagined themselves concealed by the hedge. They forgot no doubt I was working in the garret," she said bitterly. "Or perhaps they didn't care. They were right. I am rather a simple person..." She laughed again ... "I was incapable of suspecting such duplicity." "Duplicity is a strong word, Mrs Fyne--isn't it?" I expostulated. "And considering that Captain Anthony himself..." "Oh well--perhaps," she interrupted me. Her eyes which never strayed away from mine, her set features, her whole immovable figure, how well I knew those appearances of a person who has "made up her mind." A very hopeless condition that, specially in women. I mistrusted her concession so easily, so stonily made. She reflected a moment. "Yes. I ought to have said--ingratitude, perhaps." After having thus disengaged her brother and pushed the poor girl a little further off as it were--isn't women's cleverness perfectly diabolic when they are really put on their mettle?--after having done these things and also made me feel that I was no match for her, she went on scrupulously: "One doesn't like to use that word either. The claim is very small. It's so little one could do for her. Still..." "I dare say," I exclaimed, throwing diplomacy to the winds. "But really, Mrs Fyne, it's impossible to dismiss your brother like this out of the business..." "She threw herself at his head," Mrs Fyne uttered firmly. "He had no business to put his head in the way, then," I retorted with an angry laugh. I didn't restrain myself because her fixed stare seemed to express the purpose to daunt me. I was not afraid of her, but it occurred to me that I was within an ace of drifting into a downright quarrel with a lady and, besides, my guest. There was the cold teapot, the emptied cups, emblems of hospitality. It could not be. I cut short my angry laugh while Mrs Fyne murmured with a slight movement of her shoulders, "He! Poor man! Oh come..." By a great effort of will I found myself able to smile amiably, to speak with proper softness. "My dear Mrs Fyne, you forget that I don't know him--not even by sight. It's difficult to imagine a victim as passive as all that; but grantin
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