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g you the (I very nearly said: imbecility, but checked myself in time) innocence of Captain Anthony, don't you think now, frankly, that there is a little of your own fault in what has happened. `You bring them together, you leave your brother to himself!' "She sat up and leaning her elbow on the table sustained her head in her open palm casting down her eyes. Compunction? It was indeed a very off-hand way of treating a brother come to stay for the first time in fifteen years. I suppose she discovered very soon that she had nothing in common with that sailor, that stranger, fashioned and marked by the sea of long voyages. In her strong-minded way she had scorned pretences, had gone to her writing which interested her immensely. A very praiseworthy thing your sincere conduct,--if it didn't at times resemble brutality so much. But I don't think it was compunction. That sentiment is rare in women..." "Is it?" I interrupted indignantly. "You know more women than I do," retorted the unabashed Marlow. "You make it your business to know them--don't you? You go about a lot amongst all sorts of people. You are a tolerably honest observer. Well, just try to remember how many instances of compunction you have seen. I am ready to take your bare word for it. Compunction! Have you ever seen as much as its shadow? Have you ever? Just a shadow--a passing shadow! I tell you it is so rare that you may call it non-existent. They are too passionate. Too pedantic. Too courageous with themselves--perhaps. No I don't think for a moment that Mrs Fyne felt the slightest compunction at her treatment of her sea-going brother. What _he_ thought of it who can tell? It is possible that he wondered why he had been so insistently urged to come. It is possible that he wondered bitterly--or contemptuously--or humbly. And it may be that he was only surprised and bored. Had he been as sincere in his conduct as his only sister he would have probably taken himself off at the end of the second day. But perhaps he was afraid of appearing brutal. I am not far removed from the conviction that between the sincerities of his sister and of his dear nieces, Captain Anthony of the _Ferndale_ must have had his loneliness brought home to his bosom for the first time of his life, at an age, thirty-five or thereabouts, when one is mature, enough to feel the pang of such a discovery. Angry or simply sad but certainly disillusioned he wa
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