. This was an extreme case. But a young
man--any man--could have gone to break stones on the roads or something
of that kind--or enlisted--or--"

It was very true. Women can't go forth on the high roads and by-ways to
pick up a living even when dignity, independence, or existence itself
are at stake. But what made me interrupt Mrs Fyne's tirade was my
profound surprise at the fact of that respectable citizen being so
willing to keep in his home the poor girl for whom it seemed there was
no place in the world. And not only willing but anxious. I couldn't
credit him with generous impulses. For it seemed obvious to me from
what I had learned that, to put it mildly, he was not an impulsive
person.

"I confess that I can't understand his motive," I exclaimed.

"This is exactly what John wondered at, at first," said Mrs Fyne. By
that time an intimacy--if not exactly confidence--had sprung up between
us which permitted her in this discussion to refer to her husband as
John. "You know he had not opened his lips all that time," she pursued.
"I don't blame his restraint. On the contrary. What could he have
said? I could see he was observing the man very thoughtfully."

"And so, Mr Fyne listened, observed and meditated," I said. "That's an
excellent way of coming to a conclusion. And may I ask at what
conclusion he had managed to arrive? On what ground did he cease to
wonder at the inexplicable? For I can't admit humanity to be the
explanation. It would be too monstrous."

It was nothing of the sort, Mrs Fyne assured me with some resentment,
as though I had aspersed little Fyne's sanity. Fyne very sensibly had
set himself the mental task of discovering the self-interest. I should
not have thought him capable of so much cynicism. He said to himself
that for people of that sort (religious fears or the vanity of
righteousness put aside) money--not great wealth, but, money, just a
little money--is the measure of virtue, of expediency, of wisdom--of
pretty well everything. But the girl was absolutely destitute. The
father was in prison after the most terribly complete and disgraceful
smash of modern times. And then it dawned upon Fyne that this was just
it. The great smash, in the great dust of vanishing millions! Was it
possible that they all had vanished to the last penny? Wasn't there,
somewhere, something palpable; some fragment of the fabric left?

"That's it," had exclaimed Fyne, startling his wife