s to him in considerable concern,
suggesting a friendly consultation as to the boy's future, the incensed
(but always refined) poet wrote in answer a letter of mere polished
_badinage_ which offended mortally the Liverpool people. This witty
outbreak of what was in fact mortification and rage appeared to them so
heartless that they simply kept the boy. They let him go to sea not
because he was in their way but because he begged hard to be allowed to
go.

"Oh! You do know," said Mrs Fyne after a pause. "Well--I felt myself
very much abandoned. Then his choice of life--so extraordinary, so
unfortunate, I may say. I was very much grieved. I should have liked
him to have been distinguished--or at any rate to remain in the social
sphere where we could have had common interests, acquaintances,
thoughts. Don't think that I am estranged from him. But the precise
truth is that I do not know him. I was most painfully affected when he
was here by the difficulty of finding a single topic we could discuss
together."

While Mrs Fyne was talking of her brother I let my thoughts wander out
of the room to little Fyne who by leaving me alone with his wife had, so
to speak, entrusted his domestic peace to my honour.

"Well, then, Mrs Fyne, does it not strike you that it would be
reasonable under the circumstances to let your brother take care of
himself?"

"And suppose I have grounds to think that he can't take care of himself
in a given instance." She hesitated in a funny, bashful manner which
roused my interest. Then:

"Sailors I believe are very susceptible," she added with forced
assurance.

I burst into a laugh which only increased the coldness of her observing
stare.

"They are. Immensely! Hopelessly! My dear Mrs Fyne, you had better
give it up! It only makes your husband miserable."

"And I am quite miserable too. It is really our first difference..."

"Regarding Miss de Barral?" I asked.

"Regarding everything. It's really intolerable that this girl should be
the occasion. I think he really ought to give way."

She turned her chair round a little and picking up the book I had been
reading in the morning began to turn the leaves absently.

Her eyes being off me, I felt I could allow myself to leave the room.
Its atmosphere had become hopeless for little Fyne's domestic peace.
You may smile. But to the solemn all things are solemn. I had enough
sagacity to understand that.

I slipped out into