an average
amount of sanity for working purposes in this world . . . "

"But we, my dear Marlow, have the inestimable advantage of understanding
what is happening to others," I struck in. "Or at least some of us seem
to. Is that too a provision of nature? And what is it for? Is it that
we may amuse ourselves gossiping about each other's affairs? You for
instance seem--"

"I don't know what I seem," Marlow silenced me, "and surely life must be
amused somehow. It would be still a very respectable provision if it
were only for that end. But from that same provision of understanding,
there springs in us compassion, charity, indignation, the sense of
solidarity; and in minds of any largeness an inclination to that
indulgence which is next door to affection. I don't mean to say that I
am inclined to an indulgent view of the precious couple which broke in
upon an unsuspecting girl. They came marching in (it's the very
expression she used later on to Mrs. Fyne) but at her cry they stopped.
It must have been startling enough to them. It was like having the mask
torn off when you don't expect it. The man stopped for good; he didn't
offer to move a step further. But, though the governess had come in
there for the very purpose of taking the mask off for the first time in
her life, she seemed to look upon the frightened cry as a fresh
provocation. "What are you screaming for, you little fool?" she said
advancing alone close to the girl who was affected exactly as if she had
seen Medusa's head with serpentine locks set mysteriously on the
shoulders of that familiar person, in that brown dress, under that hat
she knew so well. It made her lose all her hold on reality. She told
Mrs. Fyne: "I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know that I was
frightened. If she had told me it was a joke I would have laughed. If
she had told me to put on my hat and go out with her I would have gone to
put on my hat and gone out with her and never said a single word; I
should have been convinced I had been mad for a minute or so, and I would
have worried myself to death rather than breathe a hint of it to her or
anyone. But the wretch put her face close to mine and I could not move.
Directly I had looked into her eyes I felt grown on to the carpet."

It was years afterwards that she used to talk like this to Mrs. Fyne--and
to Mrs. Fyne alone. Nobody else ever heard the story from her lips. But
it was never forgotten. It was alw