movable 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 granting
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 prais