ne
would think this the portrait of Captain Anthony himself if . . ." I
wanted to know what that if was. But Powell could not say. There was
something--a difference. No doubt there was--in fineness perhaps. The
father, fastidious, cerebral, morbidly shrinking from all contacts, could
only sing in harmonious numbers of what the son felt with a dumb and
reckless sincerity.

* * * * *

Possessed by most strong men's touching illusion as to the frailness of
women and their spiritual fragility, it seemed to Anthony that he would
be destroying, breaking something very precious inside that being. In
fact nothing less than partly murdering her. This seems a very extreme
effect to flow from Fyne's words. But Anthony, unaccustomed to the
chatter of the firm earth, never stayed to ask himself what value these
words could have in Fyne's mouth. And indeed the mere dark sound of them
was utterly abhorrent to his native rectitude, sea-salted, hardened in
the winds of wide horizons, open as the day.

He wished to blurt out his indignation but she regarded him with an
expectant air which checked him. His visible discomfort made her uneasy.
He could only repeat "Oh yes. You are perfectly honest. You might have,
but I dare say you are right. At any rate you have never said anything
to me which you didn't mean."

"Never," she whispered after a pause.

He seemed distracted, choking with an emotion she could not understand
because it resembled embarrassment, a state of mind inconceivable in that
man.

She wondered what it was she had said; remembering that in very truth she
had hardly spoken to him except when giving him the bare outline of her
story which he seemed to have hardly had the patience to hear, waving it
perpetually aside with exclamations of horror and anger, with fiercely
sombre mutters "Enough! Enough!" and with alarming starts from a forced
stillness, as though he meant to rush out at once and take vengeance on
somebody. She was saying to herself that he caught her words in the air,
never letting her finish her thought. Honest. Honest. Yes certainly
she had been that. Her letter to Mrs. Fyne had been prompted by honesty.
But she reflected sadly that she had never known what to say to him. That
perhaps she had nothing to say.

"But you'll find out that I can be honest too," he burst out in a
menacing tone, she had learned to appreciate with an amused thrill.

She waited for what was coming. But h