yne smiled mechanically (she had splendid
teeth) while distributing tea and bread and butter. A something which
was not coldness, nor yet indifference, but a sort of peculiar
self-possession gave her the appearance of a very trustworthy, very
capable and excellent governess; as if Fyne were a widower and the
children not her own but only entrusted to her calm, efficient,
unemotional care. One expected her to address Fyne as Mr. When she
called him John it surprised one like a shocking familiarity. The
atmosphere of that holiday was--if I may put it so--brightly dull.
Healthy faces, fair complexions, clear eyes, and never a frank smile in
the whole lot, unless perhaps from a girl-friend.

The girl-friend problem exercised me greatly. How and where the Fynes
got all these pretty creatures to come and stay with them I can't
imagine. I had at first the wild suspicion that they were obtained to
amuse Fyne. But I soon discovered that he could hardly tell one from the
other, though obviously their presence met with his solemn approval.
These girls in fact came for Mrs. Fyne. They treated her with admiring
deference. She answered to some need of theirs. They sat at her feet.
They were like disciples. It was very curious. Of Fyne they took but
scanty notice. As to myself I was made to feel that I did not exist.

After tea we would sit down to chess and then Fyne's everlasting gravity
became faintly tinged by an attenuated gleam of something inward which
resembled sly satisfaction. Of the divine frivolity of laughter he was
only capable over a chess-board. Certain positions of the game struck
him as humorous, which nothing else on earth could do . . .

"He used to beat you," I asserted with confidence.

"Yes. He used to beat me," Marlow owned up hastily.

So he and Fyne played two games after tea. The children romped together
outside, gravely, unplayfully, as one would expect from Fyne's children,
and Mrs. Fyne would be gone to the bottom of the garden with the girl-
friend of the week. She always walked off directly after tea with her
arm round the girl-friend's waist. Marlow said that there was only one
girl-friend with whom he had conversed at all. It had happened quite
unexpectedly, long after he had given up all hope of getting into touch
with these reserved girl-friends.

One day he saw a woman walking about on the edge of a high quarry, which
rose a sheer hundred feet, at least, from the road windi