I avoided looking at him. I knew well enough that he would not like this
opening. General ideas were not to his taste. He mistrusted them. I
lighted a cigarette, not that I wanted to smoke, but to give another
moment to the consideration of the advice--the diplomatic advice I had
made up my mind to bowl him over with. And I continued in subdued tones.
"I have been led to make these remarks by what I have discovered since
you left us. I suspected from the first. And now I am certain. What
your wife cannot tolerate in this affair is Miss de Barral being what she
is."
He made a movement, but I kept my eyes away from him and went on
steadily. "That is--her being a woman. I have some idea of Mrs. Fyne's
mental attitude towards society with its injustices, with its atrocious
or ridiculous conventions. As against them there is no audacity of
action your wife's mind refuses to sanction. The doctrine which I
imagine she stuffs into the pretty heads of your girl-guests is almost
vengeful. A sort of moral fire-and-sword doctrine. How far the lesson
is wise is not for me to say. I don't permit myself to judge. I seem to
see her very delightful disciples singeing themselves with the torches,
and cutting their fingers with the swords of Mrs. Fyne's furnishing."
"My wife holds her opinions very seriously," murmured Fyne suddenly.
"Yes. No doubt," I assented in a low voice as before. "But it is a mere
intellectual exercise. What I see is that in dealing with reality Mrs.
Fyne ceases to be tolerant. In other words, that she can't forgive Miss
de Barral for being a woman and behaving like a woman. And yet this is
not only reasonable and natural, but it is her only chance. A woman
against the world has no resources but in herself. Her only means of
action is to be what she is. You understand what I mean."
Fyne mumbled between his teeth that he understood. But he did not seem
interested. What he expected of me was to extricate him from a difficult
situation. I don't know how far credible this may sound, to less solemn
married couples, but to remain at variance with his wife seemed to him a
considerable incident. Almost a disaster.
"It looks as though I didn't care what happened to her brother," he said.
"And after all if anything . . . "
I became a little impatient but without raising my tone:
"What thing?" I asked. "The liability to get penal servitude is so far
like genius that it isn't hereditary. And what else can be objected to
the girl? All the energy of her deeper feelings, which she would use up
vainly in the danger and fatigue of a struggle with society may be turned
into devoted attachment to the man who offers her a way of escape from
what can be only a life of moral anguish. I don't mention the physical
difficulties."