"Oh, you casuist!" I said. And I said nothing more because at that
moment Mrs. Fyne stepped out into the porch. We rose together at her
appearance. Her clear, colourless, unflinching glance enveloped us both
critically. I sustained the chill smilingly, but Fyne stooped at once to
release the dog. He was some time about it; then simultaneously with his
recovery of upright position the animal passed at one bound from
profoundest slumber into most tumultuous activity. Enveloped in the
tornado of his inane scurryings and barkings I took Mrs. Fyne's hand
extended to me woodenly and bowed over it with deference. She walked
down the path without a word; Fyne had preceded her and was waiting by
the open gate. They passed out and walked up the road surrounded by a
low cloud of dust raised by the dog gyrating madly about their two
figures progressing side by side with rectitude and propriety, and (I
don't know why) looking to me as if they had annexed the whole country-
side. Perhaps it was that they had impressed me somehow with the sense
of their superiority. What superiority? Perhaps it consisted just in
their limitations. It was obvious that neither of them had carried away
a high opinion of me. But what affected me most was the indifference of
the Fyne dog. He used to precipitate himself at full speed and with a
frightful final upward spring upon my waistcoat, at least once at each of
our meetings. He had neglected that ceremony this time notwithstanding
my correct and even conventional conduct in offering him a cake; it
seemed to me symbolic of my final separation from the Fyne household. And
I remembered against him how on a certain day he had abandoned poor Flora
de Barral--who was morbidly sensitive.
I sat down in the porch and, maybe inspired by secret antagonism to the
Fynes, I said to myself deliberately that Captain Anthony must be a fine
fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have been a dangerous
trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made a miserable, hopeless girl
follow him clandestinely to London. It is true that the girl had written
since, only Mrs. Fyne had been remarkably vague as to the contents. They
were unsatisfactory. They did not positively announce imminent nuptials
as far as I could make it out from her rather mysterious hints. But then
her inexperience might have led her astray. There was no fathoming the
innocence of a woman like Mrs. Fyne who, venturing as far as possible in
theory, would know nothing of the real aspect of things. It would have
been comic if she were making all this fuss for nothing. But I rejected
this suspicion for the honour of human nature.