"Excuse me," I said directly she had approached me near enough. "Perhaps
you would like to know that Mr. Fyne is upstairs with Captain Anthony at
this moment."
She uttered a faint "Ah! Mr. Fyne!" I could read in her eyes that she
had recognized me now. Her serious expression extinguished the imbecile
grin of which I was conscious. I raised my hat. She responded with a
slow inclination of the head while her luminous, mistrustful, maiden's
glance seemed to whisper, "What is this one doing here?"
"I came up to town with Fyne this morning," I said in a businesslike
tone. "I have to see a friend in East India Dock. Fyne and I parted
this moment at the door here . . . " The girl regarded me with
darkening eyes . . . "Mrs. Fyne did not come with her husband," I went
on, then hesitated before that white face so still in the pearly shadow
thrown down by the hat-brim. "But she sent him," I murmured by way of
warning.
Her eyelids fluttered slowly over the fixed stare. I imagine she was not
much disconcerted by this development. "I live a long way from here,"
she whispered.
I said perfunctorily, "Do you?" And we remained gazing at each other.
The uniform paleness of her complexion was not that of an anaemic girl.
It had a transparent vitality and at that particular moment the faintest
possible rosy tinge, the merest suspicion of colour; an equivalent, I
suppose, in any other girl to blushing like a peony while she told me
that Captain Anthony had arranged to show her the ship that morning.
It was easy to understand that she did not want to meet Fyne. And when I
mentioned in a discreet murmur that he had come because of her letter she
glanced at the hotel door quickly, and moved off a few steps to a
position where she could watch the entrance without being seen. I
followed her. At the junction of the two thoroughfares she stopped in
the thin traffic of the broad pavement and turned to me with an air of
challenge. "And so you know."
I told her that I had not seen the letter. I had only heard of it. She
was a little impatient. "I mean all about me."
Yes. I knew all about her. The distress of Mr. and Mrs. Fyne--especially
of Mrs. Fyne--was so great that they would have shared it with anybody
almost--not belonging to their circle of friends. I happened to be at
hand--that was all.