"My wife assures me that the girl does not love him a bit. She goes by
that letter she received from her. There is a passage in it where she
practically admits that she was quite unscrupulous in accepting this
offer of marriage, but says to my wife that she supposes she, my wife,
will not blame her--as it was in self-defence. My wife has her own
ideas, but this is an outrageous misapprehension of her views.
Outrageous."
The good little man paused and then added weightily:
"I didn't tell that to my brother-in-law--I mean, my wife's views."
"No," I said. "What would have been the good?"
"It's positive infatuation," agreed little Fyne, in the tone as though he
had made an awful discovery. "I have never seen anything so hopeless and
inexplicable in my life. I--I felt quite frightened and sorry," he
added, while I looked at him curiously asking myself whether this
excellent civil servant and notable pedestrian had felt the breath of a
great and fatal love-spell passing him by in the room of that East-end
hotel. He did look for a moment as though he had seen a ghost, an other-
world thing. But that look vanished instantaneously, and he nodded at me
with mere exasperation at something quite of this world--whatever it was.
"It's a bad business. My brother-in-law knows nothing of women," he
cried with an air of profound, experienced wisdom.
What he imagined he knew of women himself I can't tell. I did not know
anything of the opportunities he might have had. But this is a subject
which, if approached with undue solemnity, is apt to elude one's grasp
entirely. No doubt Fyne knew something of a woman who was Captain
Anthony's sister. But that, admittedly, had been a very solemn study. I
smiled at him gently, and as if encouraged or provoked, he completed his
thought rather explosively.
"And that girl understands nothing . . . It's sheer lunacy."
"I don't know," I said, "whether the circumstances of isolation at sea
would be any alleviation to the danger. But it's certain that they shall
have the opportunity to learn everything about each other in a lonely
tete-a-tete."
"But dash it all," he cried in hollow accents which at the same time had
the tone of bitter irony--I had never before heard a sound so quaintly
ugly and almost horrible--"You forget Mr. Smith."
"What Mr. Smith?" I asked innocently.
Fyne made an extraordinary simiesque grimace. I believe it was quite
involuntary, but you know that a grave, much-lined, shaven countenance
when distorted in an unusual way is extremely apelike. It was a
surprising sight, and rendered me not only speechless but stopped the
progress of my thought completely. I must have presented a remarkably
imbecile appearance.