* * * * *
With that fatal diffidence in well doing, inherent in the present
condition of humanity, the Fynes continued to watch at their window.
"It's always so difficult to know what to do for the best," Fyne assured
me. It is. Good intentions stand in their own way so much. Whereas if
you want to do harm to anyone you needn't hesitate. You have only to go
on. No one will reproach you with your mistakes or call you a
confounded, clumsy meddler. The Fynes watched the door, the closed
street door inimical somehow to their benevolent thoughts, the face of
the house cruelly impenetrable. It was just as on any other day. The
unchanged daily aspect of inanimate things is so impressive that Fyne
went back into the room for a moment, picked up the paper again, and ran
his eyes over the item of news. No doubt of it. It looked very bad. He
came back to the window and Mrs. Fyne. Tired out as she was she sat
there resolute and ready for responsibility. But she had no suggestion
to offer. People do fear a rebuff wonderfully, and all her audacity was
in her thoughts. She shrank from the incomparably insolent manner of the
governess. Fyne stood by her side, as in those old-fashioned photographs
of married couples where you see a husband with his hand on the back of
his wife's chair. And they were about as efficient as an old photograph,
and as still, till Mrs. Fyne started slightly. The street door had swung
open, and, bursting out, appeared the young man, his hat (Mrs. Fyne
observed) tilted forward over his eyes. After him the governess slipped
through, turning round at once to shut the door behind her with care.
Meantime the man went down the white steps and strode along the pavement,
his hands rammed deep into the pockets of his fawn overcoat. The woman,
that woman of composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a
little run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him
tried to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs. Fyne saw the brusque
half turn of the fellow's body as one avoids an importunate contact,
defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace with
his stride, and Mrs. Fyne watched them, walking independently, turn the
corner of the street side by side, disappear for ever.
The Fynes looked at each other eloquently, doubtfully: What do you think
of this? Then with common accord turned their eyes back to the street
door, closed, massive, dark; the great, clear-brass knocker shining in a
quiet slant of sunshine cut by a diagonal line of heavy shade filling the
further end of the street. Could the girl be already gone? Sent away to
her father? Had she any relations? Nobody but de Barral himself ever
came to see her, Mrs. Fyne remembered; and she had the instantaneous,
profound, maternal perception of the child's loneliness--and a girl too!
It was irresistible. And, besides, the departure of the governess was
not without its encouraging influence. "I am going over at once to find
out," she declared resolutely but still staring across the street. Her
intention was arrested by the sight of that awful, sombrely glistening
door, swinging back suddenly on the yawning darkness of the hall, out of
which literally flew out, right out on the pavement, almost without
touching the white steps, a little figure swathed in a holland pinafore
up to the chin, its hair streaming back from its head, darting past a
lamp-post, past the red pillar-box . . . "Here," cried Mrs. Fyne; "she's
coming here! Run, John! Run!"