We may well wonder what happened when, after Fyne had left him, the
hesitating girl went up at last and opened the door of that room where
our man, I am certain, was not extinguished. Oh no! Nor cold; whatever
else he might have been.
It is conceivable he might have cried at her in the first moment of
humiliation, of exasperation, "Oh, it's you! Why are you here? If I am
so odious to you that you must write to my sister to say so, I give you
back your word." But then, don't you see, it could not have been that. I
have the practical certitude that soon afterwards they went together in a
hansom to see the ship--as agreed. That was my reason for saying that
Flora de Barral did go to sea . . . "
"Yes. It seems conclusive," I agreed. "But even without that--if, as
you seem to think, the very desolation of that girlish figure had a sort
of perversely seductive charm, making its way through his compassion to
his senses (and everything is possible)--then such words could not have
been spoken."
"They might have escaped him involuntarily," observed Marlow. "However,
a plain fact settles it. They went off together to see the ship."
"Do you conclude from this that nothing whatever was said?" I inquired.
"I should have liked to see the first meeting of their glances upstairs
there," mused Marlow. "And perhaps nothing was said. But no man comes
out of such a 'wrangle' (as Fyne called it) without showing some traces
of it. And you may be sure that a girl so bruised all over would feel
the slightest touch of anything resembling coldness. She was
mistrustful; she could not be otherwise; for the energy of evil is so
much more forcible than the energy of good that she could not help
looking still upon her abominable governess as an authority. How could
one have expected her to throw off the unholy prestige of that long
domination? She could not help believing what she had been told; that
she was in some mysterious way odious and unlovable. It was cruelly
true--to her. The oracle of so many years had spoken finally. Only
other people did not find her out at once . . . I would not go so far as
to say she believed it altogether. That would be hardly possible. But
then haven't the most flattered, the most conceited of us their moments
of doubt? Haven't they? Well, I don't know. There may be lucky beings
in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves. For my own part
I'll tell you that once, many years ago now, it came to my knowledge that
a fellow I had been mixed up with in a certain transaction--a clever
fellow whom I really despised--was going around telling people that I was
a consummate hypocrite. He could know nothing of it. It suited his
humour to say so. I had given him no ground for that particular calumny.
Yet to this day there are moments when it comes into my mind, and
involuntarily I ask myself, 'What if it were true?' It's absurd, but it
has on one or two occasions nearly affected my conduct. And yet I was
not an impressionable ignorant young girl. I had taken the exact measure
of the fellow's utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for
me a person of prestige and power, like that awful governess to Flora de
Barral. See the might of suggestion? We live at the mercy of a
malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance of the air, sinks into our
very soul sometimes. Flora de Barral had been more astounded than
convinced by the first impetuosity of Roderick Anthony. She let herself
be carried along by a mysterious force which her person had called into
being, as her father had been carried away out of his depth by the
unexpected power of successful advertising.