But there was nothing improper in my observing to Fyne that, last night,
Mrs. Fyne seemed to have some idea where that enterprising young lady had
gone to. Fyne shook his head. No; his wife had been by no means so
certain as she had pretended to be. She merely had her reasons to think,
to hope, that the girl might have taken a room somewhere in London, had
buried herself in town--in readiness or perhaps in horror of the
approaching day-He ceased and sat solemnly dejected, in a brown study. "What day?" I
asked at last; but he did not hear me apparently. He diffused such
portentous gloom into the atmosphere that I lost patience with him.
"What on earth are you so dismal about?" I cried, being genuinely
surprised and puzzled. "One would think the girl was a state prisoner
under your care."
And suddenly I became still more surprised at myself, at the way I had
somehow taken for granted things which did appear queer when one thought
them out.
"But why this secrecy? Why did they elope--if it is an elopement? Was
the girl afraid of your wife? And your brother-in-law? What on earth
possesses him to make a clandestine match of it? Was he afraid of your
wife too?"
Fyne made an effort to rouse himself.
"Of course my brother-in-law, Captain Anthony, the son of . . . " He
checked himself as if trying to break a bad habit. "He would be
persuaded by her. We have been most friendly to the girl!"
"She struck me as a foolish and inconsiderate little person. But why
should you and your wife take to heart so strongly mere folly--or even a
want of consideration?"
"It's the most unscrupulous action," declared Fyne weightily--and sighed.
"I suppose she is poor," I observed after a short silence. "But after
all . . . "
"You don't know who she is." Fyne had regained his average solemnity.
I confessed that I had not caught her name when his wife had introduced
us to each other. "It was something beginning with an S- wasn't it?" And
then with the utmost coolness Fyne remarked that it did not matter. The
name was not her name.
"Do you mean to say that you made a young lady known to me under a false
name?" I asked, with the amused feeling that the days of wonders and
portents had not passed away yet. That the eminently serious Fynes
should do such an exceptional thing was simply staggering. With a more
hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne was sure that I would not demand
an apology for this irregularity if I knew what her real name was. A
sort of warmth crept into his deep tone.