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Conrad, Joseph, 1857-1924

"Chance"

"She wouldn't have been at all happy seeing all this alcohol
about. Not at all happy," he declared weightily.
"You must have had a charming evening," I said to Fyne, "if I may judge
from the way you have kept the memory green."
"Delightful," he growled with, positively, a flash of anger at the
recollection, but lapsed back into his solemnity at once. After we had
been silent for a while I asked whether the man took away the girl next
day.
Fyne said that he did; in the afternoon, in a fly, with a few clothes the
maid had got together and brought across from the big house. He only saw
Flora again ten minutes before they left for the railway station, in the
Fynes' sitting-room at the hotel. It was a most painful ten minutes for
the Fynes. The respectable citizen addressed Miss de Barral as "Florrie"
and "my dear," remarking to her that she was not very big "there's not
much of you my dear" in a familiarly disparaging tone. Then turning to
Mrs. Fyne, and quite loud "She's very white in the face. Why's that?" To
this Mrs. Fyne made no reply. She had put the girl's hair up that
morning with her own hands.


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