It could not be. I cut short
my angry laugh while Mrs. Fyne murmured with a slight movement of her
shoulders, "He! Poor man! Oh come . . . "
By a great effort of will I found myself able to smile amiably, to speak
with proper softness.
"My dear Mrs. Fyne, you forget that I don't know him--not even by sight.
It's difficult to imagine a victim as passive as all that; but granting
you the (I very nearly said: imbecility, but checked myself in time)
innocence of Captain Anthony, don't you think now, frankly, that there is
a little of your own fault in what has happened. You bring them
together, you leave your brother to himself!"
She sat up and leaning her elbow on the table sustained her head in her
open palm casting down her eyes. Compunction? It was indeed a very off-
hand way of treating a brother come to stay for the first time in fifteen
years. I suppose she discovered very soon that she had nothing in common
with that sailor, that stranger, fashioned and marked by the sea of long
voyages. In her strong-minded way she had scorned pretences, had gone to
her writing which interested her immensely.
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