They let him go to sea not because he was in their
way but because he begged hard to be allowed to go.
"Oh! You do know," said Mrs. Fyne after a pause. "Well--I felt myself
very much abandoned. Then his choice of life--so extraordinary, so
unfortunate, I may say. I was very much grieved. I should have liked
him to have been distinguished--or at any rate to remain in the social
sphere where we could have had common interests, acquaintances, thoughts.
Don't think that I am estranged from him. But the precise truth is that
I do not know him. I was most painfully affected when he was here by the
difficulty of finding a single topic we could discuss together."
While Mrs. Fyne was talking of her brother I let my thoughts wander out
of the room to little Fyne who by leaving me alone with his wife had, so
to speak, entrusted his domestic peace to my honour.
"Well, then, Mrs. Fyne, does it not strike you that it would be
reasonable under the circumstances to let your brother take care of
himself?"
"And suppose I have grounds to think that he can't take care of himself
in a given instance.
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