In what way she expected
Flora de Barral to set about saving herself from a most miserable
existence I can't conceive; but I verify believe that she would have
found it easier to forgive the girl an actual crime; say the rifling of
the Bournemouth old lady's desk, for instance. And then--for Mrs. Fyne
was very much of a woman herself--her sense of proprietorship was very
strong within her; and though she had not much use for her brother, yet
she did not like to see him annexed by another woman. By a chit of a
girl. And such a girl, too. Nothing is truer than that, in this world,
the luckless have no right to their opportunities--as if misfortune were
a legal disqualification. Fyne's sentiments (as they naturally would be
in a man) had more stability. A good deal of his sympathy survived.
Indeed I heard him murmur "Ghastly nuisance," but I knew it was of the
integrity of his domestic accord that he was thinking. With my eyes on
the dog lying curled up in sleep in the middle of the porch I suggested
in a subdued impersonal tone: "Yes. Why not let yourself be persuaded?"
I never saw little Fyne less solemn.
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