Really ideal; and, of course, in no way at all correspondent to the facts of the case. The truth was that Miss Beatrice Gladwin had secured her “fair fight”—and, it seemed, had lost it very decisively and very speedily. As soon as it was reasonably possible—and made so by Miss Gladwin’s action—for Fullard to think of marrying Nettie Tyler, he had asked her to be his wife. To which question there could be only one answer. Miss Gladwin had given away too much weight; she should have quartered that “plum,” I thought.
But that would not have made a “fair fight”? Perhaps not. Perhaps a fair fight was not to be made at all under the circumstances. But the one thing which, above all, I could not see was the old point that had puzzled me before. It might be fair to soften the conflict between Captain Fullard’s love and Captain Fullard’s duty as a man of ancient stock. It might be fair to undo some of fate’s work and give Nettie Tyler a chance of the man she wanted—freedom to fight for him—just that, you understand. But where came in the chance for herself of which Beatrice Gladwin had spoken?
As I have said, I was Captain Fullard’s lawyer as well as Miss Gladwin’s, and he naturally came to me to transact the business incident on his marriage. Beatrice Gladwin proved right: he was not overwhelmed, nor, from his words, did I gather that Miss Tyler was. But they were both highly appreciative.
The captain was also inclined to congratulate himself on his knowledge of character, his power of reading the human heart.
“Hard, if you like,” he said, sitting in my office arm-chair; “but a sportsman in the end, as I told you she was. I knew one could rely on her doing the right thing in the end.”
“At considerable cost,” I remarked, sharpening a pencil.
“It’s liberal—very liberal. Oh, we feel that. But, of course, the circumstances pointed to liberality.” He paused, then added:
“And I don’t know that we ought to blame her for taking time to think it over. Of course it made all the difference to me, Foulkes.”
There came in the captain’s admirable candour. Between him and me there was no need—and, I may add, no room—for the romantic turn which the Bittleton Press had given to the course of events; that was for public consumption only.
“But for it I couldn’t possibly have come forward—whatever I felt.”