One could guess at, almost see, his profound distaste for the journey, his distress at a difference of feeling with his wife. With his serious view of the sublunary comedy Fyne suffered from not being able to agree solemnly with her sentiment as he was accustomed to do, in recognition of having had his way in one supreme instance; when he made her elope with him—the most momentous step imaginable in a young lady’s life. He had been really trying to acknowledge it by taking the rightness of her feeling for granted on every other occasion. It had become a sort of habit at last. And it is never pleasant to break a habit. The man was deeply troubled. I said: “Really! To go to London!”
He looked dumbly into my eyes. It was pathetic and funny. “And you of course feel it would be useless,” I pursued.
He evidently felt that, though he said nothing. He only went on blinking at me with a solemn and comical slowness. “Unless it be to carry there the family’s blessing,” I went on, indulging my chaffing humour steadily, in a rather sneaking fashion, for I dared not look at Mrs. Fyne, to my right. No sound or movement came from that direction. “You think very naturally that to match mere good, sound reasons, against the passionate conclusions of love is a waste of intellect bordering on the absurd.”
He looked surprised as if I had discovered something very clever. He, dear man, had thought of nothing at all.
He simply knew that he did not want to go to London on that mission. Mere masculine delicacy. In a moment he became enthusiastic.
“Yes! Yes! Exactly. A man in love . . . You hear, my dear? Here you have an independent opinion—”
“Can anything be more hopeless,” I insisted to the fascinated little Fyne, “than to pit reason against love. I must confess however that in this case when I think of that poor girl’s sharp chin I wonder if . . . ”
My levity was too much for Mrs. Fyne. Still leaning back in her chair she exclaimed:
“Mr. Marlow!”
* * * * *