over-like haste leaving the hall-door wide
open. Mrs Fyne had not found a word to say. She had been too much
taken aback even to gasp freely. But she had the presence of mind to
grab the girl's arm just as she, too, was running out into the street--
with the haste, I suppose, of despair and to keep I don't know what
tragic tryst.

"You stopped her with your own hand, Mrs Fyne," I said. "I presume she
meant to get away. That girl is no comedian--if I am any judge."

"Yes! I had to use some force to drag her in."

Mrs Fyne had no difficulty in stating the truth. "You see I was in the
very act of letting myself out when these two appeared. So that, when
that unpleasant young man ran off, I found myself alone with Flora. It
was all I could do to hold her in the hall while I called to the
servants to come and shut the door."

As is my habit, or my weakness, or my gift, I don't know which, I
visualised the story for myself. I really can't help it. And the
vision of Mrs Fyne dressed for a rather special afternoon function,
engaged in wrestling with a wild-eyed, white-faced girl had a certain
dramatic fascination.

"Really!" I murmured.

"Oh! There's no doubt that she struggled," said Mrs Fyne. She
compressed her lips for a moment and then added: "As to her being a
comedian that's another question."

Mrs Fyne had returned to her attitude of folded arms. I saw before me
the daughter of the refined poet accepting life whole with its
unavoidable conditions of which one of the first is the instinct of
self-preservation and the egoism of every living creature. "The fact
remains nevertheless that you--yourself--have, in your own words, pulled
her in," I insisted in a jocular tone, with a serious intention.

"What was one to do," exclaimed Mrs Fyne with almost comic
exasperation. "Are you reproaching me with being too impulsive?"

And she went on telling me that she was not that in the least. One of
the recommendations she always insisted on (to the girl-friends, I
imagine) was to be on guard against impulse. Always! But I had not
been there to see the face of Flora at the time. If I had it would be
haunting me to this day. Nobody unless made of iron would have allowed
a human being with a face like that to rush out alone into the streets.

"And doesn't it haunt you, Mrs Fyne?" I asked.

"No, not now," she said implacably. "Perhaps if I had let her go it
might have done... Don't conclude, though,