ood?"

"It's positive infatuation," agreed, little Fyne, in the tone as though
he had made an awful discovery. "I have never seen anything so hopeless
and inexplicable in my life. I--I felt quite frightened and sorry," he
added, while I looked at him curiously asking myself whether this
excellent civil servant and notable pedestrian had felt the breath of a
great and fatal love-spell passing him by in the room of that East-End
hotel. He did look for a moment as though he had seen a ghost, an
other-world thing. But that look vanished instantaneously, and he
nodded at me with mere exasperation at something quite of this world--
whatever it was. "It's a bad business. My brother-in-law knows nothing
of women," he cried with an air of profound, experienced wisdom.

What he imagined he knew of women himself I can't tell. I did not know
anything of the opportunities he might have had. But this is a subject
which, if approached with undue solemnity, is apt to elude one's grasp
entirely. No doubt Fyne knew something of a woman who was Captain
Anthony's sister. But that, admittedly, had been a very solemn study.
I smiled at him gently, and as if encouraged or provoked, he completed
his thought rather explosively.

"And that girl understands nothing... It's sheer lunacy."

"I don't know," I said, "whether the circumstances of isolation at sea
would be any alleviation to the danger. But it's certain that they
shall have the opportunity to learn everything about each other in a
lonely _tete-a-tete_."

"But dash it all," he cried in hollow accents which at the same time had
the tone of bitter irony--I had never before heard a sound so quaintly
ugly and almost horrible--"You forget Mr Smith."

"What Mr Smith?" I asked innocently.

Fyne made an extraordinary simiesque grimace. I believe it was quite
involuntary, but you know that a grave, much-lined, shaven countenance
when distorted in an unusual way is extremely apelike. It was a
surprising sight, and rendered me not only speechless but stopped the
progress of my thought completely. I must have presented a remarkably
imbecile appearance.

"My brother-in-law considered it amusing to chaff me about us
introducing the girl as Miss Smith," said Fyne, going surly in a moment.
"He said that perhaps if he had heard her real name from the first it
might have restrained him. As it was, he made the discovery too late.
Asked me to tell Zoe this together with a lot more