backing her up with all
the weight of his solemn presence. Nothing more absurd could be
conceived. It was delicious. And I went on in deferential accents: "Am
I to understand then that you entertain the theory of suicide?"

I don't know that I am liable to fits of delirium but by a sudden and
alarming aberration while waiting for her answer I became mentally aware
of three trained dogs dancing on their hind legs. I don't know why.
Perhaps because of the pervading solemnity. There's nothing more solemn
on earth than a dance of trained dogs.

"She has chosen to disappear. That's all."

In these words Mrs Fyne answered me. The aggressive tone was too much
for my endurance. In an instant I found myself out of the dance and
down on all-fours so to speak, with liberty to bark and bite.

"The devil she has," I cried. "Has chosen to... Like this, all at
once, anyhow, regardless... I've had the privilege of meeting that
reckless and brusque young lady and I must say that with her air of an
angry victim..."

"Precisely," Mrs Fyne said very unexpectedly like a steel trap going
off. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on to finish
my tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most inconsiderate
wrongheaded girl that I ever..."

"Why should a girl be more considerate than anyone else? More than any
man, for instance?" inquired Mrs Fyne with a still greater assertion of
responsibility in her bearing.

Of course I exclaimed at this, not very loudly it is true, but forcibly.
Were then the feelings of friends, relations and even of strangers to
be disregarded? I asked Mrs Fyne if she did not think it was a sort of
duty to show elementary consideration not only for the natural feelings
but even for the prejudices of one's fellow-creatures.

Her answer knocked me over.

"Not for a woman."

Just like that. I confess that I went down flat. And while in that
collapsed state I learned the true nature of Mrs Fyne's feminist
doctrine. It was not political, it was not social. It was a
knock-me-down doctrine--a practical individualistic doctrine. You would
not thank me for expounding it to you at large. Indeed I think that she
herself did not enlighten me fully. There must have been things not fit
for a man to hear. But shortly, and as far as my bewilderment allowed
me to grasp its naive atrociousness, it was something like this: that no
consideration, no delicacy, no tenderness, no scruples s