t--or
the bother--of the girl's disappearance, were the first moderately
significant words which had ever passed between us. I had felt myself
always to be in Mrs. Fyne's view her husband's chess-player and nothing
else--a convenience--almost an implement.

"I am highly flattered," I said. "I have always heard that there are no
limits to feminine intuition; and now I am half inclined to believe it is
so. But still I fail to see in what way my sagacity, practical or
otherwise, can be of any service to Mrs. Fyne. One man's sagacity is
very much like any other man's sagacity. And with you at hand--"

Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed straight at
me his worried solemn eyes and struck in:

"Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will come--won't you?"

I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk three
miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day. If the Fynes
had been an average sociable couple one knows only because leisure must
be got through somehow, I would have made short work of that special
invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable humanity had to be
acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to have my own way. So I
proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure of offering them a cup of
tea at my rooms.

A short reflective pause--and Fyne accepted eagerly in his own and his
wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch and then
in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his serious head went
past my window on the other side of the hedge, its troubled gaze fixed
forward, and the mind inside obviously employed in earnest speculation of
an intricate nature. One at least of his wife's girl-friends had become
more than a mere shadow for him. I surmised however that it was not of
the girl-friend but of his wife that Fyne was thinking. He was an
excellent husband.

I prepared myself for the afternoon's hospitalities, calling in the
farmer's wife and reviewing with her the resources of the house and the
village. She was a helpful woman. But the resources of my sagacity I
did not review. Except in the gross material sense of the afternoon tea
I made no preparations for Mrs. Fyne.

It was impossible for me to make any such preparations. I could not tell
what sort of sustenance she would look for from my sagacity. And as to
taking stock of the wares of my mind no one I imagine is anxious to do
that sort of th