alk at all except for the purpose of setting him going."

"And did you set him going?" I asked.

"I did," said Marlow, composing his features into an impenetrable
expression which somehow assured me of his success better than an air of
triumph could have done.

* * * * *

"You made him talk?" I said after a silence.

"Yes, I made him . . . about himself."

"And to the point?"

"If you mean by this," said Marlow, "that it was about the voyage of the
_Ferndale_, then again, yes. I brought him to talk about that voyage,
which, by the by, was not the first voyage of Flora de Barral. The man
himself, as I told you, is simple, and his faculty of wonder not very
great. He's one of those people who form no theories about facts.
Straightforward people seldom do. Neither have they much penetration.
But in this case it did not matter. I--we--have already the inner
knowledge. We know the history of Flora de Barral. We know something of
Captain Anthony. We have the secret of the situation. The man was
intoxicated with the pity and tenderness of his part. Oh yes!
Intoxicated is not too strong a word; for you know that love and desire
take many disguises. I believe that the girl had been frank with him,
with the frankness of women to whom perfect frankness is impossible,
because so much of their safety depends on judicious reticences. I am
not indulging in cheap sneers. There is necessity in these things. And
moreover she could not have spoken with a certain voice in the face of
his impetuosity, because she did not have time to understand either the
state of her feelings, or the precise nature of what she was doing.

Had she spoken ever so clearly he was, I take it, too elated to hear her
distinctly. I don't mean to imply that he was a fool. Oh dear no! But
he had no training in the usual conventions, and we must remember that he
had no experience whatever of women. He could only have an ideal
conception of his position. An ideal is often but a flaming vision of
reality.

To him enters Fyne, wound up, if I may express myself so irreverently,
wound up to a high pitch by his wife's interpretation of the girl's
letter. He enters with his talk of meanness and cruelty, like a bucket
of water on the flame. Clearly a shock. But the effects of a bucket of
water are diverse. They depend on the kind of flame. A mere blaze of
dry straw, of course . . . but there can be no question of straw there.
Anthony of the