Page:The Sea Lady.djvu/299

 magnificence comes in. She doesn't fence and fool about, as the she-women do. She doesn't squawk and say, 'You've insulted me and everything's at an end;' and she doesn't squawk and say, 'For God's sake come back to me!' She doesn't say, she 'won't 'ave no truck with me not after this.' She writes—straight. I don't believe, Melville, I half knew her until all this business came up. She comes out. Before that it was, as you said, and I quite perceive—I perceived all along—a little too—statistical."

He became meditative, and his cigar glow waned and presently vanished altogether.

"You are going back?"

"By Jove! Yes."

Melville stirred slightly and then they both sat rigidly quiet for a space. Then abruptly Chatteris flung away his extinct cigar. He seemed to fling many other