"Yes," he said, snatching at the opening she gave him, and longing only for the moment when he might say good-bye and leave her adorable, maddening presence. "It jars, as you say--not because it isn't all delightful and inspiring in itself, but because"--suddenly he felt an inexplicably savage desire to hurt her, as a man in pain may seek to wound his tenderest nurse--"because not many miles away from here there's a poor mother weeping, like Rachel, for her child, and refusing to be comforted."
She turned pale, and he felt like a murderer as he watched the light die out of her big grey eyes.
"A child--the child you went to see--it died?"
"Yes. She was just a year old--and their only child."
Now, to his remorse, he saw that she was crying; and instantly the cruel impulse died out of his heart and a wild desire to comfort her took its place.
"Miss Wayne, for God's sake don't cry! I had no right to tell you--it was brutal, unpardonable of me to cloud your happiness at such a moment as this. I ... I've no excuse to offer--none, at least, that you could understand--but it makes me feel the meanest criminal alive to see you cry!"
No woman could have withstood the genuine remorse in his tone; and Iris dabbed her eyes with a little lacy handkerchief and smiled forgiveness rather tremulously.
"Don't reproach yourself, Dr. Anstice. I ... I think I'm rather foolish to-night. And at any rate"--perhaps after all she had divined the soreness which lay beneath his spoken congratulations--"I'm sure of one thing--you did your best to comfort the poor mother."
"Thank you for that, at least," he said; and then, in a different key: "You won't think me rude if I leave after this?"
"Of course not." Suddenly Iris rose, and Anstice, surprised, followed her example. "Dr. Anstice, if you don't mind I'll ask you to take me back now. I think"--she smiled rather shyly--"I think I must just go and bathe my eyes. I don't want any one to ask inconvenient questions!"
Filled with anger against himself Anstice acquiesced at once; and in the hall they parted, Iris speeding upstairs to her room in search of water and Eau de Cologne with which to repair the ravages his heartless speech had caused.
At the last came a consolatory moment.
"Dr. Anstice." She held out her hand once more. "You are the only person--except my father--who knows what has happened to-night. Somehow I wanted to tell you because"--she coloured faintly, and her eyes dropped for a second--"because I think you and I are--really--friends in spite of everything."