Blind Love

Lady Harry lifted her veil, and looked at Mountjoy with sad entreaty in

her eyes. "Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"I ought to be angry with you," he said. "This is a very imprudent,

Iris."

"It's worse than that," she confessed. "It's reckless and desperate.

Don't say I ought to have controlled myself. I can't control the shame

I feel when I think of what has happened. Can I let you go--oh, what a

return for your kindness!--without taking your hand at parting? Come

and sit by me on the sofa. After my poor husband's conduct, you and I

are not likely to meet again. I don't expect you to lament it as I do.

Even your sweetness and your patience--so often tried--must be weary of

me now."

"If you thought that possible, my dear, you would not have come here

to-night," Hugh reminded her. "While we live, we have the hope of

meeting again. Nothing in this world lasts, Iris--not even jealousy.

Lord Harry himself told me that he was a variable man. Sooner or later

he will come to his senses."

Those words seemed to startle Iris. "I hope you don't think that my

husband is brutal to me!" she exclaimed, still resenting even the

appearance of a reflection on her marriage, and still forgetting what

she herself had said which justified a doubt of her happiness. "Have

you formed a wrong impression?" she went on. "Has Fanny Mere

innocently--?"

Mountjoy noticed, for the first time, the absence of the maid. It was a

circumstance which justified him in interrupting Iris--for it might

seriously affect her if her visit to the hotel happened to be

discovered.

"I understood," he said, "that Fanny was to come here with you."

"Yes! yes! She is waiting in the carriage. We are careful not to excite

attention at the door of the hotel; the coachman will drive up and down

the street till I want him again. Never mind that! I have something to

say to you about Fanny. She thinks of her own troubles, poor soul, when

she talks to me, and exaggerates a little without meaning it. I hope

she has not misled you in speaking of her master. It is base and bad of

him, unworthy of a gentleman, to be jealous--and he has wounded me

deeply. But dear Hugh, his jealousy is a gentle jealousy. I have heard

of other men who watch their wives--who have lost all confidence in

them--who would even have taken away from me such a trifle as this."

She smiled, and showed to Mountjoy her duplicate key of the cottage

door. "Ah, Harry is above such degrading distrust as that! There are

times when he is as heartily ashamed of his own weakness as I could

wish him to be. I have seen him on his knees before me, shocked at his

conduct. He is no hypocrite. Indeed, his repentance is sincere, while

it lasts--only it doesn't last! His jealousy rises and falls, like the

wind. He said last night (when the wind was high): 'If you wish to make

me the happiest creature on the face of the earth, don't encourage Mr.

Mountjoy to remain in Paris!' Try to make allowances for him!"