"Beaten you already?" Iris repeated. "Tell me plainly what you mean?"
"Here it is, if you please, as plainly as words can say it. Mr. Vimpany
has something--something wicked, of course--to say to my master; and he
won't let it pass his lips here, in the cottage."
"Why not?"
"Because he suspects me of listening at the door, and looking through
the keyhole. I don't know, my lady, that he doesn't even suspect You.
'I've learnt something in the course of my life,' he says to my master;
'and it's a rule with me to be careful of what I talk about indoors,
when there are women in the house. What are you going to do
to-morrow?' he says. My lord told him there was to be a meeting at the
newspaper office. The doctor says: 'I'll go to Paris with you. The
newspaper office isn't far from the Luxembourg Gardens. When you have
done your business, you will find me waiting at the gate. What I have
to tell you, you shall hear out of doors in the Gardens--and in an open
part of them, too, where there are no lurking-places among the trees.'
My master seemed to get angry at being put off in this way. 'What is it
you have got to tell me?' he says. 'Is it anything like the proposal
you made, when you were on your last visit here?' The doctor laughed.
'To-morrow won't be long in coming,' he says. 'Patience, my
lord--patience.' There was no getting him to say a word more. Now, what
am I to do? How am I to get a chance of listening to him, out in an
open garden, without being seen? There's what I mean when I say he has
beaten me. It's you, my lady--it's you who will suffer in the end."
"You don't know that, Fanny."
"No, my lady--but I'm certain of it. And here I am, as helpless as
yourself! My temper has been quiet, since my misfortune; it would be
quiet still, but for this." The one animating motive, the one
exasperating influence, in that sad and secret life was still the
mistress's welfare--still the safety of the generous woman who had
befriended and forgiven her. She turned aside from the table, to hide
her ghastly face.
"Pray try to control yourself." As Iris spoke, she pointed kindly to a
chair. "There is something that I want to say when you are composed
again. I won't hurry you; I won't look at you. Sit down, Fanny."