Blind Love

This reply excited her curiosity: her eyes rested on him eagerly. "Some

friend of yours?" she asked.

He persisted in an assumption of good-humour, which betrayed itself as

mere artifice in the clumsiest manner: "I declare I feel as if I were

in a court of justice, being cross-examined by a lawyer of skill and

dexterity! Well, my sweet counsellor, no--not exactly a friend of

mine."

She reflected for a moment. "You don't surely mean one of Mr. Vimpany's

friends?" she said.

He pretended not to have heard her, and pointed to the view of the

garden from the window. "Isn't it a lovely day? Let's go and look at

the flowers," he suggested.

"Did you not hear what I said to you just now?" she persisted.

"I beg your pardon, dear; I was thinking of something else. Suppose we

go into the garden?"

When women have a point to gain in which they are interested, how many

of them are capable of deferring it to a better opportunity? One in a

thousand, perhaps. Iris kept her place at the window, resolved on

getting an answer.

"I asked you, Harry, whether the person who is to occupy our spare

bedroom, to-night, was one of Mr. Vimpany's friends?"

"Say one of Mr. Vimpany's patients--and you will be nearer the truth,"

he answered, with an outburst of impatience.

She could hardly believe him. "Do you mean a person who is really ill?"

she said.

"Of course I mean it," he said; irritated into speaking out, at last.

"A man? or a woman?"

"A man."

"May I ask if he comes from England?"

"He comes from one of the French hospitals. Anything more?"

Iris left her husband to recover his good-humour, and went back to her

chair. The extraordinary disclosure which she had extracted from him

had produced a stupefying effect on her mind. Her customary sympathy

with him, her subtle womanly observation of his character, her intimate

knowledge of his merits and his defects, failed to find the rational

motive which might have explained his conduct. She looked round at him

with mingled feelings of perplexity and distrust.

He was still at the window, but he had turned his back on the view of

the garden; his eyes were fixed, in furtive expectation, on his wife.

Was he waiting to hear her say something more? She ran the risk and

said it.

"I don't quite understand the sacrifice you seem to be making to Mr.

Vimpany," she confessed. "Will you tell me, dear, what it means?"