Part 45 (1/2)

”Go on,” she said resignedly.

He had expected her to take his arm, or perhaps to caress him, or at least to encourage him by her gentlest words and her prettiest smiles.

The steady self-restraint which she now manifested was a sign, as he interpreted it, of suppressed resentment. Shrinking, honestly shrinking, from the bare possibility of another quarrel, he confronted the hard necessities of further confession.

”Well, now,” he said, ”it's only this--you mustn't look into the empty bedroom to-night.”

”Why not?”

”Ah, for the best of all good reasons! Because you might find somebody in there.”

This reply excited her curiosity: her eyes rested on him eagerly. ”Some friend of yours?” she asked.

He persisted in an a.s.sumption 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?”