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?"