"If my explanation of this little matter has satisfied you," he
ventured to resume, "we need say no more about it."
"I agree with you," she answered, "let us say no more about it."
Conscious, in spite of the effort to resist it, of a feeling of
oppression while she was in the same room with a man who had
deliberately lied to her, and that man her husband, she reminded Lord
Harry that he had proposed to take a walk in the garden. Out in the
pure air, under the bright sky, she might breathe more freely. "Come to
the flowers," she said.
They went to the garden together--the wife fearing the deceitful
husband, the husband fearing the quick-witted wife.
Watching each other like two strangers, they walked silently side by
side, and looked now and then at the collection of flowers and plants.
Iris noticed a delicate fern which had fallen away from the support to
which it had been attached. She stopped, and occupied herself in
restoring it to its place. When she looked round again, after attending
to the plant, her husband had disappeared, and Mr. Vimpany was waiting
in his place.