Napier stared at her—he was sitting now—and it was as though he had put his hand to his mouth and placed a smile there. It was a very charming, helpless smile. I said something to the effect that I must go now, but no one was taking any notice of me. Venice was saying, in a voice tangled with confusion, impatience, a sort of gaiety: “But, Naps, you don’t mean to say you want to stay still another night in this foul Paris, when we might be in the sun!”
Napier scowled, the smile still on his mouth. “Of course, I don’t want, but—”
“Oh, but, Naps, I’d like to go straight away, right away, as the Yankees say! And I thought we might have tea at Fontainebleau and I’d show you the place where I was at school. …”
“Now look here,” Napier scowled, touching her knee with one finger, “I can’t quite do that, Venice. You see, I made a sort of promise to that doctor fellow that I would go and sit with Iris just for a while this afternoon—”
“Oh, I see,” said Venice. “Well, in that case. …”
“Give her an idea—that’s what the doctor fellow said—that some of her friends care whether she lives or dies, for anyone would be rather lonely up there. What? I went round for a minute this morning just to inquire, but I didn’t see her, as they said that—”
“I thought you were at the Embassy this morning,” Venice said, in a very natural voice: and she crushed out her cigarette on the marble top of the table, and she picked up her vanity-case.
“Yes, so I was,” Napier scowled; “but I just went round there for a minute—”
“Oo, what a long way to go for a minute!” sighed Venice. “When one can always telephone. …” And she rose from her chair. Somehow an immense new dignity had suddenly come on Venice. Napier rose, facing her, smiling under his scowl, as though she had made a joke. I rose, saying that I must be going.
“As a matter of fact,” said Venice brightly, “as I knew you were so worried about her I rang up that place this morning, and they told me she was assez bien, if you see what I mean. …”
“Venice, that was kind!” Napier smiled with his whole thin, fine face, and I thought how glad I was that he didn’t know what had caused Iris’s illness, for would he then have smiled gratefully at Venice for inquiring after her? And he said, as though happy in her understanding: “I mean, we can start off first thing in the morning, can’t we? What? It’s rotten luck, cutting in on your holiday like this, but—well, friendship has duties. …”
“But of course I understand, Naps!” And Venice turned at me, smiling as though to show me what sort of a man that Napier was. As though she didn’t understand! As though she didn’t know the duties of friendship! She said to Napier, with a fine air of business settled: “Well, I’ll just go upstairs now and tell Mary to unpack some things again. And I do so hope, Naps,” she said with a fine large smile, “that your friend won’t die, for then how will I manage a man who has nothing left to live for?” And Venice turned to me, and her hand was in mine, and we were saying goodbye, when Napier said briskly:
“Come on, then. We’ll go now. Might as well, now the car’s there. …”
“But, Naps!” Venice turned on him, stared wide at him. …
“Oh, come on,” said Napier, as though eaten by impatience.
“But!” she pleaded desperately. “But, Naps, I don’t really want to go now a bit if you would rather stay until tomorrow. …”
“I don’t want to stay,” said Napier, quite reasonably, but he turned away as he spoke. One saw the set white profile. “Come along, Venice. There’s been enough talk about this already. …”
“But, Naps,” said Venice bitterly, “it’s wrong of you to go now, if she needs you. You know it’s wrong and naughty, what you’re doing. Naps dear, I’d very much rather not go now if you don’t mind—”
“Well, you’ll jolly well have to go now, if at all,” Napier tore at her so sharply that she stared at him dumbly for a full second, and then she made a white smile, half to him, half to me. “Silly baby,” she said. “Such a silly baby. …” And she was again about to say goodbye to the unwilling spectator when Napier broke in, to me, beginning with astonishing grimness and ending quite conversationally: “I say, if you should happen to see Iris in the course of the next few days, you might tell her I couldn’t stop, and”—here the grimness suddenly ended—“say goodbye from me. Will you? What?”
I said of course I would, and then he took Venice’s arm to lead her away. But Venice dragged, her eyes intent on the carpet, and when she suddenly looked round at me I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.
“Men!” she smiled. “Men!”
“Men!” mocked Napier, but he smiled, too. “What?”
“But don’t you think it’s a shame!” she bitterly appealed to me. “There’s Mrs. Storm very ill and expecting to see Napier, all lonely up there, and here Naps puts me in the beastly position of a wife who—”
But I was thinking that the shame of it lay in the disadvantage at which a woman always is with a man whom she loves more than she feels he loves her, the disadvantage of never knowing how far she may use an artificial pride, for there is no real pride in a heart in love, without upsetting
