But Iris, over that luncheon, did not appear to remark that I had nothing in particular to say. And, what with the heat and with that, I suppose I grew more and more annoyed, for there isn’t, I suppose, anything in the world more irritating than to be angry with a woman and she not notice it at all. Of course many women will appear not to notice it, but you can see that that is put on; but this Iris just, I’ll swear it, did not notice anything.
Nor, I thought, did she have a very healthy appetite for one not long since recovered from a serious illness, the way she picked at bits of things here and there; but she excused herself to Charles, who came up to protest against the dishonour she did his food, on the ground that she never did eat with her meals.
And then there was a moment when I asked, from a large silence which seemed to her maddeningly natural, I just asked paternally, since it is always easier to be paternal than to be fraternal: “Happy, Iris?”
She was buttering a piece of toast Melba about half an inch square. My question stayed her knife. She stared intently towards the doors of the restaurant for a long second, and then she said, frankly, gravely, calmly, not at all intensely but with unutterable conviction: “Unbearably.” Then she went on buttering her piece of toast Melba, and I could do what I liked about it.
Now I must say this for the Iris who sat with her profile to me that day, that she was a more lovely Iris even than the one I had known. But as to how she was more lovely, that I do not know; nor, if I knew, could I describe it but by using the word “ethereal,” to be immediately followed by the word “unearthly,” for it is a convention not to be broken lightly that a woman who has not long since recovered from a long illness must look “ethereal” and “unearthly.” But she didn’t, I think, look either of those two things. She seemed, I mean to say, more lovely than ever just because she was more earthy. She looked, I fancy I mean, in love—her skin, that is to say, looked as though she who wore it was in love. Yes, her skin did. I fancy it must have been that. A beautiful woman in love and loved seems, in however unaware a moment, to glow with an earthy beauty. When writers say that “Gloria was looking very spiritual that morning” what they really mean—of course, this is all theory—is that Gloria was looking more earthy that morning, that in her eyes there was the afterglow of love’s delight. A beautiful woman neglected or unloved appeals, of course, more to the chivalrous sense in men, for men will stand more of a chance of a sad woman being interested in them; but the very skin of a woman who is coiled in love seems to have a jewel-like quality, and her mind is like a temptation one wants to touch.
“And,” I said, fascinated for some reason by the faint, faint golden down on her arm, “you’re quite well and strong now?”
“Of course,” she said, “not as strong as all that. But strong enough. …”
“Oh, dear! Strong enough for what, Iris?”
“Everything,” she said, shrouding a boiled cherry in whipped cream. “Must get fat,” she explained as an afterthought.
Now there were two red camellias painted on the left side of the crown of her hat—women at that time didn’t wear bowler hats, or, as they prefer to call them, cloche hats—which was of the same colour as the sun, of straw, and with a narrow stiff brim. The two red camellias looked just as waxen and artificial as two real red camellias would look, and so it must have cost a power of money, that hat. She would have flown like the wind to Reboux in Paris, saying to herself: “I am in love. I must have a hat,” and so she had bought that hat. As for her dress that stifling day, you would have called it blue if you hadn’t seen that no colour made by hands could compare with the blue of those grave eyes, and it was of that fine texture which is finer than the texture of silk of China, if such a thing can be, and here and there upon its lower parts were worked large white arabesques in what looked to an uninformed eye like wool, but surely it could not be the fleece of the lamb that Iris was wearing that day?
“And did Guy,” she asked, “say anything when you three saw me in that cab last night?”
“Oh!” I said.
She had very suddenly turned to me, so that at last I must look full into the eyes that blazed so incredibly blue from the shadow of the yellow hat … and I, I could not meet those eyes! I stared instead at the emerald on the third finger of her right hand, and how white and frail that hand looked, so weak, so frail, when you thought of it as belonging to those deep, compelling, unscrupulous eyes.
“Well?” It was her voice, faint, slightly husky; yet it rose above the roar of London and was lost in the clouds that pass over a strange, unknown land.
“Personally,” I said, “I
