“You depress me, Iris Storm.”
“But I, oh I am so gay!”
“Yes, that is what depresses me. My friends are wretched, but you are gay! Iris, we are all of us miserable sinners, but you are a very captain of wickedness. Iris, you are a wrecker of homes, and you say you are gay! I am not being flippant. I have dined alone.”
“Dear, I understand. I do respect your disapproval, you must believe me, or else I would answer that we begin to die when we are born, that all comes from God and goes to the devil, and so what does anything matter? But listen, O father and brother of disapproval, would you like to see me before I leave England tomorrow at dawn?”
“Yes,” I said, “I would.”
“ ‘See’ me, I said, not ‘murder’ me!”
“But, Iris, I can qualify nothing tonight!”
“My idea is to take you into the country tonight. We go à deux. We go into a darkness. My friend, there is a sundial in a certain garden, and it is written that you and I shall stand by that sundial before we part to meet nevermore.”
“Iris, your voice is laughing, but you are not laughing. What does that mean?”
“But I am afraid! I am laughing with fear. …”
“And we are driving into the country to escape your fear?”
“Oh, but that hurts! I was never before accused of being a coward. …”
“Iris, I’m sorry.”
“Sir Maurice Harpenden knows me better than you do, my friend. Ah, he is very clever, is Sir Maurice! But you will see. We are driving into the country, let me tell you, to meet my fear. And when we meet it I shall not mock, nor tremble, nor quail, but I shall be a very Saint George for steadfastness. That is the programme, so far. And you, will you be my esquire?”
“You speak of darkness, of sundials, of fear, of Sir Maurice Harpenden, whom I do not know, of Saint George of Cappadocia, whom, alas, one sees only too little of these days. I think that you, too, must have dined alone. And you have gone mad. Else why must we drive into the country?”
“But we go to keep high company tonight, that’s why! Are you afraid of that? The captains and the kings of the countryside are our adversaries. Sweet, you and I shall stand arrayed against the warriors of conduct.”
“Not I, Iris! I am for conduct.”
“You lie, dear. You are for love! Oh, why do you lie?”
“Because one must be reasonable, Iris.”
“Oh, because this, because that, because of the persecution of men, the savagery of beasts, the malice of gods! Free me of your becauses! Lies, all lies! One must be truthful, there is no other law, all other laws are lies. We are educated by lies, we live with lies, we worship lies, we fight for lies, we die bearded with lies. God made men out of clay, countries out of mud, and what can the son of a marriage between clay and mud be but Master Lie? Oh, let us have just one look at the Demoiselle Truth!”
“Unfortunately, Iris, that demoiselle shows a different figure to all of us. Now I may like her with a trivial ankle, tawny hair, boyish breasts, but another may like her with golden hair and spacious loins, as Rubens painted women—”
“I will say this for you, that when you insult one you do it with kindness. It is kind of you to have described me as your idea of the demoiselle. I am proud of my breasts, because they are so beautiful. Life is generally so rude to a woman’s breasts, but it has only kissed mine—”
“Iris, you are shocking the girl at the exchange!”
“No, no, Miss Dell has prepared her for anything! But you haven’t yet said if you will be my esquire into the country? Why are you so silent?”
“But, Iris, I don’t understand a word of this!”
“Sweet, do we need to wait on your understanding! Chivalry?”
“Away with that from me to you! You always chose the man’s part.”
“Gallantry?”
“But I shall be gallant to another in being ungallant to you!”
“Friendship?”
“You are driving me very hard, Iris. I do not want to say what is in my mind.”
“Can you stand there with your lips to the receiver, which I hope your servants keep clean for you, and tell me you are not my friend? Can you stand there facing me across Queen Street, Curzon Street, Hertford Street, Hamilton Place, Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge, and tell me that you are not my friend? I am sitting here on the edge of the bed, in the next room is Mrs. Oden trying to pretend she is not listening to every word I say, all round me are trunks and boxes, about me is a leather jacket with a collar of a few minks, and on my head is one green hat. Are you not my friend? Answer me! Answer me, I say! Dear, a woman must have one friend! It is usual.”
“But the emerald is gone, Iris. So you are not the Iris I knew. You were Iris Storm, you are Iris March, and I never have met Iris March.”
“The emerald was wise. There’s a galanterie in jewels unknown to men, I see that. So you won’t come for a drive with me? Our last?”
“I never said that, Iris!”
“Ah, I have frightened him! Well, I will come round for you in five minutes. How are you dressed? In black and white? Maybe I would have preferred you in something less formal, in something more—”
“Enough of pour le sport, Iris! Oh, enough, enough!”
II
And so we were again, again and for the last time, in that swift motorcar, wrapped in the gentle silences of the night. The oppression of the heat was gone since the rains of yesterday, but even yet London could not quite rouse itself from
