“Good of you to come, Iris,” the General said. He smiled very easily. He was one of those young old men who are very old when you look close. He was charming.
Iris looked up from the cards across the room to Hilary. Her eyes were untroubled and clear, she was very still, and her lips were silken red. She said: “Hilary asked me. So I came.”
“It was my idea, Iris,” Sir Maurice said, and he smiled. He was fidgeting with a black ebony paper-knife. “My idea entirely. Hilary was against it. Very glad you brought our young friend. Sit down, Iris. We are all of the world here, we are civilised people. Let’s talk about this like civilised people.”
Iris did not sit down. Maybe someone sat down, but I don’t remember. Iris picked up the ace of clubs from the table and looked at it thoughtfully.
“That was really why I came, Maurice. Because it must have been your idea. You are a very clever man. It was thoughtful of you to give me a chance of saying goodbye to Truble.” She looked up from the ace of clubs to Guy with her untroubled eyes. She had not once looked at Sir Maurice. “Guy, what have you to say to me? I think you have wanted to say something to me for a long time. It would have been cowardly to leave England for good without giving you the chance.”
“Iris,” said Hilary sharply, “Guy has always been very kind about you. Hm. Much kinder than I’ve been.”
“Yes, dear,” she smiled so suddenly at Hilary. That was a surprising, complete smile. It excluded us all, it excluded even Iris and Hilary, it excluded everyone but the friend of childhood and a long little thing, all brown stockings and blue eyes. That was a true smile. “Hm,” said Hilary.
Sir Maurice put a whisky-and-soda into my hand, but I do not remember tasting it. The slight, poised old gentleman’s smile troubled me. His was too fine a face to smile like that. He had clever, darting eyes. I felt that Iris was making an effort to keep her eyes from him. And I felt that the two enemies were each terrified of the other.
Guy spoke for the first time, he murmured: “It was brave of you to come, Iris. I don’t know much about using words, but I think it was noble of you to come. I don’t know any other woman who would have even thought of accepting Maurice’s invitation. But we, your friends, have never compared you to other women. In some things to their disadvantage. We have always admired your pluck. But we have admired your candour and honesty even more. That is why this sickening business baffles us so. Maurice and I just thought it might be fair both to us and to you if we were to try to clear it up a little.” And then Guy snapped: “I’m damned if I want to hate you, Iris.”
Iris broke the back of the ace of clubs and dropped it among the others on the green cloth, where it lay cruelly curled.
“Steady, Iris, steady!” said Sir Maurice. And he tried with the black ebony paper-knife to straighten out the ace of clubs. And he smiled. But Iris looked at Guy, and she seemed very tall.
“Iris,” Hilary said gently, “we loved you too much as a child not to be able to hate the woman who has gone out of her way to kill every memory of that child. …”
“That’s it, Iris,” Guy murmured, restrained, amiable. “You see, as a child and as a girl you were very much in our hearts. Much more than any other child and girl has ever been. I don’t know why. And in spite of all things you’ve done we’ve always … well, we’ve always kept one side of us which was yours for the asking. I mean, Iris, we couldn’t believe in you as a … well, as a decent woman, but we’ve just stayed fond of you. Even when we’ve had to hear your name being pitched about by vile women and ghastly cads. Until now. But now. …”
“A moment, Guy!” The clever, darting eyes, the neat figure, the iron-grey hair, waving just a little. He smiled. He waved the black ebony paper-knife at Iris as though she was a naughty girl. He knew Iris inside-out, did Sir Maurice. She wasn’t all bad, not she. Iris looked at him for the first time, and the clear untroubled look seemed now to be fixed stonily. I wondered if she was afraid. The General spoke quickly, brittle-bright: “Guy has just said, Iris, that we’ve known you all your life. But there’s more than that, much more. That’s why I wanted you to come here tonight. I wanted to show you us, Iris. This isn’t an ordinary elopement, Napier’s and yours. It’s a stab in the back—”
“Maurice, am I stabbing you in the back by coming here?”
“You were always a strange, unfrightened girl, Iris. But the stab in the back is made. It’s stabbing us, your people, in the back. Venice’s people aren’t in this as we are. But that isn’t what I want to tell you. Is it, Guy? And I’ve no intention of trying to beg Napier from you. I’m not even yet old enough to beg favours from a woman. No, it seems settled about you and Napier, as he told me this morning. And I tell you, Iris, it wasn’t my son who spoke to me this morning. It was an enchanted boy—”
“We are both of us enchanted, Maurice.” And Iris smiled. Her lips looked very red, silken red.
“Very good, very good! Well, you go tomorrow. That’s fixed. But I just wanted to show you us,
