Is this bitter? Perhaps it is. Tear it off, and light your pipe with
it.
Well, the correspondence relating to the sick man continued every day;
and every day--oh, Vimpany, another concession to my jealousy!--she
handed the letters to me to read. I made excuses (we Irish are good at
that, if we are good at nothing else), and declined to read the medical
reports. One morning, when she opened the letter of that day, there
passed over her a change which is likely to remain in my memory as long
as I live. Never have I seen such an ecstasy of happiness in any
woman's face, as I saw when she read the lines which informed her that
the fever was mastered. Iris is sweet and delicate and
bright--essentially fascinating, in a word. But she was never a beautiful
woman, until she knew that Mountjoy's life was safe; and she will never
be a beautiful woman again, unless the time comes when my death leaves
her free to marry him. On her wedding-day, he will see the
transformation that I saw--and he will be dazzled as I was.
She looked at me, as if she expected me to speak.
"I am glad indeed," I said, "that he is out of danger."
She ran to me--she kissed me; I wouldn't have believed it was in her to
give such kisses. "Now I have your sympathy," she said, "my happiness
is complete!" Do you think I was indebted for these kisses to myself or
to that other man? No, no--here is an unworthy doubt. I discard it.
Vile suspicion shall not wrong Iris this time.
And yet---Shall I go on, and write the rest of it?
Poor, dear Arthur Mountjoy once told me of a foreign author, who was in
great doubt of the right answer to some tough question that troubled
him. He went into his garden and threw a stone at a tree. If he hit the
tree, the answer would be--Yes. If he missed the tree, the answer would
be--No. I am going into the garden to imitate the foreign author. You
shall hear how it ends.
I have hit the tree. As a necessary consequence, I must go on and write
the rest of it.
There is a growing estrangement between Iris and myself--and my
jealousy doesn't altogether account for it. Sometimes, it occurs to me
that we are thinking of what our future relations with Mountjoy are
likely to be, and are ashamed to confess it to each other.
Sometimes--and perhaps this second, and easiest, guess may be the right
one--I am apt to conclude that we are only anxious about money matters.
I am waiting for her to touch on the subject, and she is waiting for
me; and there we are at a deadlock.