Early in the morning of the next day, Lord Harry received the doctor's
telegram. Iris not having risen at the time, he sent for Fanny Mere,
and ordered her to get the spare room ready for a guest. The maid's
busy suspicion tempted her to put a venturesome question. She asked if
the person expected was a lady or a gentleman.
"What business is it of yours who the visitor is?" her master asked
sharply. Always easy and good-humoured with his inferiors in general,
Lord Harry had taken a dislike to his wife's maid, from the moment when
he had first seen her. His Irish feeling for beauty and brightness was
especially offended by the unhealthy pallor of the woman's complexion,
and the sullen self-suppression of her manner. All that his native
ingenuity had been able to do was to make her a means of paying a
compliment to his wife. "Your maid has one merit in my eyes," he said;
"she is a living proof of the sweetness of your temper."
Iris joined her husband at the breakfast-table with an appearance of
disturbance in her face, seldom seen, during the dull days of her life
at Passy. "I hear of somebody coming to stay with us," she said. "Not
Mr. Vimpany again, I hope and trust?"
Lord Harry was careful to give his customary morning kiss, before he
replied. "Why shouldn't my faithful old friend come and see me again?"
he asked, with his winning smile.
"Pray don't speak of that hateful man," she answered, "as your faithful
old friend! He is nothing of the kind. What did you tell me when he
took leave of us after his last visit, and I owned I was glad that he
had gone? You said: 'Faith, my dear, I'm as glad as you are.'"
Her good-natured husband laughed at this little picture of himself.
"Ah, my darling, how many more times am I to make the same confession
to my pretty priest? Try to remember, without more telling, that it's
one of my misfortunes to be a man of many tempers. There are times when
I get tired to death of Mr. Vimpany; and there are times when the
cheery old devil exercises fascinations over me. I declare you're
spoiling the eyebrows that I admire by letting them twist themselves
into a frown! After the trouble I have taken to clear your mind of
prejudice against an unfortunate man, it's disheartening to find you so
hard on the poor fellow's faults and so blind to his virtues."