While he was still struggling with his own reluctance to inflict this
degrading exposure on a woman, the talk between the two ladies came to
an end. Mrs. Vimpany returned again to the window. On this occasion,
she looked out into the street--with her handkerchief (was it used as a
signal?) exhibited in her hand. Iris, on her side, advanced to
Mountjoy. Easily moved to anger, her nature was incapable of sullen
perseverance in a state of enmity. To see Hugh still patiently
waiting--still risking the chances of insult--devoted to her, and
forgiving her--was at once a reproach that punished Iris, and a mute
appeal that no true woman's heart could resist.
With tears in her eyes she said to him: "There must be no coolness
between you and me. I lost my temper, and spoke shamefully to you. My
dear, I am indeed sorry for it. You are never hard on me--you won't be
hard on me now?"
She offered her hand to him. He had just raised it to his lips--when
the drawing-room door was roughly opened. They both looked round.
The man of all others whom Hugh least desired to see was the man who
now entered the room. The victim of "light claret"--privately directed
to lurk in the street, until he saw a handkerchief fluttering at the
window--had returned to the house; primed with his clever wife's
instructions; ready and eager to be even with Mountjoy for the dinner
at the inn.