Chapter 7

I don't remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey Dawling; his

sittings were irregular, but it was certainly the very next time he

gave me one.

"Has any rumour ever reached you of Miss Saunt's having anything

the matter with her eyes?" He stared with a candour that was a

sufficient answer to my question, backing it up with a shocked and

mystified "Never!" Then I asked him if he had observed in her any

symptom, however disguised, of embarrassed sight; on which, after a

moment's thought, he exclaimed "Disguised?" as if my use of that

word had vaguely awakened a train. "She's not a bit myopic," he

said; "she doesn't blink or contract her lids." I fully recognised

this and I mentioned that she altogether denied the impeachment;

owing it to him moreover to explain the ground of my inquiry, I

gave him a sketch of the incident that had taken place before me at

the shop. He knew all about Lord Iffield; that nobleman had

figured freely in our conversation as his preferred, his injurious

rival. Poor Dawling's contention was that if there had been a

definite engagement between his lordship and the young lady, the

sort of thing that was announced in the Morning Post, renunciation

and retirement would be comparatively easy to him; but that having

waited in vain for any such assurance he was entitled to act as if

the door were not really closed or were at any rate not cruelly

locked. He was naturally much struck with my anecdote and still

more with my interpretation of it.

"There IS something, there IS something--possibly something very

grave, certainly something that requires she should make use of

artificial aids. She won't admit it publicly, because with her

idolatry of her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees

in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the disfigurement.

She has used them in secret, but that is evidently not enough, for

the affection she suffers from, apparently some definite menace,

has lately grown much worse. She looked straight at me in the

shop, which was violently lighted, without seeing it was I. At the

same distance, at Folkestone, where as you know I first met her,

where I heard this mystery hinted at and where she indignantly

denied the thing, she appeared easily enough to recognise people.

At present she couldn't really make out anything the shop-girl

showed her. She has successfully concealed from the man I saw her

with that she resorts in private to a pince-nez and that she does

so not only under the strictest orders from her oculist, but

because literally the poor thing can't accomplish without such help

half the business of life. Iffield however has suspected

something, and his suspicions, whether expressed or kept to

himself, have put him on the watch. I happened to have a glimpse

of the movement at which he pounced on her and caught her in the

act."

I had thought it all out; my idea explained many things, and

Dawling turned pale as he listened to me.

"Was he rough with her?" he anxiously asked.

"How can I tell what passed between them? I fled from the place."

My companion stared. "Do you mean to say her eyesight's going?"

"Heaven forbid! In that case how could she take life as she does?"

"How DOES she take life? That's the question!" He sat there

bewilderedly brooding; the tears rose to his lids; they reminded me

of those I had seen in Flora's the day I risked my enquiry. The

question he had asked was one that to my own satisfaction I was

ready to answer, but I hesitated to let him hear as yet all that my

reflections had suggested. I was indeed privately astonished at

their ingenuity. For the present I only rejoined that it struck me

she was playing a particular game; at which he went on as if he

hadn't heard me, suddenly haunted with a fear, lost in the dark

possibility. "Do you mean there's a danger of anything very bad?"

"My dear fellow, you must ask her special adviser."

"Who in the world is her special adviser?"

"I haven't a conception. But we mustn't get too excited. My

impression would be that she has only to observe a few ordinary

rules, to exercise a little common sense."

Dawling jumped at this. "I see--to stick to the pince-nez."

"To follow to the letter her oculist's prescription, whatever it is

and at whatever cost to her prettiness. It's not a thing to be

trifled with."

"Upon my honour it SHAN'T be!" he roundly declared; and he adjusted

himself to his position again as if we had quite settled the

business. After a considerable interval, while I botched away, he

suddenly said: "Did they make a great difference?"

"A great difference?"

"Those things she had put on."

"Oh the glasses--in her beauty? She looked queer of course, but it

was partly because one was unaccustomed. There are women who look

charming in nippers. What, at any rate, if she does look queer?

She must be mad not to accept that alternative."

"She IS mad," said Geoffrey Dawling.

"Mad to refuse you, I grant. Besides," I went on, "the pince-nez,

which was a large and peculiar one, was all awry: she had half

pulled it off, but it continued to stick, and she was crimson, she

was angry."

"It must have been horrible!" my companion groaned.

"It WAS horrible. But it's still more horrible to defy all

warnings; it's still more horrible to be landed in--" Without

saying in what I disgustedly shrugged my shoulders.

After a glance at me Dawling jerked round. "Then you do believe

that she may be?"

I hesitated. "The thing would be to make HER believe it. She only

needs a good scare."

"But if that fellow is shocked at the precautions she does take?"

"Oh who knows?" I rejoined with small sincerity. "I don't suppose

Iffield is absolutely a brute."

"I would take her with leather blinders, like a shying mare!" cried

Geoffrey Dawling.

I had an impression that Iffield wouldn't, but I didn't communicate

it, for I wanted to pacify my friend, whom I had discomposed too

much for the purposes of my sitting. I recollect that I did some

good work that morning, but it also comes back to me that before we

separated he had practically revealed to me that my anecdote,

connecting itself in his mind with a series of observations at the

time unconscious and unregistered, had covered with light the

subject of our colloquy. He had had a formless perception of some

secret that drove Miss Saunt to subterfuges, and the more he

thought of it the more he guessed this secret to be the practice of

making believe she saw when she didn't and of cleverly keeping

people from finding out how little she saw. When one pieced things

together it was astonishing what ground they covered. Just as he

was going away he asked me from what source at Folkestone the

horrid tale had proceeded. When I had given him, as I saw no

reason not to do, the name of Mrs. Meldrum he exclaimed: "Oh I

know all about her; she's a friend of some friends of mine!" At

this I remembered wilful Betty and said to myself that I knew some

one who would probably prove more wilful still.