“But, Naps!” Venice turned on him, stared wide at him....
“Oh, come on,” said Napier, as though eaten by impatience.
“But!” she pleaded desperately. “But, Naps, I don’t really want to go now a bit if you would rather stay until to-morrow....”
“I don’t want to stay,” said Napier, quite reasonably, but he turned away as he spoke. One saw the set white profile. “Come along, Venice. There’s been enough talk about this already....”
“But, Naps,” said Venice bitterly, “it’s wrong of you to go now, if she needs you. You know it’s wrong and naughty, what you’re doing. Naps dear, I’d very much rather not go now if you don’t mind——”
“Well, you’ll jolly well have to go now, if at all,” Napier tore at her so sharply that she stared at him dumbly for a full second, and then she made a white smile, half to him, half to me. “Silly baby,” she said. “Such a silly baby....” And she was again about to say good-bye to the unwilling spectator when Napier broke in, to me, beginning with astonishing grimness and ending quite conversationally: “I say, if you should happen to see Iris in the course of the next few days, you might tell her I couldn’t stop, and”—here the grimness suddenly ended—“say good-bye from me. Will you? What?”
I said of course I would, and then he took Venice’s arm to lead her away. But Venice dragged, her eyes intent on the carpet, and when she suddenly looked round at me I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.
“Men!” she smiled. “Men!”
“Men!” mocked Napier, but he smiled, too. “What?”
“But don’t you think it’s a shame!” she bitterly appealed to me. “There’s Mrs. Storm very ill and expecting to see Napier, all lonely up there, and here Naps puts me in the beastly position of a wife who——”