“Yes, I heard you,” I said, fumbling with the latch of the great doors.
“Women!” snapped Masters. “Here, let me.”
“I don’t suppose,” I said, “that there are many worse sights than a helpless woman afraid....”
“You get used to it,” said Masters gloomily, but I was thinking that Napier would not have been at all used to it, and that he had been very wise in his good-bye, for as sure as anything I was that Venice could not have afforded to let Iris have even one more piqure du cœur....
“You don’t look so well yourself,” said Masters.
“Growing-pains, Masters. One is always growing up, at other people’s expense....”
III
I was not to see her again for a while. That man said: “You did her no good the other day. The reverse. She has something on her mind she wants to say to you, and she can’t, and it worries her. Naturally....”
“Your instructions,” I said. “She will be angry with you, Masters.”
“When she is well,” snapped that captain of men, “she may burst, if I may say so. And so I’ll tell her. But in the meanwhile you will have to wait ten days. Or more.”