She panted breathlessly, eager to be talking: “I made my application, all ... all in order. Forms all filled in and everything. But ... Oh, they weren’t impressed. Not a bit, they weren’t——”
“Oi, you’re talking too much, Iris!”
“Oi to you. Listen.... The old man said to me: ‘Well, young woman, and what do you want?’ I wasn’t afraid, not a bit. Had all my forms ready and everything.... ‘What do I want, Father?’ says I. ‘Why, I’m as good as dead, that’s what I am. Doctor’s face all of a blur, nurse’s face all of a blur, temperature 106—why, I am dead, if it comes to that!’ ‘Nonsense,’ says God. ‘Never saw a woman more alive in all my life. Ho, Gabriel! Expel this woman!’ ‘Yes, but!’ I said, ‘I want to die, I do, I do!’ ‘In that case,’ says He, ‘death will be a great disappointment to you. We want none of your sort here, young woman. Ho, Michael, Gabriel! Eject this sinner. She’s still alive....’”
After a long pause I found those great eyes looking at me very seriously. She whispered: “Owe it to you. I mean, life. Thank you.”
“Iris, to me! My dear, what rot!”
“Not rot at all. If you hadn’t been kind enough to come round again that night to ... inquire, he’d have called and found only that old nun there and she would have said ... assez bien, and away he’d have gone. And me, too.... See?
“And,” she said, “that ptomaine poisoning. You dear, you dear! Oh, how I like you when you’re not looking! Genius, I call that. And when ... Masters told me, I laughed so they had to give me morphia. Darling, these piqures! I got holes all over me....”
“Piqure du cœur,” I let slip.
“Piqure du what?”
“Nothing,” I said.