“For hell, sir! That was why Boy Fenwick died!”
“Napier!” There was a long, long silence. “Napier!” Iris whispered frantically. “My darling, why are you here!”
“To get you....” Napier’s voice trembled pitifully. He controlled it by whispering. “To get you from these ... men!”
“Steady, Naps!” Guy murmured. “We began the evening by bucking about being civilised.”
Again, as in the obscure silence of the Paris night, the white face, the lost eyes ... facing us from the middle French-window.
“Napier!” Iris pleaded. She seemed to be pleading against something which only she could see in those two dark ruins of eyes. And they made ruins of all, those eyes, but saw only one of us. And behind his shoulder, in the garden, pale, wide-eyed, steady as a judgment, stood Venice....
“Good God, man!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Why bring Venice into this!”
“He didn’t. I came.” And Venice smiled in a sort of way.
Napier said in a scarcely audible voice: “Let Venice alone. I think she is my only friend.” As he stepped into the room Iris made a step towards him, two, three. Her eyes were dilated, beseeching. But never once, since the shock of his first words had turned us to the windows, had he taken his eyes from his father. The dark, fevered, lost eyes. He was passing Iris. She snatched at his arm, pulled at him. “Napier, don’t, don’t. Napier, please, my sweet! Venice, for pity’s sake stop him. You don’t know what he’s going to say!”
The thin white fingers of the so naked right hand were buried round the black-covered arm, holding him in his stride; but still Napier looked only at his father. His face was so white that we all looked red and swollen. But Sir Maurice was not put out by his son’s fixed stare. He had his black ebony paper-knife.