“Maurice,” said Hilary gravely, “you are getting more like God every moment. You’re in a minority of one.”
Napier stood in the middle of the room, looking from one to the other of us, scowling, seeing no one, hearing nothing. He was a man lost in an obsession, trying to find his way out. His back was to Iris. Some great man, Balzac, maybe, has said that women do not love with their eyes, but there was a blinding love in her eyes, and her lips trembled, tried to smile at the lost thing that Napier was. Only she seemed to know the obsession in which Napier wandered, and she just managed to say: “Come, Napier. Come....”
Napier turned to her vaguely, seemed about to go with her, then pulled himself round to his father again: “Before I go, sir, I’d like to tell you—I’d like to say that—that it was a foul thing to do to throw Fenwick at Iris——”
“Napier,” Sir Maurice said quietly, “I have apologised for that——”
“But have you apologised for us all, sir?” Napier seemed at last to awake from his obsession. He looked happy at that moment. “Have you apologised for the opinion we’ve all had of Iris for ten years? Because all these slanders about her go back to——”
“Napier, my Napier, you please mustn’t!”
“Iris, I must put this right! You’ve never had enough respect for yourself——”
“But I have now, dear! Let me ... keep it....”
Napier seemed to appeal to Guy. There was a curious understanding in Guy’s look. He said: “Go on, Naps, let’s have it all now. What’s this about Fenwick?”
“Guy, don’t encourage him!” Iris cried passionately. Venice held her tight. Iris looked at me once just then, and I think that is the last time she ever saw me.