I fumbled. I wasn’t, I said, certain. Had only seen the doctor for a moment. Something inside, I thought, had gone wrong....
I was immensely lost in all this. He had known she was ill—but not seriously ill, nor of what! I grabbed at one certain point of behaviour for myself. One had to. I was, anyhow, going to make no mischief. Like Guy, I would give no “gratuitous information” of any sort. For better or for worse, I wouldn’t. News of septic poisoning was obviously not for Napier, not for any one—except for the two names on the grubby slip of paper. This septic poisoning seemed to mean only one of two things, a child or not a child. That was most utterly Iris’s business. Iris the desirous—for a child. “To be playmates with.” And I wondered, just then, if it had been another Hector-not-so-proud. “Like to have a winner once....” I kept on hearing that slightly husky voice saying little things.
“What I mean to say is,” Napier said, with sudden astounding calm, “that this is perfectly idiotic. What? You see, I hadn’t the faintest idea....”
But when, deceived by the calm of his voice, I looked at him, I found it better to look away again at the frowsty old lay-sister sewing away at her stocking. It was mean to look at him, he was too naked. I realised how masked we always are, how this is a world of masked men, how we are masked all day long, even on the most trivial occasions. Then I felt his hands suddenly tight around my arm. And tighter. Now what?
“I’m awfully sorry,” I said idiotically.
“Look here—I say, for God’s sake! You see, I don’t understand. What? She wrote to me weeks ago that she was going to be just slightly ill, and now....”
The fingers dropped from my arm. “Hell!” he muttered. “Oh, hell! What?” He hadn’t the faintest idea of what he was saying. I wished to God he had, I didn’t want to listen to him, I hated listening to him, it was like spying on the man. Spying on Tristram wandering in the forest raving with love for Yseult. But what could I do? How leave him like this? How let him return to Venice like this? Good Lord, and Venice waiting in the taxi! If she saw him like this.... Good Lord, was the man mad to have brought Venice with him! Here, to see Iris! The misty impulses of a man of honour ... do nothing behind his wife’s back. After, you know, having done everything. But ... Good Lord, if Venice grew tired of waiting in the taxi and came and found Napier like this, like a demented knight in a story! Venice of the lion’s cub head, the mischievous, loyal eyes, dear Venice! adoring and adorable Venice! Napier’s wife....
And, at that moment, I saw Venice again at the Loyalty, that night ten months ago, happily waiting for Napier, whose wife she would be in three days. “Darling, darling, darling!” That night of Gerald’s death! And then for the first time I remembered the cry of “Iris!” in the night, and the two red rear-lights swerving into South Audley Street, and I understood how it was that Iris in her letter had called me her “destroyer” ... her “destroyer” with love, for no lover could have passed her way that night had I told her about Gerald. And Napier had passed her way, Napier whom she had seen that night for the first time in many years, Napier her ancient friend. “There were two roads leading from a certain tree....” And the two roads had come together in the darkness of that night, in the darkness of cruelly blind chance, and now they had come together again in the darkness of this night, while Venice waited outside....
I couldn’t, you can see, not do anything just then. I couldn’t let this love-lost man be found by Venice in her husband’s shoes. Napier and Venice, the happy lovers.... I was on Venice’s side. For Venice! Always, I was for Venice. One likes so few people, but one likes those few very, very much. This love-lost man must be woken up, must behave. Of course he must behave! Venice, for Venice! How dared he have done this to Venice? Marrying her on the third day from that night....
I asked him where he was staying, and when he said “the Meurice,” I told him that if he would go now I could ring him up when I had seen the doctor. “It’s no good waiting here,” I said. “I know the doctor.”