"How about the eyes?" Richard asked as he and Geoffrey followed.
"I've been on the water, and it is bad for them. But I'm not going to worry. I am getting out of life more than I hoped—more than I dared hope."
His voice had a high note of excitement. Richard glanced at him. For a moment he wondered if Fox had been drinking.
But Geoffrey was intoxicated with the wine of his dreams. With a quick gesture in which he seemed to throw from him all the fears which had oppressed him, he told his triumphant lie.
"I am going to marry Anne Warfield; she has promised to be eyes for me, and light—the sun and the moon."
Richard's face grew gray. He spoke with difficulty. "She has promised?"
Then again Geoffrey lied, meaning indeed before the night had passed to make his words come true. "She is going to marry me—and I am the happiest man alive!"
The light went out of Richard's world. How blind he had been. He had taken her smiles and blushes to himself when she had glowed with a happiness which had nothing to do with him.
He steadied himself to speak. "You are a lucky fellow, Fox; you must let me congratulate you."
"The world doesn't know," Geoffrey said, "not yet. But I had to tell it to some one, and a doctor is a sort of secular father confessor."