"I must leave Miss Henley to answer that."
"Where is she, sir?"
"There is an end to everything, my lord, in the world we live in. You have reached the end of my readiness to answer questions." The Englishman and the Irishman looked at each other: the Anglo-Saxon was impenetrably cool; the Celt was flushed and angry. They might have been on the brink of a quarrel, but for Lord Harry's native quickness of perception, and his exercise of it at that moment. When he had called at Mr. Vimpany's house, and had asked for Iris, the doctor had got rid of him by means of a lie. After this discovery, at what conclusion could he arrive? The doctor was certainly keeping Iris out of his way. Reasoning in this rapid manner, Lord Harry let one offence pass, in his headlong eagerness to resent another. He instantly left Mountjoy. Again the carriage rattled back along the street; but it was stopped before it reached Mr. Vimpany's door.
Lord Harry knew the people whom he had to deal with, and took measures to approach the house silently, on foot. The coachman received orders to look out for a signal, which should tell him when he was wanted again.
Mr. Vimpany's ears, vigilantly on the watch for suspicious events, detected no sound of carriage wheels and no noisy use of the knocker. Still on his guard, however, a ring at the house-bell disturbed him in his consulting-room. Peeping into the hall, he saw Iris opening the door, and stole back to his room. "The devil take her!" he said, alluding to Miss Henley, and thinking of the enviable proprietor of the diamond pin.
At the unexpected appearance of Iris, Lord Harry forgot every consideration which ought to have been present to his mind, at that critical moment.
He advanced to her with both hands held out in cordial greeting. She signed to him contemptuously to stand back—and spoke in tones cautiously lowered, after a glance at the door of the consulting-room.
"My only reason for consenting to see you," she said, "is to protect myself from further deception. Your disgraceful conduct is known to me. Go now," she continued, pointing to the stairs, "and consult with your spy, as soon as you like." The Irish lord listened—guiltily conscious of having deserved what she had said to him—without attempting to utter a word in excuse.
Still posted at the head of the stairs, the doctor's wife heard Iris speaking; but the tone was not loud enough to make the words intelligible at that distance; neither was any other voice audible in reply. Vaguely suspicions of some act of domestic treachery, Mrs. Vimpany began to descend the stairs. At the turning which gave her a view of the hall, she stopped; thunderstruck by the discovery of Lord Harry and Miss Henley, together.
The presence of a third person seemed, in some degree, to relieve Lord Harry. He ran upstairs to salute Mrs. Vimpany, and was met again by a cold reception and a hostile look.