"Oh, the eyes are right enough," says the patient. He goes on to explain that they are no inconvenience whatever so long as he keeps them shut. It is only when he opens them that he notices their defect; which is, briefly, that he can't see with them. His lordship seems to feel that eyes so conditioned are hardly satisfactory. It is really new knowledge to him, and he accepts it restlessly. He spreads his fingers out before the deceptive orbs that look so clear, showing indeed no defect but a kind of uncertainty; or rather perhaps a too great stillness as though always content with the object in front of them. "What do you see now?" he asks in a nervous voice.
"Something dark between me and the light."
"Is that all? Can't you see what it is?"
"A book." A mere guess based on the known predilections of the questioner.
"Oh dear!" says the Earl. "It was my hand." He sees that the nurse is signalling with headshakes and soundless lip-words, but has not presence of mind to catch her meaning.
The other seems to feel his speech apologetically, as though it were his own fault. "I see better later in the day," he says. Which may be true or not.
The nurse's signalling tells, and the questioner runs into an opposite extreme. "One is like that in the morning sometimes," says he absurdly, but meaning well. He is not an Earl who would be of much use in a hospital for the treatment of nervous disorders. However, having grasped the situation he shows tact, changing the conversation to the heat of the weather and the probable earliness of the crops. No one should ever show tact. He will only be caught flagrante delicto. Mr. Torrens is perfectly well aware of what is occurring; and, when he lies still and unresponsive with his eyes closed, is not really resting after exertion, which is the nurse's interpretation of the action, but trying to think out something he wants to say to the Earl, and how to say it. It is not so easy as light jesting.
The nurse telegraphs silently lipwise that the patient will doze now for a quarter of an hour till breakfast; and the visitor, alive to the call of discretion, has gone out gently before the patient knows he has left the bedside.
Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear silence. So the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetrating arpeggio of a door-hinge, equal to the betrayal of Masonic secrecy if delivered at the right moment. "Is Mrs. Bailey gone?" says the patient, ascribing the wrong cause to it.
"His lordship has gone, Mr. Torrens. He thought you were dropping off."