or before she knew it herself. I felt at that instant the strangest
of all impulses: if it could have operated more rapidly it would have
caused me to dash between them in some such manner as to give Flora a
warning. In fact as it was I think I could have done this in time had
I not been checked by a curiosity stronger still than my impulse. There
were three seconds during which I saw the young man and yet let him come
on. Didn't I make the quick calculation that if he didn't catch what
Flora was doing I too might perhaps not catch it? She at any rate
herself took the alarm. On perceiving her companion's nearness she made,
still averted, another duck of her head and a shuffle of her hands so
precipitate that a little tin steamboat she had been holding escaped
from them and rattled down to the floor with a sharpness that I hear at
this hour. Lord Iffield had already seized her arm; with a violent jerk
he brought her round toward him. Then it was that there met my eyes a
quite distressing sight: this exquisite creature, blushing, glaring,
exposed, with a pair of big black-rimmed eyeglasses, defacing her by
their position, crookedly astride of her beautiful nose. She made a grab
at them with her free hand while I turned confusedly away.

VII

I don't remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey Dawling; his
sittings were irregular, but it was certainly the very next time he gave
me one.

"Has any rumour ever reached you of Miss Saunt's having anything the
matter with her eyes?" He stared with a candour that was a sufficient
answer to my question, backing it up with a shocked and mystified
"Never!" Then I asked him if he had observed in her any symptom, however
disguised, of embarrassed sight: on which, after a moment's thought, he
exclaimed "Disguised?" as if my use of that word had vaguely awakened a
train. "She's not a bit myopic," he said; "she doesn't blink or contract
her lids." I fully recognised this and I mentioned that she altogether
denied the impeachment; owing it to him moreover to explain the ground
of my inquiry, I gave him a sketch of the incident that had taken place
before me at the shop. He knew all about Lord Iffield: that nobleman
had figured freely in our conversation as his preferred, his injurious
rival. Poor Daw-ling's contention was that if there had been a definite
engagement between his lordship and the young lady, the sort of thing
that was announced in _The Morning Post_, renunciation