"Are they really becoming?" he asked. "Or do you like me better without, Madge?" Again she saw, and, with a movement uncontrollable, she hid her own eyes for a moment. But Lady Dover again came to the rescue. "Ah, Doctor Inglis won't allow that, Mr. Dundas," she said. But Evelyn still held them away from his face. Brutal as it all was, the thing had to be gone through once, and it was on the whole better to do it now. "Ah, I asked Madge," he said quietly. As he spoke, with his other hand he let his fingers dwell with that firm yet fluttering movement over his eyes. That straight, drawn-down lid was visualised by him, that tear in the other eyelid was visualised also. Then the hovering finger-tips traced the course of the pellet through the eyebrow, and felt, like a dog nosing a hot scent, the course of the scar where another had crossed his forehead. To that constructive touch the truth was becoming hideously plain. And deliberately, as he felt and traced, he set himself to believe the worst. He sat as judge to weigh the evidence of his fingers as they bore witness to the state of this wrecked face of his. Again and again, in days past, he had said, and meant also, that he did not wish to go below the surface of things; the eyebrow, the curve of the mouth, the light of the eye itself, as he had said to the Hermit, were enough for him, there was symbol enough there. And since this choice was so instinctive and natural to himself, it was not possible to him to dissociate others from it, and as, with terrible certainty, he framed to himself what he looked like, he put himself into Madge's place, and seeing with her eyes, framed also the conclusion which he believed to be inevitable. Yet she had seen him before, the nurse had told him so, and after that he had heard with ears that somehow seemed quickened in their sense even as touch was, the authentic ring of love in her voice. Or had he been deceived in that? But thought, like the electric current through wires, travels many miles in an interval that is not appreciably greater than that which it takes to go a yard or two, and the rapid brushing of his fingers over his face had been almost as speedy. So when Madge answered (her thought too had gone far) he was not conscious that there had been a pause. She had complete command of her voice now. "How can anybody be so silly?" she said. "I like you best without spectacles, dear, but as you have to wear them, there's the end of it. And"--she was embarked on a big lie, and did not mind--"you look so much better than you did when I saw you a week ago when your face was being dressed, that I should scarcely recognise you. At least I feel now as if I should scarcely have recognised you then; now there is no need for recognition. Put them on again, Evelyn; there is a strong light."