“You’re laughing at me,” she whispered, “that’s what you’re doing. I’m going to close my eyes now for five minutes. But don’t go. Don’t go....” It was the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well, and Mademoiselle Printemps was dancing in the sunlight that fell in a shower of gold on the window-sill, on which now stood three nectarines and a large pear on a plate. But the blind was drawn so that she could dance only in a bright splash across the little mountain which, I ventured to suppose, was made by Iris’s toes. In the shade of the room stood the small table, and on the small table the doll with the red silk handkerchief round her wrist sat sleeping beneath tall sprays of mimosa, sprays of bright yellow powdered with fresh gold.... “Yes,” I heard her voice, faint, faint, and when I looked round from the mimosa to her I saw that her eyes had followed mine to a garden in the South. “Iris, I was to say good-bye....” “I know,” she said gravely; and she smiled. “I heard him....” “You heard him, Iris?” “Dreams, clouds, mists. Faces, phantoms, fates, words. Yes, I heard him....” And she smiled, with every bit of her eyes, as though to reassure me. “That’s quite all right,” she said. “Iris, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you ... promise that that’s quite all right?” She was looking at me with a smile.... “Promise,” she suddenly sobbed, and her eyes were streaming with tears. I was terrified. “Lie here,” she sobbed, “like a mummy ... no inside left, nothing left ... thinking and thinking and thinking ... trying to lie to myself right and left, north and south ... can’t have what I want, so must make up stories ... and you sit there stiff as a pole saying ‘Promise’ ... call yourself a friend.... You don’t know how ill I’ve been!” “I do, I do, Iris! For pity’s sake! If that man comes in and finds you like th----” “And you think I’m awful,” she whispered helplessly. She stared at me. “You think I’m awful,” she said quite calmly. “Iris,” I said, “I like you. Of course, if I didn’t....” “Of course,” she said, “he doesn’t know....” “Of course,” I said. “And he’ll never know....” “Good,” I said. “As for me,” she whispered ... On her forehead there were little beads of wet. I wiped them off with my handkerchief, and she said: “My nose, too, please. Had my hair waved ... but it never stays when you’re not well. Got to be well to have curly hair....” “And, Iris, if you don’t have it cut soon it will be as long as a woman’s hair.” “As for me,” she whispered, “all this effort wasted ... no playmate, no nothing. Masters warned me, too.... Dead as dead, the poor darling was....” Slowly, slowly, tears were crawling down the tiny grey cheeks. Hastily I wiped them away, hearing a step outside. “Nothing, nothing ...” she kept on whispering with closed eyes, and I barely had time to whisk away a tear from her eyelash as the door opened. “Well?” that man muttered. “Killed her yet?” “I think she’s asleep,” I whispered. “Ssh.”