“Can you stand there with your lips to the receiver, which I hope your servants keep clean for you, and tell me you are not my friend? Can you stand there facing me across Queen Street, Curzon Street, Hertford Street, Hamilton Place, Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge, and tell me that you are not my friend? I am sitting here on the edge of the bed, in the next room is Mrs. Oden trying to pretend she is not listening to every word I say, all round me are trunks and boxes, about me is a leather jacket with a collar of a few minks, and on my head is one green hat. Are you not my friend? Answer me! Answer me, I say! Dear, a woman must have one friend! It is usual.” “But the emerald is gone, Iris. So you are not the Iris I knew. You were Iris Storm, you are Iris March, and I never have met Iris March.” “The emerald was wise. There’s a _galanterie_ in jewels unknown to men, I see that. So you won’t come for a drive with me? Our last?” “I never said that, Iris!” “Ah, I have frightened him! Well, I will come round for you in five minutes. How are you dressed? In black and white? Maybe I would have preferred you in something less formal, in something more----” “Enough of _pour le sport_, Iris! Oh, enough, enough!” II And so we were again, again and for the last time, in that swift motor-car, wrapped in the gentle silences of the night. The oppression of the heat was gone since the rains of yesterday, but even yet London could not quite rouse itself from the stupor of the past tropical week. And to-night the flight of the stork did not torment the hosts of the midgets, “for,” said Iris from the shadow of her green hat, “there is no hurry, no hurry at all.” A clock in the High Street of Kensington was at a little after half-past nine o’clock. The wide sweep of road towards Olympia was quiet with the gentle traffic of no-man’s-hour, for such is a little after half-past nine o’clock. I said: “I do wish you would tell me what all this is about.” “It begins a long time ago, it is a long story. Having to do with the loves of babes, the wisdom of sucklings, and the sins of the fathers. And the sins of the fathers. But I will tell you more when we come to Harrod’s.” “But we passed Harrod’s long ago!” “There is another. You will see. Patience.” Through Hammersmith and Chiswick, by Ranelagh and Roehampton, we sped into the veiled countryside. The glow of London was a yellow arch in the night behind. We passed the last omnibus on its last journey to a far-flung corner of the town. “But,” I pleaded, “I don’t even know where we are going to!” “Why, to Sutton Marle! Didn’t I tell you? It’s not far....” “But I don’t know Sir Maurice! Really, Iris, how dare you let me in for this?” “It is all right, dear, you are expected. I said to Hilary, not an hour ago on the telephone: ‘I am not for Sutton Marle unless I may bring my one friend.’” “Well, I never heard such cheek! And why, Iris, am I your one friend?”