“Because once upon a time you shamed me of my shame. Because you did not hold me cheap. Because romance dies hard in you. Because, dear, I rather like you. And that is why I told Hilary that you were my friend and that I would not dare Sutton Marle without you, adding that as he had put you off for dinner it would be something for you to do.” “Iris, you are laughing all the time, you who told me you were afraid!” She glanced at me just then, and that second’s smile is like a wound on my memory. A car screamed and passed us, and she cried through the disordered air: “I am afraid, but of course I am gay, too! Haven’t I waited twelve years for my inheritance!” The flame of the lights on the road ahead made a wall of blackness on each side of us. I was like a child in this blackness, and it seemed to me that her voice was the voice of the night. I did not know what to say. I said: “Iris, that girl will die without Napier.” Minutes later, she said: “If people died of love I must have risen from the dead to be driving this car now!” “Indeed, Iris, how can I argue about love against your experience!” “My friend, you can’t shame me! For I am shame itself come to life. Yes, I have lit many small fires to quench one large fire. I have been unsuccessful. Thank God, thank God for that! And now let the one large fire burn, with a boy and a girl of eighteen for fuel. Nothing else matters.” “My dear, so much else matters! Restraints, nobilities, decencies, sacrifices!” We passed slowly through a village High Street, hailed and mocked good-naturedly by a group of men emerging from an inn. She said: “In the ancient love-tales and the songs of the Jongleurs we read of maidens sacrificed on the altar of circumstance. I was a maiden, even I, once upon a time. Dear, I am afraid you must take my word for that. And I, a maid, was sacrificed to the vulgar ambitions of a Sir Maurice. So let us not talk of sacrifice. It makes me sick with anger.” Not fast, not slow, the Hispano-Suiza swept through Surrey. Then she said sharply: “But if Venice had had a child!” I could not see her face, for her hat and the darkness were between us. But ever so faintly I could see her mouth, and her lips were parted, as though she was praying. I wondered if she was praying to whom she could be praying. “She has a God,” had said that captain of men. “And why did you say that so bitterly, Iris?” “Was I bitter? Oh, that’s a sin, to think of that angel and to be bitter.” “Angel? Did you say angel?” “I said angel,” she said, and no other answer had I but from the stork crying dolorously to warn corners of our flight.