Sir Maurice made the most helpless gesture. He looked very old. “I apologise, Iris, I apologise! I take it back completely. I was carried away. I apologise, child. Of course, murder was much too strong----” “Too strong?” Guy echoed softly. “If you ask me, sir, it was so damned strong that it’s a wonder to me that it hasn’t blown us all out of the house.” “I have apologised, Guy!” snapped Sir Maurice. Iris was looking at me. She seemed lost in some thought, she was very still. Her lips said: “Dear, take me away.” Sir Maurice darted for his paper-knife, fumbled among the cards for it, got it, rapped out: “Just one moment, Iris. I didn’t mean to say that. You must see that. I apologise sincerely.” “I cannot hear your apology, Maurice. Because of that gulf.” “I never thought of saying that,” Guy murmured. “Damn!” “Just a moment, just a moment!” the General waved the paper-knife fretfully. “Ever since Napier came to see me this morning I have been thinking of these things. I saw Venice this afternoon. She is mad, I think, or enchanted. She believes in your love for Napier. I can only see the helpless ruin you have made of my son. And you say you love him! Let’s forget if we can all the other men you have ‘loved.’ Just take this one fact. Not two years after parting from Napier for good, which you say broke your heart, you marry Boy Fenwick. And when Boy Fenwick died you yourself said he had died ‘for purity.’ What did that mean if not that even before you married him ... you yourself, I say, said that he had died ‘for purity’!” “For hell, sir! That was why Boy Fenwick died!” “Napier!” There was a long, long silence. “Napier!” Iris whispered frantically. “My darling, why are you here!” “To get you....” Napier’s voice trembled pitifully. He controlled it by whispering. “To get you from these ... men!” “Steady, Naps!” Guy murmured. “We began the evening by bucking about being civilised.” Again, as in the obscure silence of the Paris night, the white face, the lost eyes ... facing us from the middle French-window. “Napier!” Iris pleaded. She seemed to be pleading against something which only she could see in those two dark ruins of eyes. And they made ruins of all, those eyes, but saw only one of us. And behind his shoulder, in the garden, pale, wide-eyed, steady as a judgment, stood Venice.... “Good God, man!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Why bring Venice into this!” “He didn’t. I came.” And Venice smiled in a sort of way.