You
dislike Iris, I know--and she returns your hostile feeling towards her.
Try to do my wife justice, nevertheless, as I do. I don't believe my
distrust of her has any excuse--and yet, I am jealous. More
unreasonable still, I am as fond of her as I was in the first days of
the honeymoon. Is she as fond as ever of me? You were a married man
when I was a boy. Let me give you the means of forming an opinion by a
narrative of her conduct, under (what I admit to have been) very trying
circumstances.
When the first information reached Iris of Hugh Mountjoy's dangerous
illness, we were at breakfast. It struck her dumb. She handed the
letter to me, and left the table.
I hate a man who doesn't know what it is to want money; I hate a man
who keeps his temper; I hate a man who pretends to be my wife's friend,
and who is secretly in love with her all the time. What difference did
it make to me whether Hugh Mountjoy ended in living or dying? If I had
any interest in the matter, it ought by rights (seeing that I am
jealous of him) to be an interest in his death. Well! I declare
positively that the alarming news from London spoilt my breakfast There
is something about that friend of my wife--that smug, prosperous,
well-behaved Englishman--which seems to plead for him (God knows how!)
when my mind is least inclined in his favour.
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