Iris put her arms round her husband's neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is
to be done?"
He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!"
"Is there nobody else who can help us?" she asked.
"Ah, well, darling, there's perhaps one other person still left,"
"Who is the person?"
"Who should it be but your own dear self?"
She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry,
what I can do?"
"Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money."
He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had
sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by
that man to use Mountjoy's devotion to her, as a means of paying his
debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust.
"You refuse?" he said.
"Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered.
He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him,
on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the
garden, my lord."
Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his
excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him.
"Don't hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour;
"and don't lose your temper.
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