Chapter 7

I don't remember how soon it was I spoke to Geoffrey Dawling; his
sittings were irregular, but it was certainly the very next time he
gave me one.

"Has any rumour ever reached you of Miss Saunt's having anything
the matter with her eyes?" He stared with a candour that was a
sufficient answer to my question, backing it up with a shocked and
mystified "Never!" Then I asked him if he had observed in her any
symptom, however disguised, of embarrassed sight; on which, after a
moment's thought, he exclaimed "Disguised?" as if my use of that
word had vaguely awakened a train. "She's not a bit myopic," he
said; "she doesn't blink or contract her lids." I fully recognised
this and I mentioned that she altogether denied the impeachment;
owing it to him moreover to explain the ground of my inquiry, I
gave him a sketch of the incident that had taken place before me at
the shop. He knew all about Lord Iffield; that nobleman had
figured freely in our conversation as his preferred, his injurious
rival. Poor Dawling's contention was that if there had been a
definite engagement between his lordship and the young lady, the
sort of thing that was announced in the Morning Post, renunciation
and retirement would be comparatively easy to him; but that having
waited in vain for any such assurance he was entitled to act as if
the door were not really closed or were at any rate not cruelly
locked. He was naturally much struck with my anecdote and still
more with my interpretation of it.

"There IS something, there IS something--possibly something very
grave, certainly something that requires she should make use of
artificial aids. She won't admit it publicly, because with her
idolatry of her beauty, the feeling she is all made up of, she sees
in such aids nothing but the humiliation and the disfigurement.
She has used them in secret, but that is evidently not enough, for
the affection she suffers from, apparently some definite menace,
has lately grown much worse. She looked straight at me in the
shop, which was violently lighted, without seeing it was I. At the
same distance, at Folkestone, where as you know I first met her,
where I heard this mystery hinted at and where she indignantly
denied the thing, she appeared easily enough to recognise people.
At present she couldn't really make out anything the shop-girl
showed her. She has successfully concealed from the man I saw her
with that she resorts in private to a pince-nez and that she does
so not only under the strictest orders from her oculist, but
because literally the poor thing can't accomplish without such help
half the business of life. Iffield however has suspected
something, and his suspicions, whether expressed or kept to
himself, have put him on