"But from what cause? I, who by God's mercy have kept mine, know
everything that can be known about eyes," said Mrs. Meldrum.

"She might have kept hers if she had profited by God's mercy, if she had
done in time, done years ago, what was imperatively ordered her; if she
hadn't in fine been cursed with the loveliness that was to make her
behaviour a thing of fable. She may still keep her sight, or what
remains of it, if she'll sacrifice--and after all so little--that purely
superficial charm. She must do as you've done; she must wear, dear lady,
what you wear!"

What my companion wore glittered for the moment like a melon-frame in
August. "Heaven forgive her--now I understand!" She flushed for dismay.

But I wasn't afraid of the effect on her good nature of her thus seeing,
through her great goggles, why it had always been that Flora held her at
such a distance. "I can't tell you," I said, "from what special
affection, what state of the eye, her danger proceeds: that's the one
thing she succeeded this morning in keeping from me. She knows it
herself perfectly; she has had the best advice in Europe. 'It's a thing
that's awful, simply awful'--that was the only account she would give me.
Year before last, while she was at Boulogne, she went for three days with
Mrs. Floyd-Taylor to Paris. She there surreptitiously consulted the
greatest man--even Mrs. Floyd-Taylor doesn't know. Last autumn in
Germany she did the same. 'First put on certain special spectacles with
a straight bar in the middle: then we'll talk'--that's practically what
they say. What _she_ says is that she'll put on anything in nature when
she's married, but that she must get married first. She has always meant
to do everything as soon as she's married. Then and then only she'll be