My companion stared. "Do you mean to say her eyesight's going?"

"Heaven forbid! In that case how could she take life as she does?"

"How _does_ she take life? That's the question!" He sat there
bewilderedly brooding; the tears rose to his lids; they reminded me of
those I had seen in Flora's the day I risked my enquiry. The question he
had asked was one that to my own satisfaction I was ready to answer, but
I hesitated to let him hear as yet all that my reflections had suggested.
I was indeed privately astonished at their ingenuity. For the present I
only rejoined that it struck me she was playing a particular game; at
which he went on as if he hadn't heard me, suddenly haunted with a fear,
lost in the dark possibility. "Do you mean there's a danger of anything
very bad?"

"My dear fellow, you must ask her special adviser."

"Who in the world is her special adviser?"

"I haven't a conception. But we mustn't get too excited. My impression
would be that she has only to observe a few ordinary rules, to exercise a
little common sense."

Dawling jumped at this. "I see--to stick to the pince-nez."

"To follow to the letter her oculist's prescription, whatever it is and
at whatever cost to her prettiness. It's not a thing to be trifled
with."

"Upon my honour it _shan't_ be!" he roundly declared; and he adjusted