'There's something to put in it,' she answered in an eager timid voice. She set her little bag on the table and opened it. 'You gave me too much. Here's some back again.' She held out a bundle of notes. 'A thousand pounds.'
He came slowly across to the table.
'How did you manage that?'
'I don't know. I never thought of it. He just gave them back to me. Here they are. Take them and put them in.'
He looked at them and at her. The old demon stirred in him; he reached out his hand towards them with his old eagerness. He had run over figures in his mind; they made up a round sum—and round sums he had loved. Peggy did not glance at him; her arms were on the table and her eyes studied the cloth. He walked away to the hearthrug and stood silent for a long while. There was no reason why he should not take back his money; no reproach lay in that, it was the obvious and the sensible thing to do. All these considerations the demon duly adduced; the demon had always been a plausible arguer. Airey Newton listened, but his ears were not as amenable as they had been wont to be. He saw through the demon's specious case. Here was the gate by which the demon tried to slip back to the citadel of his heart!
Peggy had expected nothing else than that he would take them at once. In a way it would have given her pleasure to see him thus consoled; she would have understood and condoned the comfort he got, and thought no less of his sacrifice. His hesitation planted in her the hope of a pleasure infinitely finer. The demon's plausible suggestions carried no force at all for her. She saw the inner truth. She had resolved not to look at Airey; under irresistible temptation she raised her eyes to his.
'That's not mine,' he said at last. 'You say Fricker gave it back to you. It's yours, then.'
'Oh, no, that's nonsense! It's yours, of course, Airey.'
'I won't touch it.' He walked across to the safe, banged it to, and locked it with savage decision; the key he flung down on the table. Then he came back to the hearthrug. 'I won't touch it. It's not mine, I say.'