"No—no," she protested, "there's no hurry."
But he went back to his room, and she turned again to the toilet-table. Her face was painful to look at still—but a light was breaking through its fear. She felt the touch of a narcotic in her veins. How calm and peaceful the room was—and how delicious to think that her life would go on in it, safely and peacefully, in the old familiar way!
As she swept up her hair, passing the comb through it, and flinging it dexterously over her lifted wrist, she heard Amherst cross the floor behind her, and pause to lay something on her writing-table.
"Thank you," she murmured again, lowering her head as he passed.
When the door had closed on him she thrust the last pin into her hair, dashed some drops of Cologne on her face, and went over to the writing-table. As she picked up the cheque she saw it was for three hundred dollars.
XXXIV
Once or twice, in the days that followed, Justine found herself thinking that she had never known happiness before. The old state of secure well-being seemed now like a dreamless sleep; but this new bliss, on its sharp pinnacle ringed with fire—this thrilling conscious joy, daily and hourly snatched from fear—this was living, not sleeping!
Wyant acknowledged her gift with profuse, almost servile thanks. She had sent it without a word—saying to herself that pity for his situation made it possible to ignore his baseness. And the days went on as before. She was not conscious of any change, save in the heightened, almost artificial quality of her happiness, till one day in March, when Mr. Langhope announced that he was going for two or three weeks to a friend's shooting-box in the south. The anniversary of Bessy's death was approaching, and Justine knew that at that time he always absented himself.
"Supposing you and Amherst were to carry off Cicely till I come back? Perhaps you could persuade him to break away from work for once—or, if that's impossible, you could take her with you to Hanaford. She looks a little pale, and the change would be good for her."