She lifted the teapot with both hands, because one hand by itself too obviously shook. She succeeded in pouring out the tea without spilling it, and in stopping almost at the very moment when he said, 'Take care, take care—you're filling it too full.' She even succeeded after a minute or two in saying, holding carefully on to her voice to keep it steady, 'I'm not—sulking. I've—got a headache.'
And she thought desperately, 'The only thing to be done with marriage is to let it wash over one.'
XXV
For the rest of that day she let it wash; unresistingly. She couldn't think any more. She couldn't feel any more,—not that day. She really had a headache; and when the dusk came, and Wemyss turned on the lights, it was evident even to him that she had, for there was no colour at all in her face and her eyes were puffed and leaden.
He had one of his sudden changes. 'Come here,' he said, reaching out and drawing her on to his knee; and he held her face against his breast, and felt full of maternal instincts, and crooned over her. 'Was it a poor little baby,' he crooned. 'Did it have a headache then——' And he put his great cool hand on her hot forehead and kept it there.
Lucy gave up trying to understand anything at all any more. These swift changes,—she couldn't keep up with them; she was tired, tired....
They sat like that in the chair before the fire, Wemyss holding his hand on her forehead and feeling full of maternal instincts, and she an unresisting blank, till he suddenly remembered he hadn't shown her the drawing-room yet. The afternoon had not proceeded on the lines laid down for it in his plans, but if they were quick there was still time for the drawing-room before dinner.
Accordingly she was abruptly lifted off his knee. 'Come along, little Love,' he said briskly. 'Come along. Wake up. I want to show you something.'
And the next thing she knew was that she was going downstairs, and presently she found herself standing in a big cold room, blinking in the bright lights he had switched on at the door.