June upset the salt and busied herself spooning it up again from the cloth. There was no answering smile on her face. She was not quite clear why Dan had followed her out into the kitchen so unexpectedly, but she sensed that it was not the old, quick impulse to wait upon her which had actuated him.
Had she but known it, it was the same instinct, more primitively manifested, which induces a man whose conscience is not altogether clear respecting his loyalty towards his wife to bring her home an unexpected gift of jewellery.
The disturbing memory of a lithe, scarlet-sheathed figure had been with Dan all morning as he went about his work, and he was sullenly ashamed of the riot which the vision occasioned within him and of his own utter helplessness to master it. It—it was damnable! So he accompanied his wife to the kitchen and offered to carry in the joint.
Following upon this incident the atmosphere seemed to become all at once constrained and difficult. June sat very silent, her eyes holding that expression of pain and bewilderment which was growing habitual to them, while Storran hurried through his meal in the shortest possible time. As soon as he had finished he pushed back his chair abruptly and, with a muttered apology, quitted the room and went out again on to the farm. June rose and began clearing the table mechanically.
“Can’t I help you?” Gillian paused as she was about to follow Magda out of the room. “You look so tired to-day.”
June’s lip quivered sensitively. She was in the state of nerves when a little unexpected sympathy is the most upsetting thing imaginable.
“Oh, I can’t let you!” she answered hastily. “No—really!”—as Gillian calmly took the tray she was carrying out of her hands.
“Supposing you go and lie down for a little while,” suggested Gillian practically. “And leave the washing-up to Coppertop and me!”
The tears suddenly brimmed up into the wide-open blue eyes.
“Oh, I couldn’t!”