Almost at once he had told Jane that he loved her, and almost, even then, had he convinced her that it was true. He had not tried to bind her by any formal engagement, and he had kept to the spirit as well as to the letter of the law. The long diary-letters which he had written to her day by day, and which had reached her at such irregular intervals, were not in any obvious sense love-letters.
He had felt that wherever he was she was there too, and sometimes, when he was in danger, and he was often in danger during those two years, the sense of Jane Oglander's spiritual nearness became curiously intensified. Now that they were together, under the same roof, she often seemed infinitely remote.
Could he now have analysed his own emotions—which, perhaps fortunately for himself, he was incapable of doing—he would have known that his chance of being faithful to Jane would have been increased rather than decreased had they not spent together that week in London.
He had come to Rede Place in a state of spiritual and physical exaltation which had made him peculiarly susceptible to any and every emotion, and for a time he had believed the feeling he was lavishing on Athena Maule to be pity—a passion of pity for one who had been most piteously used by fate.
The physical exercise of the day's shooting, spent in a place entirely lacking the emotional atmosphere induced by Athena, had restored Lingard's sense of perspective. With a rather angry discomfiture he realised that he had become afraid of Mrs. Maule and of her power over him. For the first time since he had known her he had been free of Athena, and then, as he and Dick Wantele got nearer and nearer to Rede Place, it had almost seemed as if she were beckoning to him, and he had longed to respond to her call....
It had required a strong effort of will on his part to go straight upstairs instead of to the room where he knew her to be.
For the first time in his life Lingard did not know what he wanted, or, rather, he was grievously aware that one side of his nature was imperiously demanding of him something he was determined not to grant. Last night he had thrown a sop to the ravening, hungry beast, but that, so he now swore to himself, should not happen again.
It was seven o'clock when Athena heard a key being turned in the lock of the Garden Room, and her eyes quickly sought the place where her own key was always kept. It was in its place; Lingard always returned it with scrupulous care immediately after having used it.
Then it must be Dick Wantele who was coming into the house. She wondered where he had been—perhaps to the Small Farm to fetch Jane Oglander.
What a fool Dick was! And yet—and yet not such a fool after all. Dick, if he were patient—Athena smiled a little to herself—and he certainly would be patient, might yet be granted the wish of his heart. Jane Oglander's marriage to Dick Wantele, so Mrs. Maule now admitted to herself, would be a most excellent thing for them all.