Now Lingard felt desperately tired—tired in body, tired in spirit. But he was glad—glad that he had disregarded the promptings of his conscience, of his honour. It was delicious to be here indoors, with this kind, this enchanting, this angelically beautiful woman close, very close, to him.
Athena held out her foot to the fire, and Lingard, staring down, saw that she was wearing a curious kind of slipper, one unlike any that he had ever noticed on a woman's foot before. A sandal rather than a shoe, it left visible the lovely lines of the arched instep and slender ankle.
"You were out a long time," she said, and fixed her eyes on the clock. It was one of the curious costly toys of which Rede Place was full, and for which old Theophilus Joy had had a marked predilection. Fashioned like a tiny wall sundial, across its face was written in faded gold letters, "I only mark the sunny hours." The hands now pointed to three minutes to midnight.
Lingard said no word. He went on staring down at Athena's little foot. He was wondering if she knew how exquisitely perfect she was physically, how unlike all other women.
"Isn't it odd to think," she whispered, "that in a few moments another day will begin? I feel more like Cinderella than ever—now. You have given me such a good time," her voice trembled, and he looked up and stared at her strangely. "You've almost made me in love again with life," and she was sincere in what she said.
"I?" said Lingard hoarsely. "I?"
"Yes, you! You don't know—how could you know?—what it's been to me, what it would have been to any woman, to have a man for a friend, to feel at last that there is someone to whom one can say everything——"
He looked away from her. At all costs he must prevent himself from showing what he felt—the violent, the primitive emotion her simple, touching words had called forth.
How utterly she would despise him if she knew! He swore to himself she should never know that she had made him all unwittingly traitor to the woman she loved,—the woman alas! whom they both loved. Lingard, and that was part of the punishment he already had to endure, never left off loving Jane Oglander. Jane was always, in a spiritual sense, very near to him; it was her physical self which was remote.
The tiny gong behind the little clock began to strike, quick precipitate strokes.