But he couldn't touch her—now: he would die sooner than touch her. And he couldn't say anything to her: that would have been to throw up the game. She should never pity him, and give him for pity what would have become, in the very giving, negligible to herself. He knew himself well: he could never ask for a thing. No! but could he get her to ask for something? Ah, then she might find out whom she had married! A man, he judged, of spendthrift generosity, a prodigal of himself. Yes, that was how it must be, if to be at all. He kept his eyes wide, and followed her every movement, with a longing to help which was incessant, like toothache. At the same time he was careful to keep himself quiet. Not a tone of voice must vary, not a daily action betray him. That hand on the shoulder, now, when Urquhart was last here. Too much. There must be no more of it, though he could still feel the softness of her in the tips of his fingers. Thus he braced himself.
He held good cards: but he didn't know how good.
CHAPTER XVI
AMARI ALIQUID
Lingen was exceedingly gratified by Lucy's letter. James had thought the invitation should come from her, and, as the subject-matter was distasteful to her, sooner than discuss it she had acquiesced. Few pin-pricks had rankled as this one. She had never had any feeling but toleration for Lingen; James had erected him as a foible; and that he should use him now as a counter-irritant made her both sore and disgustful. She wished to throw up the whole scheme, but was helpless, because she could neither tell James, who would have chuckled, nor Urquhart either. To have told Urquhart, whether she told him her reason or left him to guess it, would have precipitated a confession that her present position was untenable. In her heart she knew it, for the heart knows what the mind stores; but she had not the courage to summon it up, to table it, and declare, "This robe is outworn, stretched at the seams, ragged at the edges. Away with it." Just now she could not do it; and because she could not do it she was trapped. James had her under his hand.
Therefore she wrote her, "Dear Francis," and had his grateful acceptance, and his solemn elation, visible upon his best calling face. "I can't tell you how happy you have made me. It is beautiful, even for you, to make people happy. That is why you do it: what else could you do? Life is made up of illusions, I think. Let me therefore add to the sum of mine that you have desired my happiness." This sort of thing, which once had stirred her to gentle amusement, now made her words fall dry. "You mustn't forget that James has desired it too." "Oh," said Francis Lingen, "that's very kind of him."
"Really, it is Mr. Urquhart's party. He invented it."
"Did he desire my happiness too?" asked Lingen, provoked into mockery of his own eloquence by these chills upon it.