He held her arms in his arms, fiercely and tight, crushing her.
"If," she said, "I was a virtuous woman, the sort of woman who sits on her husband's head like an uncomfortable crown?"
"Jinny—if Gertrude were to hear you!"
She loosened his arms and sat up and listened.
"I hear Gertrude," she said. "Darling, your hair's all any way. Let me straighten it. It might be used in evidence against us."
Gertrude indeed wore as she entered the ominously distant air of one who suspects a vision of iniquity. She took her place on the other side of the hearth and bent her head over her sewing. A thin stream of conversation flowed from Brodrick and from Jane, and under it she divined, she felt the tide that drew them.
She herself sat silent and smooth and cool. She sat like one removed from mortality's commotion. But it was as if she were listening to the blood that beat in Brodrick's veins, and felt in herself the passion that ran there, in secret, exulting towards its end.
At ten o'clock Jane rose and held out her hand to Gertrude. She was saying good-night. Brodrick sat abstracted for a moment. Presently he rose also and followed her with shining eyes.
Gertrude's head bent lower and lower over her sewing.