She watched Edred go down to the gate and lean over; the twin poplars shooting up like two giant brooms above his head, the white dog like a wraith in the green light. She shut the window and stepped back into the silent little room, which, although it was June, felt cold. Jethro had the notes in his hand. She put out hers with a sudden impulse.
“Give them to me to give to him—as a surprise,” she besought faintly.
She looked at the bank notes—white, crisp, heavily lettered with black.
“Come,” she said, with a forced air of archness and spontaneity, her hand still out, and Jethro’s diamonds burning with a pale fire on her finger. Her gesture was a trifle ghastly in its struggle after playfulness. Her lips were rolled back, showing the set teeth.
It was such a sudden, breathless impulse. She looked from one to the other—the man at the bureau, who was so close that she could feel his breath—sweet as a cow’s—on her hair; the man at the gate, jailed by poplars.
Why shouldn’t she yield to this new impulse? Why shouldn’t she go away from them both and begin a new, an absolutely feminine and nunlike life? These men drove poor women mad. She knew what a future would be with Edred—delirium, misery, wealth, disaster, disgrace. She knew what a future would be with Jethro—fat ease, heart-hunger. But a future apart she did not know. She would run away from them both—with two hundred pounds in her pocket. Two hundred pounds in notes!
Jethro looked at her strangely.
“I’ll give it him myself—to-morrow morning,” he said soberly, putting the notes into the drawer and letting it spring back into its hiding-place.
She sat down in the oak chair, letting body and brain collapse. She didn’t bother to think—to regret, to rage, to feel. Things were decided for her.
“You’ll give it to him to-morrow morning, then. How serious you are! Why do you look at me so oddly? Of course, I did not want the notes. You never see a joke.”