For answer he softly whistled a snatch, then, growing absorbed in the news, began abstractedly to drum a small rhythm on the oaken floor. Gundred bore it for a moment. Then a combined instinct of martyrdom and love rebellious stirred her to action. She rose and picked up a small cushion that happened to be on the settle, a bony little unyielding square, prickly and stiff with embroideries that tradition attributed to Queen Elizabeth.
‘A cushion, darling,’ said Gundred in level tones, standing behind his chair. ‘Move your back—sit up a little, and let me arrange it for you.’
Her utterance, her action, were characteristic of her nature. The utterance decorous, cold, impassive, the action springing from an unresting love. Neither from her words nor from their inflection could Kingston have guessed the warmth of the affection that beamed out of her eyes as she stood looking down at the back of his neck with an ardour which she would have been utterly ashamed to show to his face. Only by such attentions as these, valuable as symptoms of her concealed devotion, could Kingston ever make a guess at her feelings.
‘Thank you, dearest,’ he replied gratefully, shifting himself so as to admit the insertion of Queen Elizabeth’s uncomfortable comfort. It harassed him, its adamantine corners cut into his ribs and the small of his back, but as an emblem of his wife’s tenderness he endured and welcomed it. What she zealously concealed from him in word she was perpetually anxious to reveal vicariously by such actions as these. ‘Thanks awfully,’ he repeated, then twisted round, so as to get a glimpse of Gundred’s face. Instantly the light faded out of her eyes, and all she allowed him to see was a decent wifely expression of solicitude. He never divined that any other had been there.
But suddenly she permitted herself a word of self-betrayal.
‘I always want you to be comfortable, dear,’ she said. The words were cool and coolly spoken, but under them lay the warmth of Gundred’s secret nature.
Kingston, fired by such an advance, rose and swung round. He caught his wife’s two hands—those charming hands that were never hot or cold.
‘I owe you something for that,’ he said, and kissed her twice.
Very gently Gundred drew herself away. Her heart was afire with gratification, but she felt that every consideration of decency, economy, and pride compelled her to conceal it. To be made cheap was the last horror that her mind could imagine; and all outward displays seemed to level her with kitchen-maids and factory-girls.
‘Don’t be so boisterous, darling,’ she remonstrated, while her heart longed to thank him for what he had done, and beg him to do it again. In the daytime, however, the invisible audience before whom she lived forbade these manifestations; only under the cover of darkness could she feel them permissible. ‘It is too early in the day,’ said Gundred, patting into place a curl that had never been out of it.