But this was a transient thought. Old times could never really come again. Stooping to take the papers on which she had scrawled her brief and rapid directions, he noticed the coarse grey strands in the hair that such a little while ago used to be so smooth, so glossy, and to his mind so pretty. He could see, too, the differences in her whole face. The face was slightly smaller; the florid colours were fading so fast that occasionally she seemed sallow; the lines of the kind mouth had grown harder; and there was a curious, passive, subdued look where once there had been outpouring vitality. And the bodice of the black dress hung loose, in small folds and creases, on the shoulders that used to fill it with such handsome thoroughness.
But instinctively Mears understood that behind the narrower and less glowing mask the inward force was not extinguished—the indomitable spirit was there still, not yet quenched, and perhaps unquenchable.
He watched her—with a veneration deeper than he had ever felt in the easy prosperous past—while she went on quietly, bravely working, day by day, week after week.
One Saturday evening, after an uneventful but laborious week, when she had supped alone and was reading by the dining-room fire, Marsden came in and abruptly asked her for money.
"This is serious, Jane—no rot about it. I'm stuck for a couple of hundred, and I must have it."
"Really, Dick, I cannot—"
"I don't ask it as a gift. Of course I meant to pay you back the other advances, but everything's been against me. I will try to pay you. Anyhow, this is a bona fide loan. It's only to tide me over."
"But you said that last time."
"Last time you refused—and I had to chuck away my little run-about—simply chuck it away. And I wanted to keep that car as much for your sake as for mine. I knew you enjoyed a ride in it."
She had ridden in the car once, and once only.