Part 50 (1/2)

Amherst raised his eyes from the letter, thinking as he did so how well her bright head, with its flame-like play of meanings, fitted into the background she had made for it. Still un.o.bservant of external details, he was beginning to feel a vague well-being of the eye wherever her touch had pa.s.sed.

”Well, we must do it,” he said simply.

”Oh, must we?” she murmured, holding out his cup.

He smiled at her note of dejection. ”Unnatural woman! New York _versus_ Hanaford--do you really dislike it so much?”

She tried to bring a tone of consent into her voice. ”I shall be very glad to be with Cicely again--and that, of course,” she reflected, ”is the reason why Mr. Langhope wants us.”

”Well--if it is, it's a good reason.”

”Yes. But how much shall you be with us?”

”If you say so, I'll arrange to get away for a month or two.”

”Oh, no: I don't want that!” she said, with a smile that triumphed a little. ”But why should not Cicely come here?”

”If Mr. Langhope is cut off from his usual amus.e.m.e.nts, I'm afraid that would only make him more lonely.”

”Yes, I suppose so.” She put aside her untasted cup, resting her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in the att.i.tude habitual to her in moments of inward debate.

Amherst rose and seated himself on the sofa beside her. ”Dear! What is it?” he said, drawing her hands down, so that she had to turn her face to his.

”Nothing...I don't know...a superst.i.tion. I've been so happy here!”

”Is our happiness too perishable to be transplanted?”

She smiled and answered by another question. ”You don't mind doing it, then?”

Amherst hesitated. ”Shall I tell you? I feel that it's a sort of ring of Polycrates. It may buy off the jealous G.o.ds.”

A faint shrinking from some importunate suggestion seemed to press her closer to him. ”Then you feel they _are_ jealous?” she breathed, in a half-laugh.

”I pity them if they're not!”

”Yes,” she agreed, rallying to his tone. ”I only had a fancy that they might overlook such a dull place as Hanaford.”

Amherst drew her to him. ”Isn't it, on the contrary, in the ash-heaps that the rag-pickers prowl?”

There was no disguising it: she was growing afraid of her happiness. Her husband's a.n.a.logy of the ring expressed her fear. She seemed to herself to carry a blazing jewel on her breast--something that singled her out for human envy and divine pursuit. She had a preposterous longing to dress plainly and shabbily, to subdue her voice and gestures, to try to slip through life unnoticed; yet all the while she knew that her jewel would shoot its rays through every disguise. And from the depths of ancient atavistic instincts came the hope that Amherst was right--that by sacrificing their precious solitude to Mr. Langhope's convenience they might still deceive the G.o.ds.

Once pledged to her new task, Justine, as usual, espoused it with ardour. It was pleasant, even among greater joys, to see her husband again frankly welcomed by Mr. Langhope; to see Cicely bloom into happiness at their coming; and to overhear Mr. Langhope exclaim, in a confidential aside to his son-in-law: ”It's wonderful, the _bien-etre_ that wife of yours diffuses about her!”

The element of _bien-etre_ was the only one in which Mr. Langhope could draw breath; and to those who kept him immersed in it he was prodigal of delicate attentions. The experiment, in short, was a complete success; and even Amherst's necessary weeks at Hanaford had the merit of giving a finer flavour to his brief appearances.

Of all this Justine was thinking as she drove down Fifth Avenue one January afternoon to meet her husband at the Grand Central station. She had tamed her happiness at last: the quality of fear had left it, and it nestled in her heart like some wild creature subdued to human ways.

And, as her inward bliss became more and more a quiet habit of the mind, the longing to help and minister returned, absorbing her more deeply in her husband's work.