“Yes—I understand,” she assented; and as he bent over to kiss her for goodbye a tenuous impenetrable barrier seemed to lie between their lips.
It was Justine’s turn to await with a passionate anxiety her husband’s home-coming; and when, on the third day, he reappeared, her dearly acquired self-control gave way to a tremulous eagerness. This was, after all, the turning-point in their lives: everything depended on how Mr. Langhope had “played up” to his cue; had kept to his side of their bond.
Amherst’s face showed signs of emotional havoc: when feeling once broke out in him it had full play, and she could see that his hour with Mr. Langhope had struck to the roots of life. But the resultant expression was one of invigoration, not defeat; and she gathered at a glance that her partner had not betrayed her. She drew a tragic solace from the success of her achievement; yet it flung her into her husband’s arms with a passion of longing to which, as she instantly felt, he did not as completely respond.
There was still, then, something “between” them: somewhere the mechanism of her scheme had failed, or its action had not produced the result she had counted on.
As soon as they were alone in the study she said, as quietly as she could: “You saw your father- in-law? You talked with him?”
“Yes—I spent the afternoon with him. Cicely sent you her love.”
She coloured at the mention of the child’s name and murmured: “And Mr. Langhope?”
“He is perfectly calm now—perfectly impartial.—This business has made me feel,” Amherst added abruptly, “that I have never been quite fair to him. I never thought him a magnanimous man.”
“He has proved himself so,” Justine murmured, her head bent low over a bit of needlework; and Amherst affirmed energetically: “He has been more than that—generous!”
She looked up at him with a smile. “I am so glad, dear; so glad there is not to be the least shadow between you….”
“No,” Amherst said, his voice flagging slightly. There was a pause, and then he went on with renewed emphasis: “Of course I made my point clear to him.”
“Your point?”
“That I stand or fall by his judgment of you.”
Oh, if he had but said it more tenderly! But he delivered it with the quiet resolution of a man who contends for an abstract principle of justice, and not for a passion grown into the fibres of his heart!
“You are generous too,” she faltered, her voice trembling a little.
Amherst frowned; and she perceived that any hint, on her part, of recognizing the slightest change in their relations was still like pressure on a painful bruise.
“There is no need for such words between us,” he said impatiently; “and Mr. Langhope’s attitude,” he added, with an effort at a lighter tone, “has made it unnecessary, thank heaven, that we should ever revert to the subject again.”
He turned to his desk as he spoke, and plunged into perusal of the letters that had accumulated in his absence.
There was a temporary excess of work at Westmore, and during the days that followed he threw himself into it with a zeal that showed Justine how eagerly he sought any pretext for avoiding confidential moments. The perception was painful enough, yet not as painful as another discovery that awaited her. She too had her tasks at Westmore: the supervision of the hospital, the day nursery, the mothers’ club, and the various other organizations whereby she and Amherst were trying to put some sort of social unity into the lives of the mill-hands; and when, on the day after his return from New York, she presented herself, as usual, at the Westmore office, where she was in the habit of holding a brief consultation with him before starting on her rounds, she was at once aware of a new tinge of constraint in his manner. It hurt him, then, to see her at Westmore—hurt him more than to live with her, at Hanaford, under Bessy’s roof! For it was there, at the mills, that his real life was led, the life with which Justine had been most identified, the life that had been made possible for both by the magnanimity of that other woman whose presence was now forever between them.
Justine made no sign. She resumed her work as though unconscious of any change; but whereas in the past they had always found pretexts for seeking each other out, to discuss the order of the day’s work, or merely to warm their hearts by a rapid word or two, now each went a separate way, sometimes not meeting till they regained the house at night-fall.
