He wanted
to stay, she thought, so far as his relaxed face and dimmed eyes gave
evidence of any desire. And besides--yes, Lady Mildmay was a good nurse;
he might find none so good if he were moved away. No sense of duty, no
punctilious performance of offices, no such constancy of attendance as a
wife is bound to render, could give what Lady Mildmay gave. Yet more than
these May could not achieve. It was rather cruel, as it seemed to her,
that the great and sudden call on her sympathy should come at the moment
of all others when the spring of her sympathy was choked, when anger
still burnt in her heart, when passionate resentment for a wound to her
own pride and her own honour still inflamed her, when the mood in which
she had broken out in her talk with Marchmont was still predominant. Such
a falling-out of events sometimes made this real and heavy sickness seem
like one of Quisante's tricks, of at least suggested that he might be
making the most of it in his old way, as he had of his faintness at the
Imperial League banquet, or of his headache when old Foster's letter
followed on the declaration of the poll at Henstead.
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