She might stare at him as long as she pleased, with those burning, insistent eyes of hers, and not fear to break his sleep; his simple nervous system would surely withstand the hypnotism of her enquiring gaze.
But next morning, he would be “all there” as usual; the hectoring, bantering, exacerbating personality would re-assert itself, and make its hundred and one demands on her self-control all through the day, till sometimes it seemed as if she could not look at him or hear his voice without screaming.
“Why should I bear it? Why should I?” she asked herself, passionately, aloud; and the pettish exclamation was significant of the great revulsion that was taking place in her, a result of the passionate, elucidating fortnight she had passed.
She went back to her room and lay down again, but she closed her eyes no more that night, and by the time the pallid dawn of Newcastle had begun to filter through the window curtains, a whole plan of action had shaped itself in her mind. She came down punctually to the eight o’clock breakfast which was exacted by Mortimer and which he had never allowed her to forego, putting some constraint on herself to appear perfectly composed, for her heart was beating violently, and she felt the suspicious flush mounting to her cheek, which had so often given unkind friends occasion to say that she painted. But Mrs. Poynder, who was presiding over the tea and coffee, looked her over with some approval.
“Now, that’s the first decent dress I have seen you in, Fibby, for many a long day!” she observed, contemplating the plain dress of blue serge--not very new, not very smart--in which Mrs. Elles had chosen to array herself.
“I am glad you are pleased, Aunt Poynder,” replied her niece, demurely, gracefully accepting her cup of coffee from the stout, red fingers where the submerged wedding-ring, planted there by the late Mr. Poynder, glittered. Charles Elles, who could get more noise out of a cup of coffee than anybody, was drinking his and enjoying it thoroughly. Mrs. Poynder somehow contrived to knock her knife and fork together on the rim of her plate with vigour every time she took a morsel. Mortimer’s carpet slippers, and the dish of bacon which his aunt had set down by the fire to keep warm for him, stood by the fire in grotesque proximity.