He sat down at her feet, and leaned his head against her lap. He vaguely felt she was unhappy, but he did not try to comfort her, merely took one of the long, hot hands in his. She did not speak, either--but her heart kindled at his presence. She knew that he had been happier for the last two days, though yesterday he had also seemed to have some anxiety, fretting and questioning. His happiness meant much to her. All her happiness now was vicarious--Quentin's, Leonard's or Nigel's. In her own heart were only flashes and sparks of it, that scorched as well as gladdened. Life was a perplexity--life was pulling her two ways. She seemed to be hanging, a tortured, wind-swung thing, between earth and heaven, and she could hardly tell which hurt her most--her sudden falls down or her sudden snatchings up. Earth and heaven, brute and god, were always meeting now, clashing like two ill-tuned cymbals. Her shame was that her love and Quentin's had not been strong enough to wait. She had looked upon it as an exalted spiritual passion, and it had suddenly shown itself impatient and bodily. It had fallen to the level of a thousand other loves. Sometimes she almost wished that it had been a more despised lover who had won her surrender--better fall from the trees than from the stars. Moreover, her sacrifice had not won her what she was seeking, but something inferior and makeshift. What she had dreamed of as the crown of love had been a life of kingly, fearless association, the sanctification of every day, an undying Together. That was still far away. Borne on an undercurrent she had till then hardly suspected, she and Quentin had been washed into the backwaters of their dream. She had only one comfort, and that was paradoxically at times the chief of her regrets--Quentin was happy. Unlike her, he seemed to have found all he had been seeking. She was still unsatisfied, her heart still yearned after higher, sweeter things, but again and again he told her he had all his desire. "I am in Paradise--Janey, my own Janey. We climbed over the gates, and we are there--together in the garden"--and his lips would burn against hers, and even the tears brim from his fiery, sunken eyes. She never let him think she was not happy. She meekly and bravely accepted the vocation of her womanhood--if he was happy, all her wishes, except certain secret personal ones, were gratified. For his sake she put aside her dreams, and fixed her thoughts on what was, forgetting what might have been. She broke her heart like a box of spikenard, that she might anoint him king. A shudder passed through Janey, and Nigel's head stirred on her knee. He lifted it, and looked into her eyes--then he drew down her face to his and kissed it. "You're tired, my Janey." His voice thrilled with a tenderness that carried her back to the days before he went to prison. "No, dear, not tired--but I've a bit of a headache." "I'm so sorry. Oughtn't you to lie down?" "No--it will go."