This chapter is set on the night after chapter one, shortly after Mei Lin moves to the hotel.
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"What other people may think of the rightness or wrongness is nothing in comparison to my own deep knowledge, my innate conviction that it was wrong."
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
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She wasn't surprised to hear the tap on her door once the house was quiet. She slid out of bed and opened the door to him, standing aside so he could come in. Jean noticed him looking at her surreptitiously, and realised he rarely saw her in just her pyjamas, with no dressing gown.
Suddenly embarrassed, she sat on the end of the bed and motioned for him to join her.
"She's gone," he said.
"What do you mean? Is she coming back?" Jean was hopeful for a moment that maybe Mei Lin had gone for good.
"She's at the Soldiers Hill hotel. She...knows about us."
"Did you tell her?" Jean asked nervously.
"I didn't have to," he replied.
Jean sighed. "Was she angry? Perhaps it would be better if I left."
"No, Jean. Don't go, don't leave me please. And she wasn't angry; maybe...disappointed. I feel like I hardly know her any more, Jean. I don't know what she expected."
Jean said nothing. She didn't want to go, but it seemed wrong for Mei Lin to leave and for her to stay at home with Lucien. And surely once they had repaired their marriage, Lucien and Mei Lin would not want her around, in fact would not need a housekeeper at all. Maybe she should look for a new job in readiness.
"You need to get to know her again," she said. She forced the words out; in her heart she knew this was right, but it felt terrible.
Lucien was becoming frustrated with this. He didn't want Mei Lin, he wanted Jean. But Jean seemed determined to push him back towards his wife.
"Would you have said yes?" he asked. The question didn't follow on from what she had said about Mei Lin, and for a moment she wondered what he meant.
"Of course I would," she whispered. "Surely you know that. But it doesn't matter now." Except that it did, of course, to her at least. And this was the whole reason why she knew she would not leave until she had to. Her resolve of a few moments before, to move on, had melted away already.
"It does to me," Lucien replied and lifted her chin with his fingertips, tempted to kiss her. He realised she probably wouldn't welcome that now, but she could read the thought in his eyes anyway, and she looked away.
"I intend to give you the ring back one day," he said.
"I think you had better go," Jean said, still keeping her eyes on the floor.
"Goodnight, Jean," he murmured, and this time she did not reply. After a moment he stood up and left.
Jean climbed back into bed in despondent mood. It all seemed more hopeless than ever. Why did doing the right thing feel so wrong?
