"Atkins is here," Feathers said; "but he's just off. Come in."
Chris did not care for Atkins, and greeted him rather curtly.
"Mrs. Lawless is well, I hope?" young Atkins asked awkwardly, and Chris grunted out that she was quite well.
"I haven't seen her for some time," Atkins said rather wistfully.
Nobody answered, and he took up his hat.
"Well, I'll be off." He said good-night and clattered away down the stairs.
"Young idiot!" Chris said, flinging himself into a chair. "Phew! It's warm, isn't it?"
"It's abnormal weather for September," Feathers agreed.
There was a little silence, then Feathers knocked the ashes from his pipe and stood up.
"Well, out with it! What's the matter?"
"What do you mean?"
"That I know you've come here with something on your mind. Get it off and you'll feel better."
He half-expected an outburst of rage from his friend, but none came, and there was a painful note in Chris' voice as he said:
"It's—my wife!"
"Yes." It gave Feathers a little shock to hear Chris speak of Marie in those words. He could not remember ever having heard him use them before. It was usually "Marie" or "Marie Celeste." It brought home to him with sharp reality how far removed she was from him, how much she belonged to the man whose name she bore.
Chris looked up, his eyes hot and faintly suspicious.
"Damn it! You know as well as I do that things are all wrong216between us," he said roughly. "And now the climax has come and she wants to be free of me—separation, divorce—whatever it is you get when your wife hates you like poison."
Feathers did not move. His ugly face was a little pale, but his eyes betrayed nothing. Chris started up and began pacing the room.
"I'm to blame, I suppose," he said hoarsely. "I ought not to have married her, but it seemed the best thing to do at the time."
A little contemptuous flash crossed his friend's eyes, but he made no comment.
Chris swung round with startling suddenness.
"What would you do if you were me?" he demanded.
"My dear chap! What an impossible question to answer! I know nothing about women—you know that. You should be the best judge as how to settle your own affairs."
Chris crumped his hair agitatedly.
"I'm hanged if I am! I never was so up against it in my life. Perhaps if I cleared off abroad somewhere for a year . . ."
Feathers interrupted quietly:
"Don't you think you've been away long enough already?"
"You mean Scotland! Pooh! That was nothing. She wouldn't have cared about that." But his voice was uncertain, and after a moment he asked suspiciously:
"What are you driving at?"
"Nothing. But I think, as I thought at the time, that it would have saved a lot of trouble if you had taken her with you. You were newly married. It would have been a most natural thing to do."
Chris colored, but he did not feel at all resentful. He was grateful to Feathers for his interest. It was a relief to be able to tell his troubles to somebody.
"I don't think it made any difference," he said after a moment. "It's not as if ours was an ordinary sort of marriage. I mean——" He broke off in confusion, to blunder on again: "Marie doesn't care for me, and that's the whole truth. I thought she did once upon a217time. It shows my darned conceit, I suppose."
Feathers said nothing, and, struck by his silence, Chris said with slow deliberation: "Sometimes, now and again, I've wondered if there isn't some other fellow she cares for—some chap she would marry if I wasn't in the way."
He was looking hard at Feathers all the time he spoke, and his friend's ugly face was at the moment mercilessly exposed to the glare of the electric light, but there was no change in its quiet indifference, and Chris gave a sharp sigh of relief.
He had not realized till now how great had been that vague dread in his heart. Marie might care for Feathers, but at that moment Chris was sure that Feathers cared nothing for her—perhaps because he wished to be sure. Feathers was scraping out the bowl of his pipe with an irritating little sound and finished it carefully before he spoke:
"I'm not much of a judge of that sort of thing, but I should not think it at all likely. Mrs. Lawless does not know many people, does she?"
"If you mean men—as far as I know there is only Atkins and—you."
Feathers looked up. There was a little wry smile in his eyes.
"You are hardly flattering to your wife," he said quietly, "if you think that either Atkins or myself could make an impression where you have failed."
Chris laughed awkwardly.
"I never was a suspicious chap," he said. "I hate suspicious people, but since I came home, well . . ." He turned and looked Feathers squarely in the eyes. "I've thought all sorts of queer things—things I would even hesitate to tell you," he added deliberately.
Feathers laughed casually.
"I don't want your confidences, my son," he said. "You started this conversation, you know, and I didn't offer my advice, but as we're on the subject I should just like to remind you that Mrs. Lawless is very young, little more than a child, and—children like218attention and amusement."
Chris colored.
"You mean that she hasn't had either from me." he said. "I know you're right, but what the deuce can I do?"
"As you insist on my mounting the pulpit," Feathers said, rather wearily, "I'll repeat an old chestnut of a proverb which says that it's never too late to be what one might have been, or words to that effect. Have a Scotch?"
"No, thanks. I went home too merry and bright the night before last, and Marie was waiting up for me." Chris avoided his friend's eyes. "It's not a thing I often indulge in, you know that," he went on, gruffly, "but I felt like the devil that night."
Feathers made no comment, but he thought of Marie with passionate pity. He could understand so well what a shock it had been to her to see Chris the worse for drink—realize just how she would shrink from him.
The clock struck twelve, and Chris rose reluctantly.
"Well, I'll be off." He hesitated, then added, with a touch of embarrassment: "Thanks awfully for what you've said. I'll remember; I'll speak to her in the morning, and see if we can't patch things up." He went to the door and came back. "You—er, don't tell her I said anything about it to you."
"Of course not."
Chris went home full of good resolutions. He lay awake half the night, plotting and planning what he could do in the future to make amends. Though he did not love Marie, it seemed a dreadful thing to him that they were in such mortal danger of drifting finally apart. He fell asleep, meaning to have a good, long talk with her in the morning and try and straighten out the tangle.
But Marie did not appear at breakfast, and in reply to his inquiries the maid told him that Mrs. Lawless had a bad headache and was going to stay in her room.
219"To avoid me, I'll be bound," Chris told himself savagely, and his good resolutions began to waver.
What was the use of trying to turn over a new leaf when she refused to help him? What was the use of throwing an insufficient bridge across the gap between them which would only collapse and let him down again sooner or later?
It was a lovely morning, and he thought longingly of the golf links. Twice he went to the 'phone to ring up a friend to join him, but each time he wavered, and at last in desperation he went upstairs to his wife's room.
She was lying by the window on a couch, her dark hair falling childishly over her dressing-gown, and she started up in confusion when she saw Chris.
"I did not think it was you; I thought you had gone out."
"No." He saw the marks of tears on her face, and his heart gave a little throb of remorse. She was only a child, after all, as Feathers had said.
"I am sorry your head is so bad," he said gently.
She turned her face away.
"It's better; I am coming down to lunch. I haven't been sleeping very well lately."
Chris sat down beside her. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he had never been eloquent, and this morning his tongue seemed more stupid than usual.
It was only after some minutes' silence that he blurted out: "Look here, Marie! Can't we start again? I'' awfully sorry things have gone wrong like this, and I know it's my fault. Last night I thought it would be the best thing if I cleared off and left you for a year or so. I thought perhaps it might be all right later on if I came back, but I've changed my mind, and . . . look here—will you forgive me and let us start again?"
He laid his hand clumsily on hers, the hand that wore his ring.
"There's no earthly reason why we can't be happy and get along splendidly," he urged. "I know I'm a selfish devil, but I've always been the same. But I'll try—I'll try all I know if you'll give me220a sporting chance."
He waited, but she did not speak, and he went on: "We've seen so little of each other lately—my fault, too, I know—I wish I'd taken you to Scotland with me."
"I wish you had, too." The words broke from her lips bitterly. So much might have been averted, she knew, if only Chris had taken her with him.
The color mounted to his cheeks. Even her voice had changed lately, he thought. There was something hard in its soft tone that vaguely reminded him of Mrs. Heriot.
"It's not too late now," he urged. "There's lots of places you've never seen that I'll take you to! Heaps of shows in London that you'd thoroughly enjoy. . . ." He waited eagerly. "What do you say, Marie Celeste?"
She did not know how to answer. If he had made this offer a month ago she would have accepted it gladly, but now it did not seem so very attractive.
"We might give a few little parties," Chris went on vaguely. "Aunt Madge won't mind, or if she does—we'll set up a show for ourselves. You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like pottering about in a house of your own."
She nodded. She could not trust her voice.
"Is that a bargain, then?" he asked happily. He had so often got his own way with her that it never entered his head that he might not be going to get it this time. His fingers tightened over her hand. "Say it's a bargain, Marie Celeste, and be friends with me again."
She turned her head slowly and looked at him.
His eyes were very eager and anxious, but for the first time in her life Marie's heart was not at his feet, and she was not conscious of any desperate longing to drive away his anxiety and agree to what he wanted.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked sharply.
He was beginning to realize that it was not only her voice that had changed and the expression of her eyes when she looked at him, but the girl herself; that she could no longer be coaxed and bullied by221him—that she was a woman with a will of her own in her soft frame.
"I was thinking." she said slowly, "that I will agree to try what you suggest, on one condition . . ."
His face brightened.
"Anything, of course! Anything you like." He was sure that she could not be going to impose anything very hard.
It came, therefore, as something of a shock when she said: "I will do as you suggest, if—at the end of a month, we find we can't get on any better, and—and be happy . . . you will let me go."
He echoed her words blankly.
"Let you go! What do you mean?"
The sensitive color flew to her face, but she answered quite quietly and steadily:
"We could get a divorce—I don't think it is called that—but I know we could get a divorce—I—I've found out all about it."
Chris sat staring down at the floor. There was a dreadful feeling somewhere in the region of his heart, for he had never believed that she could be so hard and implacable.
She was not yet twenty, but she was calmly proposing to annul their marriage, if, at the end of a month, it still proved to be a failure.
He put her hand roughly from him and rose to his feet.
"You don't know what you're talking about, and I refuse to agree—I absolutely refuse." He began to pace the room agitatedly.
Marie watched him with hard eyes, then suddenly she said:
"If it's the money you're thinking about . . . I don't want any. I don't mind not having any. Aunt Madge would let me live with her; we could live quite quietly; it wouldn't cost much."
He turned scarlet.
"The money—good lord! I've never given it a thought." He swung round and looked at her with passionate eyes, and it slowly dawned upon him that there was something very sweet and desirable about Marie Celeste as she sat there in her blue gown, her soft dark hair222tumbled about her shoulders, and her brown eyes very bright in the pallor of her face.
With sudden impulse he went down on his knees beside her and put his arms round her, holding her fast.
"Don't be so cruel, Marie Celeste," he said hoarsely. "I know I've not played the game, but I can if you'll give me a chance—I swear I can, and I will! It's the whole of our lives that you're so calmly proposing to smash up. Do you realize that? Have you forgotten all the good times we used to have together—I haven't— and what a little sport you were?"
He saw her wince as if he had hurt her, and he went on eagerly, pushing his advantage.
"Do you remember years ago that you used to say you would never marry anyone but me when we grew up?"
He laughed rather shakily.
"You never thought it would come true, did you, Marie Celeste? I didn't anyway. But it has, and we're going to be ever so happy . . . I swear I've never given a thought to any woman but you. If I've treated you badly, there's no woman in the world I've treated better. I know it's a rotten argument, but . . ."
He stopped, choked by a sudden emotion, for Marie had broken down into bitter crying.
Chris drew her down to his shoulder and kissed her hair. It felt very soft against his lips. He was sure he had conquered, as he thought her tears were tenderness for the past and joy for the future. He did not understand that they were only tears of sorrow for the dream that had gone so sadly awry.
When presently she turned her face away he drew it back again and kissed her lips—he had never kissed them before. The only kisses he had given Marie Celeste in his life had been casual pecks on her cheek when he came from school or went back, and the few awkward kisses he had bestowed upon her since their marriage.
She lay limply against his shoulder, too emotionally wearied to resist him, but her lips were unresponsive.
223"Is it all right, Marie Celeste?" he asked presently, and she said: "Yes—yes, I suppose so."
He echoed her words with a frown.
"You suppose so?"
This vague acquiescence was not what he had wanted or expected.
"I'll try my best—if you will."
He kissed her hand.
"I give you my word of honor." He twisted the wedding ring on her finger. "It's much too big," he said.
He smiled faintly.
"I've got thinner—that's why."
"You've no right to get thinner," he said hurriedly. "I shall have to look after you and feed you up. Marie Celeste, we're going to have no end of a good time!"
He was his light-hearted self once more. He felt quite happy again. It was surprising how fond he had discovered he really was of Marie Celeste since he had kissed her lips. He could not understand why he had never realized before how pretty she was.
"We'll go away somewhere together," he said impulsively. "Where would you like to go? It will be a fine autumn. Shall we go to the moors—or Ireland? Would you like Ireland?"
She smiled faintly at his impulsiveness.
"I don't mind where it is."
"I'd take you to Italy, only it's not the right time of year," he said. "The spring's the time to go to Italy." He laughed. "Feathers is off there soon, you know! He doesn't care a hang about the proper seasons and all that sort of stuff. He just goes where he feels inclined and when."
"Yes." Her face was averted. "I don't think I should care to go to Italy, anyway," she said. How would it be possible to try and turn over this new leaf, if Feathers was to be anywhere about? A little feeling, that was something like homesickness, touched her heart as she thought of him. Chris was very dear, very boyish in his new224humility and enthusiasm, but in her weariness she longed for something more stable, something more real and sincere.
She turned to Chris with wet eyes.
"But you can't make yourself love me." she said sorrowfully.
His face flushed and his eyes grew distressed. He drew her back to lean against him so that her eyes were hidden.
"Perhaps I've always loved you—I don't know," he said with sudden earnestness. "I can't expect you to believe me yet, but . . . perhaps some day, Marie Celeste."
He was doing his best, she knew, but his halting words fell vaguely on her empty heart. She had been right when she said that he could not make himself love her.
But the wings of the past were wrapping them around, and with sudden regret fulness for all she had dreamed and lost, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him.
"Well, we'll try, shall we?" she whispered. He returned the kiss eagerly. She would see what a model he could be, he promised. He had not been so happy for a long time. He held her at arm's length, his fingers lost in her soft hair.
"You're such a child to be anybody's wife!" he said laughingly.
She shook her head.
"I think I've grown up very quickly." she answered with a sigh.
"Very well, then, I shall have to teach you how to be a child again," he declared. "How's the head? Do you think you could get dressed and come out? I'm going to buy you a present—lots of presents, frocks and all manner of things."
"I'll go out after lunch, but I don't want lots of presents, really, Chris."
"Well, we'll see." He stood up, still holding her hand. He felt as if a load of care had fallen from his shoulders. He wished he had tried this way of managing her before. He supposed he ought to have known that women liked to be kissed and made a fuss of. He really225thought that she was as happy and contented as he was. He drew her to her feet and kissed her gain.
"I'm glad I married you, and nobody else, Marie Celeste," he said.
He went out and bought the largest bunch of roses he could find and carried them up to her room. He was desperately anxious to please her. She thanked him with a little empty smile. It was not roses that she wanted, or pearl necklaces, or pretty clothes. She wanted someone really to love her, in all circumstances and for ever and ever.
But she meant to do her best to keep the compact between them; so she took great pains with her toilet to go out with him, and Chris dutifully admired her frock.
"It's a new one, isn't it?" he asked. She had not the heart to tell him that she had worn it half a dozen times on her honeymoon, and that he had not noticed it. The car was at the door ready for them to start, when a taxi, laden with luggage, came swinging up the road and stopped at the curb.
Chris frowned.
"Who the dickens?" he ejaculated, then broke off as the door of the taxi opened and a girl came running up the steps towards them.
She gave a little cry when she saw Marie.
"You dear thing! Then you are in town! I was so afraid you might be away, but I had to chance it! I was on my way home, and then mother wired to me not to come, as one of the boys has scarlet fever! So I took the bull by the horns and dashed to you on the chance that you would be an angel and take me in for a time!"
She kissed Marie and held a hand to Chris. "You dears! How lovely to see you both!"
It was Dorothy Webber.
226
"Trifles light as air, are to the jealous,Confirmation sure, as proof of holy writ"
"Trifles light as air, are to the jealous,Confirmation sure, as proof of holy writ"
"Trifles light as air, are to the jealous,
Confirmation sure, as proof of holy writ"
IT was impossible to be ungracious. Marie took Dorothy Webber into the drawing-room while Chris sent the car away. He stood looking after it with a frown above his eyes. It was rotten luck, Dorothy turning up like this just as everything had been going so swimmingly and he was conscious of a vague apprehension.
He joined the girls in the drawing-room for tea, and Miss Chester came down, bringing her eternal knitting.
She was pleased to see Dorothy, for she thought she would be a nice companion for Marie. She said that she hoped she would stay a long time. She could not understand why Chris was so silent or why he kept looking at his wife with a queer sort of chagrin in his face.
"I'm looking forward to another round with you," Dorothy said, turning to him. "Of course, there are lots of links round about?"
"I'm going to teach Marie to play," Chris said. He had made up his mind that if they went away he would teach her and had been looking forward to it. He felt decidedly annoyed with Dorothy for having what he chose to call "butted in."
He sulked about the house till dinner-time, then went to Marie's room as she was changing her frock. His eyes were rueful as he looked at her. "It's the devil's own luck, isn't it?" he said boyishly.
"What do you mean—about Dorothy?"
"Yes. Why the dickens she wanted to come here I'm hanged if I know!"
Marie smiled faintly.
227"Well, we both said we should be pleased to see her at any time, didn't we?"
"I know—but coming just now!" He took up one of her silver brushes and fingered it nervously. "I was looking forward to taking you away, Marie Celeste."
"Perhaps she won't stay long," Marie said, with an effort.
She did not know if she were glad or sorry that Dorothy had so unexpectedly intervened. She had rather dreaded going away with Chris, and yet it had been a relief to know that at last there was some sort of an understanding between them.
Dorothy monopolized most of the conversation at dinner time, and addressed herself chiefly to Chris. She was a pleasant-looking girl, very brown-skinned and healthy, with straightforward gray eyes and fair hair, which she wore brushed back and screwed into rather a business-like and unbecoming knob.
She talked a great deal about golf, and seemed rather surprised at Chris' lack of enthusiasm. She kept looking at Marie in a puzzled sort of way.
During those weeks in Scotland she had formed her own opinion of this marriage, and therefore had not had the least hesitation in throwing herself on Marie's hospitality. A man who had been married so short a time and who could leave his wife at home while he spent a month in Scotland playing golf would certainly not object to a third person in the house. So she argued, with some reason, as she unpacked her boxes and settled down comfortably in the best spare room.
"It's ages since I was in London for any time," she said. "I'm going to enjoy myself thoroughly. Marie, where do you buy your frocks? They make mine look as if they came out of the ark, don't they?"
Marie laughed. She had been very fond of this girl at school, but lately all her old affections seemed somehow to have shifted. The fault was in herself, she knew, so she tried her best to be nice to Dorothy to make up for the old feeling that was no longer in her heart.
228"I'll take you to all the shops." she said. "We'll have a long day to-morrow."
"And where do I come in?" Chris asked quickly. His eyes were pleading as they looked at his wife.
"Men always hate shopping, don't they?" Dorothy chimed in. "They always look dreadfully out of place, anyway, poor dears."
"Well, I'll be the happy exception to prove the rule," Chris declared, and he kept his word. He trudged round the West End with his wife and Dorothy the following morning, and did his best not to appear bored. He took them to lunch at the Savoy, and escorted them to more shops afterwards.
"I think you've got a model husband," Dorothy said, when at last they drove home. "I never would have believed he was capable of it when we were up in Scotland. It only shows how one can be deceived."
But Chris gave a deep sigh of relief when they reached home. He went off to the dining-room and mixed himself a strong whiskey. He felt irritable, though he tried manfully to suppress his irritation. What waste of time it all was, he thought—trudging round on hot pavements, in and out stuffy, uninteresting shops, when one might be out in the country or up on the Scotch moors.
For three days he did his duty nobly. He was always in to meals—he took Marie and Dorothy to a matinee, and to dinner at the Carlton.
"We ought to have had another man to make a fourth," he said to his wife afterwards. "I'll ask Feathers to come to-morrow."
He did ask him, and Feathers refused. He had an appointment, he said, and would come another day.
"What about Italy?" Chris inquired over the 'phone, and Feathers said that he expected to go in about ten days' time.
Chris told Marie.
"We ought to ask him round before he goes," he said. "You write and ask him to dinner, Marie Celeste."
She wanted to refuse, but did not like to.
229"Very well." She was looking pale and tired, and Chris' eyes watched her anxiously.
After a moment he asked:
"How long is Miss Webber going to stay?"
"I don't know. I can't very well ask her to go, can I?" Chris mooned around the room.
"I wish she'd go," he said inhospitably.
Marie smiled.
"I'm afraid you've had rather a dull week," she admitted. "Why don't you go for a day's golf to-morrow. Take Dorothy—she would love it, I know."
"I'll go if you come."
"Nonsense. You know how tired I got when we went before. I shall be quite all right at home, and I do hate to know you are tied to the house all day."
He looked hurt, and she hastened to add kindly: "It's been very good of you, Chris, and I do thank you."
He laid his hand on her shoulder.
"If you're pleased that's all I care about," he said. . . .
To Marie's surprise. Feathers rang up and accepted her invitation.
She answered the 'phone herself, and the sound of his voice sent her pulses racing, and the hot blood rushing to her cheeks.
"Do I have to get into war paint?" he asked, and she laughed as she said that he could please himself.
"Why haven't you been to see us before?" she questioned.
"Because I knew you had company, and I haven't any company manners."
"It's only Dorothy Webber—you met her in Scotland."
"Yes. . . ." There was a little pause, and before she could think of anything else to say he said: "Well, I shall see you this evening, then."
"Yes."
Marie sighed as she hung up the receiver. She wished he had refused to come, and yet she was longing to see him. She felt painfully nervous as the evening drew nearer.
230Chris had driven out into the country with Dorothy to play golf, and for the first time for a week Marie found herself with a little breathing space.
Chris' attentions had been rather overwhelming. He had done his best, she knew, and was grateful to him for it, but he left her rather breathless. She could never lose sight of the fact that his affections were forced and wondered how much longer he would be able to keep up the farce.
She never gave herself a moment in which to think. She never looked forward, but lived in the present only.
Chris had said he should be home at six, but at seven o'clock, when Feathers was announced, he had not returned.
Marie went down to the drawing-room with a trembling heart. She had hoped that her husband would have been home before Feathers came. She knew that her face was white as she crossed the room to him and that her voice was unsteady as she said:
"Chris hasn't got back yet—I am so sorry. He promised to be in at six! I am afraid something has gone wrong with the car."
"It's not very late," Feathers said kindly. "I think I am rather before my time. He is sure to be in directly."
Marie walked over to the window and looked into the street. The September evening was closing in rapidly, with rather depressing greyness.
"I hope nothing has happened to them," she said faintly. She was not at all anxious really, but she felt that she must gain time to recover her composure before she could talk to Feathers.
He watched her across the room with sad eyes. He had not seen her since that day on the golf links, and he took in every detail of her graceful little figure hungrily.
She was wearing a white frock of some gauzy material, cut rather low, and her soft brown hair curled into little ringlets like a child's on the white nape of her neck.
Was she any happier, he wondered? He knew that Chris had been about with her a great deal during the past week, and he hoped with all231his heart that things were improving between them. He longed to ask her, but was afraid. He knew that the only safe thing for them was to keep to ordinary topics of conversation.
Marie dropped the curtain presently and came back to him.
"What have you been doing with yourself?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, nothing in particular. Yesterday I played golf with young Atkins. He asked after you."
"Did he?" Her eyes brightened. "I wish I could see him again."
"He tells me he is going to America shortly. He has been in his father's office, you know, but they don't get on, and so I think it's very wise of him to clear out."
"And you are going to Italy?" Marie said constrainedly. "Chris suggested that we should go, too, but—but I don't think I care to."
"It's the wrong time of year to see Italy to advantage."
"Yes, I know."
She looked at him wistfully. So strong, such a man! Longing to know the perfect happiness of his love crept into her heart.
There would be no half measures with him, she knew; no pretences. He would give all or nothing.
In spite of what he had said, Feathers had struggled into evening clothes. They did not fit him particularly well, but they seemed to magnify the squareness and strength of his build. Though he was not so tall as Chris, he always looked taller, and, despite his ugly features, there was something very noble in the rough outline of his head and shaggy hair.
"Where are they playing to-day?" he asked, breaking a silence that was beginning to get unbearable, and Marie said:
"Where we went before—the place where Mrs. Heriot is staying."
"Oh!" There was something dry in the little monosyllable that made her say impulsively: "I suggested it. Chris has been so unselfish232lately, taking us about all over the place, I thought he deserved a holiday—he likes playing with Dorothy, you know."
"Yes." There was the sound of a car driving up outside, and Feathers said, with obvious relief: "Here they are, I expect."
Chris came into the room a moment later. He looked at his wife anxiously.
"I'm sorry, Marie Celeste," he said. "The wretched car broke down, and it took me half an hour to get it right. I hope you haven't been anxious about us? How are you, old chap?"
The two men shook hands.
"Where is Dorothy?" Marie asked, and Chris looked away from her as he said, "I believe she went straight upstairs to dress."
"I'll go and tell her not to hurry."
Marie ran up to her friend's room, glad to get away for a moment. She knocked at the door, and, getting no answer, turned the handle and went in. Dorothy was standing in the middle of the room, her hands over her face. She had made no attempt to change her frock, and she still wore her coat and the jaunty velvet cap with a jay's wing at the side in which she had started out that morning.
Marie gave a little stifled cry.
"Dorothy! Oh, what is the matter?"
Dorothy started violently. She dabbed her eyes hurriedly with her handkerchief and tried to laugh.
"Nothing! Don't look so scared! I'm only rather worried." She turned away to hide her face. "I've had a letter with rather bad news. No, I can't tell you now—it's nothing! Please, go down and I'll be ready in a minute. I'm so sorry we're late, Marie. The silly car went wrong."
"I know. Chris told me. Dorothy, are you sure there is nothing the matter—nothing I can do for you?"
"Quite sure! Run downstairs, there's a dear; I won't be a minute." She almost turned Marie out of the room.
233Chris was coming upstairs as she crossed the landing, and he stopped looking at her in quick concern.
"Anything the matter, Marie Celeste?"
"No, only—Chris, Dorothy is crying so! She won't tell me what is the matter. She says she's had bad news in a letter."
He went to his room, abruptly.
"It's probably nothing; I shouldn't worry."
His voice sounded rather strange and unnatural, and Marie was puzzled as she went slowly downstairs.
The postman had just been and one of the servants was sorting the letters at the hall table. Marie went up to her.
"Greyson, were there any letters for Miss Webber by the afternoon post?"
"No, ma'am—none! Only two for Miss Chester."
Marie's brown eyes dilated.
"There has only been the one post since the early morning, hasn't there?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Thank you." She went on to the drawing-room, with a little feeling of apprehension.
Dorothy had lied to her, then. Why? She thought of the strained note in Chris' voice as he spoke to her on the landing, and a nameless fear crept into her heart.
Chris talked incessantly during dinner. Marie had never seen him so gay, and though she tried her best to kill it, the suspicion that he knew the cause of Dorothy's distress, grew in her heart.
Something had happened between them that afternoon.
"You ladies are very quiet," Feathers said, turning to her, and Marie roused herself with an effort.
Dorothy Webber was almost silent. Her head ached, she said; she thought it must have been the sun that afternoon.
"You played a fine game," Chris told her. "I shall have to look to my laurels." She did not answer, seemed not to have heard, and Marie asked, "Did you see Mrs. Heriot?"
"Yes. She and her sister had a foursome with us." It was Chris who234answered "She told me to give you her love." he added with a twinkle, "and to say that she should be in town to-morrow and would call to see you."
It was in the tip of Marie's tongue to say that she would not be in, but she checked the words. After all, Mrs. Heriot did not matter to her. She was no longer actively jealous.
The dinner was hardly a success.
"What's the matter with everyone?" Dorothy asked impatiently as she and Marie followed Miss Chester to the drawing-room. "Didn't you think we were all very dull?" she appealed to the old lady.
"I really didn't notice, my dear," Miss Chester answered complacently. "I have just worked it out in my mind, and I believe I shall finish that shawl in another three days."
Marie laughed. "And how long has it taken you to work, dear?"
"Nearly two years, but then I worked slowly, and my sight is not so good as it used to be," Miss Chester answered.
Marie took up a fold of the shawl. It was exquisitely soft and of the finest pattern.
"It would make a lovely shawl for a baby," she said, and then flushed, meeting her aunt's eyes. She got up and went over to the piano, and began turning over some music. She knew the thought that had been in Miss Chester's mind, and her heart ached. Young as she was herself Marie loved children, and one very tender dream had gone crashing to earth with the ruins when her castle fell.
Dorothy had flung herself into an armchair, her arms folded behind her head, her eyes fixed moodily on the ceiling.
There was a softened, chastened look about her this evening. The masculinity which was usually her chief characteristic seemed to have gone, leaving in its place something of greater attraction.
"Play something, Marie," she said suddenly, but Marie shook her head. "I don't feel in the mood for music." She dragged up a stool235and sat down at Miss Chester's feet. Across the hall she could hear Feathers' voice and Chris' laugh, and she listened to both with a queer feeling of unreality.
"What an ugly man Mr. Dakers is!" Dorothy said suddenly. "I don't think I ever saw anyone so ugly before."
The color rushed to Marie's face.
"I don't think he is in the very least bit ugly," she said impulsively. "There is something in his face when he smiles that is far better than just ordinary good looks. What do you think, Aunt Madge?"
She felt angry with Dorothy. All her heart flew to Feathers' defence.
"I always liked Mr. Dakers," Miss Chester said mildly. "He is a good man and a gentleman." She said the same thing of all Chris' friends. She could never see evil in anyone.
Dorothy laughed.
"Like him, yes! But he's ugly, all the same!" she insisted. "He doesn't like me, you know."
Nobody answered.
"We had lots of little tiffs when we were up in Scotland," she went on defiantly. "I always believe that he left Chris and came home alone because he couldn't stand the sight of me."
"My dear child!" Miss Chester remonstrated.
"So I do," she reiterated. "He told me once that the modern girl was a horror. I think he thought it was disgraceful because I played golf all day long with Chris and without a chaperon."
"Mr. Dakers isn't a bit narrow-minded," Marie said hotly.
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders.
"And I don't like Mrs. Heriot either," she said irrelevantly. "You never told me anything about her, Marie."
"She is a friend of Chris', not mine."
"Oh! And his friends are not yours—eh?"
Marie did not answer. She had never seen Dorothy in such a quarrelsome mood.
236The men joined them from the dining-room and Chris came to his wife at once.
"On the stool of repentance?" he asked. "Why don't you have a chair?"
"I'm quite comfortable, thank you." She leaned her head against Miss Chester's knee with a little snuggling movement, and the old lady stopped in her work for a movement to stroke the girl's dark hair.
"I've just remembered," she said, "that I've got some tickets for that Westminster bazaar to-morrow, Marie. Some of us really ought to go. I promised the vicar we would. Couldn't you and Dorothy just run in for half an hour?"
Marie made a little grimace.
"I hate bazaars," she said.
Dorothy looked across the room at Chris.
"I think I ought to go home to-morrow," she said. "I've been here over a week. You'll all be sick to death of me."
"Of course, we shan't," Marie cried. She was touched by the hard note of unhappiness in her friend's voice, and stretched out her hand to her. "Don't go, Dorothy. They can't have finished with the scarlet fever yet."
"I shall have to see. I dare say I shall hear from home in the morning."
She excused herself presently on the plea of headache and went to bed. She shook hands with Feathers and kissed Marie and Miss Chester, but Marie noticed with a queer little shrinking at her heart that she seemed to avoid Chris altogether, and her thoughts went back with unwilling suspicion to the moment when she had found Dorothy crying.
"Dorothy doesn't look well," Miss Chester said, as the door closed behind the elder girl. "I really think all this golf is too much for her. She ought to take a rest and do something less strenuous."
"Knitting shawls, for instance, eh, dear?" Marie asked tenderly. The old lady looked over her glasses.
"It would do her no harm," she said severely.
237It was only ten o'clock when Feathers left, and Chris said he would walk part of the way with him.
"I shan't be long," he said to Marie. "But it's so hot indoors, and I must get a breath of air."
She said good-night to them both in the hall, and after they had gone she stood for a moment looking at the closed door with a feeling of desolation. She had counted so much on this evening, and on seeing Feathers, and now he had gone—and nothing had happened, nothing been said!
She did not know what she had expected to happen or what she had hoped he would say, but she was conscious of bitter disappointment as she went up to bed.
It seemed as if she must have dreamed about those moments on Sunday when he had let her know that he loved her—that they could never have been real, and in her heart she knew that she was not satisfied. She wanted more than the little he had given.
She heard Chris come in just after she had gone to bed, and her heart thudded nervously as his step crossed the landing and stopped outside her door; but he went on again, and presently silence fell on the house.
And Marie fell asleep, to dream the old, terrible dream that she once more was drowning—that she was sinking down, down into bottomless depths of clear green water, and she woke, shivering and fighting for breath. Her face and the palms of her hands were wet with perspiration.
She sat up in bed and turned on the light. Only a Dream! She looked round the room with thankful eyes and yet . . . it would have been such a simple answer to all her troubles if Feathers had only let her drown that summer's morning.