"I"ll teach him to come dangling after my wife. I ought to have known that was his little game. No wonder she won"t go anywhere with me.
It"s Kettering--d.a.m.n his impertinence! I suppose he"s been setting her against me. He and Horace always thought I was a rotter and an outsider. I"ll spoil his beauty for him; I"ll----" His voice had risen excitedly. A man pa.s.sing turned to stare curiously.
Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy"s arm.
"Don"t be so hasty, old chap. There"s no harm in your wife going out to lunch with Kettering if she wants to. Give her the benefit of the doubt for the present, at least."
"She"s chucked me for him. She promised to meet me. She thinks more of him than she does of me, or she"d never have gone." There was a sort of enraged agony in Jimmy"s voice, a fierce colour burned in his pale face.
Sangster shrugged his shoulders. It was rather amusing to him that Jimmy should be playing the jealous husband--Jimmy, whose own life had been so singularly selfish and full of little episodes which no doubt he would prefer to be buried and forgotten.
Jimmy turned on him:
"You"re pleased, of course. You"re chuckling up your sleeve. You think it serves me right--and I dare say it does; but I can"t bear it, I tell you--I won"t--I won"t."
The words were boyish enough, but there was something of real tragedy in his young voice, something that forced the realisation home to Sangster that perhaps it was not merely dog-in-the-manger jealousy that was goading him now, but genuine pain. He looked at him quickly and away again. Jimmy"s face was twitching. If he had been a woman one would have said that he was on the verge of an hysterical outburst.
Sangster rose to the occasion.
"Let"s go and get a drink," he said prosaically. "I"m as dry as dust and we haven"t had any lunch."
Jimmy said he wasn"t hungry, that he couldn"t eat a morsel of anything if it were to save his life. He broke out again into a fresh torrent of abuse of Kettering. He cursed him up hill and down dale. Even when they were in the restaurant to which Sangster insisted on going he could not stop Jimmy"s flow of expletives. One or two people lunching near looked at them in amazement. In desperation Sangster ordered a couple of brandies; he forced Jimmy to drink one. Presently he quieted a little. He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. With the pa.s.sing of his pa.s.sionate rage, depression seemed to have gripped him. He was sullen and morose, he would not answer when Sangster spoke to him; when they left the restaurant he insisted on going back to Christine"s hotel.
He questioned the porter closely. Where had she gone? Had they driven away together or walked?
They had had a taxi, the man told him. He began to look rather alarmed; there was something in Jimmy"s white face and burning eyes that meant mischief, he thought. He told the "Boots" afterwards: "We shall hear more of this--you mark _my_ words."
"A taxi--yes. . . . Go on." Jimmy moistened his dry lips. "You--you didn"t hear where--what directions? . . ."
"Yes, sir. The gentleman told me to say Euston, told me to tell the driver to go to Euston, I mean, sir----" the man explained in confusion. He was red in the face now and embarra.s.sed.
"Euston," said Jimmy and Sangster together. They looked at one another, Jimmy with a sort of dread in his eyes, Sangster with anxiety.
"Yes, sir. Euston it was, I"m sure. And the gentleman told me to tell the driver to go as fast as he could."
There was a little silence. Sangster slipped a hand through Jimmy"s arm.
"Thanks--thanks very much," he said. He led Jimmy away.
He called a taxi and told the man to drive to Jimmy"s rooms. He made no attempt to speak, did not know what to say. Jimmy was leaning back with closed eyes.
Presently:
"Do you think she"s gone?" he asked huskily.
Sangster made a hurried gesture of denial:
"No, no."
Jimmy laughed mirthlessly.
"She has," he said. "I know she has. Serves me d.a.m.ned well right.
It"s all I deserve." There was a little pause. "Well," he said, "she"s more than got her own back, if it"s any consolation to her to know it."
He felt as if there were a knife being turned in his heart. His whole soul revolted against this enforced pain. He had never suffered like this in all his life before. Even that night at the theatre, when Cynthia Farrow had given him his _conge_, he had not suffered as now; then, it had been more damage to his pride than his heart; but this--he loved Christine--he knew now that he loved little Christine as he had never loved any other woman, as he never would love anyone again.
He cursed himself for a blind fool. It goaded him to madness to think of the happiness that had been his for the taking, and which he had let fall to the ground. He clenched his teeth in impotent rage. When they reached his rooms he threw his hat and coat aside, and began pacing up and down as if he could not keep still for a moment. Life was insufferable, intolerable; he could not imagine how he was going to get through all the stretch of years lying in wait for him. He had forgotten that the Great Horatio was coming home that night; the Great Horatio had suddenly faded out of the picture; it was no longer a thing of importance if his allowance were cut down, or stopped once and for all. All he wanted was Christine--Christine. He would have given his soul for her at that moment, for just one glimpse of the old trust and love in her brown eyes, for just a sight of the happy smile with which she had greeted him when they were first engaged. They had all been his once, and now he had lost her forever.
Another man had taken and prized the treasure he had blindly thrown away. Jimmy groaned as he paced up and down, up and down.
Sangster was pretending to read. He turned the pages of a magazine, but he saw nothing of what was written there. In his own way he was as unhappy as Jimmy, in his own way he was suffering tortures of doubt and apprehension.
He did not know Kettering; had only seen him once at Upton House; but he fully realised that the man had a strong personality, and one very likely to hold and keep such a nature as Christine"s.
But he could not bear to think of the shipwreck this meant for them all. He could not believe that her love for Jimmy had died so completely; she had loved him so dearly.
Jimmy came over to where he sat:
"Go and ring up again, there"s a dear chap," he said. His voice was hoa.r.s.e. "Ring up the hotel for me, will you? She may have come back. . . . Oh, I hope to G.o.d she has," he added brokenly.
Sangster rose at once. He held out his hand.
"I"m so sorry, Jimmy. I"d give anything--anything----" he stopped.
"But it"s all right, you see," he added cheerily, struck by the despair in his friend"s face. "She"ll be back there by now. We"re both getting scared about nothing. . . . I"ll ring up."
He walked over to the desk where Jimmy"s "phone stood. There was a moment of suspense as he rang and gave the number.
Jimmy had begun his restless pacing once more. His hands were deep thrust in his trousers pockets, his head bent. His heart seemed to be hammering in his throat as he tried not to listen to what Sangster was saying--tried not to hear.
"Yes. . . . Challoner--Mrs. Challoner. I only wondered if she had returned. . . . Not yet--oh. . . . Yes. . . . A wire. . . .
Yes. . . ."
There was a little silence; a tragic silence it seemed to Jimmy. He was standing still now. He felt as if his limbs had lost all power of movement. His eyes were fixed on Sangster"s averted face. After a moment Sangster hung up the receiver.
He did not turn at once; when, at last, he moved, it was very slowly.
He went across to Jimmy and laid a hand on his arm. "She"s not there, old man; but . . . but there"s a wire from her--she wired to the manager. . . ." He paused. He looked away from the agony in Jimmy"s eyes. He tried twice to find his voice before he could go on, then:
"She--she"s not coming back to-night," he said. "The--the wire was sent from--from Oxford . . ."
And now the silence was like the silence of death. Sangster held his breath. He could feel the sudden rigidness of Jimmy Challoner"s arm beneath his hand.
Then Jimmy turned away and dropped into a chair by the table. He fell forward with his face hidden in his outstretched arms.
"Oh, my G.o.d!" he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
It was so useless to try and offer any consolation. Sangster stood looking at him with a suspicious moisture in his honest eyes.
Christine--little Christine! His heart felt as if it were breaking as he thought of her--of her love for Jimmy--of the first days of their engagement. And now it was in vain that he tried to remember that Jimmy was to blame for it all. He tried to harden his heart against him; but, somehow, he could not. He went over to where he sat and laid a kind hand on his shoulder.
"Don"t give up yet, boy." At that moment he felt years older than his friend. "There may be some mistake. Don"t let"s give up till we"re sure--quite sure----"
Jimmy raised his face. His lips were grey and pinched.