She was seated in one of the wicker chairs, chin in hand. He stepped toward her.
"You don"t think I"d be cad enough to desert my wife actually?" he demanded.
He seemed so much in earnest that for a second the color flushed the chalk-white portions of her cheeks.
"Sit down, Monte," she pleaded. "I--I did n"t expect you to take it like that. I "m afraid Peter is making you too serious. After all, you know, I "m of age. I "m not a child."
He sat down, bending toward her.
"We"ve both acted more or less like children," he said gently. "Now I guess the time has come for us to grow up. Peter will help you do that."
"And you?"
"He has helped me already. And when he gets his eyes back--"
"You think there is a chance for that?"
"Just one chance," he answered.
"Oh!" she cried.
"It"s a big opportunity," he said.
She rose and went to the window, where she looked out upon the gray ocean and the slanting rain and a world grown dull and sodden. He followed her there, but with his shoulders erect now.
"I "m going now," he said. "I think I shall take the night train for Paris. I want to leave the machine--the machine we came down here in--for you."
"Don"t--please don"t."
"It"s for you and Peter. The thing for you both to do is to get out in it every day."
"I--I don"t want to."
"You mean--"
He placed his hand upon her arm, and she ventured one more look into his eyes. He was frowning. She must not allow that. She must send him away in good spirits. That was the least she could do. So she forced a smile.
"All right," she promised; "if it will make you more comfortable."
"It would worry me a lot if I thought you were n"t going to be happy."
"I"ll go out every fair day."
"That"s fine."
He took a card from his pocket and scribbled his banker"s address upon it.
"If anything should come up where--where I can be of any use, you can always reach me through this address."
She took the card. Even to the end he was good--good and four-square.
He was so good that her throat ached. She could not endure this very much longer. He extended his hand.
"S"long and good luck," he said.
"I--I hope your golf will be better than you think."
Then he said a peculiar thing. He seldom swore, and seldom lost his head as completely as he did that second. But, looking her full in the eyes, he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed below his breath:--
"d.a.m.n golf!"
The observation was utterly irrelevant. Turning, he clicked his heels together like a soldier and went out. The door closed behind him. For a second her face was illumined as with a great joy. In a sort of ecstasy, she repeated his words.
"He said," she whispered--"he said, "d.a.m.n golf."" Then she threw herself into a wicker chair and began to sob.
"Oh!" she choked. "If--if--"
CHAPTER XXII
A CONFESSION
Monte left Nice on the twentieth of July, to join--as Peter supposed--Madame Covington in Paris. Monte himself had been extremely ambiguous about his destination, being sure of only one fact: that he should not return inside of a year, if he did then. Peter had asked for his address, and Monte had given him the same address that he gave Marjory.
"I want to keep in touch with you," Peter said.
Peter missed the man. On the ride with Marjory that he enjoyed the next day after Monte"s departure, he talked a great deal of him.
"I "d like to have seen into his eyes," he told her. "I kept feeling I "d find something there more than I got hold of in his voice and the grip of his hand."
"He has blue eyes," she told him, "and they are clean as a child"s."
"They are a bit sad?"
"Monte"s eyes sad?" she exclaimed. "What made you think so?"
"Perhaps because, from what he let drop the other night, I gathered he was n"t altogether happy with Mrs. Covington."
"He told you that?"
"No; not directly," he a.s.sured her. "He"s too loyal. I may be utterly mistaken; only he was rather vague as to why she was not here with him."
"She was not with him," Marjory answered slowly. "She was not with him because she was n"t big enough to deserve him."
"Then it"s a fact there"s a tragedy in his life?"
"Not in his--in hers," she answered pa.s.sionately.