Ruby M. Ayres

“ Every chair and table seemed littered with frocks and furbelows. Every available space on the walls was covered with pictures and photographs and odds and ends. The room was brilliantly lit, and at a dressing-table strewn with make-up boxes and a hundred and one toilet requisites, a girl was reading a letter.
At first glance she looked very young. She was small and dainty, with clearly cut features and beautiful hair, the most beautiful hair in all the world Jimmy Challoner thought for the thousandth time as he stood in the doorway looking across at her with his foolish heart in his eyes. ”

“ Jimmy was relieved. He was somehow a little afraid of Mrs. Wyatt's kind mother eyes; he dreaded lest she might read deep down into his heart, and know what he was doing—guess that he was only marrying Christine because—because why?
To forget another woman; to pay another woman out for the way she had treated him. That is how he would have answered that question had he been quite honest with himself; but as it was he evaded facing it at all. He merely contented himself with assuring Christine all over again that he was going to be very good to her and make her happy. ”

“ Jimmy turned away; he stood staring down into the fire; he felt somehow as if they were both taking a mean advantage of Christine; he felt as if he had tried to force her hand; he was sure she did not wish to come back to him, but he was sure, too, that because in her heart she thought it her duty to do so, he would not return to London alone that night.
Nobody spoke for a moment; Jimmy was afraid to look round, then
Christine said slowly:
"Very well, what train are we to go by?" ”

“ He drew her into the room, shutting the door quietly. Jimmy had walked over to the window; he stood staring into the street with misty eyes. He had never had death brought home to him like this before. It seemed to have made an upheaval in his world; to have thrown all his schemes and calculations out of gear; life was all at once a thing to be feared and dreaded.
He could hear Sangster talking to Christine behind him; he could not hear what he was saying; he was only too thankful that his friend had come. The last hours which he had spent alone with Christine had been a nightmare to him. ”

“ But to Jimmy—Sangster metaphorically shrugged his shoulders as he looked at his friend's moody face.
How could he sit there next to that child and not realise that in his longing he was only grasping at a shadow? What was he made of that he saw more beauty in Cynthia Farrow's blue eyes than in the sweet face of his boyhood's love?
Sangster was glad when the play was over; theatres always bored him. He did not quite know why he had invited himself to Jimmy's box to-night. When they rose to leave he smiled indulgently at Christine's rapt face. ”

“ The way she asked me if I was going to stay to dinner—a chap's own wife!—and in front of that brute Kettering!"
"He isn't a brute."
Gladys walked away and poured herself another cup of tea.
"Christine has been hurt—hurt much more than you have," she said at last. She spoke slowly, as if she were carefully choosing her words.
"She was so awfully fond of you, Jimmy." Jimmy moved restlessly. "It—it must have been a dreadful shock to her, poor child." She looked at him impatiently. "Oh, what on earth is the use of being a man if you can't make a woman care for you? ”

“ Gladys did all she could to comfort her, but all the time she was painfully conscious of the fact that had Kettering walked into the room just then there would have been no more tears.
Sometimes she thought that it only served Jimmy Challoner right; sometimes she told herself that this was his punishment—that Fate was fighting him with his own weapons, paying him back in his own coin; but she knew such thoughts were mere foolishness.
He and Christine were married, no matter how strongly they might resent it. The only thing left to them was to make the best they could of life. ”

“ Christine was conscious of a sudden feeling of utter home-sickness; everybody was so stiff and strange; even Jimmy—dearly as she loved him—seemed somehow like a stranger in his smart coat and brand-new tie, and with the refractory kink in his hair well flattened down by brilliantine.
She wanted her mother; she wanted her mother desperately; she wanted to be kissed and made much of by someone who really wanted her to be happy. ”

“ She turned her beautiful eyes to his pale face.
"I've never seen him," said Jimmy. "But I should think he's a brute from what I've heard about him. He—he—oh, he treated her rottenly."
"What a shame!" Christine half turned and looked after Cynthia Farrow's retreating figure. "Jimmy, wouldn't you be proud of such a beautiful wife?"
Jimmy laughed, rather a mirthless laugh.
"Penniless beggars like me don't marry beautiful wives like—like Miss Farrow," he said with a sort of savagery. "They want men with pots and pots of money, who can buy them motor-cars and diamonds, and all the rest of it." ”

“ Jimmy looked down at her. Her face was half-hidden by the soft brown fur she wore, but he could just get a glimpse of dark lashes against her pale cheek, and the dainty outline of forehead and cheek.
"You won't always think that," he told her cynically. "Some day, when you're older and wiser than you are now, you'll find yourself looking at the L. s. d. side of a man, Christine."
"I never shall," she cried out indignantly. "Jimmy, you are horrid!"
But Jimmy Challoner did not smile.
"Women are all the same," he told her darkly. ”

“ He watched her with despairing eyes; life without her was a crude impossibility. He could not imagine existence in a world where he might not love her. That other fellow—curse the other fellow!—he ground his teeth in impotent rage.
The brute had deserted her years ago and left her to starve. He had not the smallest claim on her How. By the time the play was ended Jimmy Challoner had worked himself into a white heat of rage and despair.
Christine Wyatt, glancing once more towards him as the curtain rose for the final call, wondered a little at the tense, unyielding attitude of his tall figure. ”

“ Gladys looked at him unflinchingly.
"I thought I could trust you, too," she said serenely. "And apparently I was mistaken. You've spoilt Christine's life, and you deserve all you get."
"How dare you talk to me like that?"
She laughed.
"I dare very well. I'm not afraid of you, Jimmy. I know too much about you. Christine married you because she loved you; she thought there was nobody like you in all the world. It's your own fault if she has changed her mind."
"I'll break every bone in Kettering's confounded body." Jimmy burst out passionately. ”

“ Christine looked up; she flushed.
"Going to London! I am not going. . . . I never want to go there any more."
Gladys made no comment; she had heard the little quiver in the younger girl's voice.
Presently:
"I suppose you think I ought to go to Jimmy," Christine broke out vehemently. "I suppose you are hinting that it is my duty to go. You don't know what you are talking about; you don't understand that he cares nothing about me—that he would be glad if I were dead and out of the way. He only wants his freedom; he never really wished to marry me." ”

“ He had held her hands, kissed them, he had tried to kiss her, and it had been the touch of his lips that had melted the numbness of her heart and told her that she loved Jimmy; that in spite of everything that had happened, everything he had done, he was the one and only man who would ever count in her life. Passionate revulsion had driven her back to London. She had parted with Kettering then and there. ”

“ Sangster answered good-temperedly that he didn't want anything in particular; privately he agreed with Costin that it was more than an ordinary chill that had drawn Jimmy's face and made such hollows beneath his eyes. He stood with his back to the fire looking down at him dubiously.
"What have you been up to?" he asked.
"Up to!" Jimmy echoed the phrase pettishly. "I haven't been up to anything. You talk as if I were a blessed brat. One must do something to amuse oneself. I'm fed-up—sick to death of this infernal life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jimmy writhed in his chair. That any woman should dare to so treat him! The hot blood surged into his face.
It was a good sign—this sudden anger—had he but known it. When a man can be angry with a woman he has once loved he is already beginning to love her less; already beginning to see her as less perfect.
Some one tapped at his door; his man entered.
Costin was another bone of contention between Jimmy and the Great
Horatio. ”

“ Sangster did not know what to answer. He broke out awkwardly that things were always difficult at first; that Jimmy was really one of the best; that if only she would have a little patience, everything would come right; he was sure of it.
But she only shook her head.
"I ought to have known; I can't think now why it is that I never guessed," she said hopelessly. "All the other women he has known are so much better than I am."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't say that," he broke out; there was a sort of horror in his face as he contrasted Cynthia and her friends to this girl. ”

“ There was a little flush in her pale cheeks. She looked more like the child-sweetheart he had so nearly forgotten.
Mrs. Wyatt had moved away. He and Christine were alone. "I used to kiss you in those days, didn't I?" he asked, looking at her. He felt miserable and reckless.
She looked up at him with serious eyes. "Yes," she said almost inaudibly.
Something in her face stirred an old emotion in Jimmy Challoner's heart. This girl had been his first love, and a man never really forgets his first love; he leaned nearer to her. ”

“ And she looks so ill, too. . . . What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything."
"Well, then, I wish to God you would," said Jimmy with sudden rage. "I'm about fed-up with life, I can tell you——" He broke off. "Oh, I don't mean that; but I'm worried to death. I—what the devil can I do?" he asked helplessly.
Sangster did not know how to answer; he sat staring down at the worn toes of his carpet slippers and thinking of Christine.
She was such a child, and she loved Jimmy so much. It made his heart ache to think of the shy happiness he had always read in her eyes whenever she looked at Jimmy. ”

“ Gladys listened silently. She was a very sensible girl; she seldom gave an impulsive judgment on any subject; but now——
"Jimmy wants his neck wrung," she said vehemently.
Christine looked up with startled eyes.
"Oh, how can you say such a thing!"
"Because it's true." Gladys looked very angry. "He's behaved in a rotten way; men always do, it seems to me. He married you to spite this—this other woman, whoever she was! and then—even then he didn't try to make it up to you, or be ordinarily decent and do his best, did he?"
"He didn't love me, you see; and so——" Christine defended him. ”

“ 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. ”