"Ah! yes, Mr. Cardillac is always ready to take any trouble, Peter."

"If you'd let me know earlier, Clare, that you wanted me."

Mrs. Rossiter. "Oh! don't put yourself out, Peter. It would never do to break an engagement. Only it seems such a long time since you and Clare--"

Peter. "We'll go to-morrow afternoon, Clare."

Clare. "You're so gloomy when you do come, Peter. It's like going out with a ghost."

Mrs. Rossiter. "Ah! Peter has his work, dear--so much hangs on the next book, doesn't it, Peter? Naturally the last one didn't quite--"

Peter. "Look here, Clare, I'll chuck this engagement."

Clare. "No, thank you, Peter--Jerry and I will be all right. You can join us if you like--"

The fact was that Peter wasn't tactful. He showed Mrs. Rossiter much too plainly that he disliked her intensely. He had no idea that he showed it her. He thought, indeed, that he was very skilful in his disguise of his feelings but Mrs. Rossiter knew and soon Clare knew also.

Peter had no conception of subtlety in the matter. It was clear to him that he had once been devoted to Clare and she to him, it was clear also that that relationship had recently been dimmed. Now that Stephen was gone that early intimacy must be restored and the fact that he was willing on his side to do anything to bring it back seemed to him reason enough for its restoration. That the whole matter was composed of the most delicate and intricate threads never occurred to him for an instant. Clare had loved him once. Clare would love him again--and the sooner it happened the better for him.

Meanwhile Mrs. Rossiter being enemy rather than ally there remained Cards.

But Cards was strange. Peter could never claim to have been intimate with him--their relationship had been founded on an inequality, on a recognition from Peter of Cards' superiority. Cards had always laughed at Peter, always patronised him. But now, although Cards had been in the place so much of late, the distance seemed farther than ever before.

Cards was as kind as he could be--always in good spirits, always ready to do anything, but Peter noticed that it was only when Clare was present that Cards changed from jest to earnest. "He thinks Clare worth talking to seriously.... I suppose it's because he was at Dawson's ...

but after all I'm not an imbecile."

This attitude of Cards was in fact as vague and nebulous as all the other things that seemed now to stand between Peter and Clare.

Peter tried to talk to Cards--he was always prevented--held off with a laughing hand.

"What's the matter with me?" thought Peter. "What have I done? It's like being out in a fog."

At last one evening, after dinner, when Clare and Mrs. Rossiter had gone upstairs he demanded an answer.

"Look here, Cards, what have I done? You profess to be a friend of mine.

Tell me what crime I've committed?"

Cards' eyes had been laughing. Suddenly he was serious. His dark, clean-cut face was stern, almost accusing.

"Profess, Peter? I hope you don't doubt it?"

"No, of course not. You know you're the best friend I've got. Tell me--what have I done?"

"Done?"

"Yes--you and Clare and her mother--all of you keep me at arms'

length--why?"

"Do you really want a straight talking?"

"Of course."

"Well, I can only speak for myself--but--to tell the truth, old boy--I think you've been rather hard on poor little Clare."

For the first time since his marriage Peter resented Cards' words. "Poor little Clare"--wasn't that a little too intimate?

"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice a little harder.

"Well--I don't think you understand her, Peter."

"Explain."

"She's a happy, merry person if ever there was one in this world. She wants all the happiness you can give her--"

"Well?"

"Well, you don't seem to see that. Of course young Stephen's death--"

"Let's leave that--" Peter's voice was harder again.

"Oh, all right--just as you please. But most men would have seen what a shock it must be to a girl, so young, who knew so little about the cruelty of life. You didn't--you don't mind, Peter, do you?--you didn't seem to think of that. Never tried to cheer her up, take her about, take her out of herself. You just wrapped yourself up--"

"You don't understand," muttered Peter, his eyes lowered. "If I'd thought that she'd really minded Stephen's death--"

"Oh! come Peter--that's grossly unfair. Why, she felt it all most horribly. That shows how little you've understood her, how little you've appreciated her. You've always been a gloomy, morbid devil and--"

"All right, Cards--that'll do."

Cards stood back from the table, his mouth smiling, his eyes hard and cold.

"Oh! no, it won't. You asked for it and now you're going to get it.

You've not only been gloomy and morbid all your life, you've been selfish as well--always thinking of yourself and the books you were going to write, and then when they did come they weren't such great shakes. You oughtn't to have married at all--you've never considered Clare at all--your treatment of her--"

Peter stood up, his face white, so that his eyes and the lines of his mouth showed black in the shadow.

"Clear out--I've heard enough."

"Oh! that's just like you--ask me for my opinion and then lose your temper over it. Really, Peter, you're like a boy of ten--you don't deserve to be treated as a grown-up person."

Peter's voice shook. "Clear out--clear out or I'll do for you--get out of my house--"

"Certainly."

Cards opened the door and was gone. Peter heard him hesitate for a moment in the hall, get his hat and coat and then close the hall-door after him.

The house was suddenly silent. Peter stood, his hands clenched. Then he went out into the hall.

He heard Mrs. Rossiter's voice from above--"Aren't you two men ever coming up?"