There was a little silence. Challoner rose to his feet. He was rather white about the lips. There was a dawning apprehension in his eyes.

"Go on," he said. "What is it you--you can't--can't tell me?"

But he knew already, knew before she told him with desperate candour.

"I can't marry you, Jimmy, I'm sorry, but--but I can't--that's all."

The silence fell again. Behind the closed door in the crowded theatre the orchestra suddenly broke into a ragtime. Challoner found himself listening to it dully. Everything felt horribly unreal. It almost seemed like a scene in a play--this hot, crowded room; the figure of the woman opposite in her expensive stage gown, and--himself!

A long gla.s.s on the wall opposite reflected both their figures. Jimmy Challoner met his mirrored eyes, and a little wave of surprise filled him when he saw how white he was. He pulled himself together with a desperate effort. He tried to find his voice.

Suddenly he heard it, cracked, strained, asking a one-word question.

"Why?"

She did not answer at once. She had turned away again. She was aimlessly opening and shutting a little silver powder-box lying amongst the brushes and make-up. All his life Jimmy Challoner remembered the little clicking noise it made.

He could see nothing of her face. He made a sudden pa.s.sionate movement towards her.

"Cynthia, in G.o.d's name why--why?"

He laid his hands on her shoulders. She wriggled free of his touch.

For an instant she seemed to be deliberately weighing something in her mind. Then at last she spoke.

"Because--because my husband is still living."

"Still--living!" Jimmy Challoner echoed the words stupidly. He pa.s.sed a hand over his eyes. He felt dazed. After a moment he laughed. He groped backwards for a chair and dropped into it.

"Still--living! Are you--are you _sure_?"

So it was not that she did not love him. His first thought was one of utter relief--thank G.o.d, it was not that!

She put the little silver box down with a sort of impatience. "Yes,"

she said. She spoke so softly he could hardly catch the monosyllable.

Challoner leaned his head in his hands. He was trying desperately to think, to straighten out this hopeless tangle in his brain, but everything was confused.

Of course, he knew that she had been married before--knew that years and years ago, before she had really known her own mind, she had married a man--a worthless waster--who had left her within a few months of their marriage. She had told him this herself, quite straightforwardly. Told him, too, that the man was dead.

And after all he was still living!

The knowledge hammered against his brain, but as yet he could not realise its meaning. Cynthia went on jerkily.

"I only knew--yesterday. I wrote to you. I--at first I thought it could not be true. But--but now I know it is. Oh, why don't you say something--anything?" she broke out pa.s.sionately.

Challoner looked up. "What can I say, if this is true?"

"It is true," her face was flushed. There was a hard look in her eyes as if she were trying to keep back tears. After a moment she moved over to where he sat and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Jimmy Challoner turned his head and kissed it.

"Don't take it so badly, Jimmy. It's--it's worse for me," her voice broke. A cleverer man than Jimmy Challoner might have heard the little theatrical touch in the words, but Jimmy was too genuinely miserable himself to be critical.

At the first sob he was on his feet. He put his arms round her; he laid his cheek against her hair; but he did not kiss her. Afterwards he wondered what instinct it was that kept him from kissing her. He broke out into pa.s.sionate protestations.

"I can't give you up. There must be some way out for us all. You don't love him, and you do care for me. It can't be true, it's--it's some abominable trick to part us, Cynthia."

"It is true," she said again. "It is true."

She drew away from him. She began to cry, carefully, so as not to spoil her make-up. She hid her face in her hands. Once she looked at him through her white fingers to see how he was taking it. Jimmy Challoner was taking it very badly indeed. He stood biting his lip hard. His hands were clenched.

"For G.o.d's sake don't cry," he broke out at length. "It drives me mad to see you cry. I'll find a way out. We should have been so happy. I can't give you up."

He spoke incoherently and stammeringly. He was really very much in love, and now the thought of separation was a burning gla.s.s, magnifying that love a thousandfold.

There were voices outside. Cynthia hastily dried her eyes. She did not look as if she had been crying very bitterly.

"That's my call. I shall have to go. Don't keep me now. I'll write, Jimmy. I'll see you again."

"You promise me that, whatever happens?"

"I promise." He caught her fingers and kissed them. "Darling, I'll come back for you when the show's over. I can't bear to leave you like this. You do love me?"

"Do you need to ask?"

The words were an evasion, but he did not notice it. He went back to the stage box feeling as if the world had come to an end.

He forgot all about the Wyatts in the stalls below. Christine's brown eyes turned towards him again and again, but he never once looked her way. His attention was centered on the stage and the woman who played there.

She was so beautiful he could never give her up, he told himself pa.s.sionately. With each moment her charm seemed to grow. 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 att.i.tude of his tall figure. He was standing staring at the stage as if for him there was nothing else in all the world. She stifled a little sigh as she turned to put on her cloak.

The house was still applauding and clamouring for Cynthia to show herself again. Challoner waited. He loved to see her come before the curtain--loved the little graceful way she bowed to her audience.

But to-night he waited in vain, and when at last he pushed his way round to the stage door it was only to be told that Miss Farrow had left the theatre directly the play was over.

Challoner's heart stood still for a moment. She had done this deliberately to avoid him, he was sure. He asked an agitated question.

"Did she--did she go alone?"

The doorkeeper answered without looking at him, "There was a gent with her, sir--Mr. Mortlake, I think."

Challoner went out into the night blindly. He had to pa.s.s the theatre to get back to the main street. Mrs. Wyatt and Christine were just entering a taxi. Christine saw him. She touched his arm diffidently as he pa.s.sed.