CHAPTER XXI

THE COMPACT

Down in the drawing-room things were decidedly uncomfortable.

Gladys sat by the tea-table, enjoying her tea no less for the fact that Jimmy was walking up and down like a wild animal, waiting for Christine to return.

Secretly Gladys was rather amused at the situation. She considered that whatever Jimmy suffered now, it served him right. She blamed him entirely for the estrangement between himself and his wife. She had never liked him very much, even in the old days, when she had quarrelled with him for being so selfish; she could not see that he had greatly improved now, as she watched him rather quizzically.

After a moment:

"You'll wear the carpet out," she said practically,

Jimmy stood still.

"Why doesn't Christine come back?" he demanded. "What's she doing with that fool Kettering?"

"He isn't a fool," said Gladys calmly. "I call him an exceedingly nice man."

Jimmy's eyes flashed.

"I suppose you've been encouraging him to come here and dangle after my wife. I thought I could trust you."

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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sionately. "I'll--I'll----" He stopped suddenly and sat down with a humiliating sense of weakness, leaning his head in his hands.

Gladys's eyes softened as she looked at him.

"You've been ill, haven't you?" she asked.

He did not answer, and after a moment she left the tea-table, got up and went over to where he sat.

"Buck up, Jimmy, for heaven's sake," she said seriously. She put her hand on his shoulder kindly enough. "It's not too late. You're married, after all, and you may as well make the best of it. You may both live another fifty years."

Jimmy said he was dashed if he wanted to. He said he had had enough of life; it was a rotten swindle from beginning to end.

Gladys frowned.

"If you're going to talk like an utter idiot!" she said impatiently.

He caught her hand when she would have moved away.

"I'm sorry. You might be a pal to a chap, Gladys. I--well, I'm at my wits' end to know what to do. With Horatio coming home----"

Her eyes grew scornful.

"Oh, so _that's_ why you've come here!"

"It is and it isn't. I wanted to see Christine. You won't believe me, I know, but I've been worried to death about her ever since she left me. Ask Sangster, if you don't believe me. I swear to you that, if it were possible, I'd give my right hand this minute to undo all the rotten past and start again. I suppose it's too late. I suppose she hates me. She said she did that last night in London. She looks as if she does now. 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? She did once, and it ought not to be so very difficult to make her care again. She--she's just longing for someone to be good to her and love her. That's why she seems to like Mr. Kettering, I know. It is only seeming, Jimmy. I know her better than you do. It's only that he came along just when she was so unhappy--just when she was wanting someone to be good to her. And he _has_ been good to her--he really has," she added earnestly.

Jimmy drew a long breath. He rose to his feet, stretching his arms wearily.

"I don't deserve that she should forgive me," he said, with a new sort of humility. "But--but if ever she does----" He took a quick step forwards Gladys. "Go and ask her to come and speak to me, there's a dear. I promise you that I won't upset her. I'll do my very best."

She went reluctantly, and as soon as the door had closed behind her, Jimmy Challoner went over to the looking-gla.s.s and stared at his pale reflection anxiously. He had always rather admired himself, but this afternoon his pallor and thinness disgusted him. No wonder Christine did not want to look at him or talk to him. He pa.s.sed a nervous hand over the refractory kink in his hair, flattening it down; then, remembering that Christine had once said she liked it, brushed it up again agitatedly.

It seemed a long time before she came down to him. He was sure that half an hour must have pa.s.sed since Gladys shut the door on him, before it opened again and Christine stood there, a little pale, a little defiant.

"You want to speak to me," she said. Her voice was antagonistic, the soft curves of her face seemed to have hardened.

"Yes. Won't you--won't you come and sit down?" Jimmy was horribly nervous. He dragged forward a chair, but she ignored it. She shut the door and stood leaning against it.

"I would rather stay here," she said. "And please be quick. If there is anything important to say----"

The indifference of her voice cut him to the heart. He broke out with genuine grief:

"Oh, Christine, aren't you ever going to forgive me?"

Just for a moment a little quiver convulsed her face, but it was gone instantly. She knew by past experience how easily Jimmy could put just that soft note into his voice. She told herself that it was only because he wanted something from her, not that he was really in the very least sorry for what had happened, for the way he had hurt her, for the havoc he had made of her life.

"It isn't a question of forgiveness at all," she said. "I didn't ask you to come here. I didn't want you to come here, I was quite happy without you."

"That is very evident," he said bitterly. The words escaped him before he could stop them. He apologised agitatedly.

"I didn't mean that; it slipped out; I ought not to have said it. I hardly know what I am saying. If you can't ever forgive me, that settles it once and for all, of course; but----"

She interrupted.

"Why have you come here? What do you want?"