TOO LATE!

Jimmy and Christine travelled to London at opposite ends of the carriage.

Jimmy had done his best to make his wife comfortable, he had wrapped a rug round her though it was a mild night, he had bought more papers and magazines than she could possibly read on a journey of twice the length, and seeing that she was disinclined to talk, he had finally retired to the other end of the carriage and pretended to be asleep.

He was dying for a smoke, he would have given his soul for a cigarette, but he was afraid to ask for permission, so he sat there in durance vile with his arms folded rightly and his eyes half closed, while the train sped on through the night towards London.

Christine turned the pages of her magazines diligently, though it is doubtful if she read a word or saw a single picture.

She felt very tired and dispirited, it was as if she had been forced back against her will to look once more on the day of her wedding, when the cold cheerlessness of the church and vestry had frightened her, and when Jimmy had asked Sangster to lunch with them. The thought of Sangster gave her a gleam of comfort; she liked him, and she knew that he could be relied upon; she wondered how soon she would see him.

And then she thought of Kettering and the last words he had said to her on the steps at Upton House, and a little sigh escaped her. She thought Jimmy was asleep, she put down the magazine and let herself drift. There was something about Kettering that had appealed to her as no other man had ever done, something manly and utterly reliable which she found restful and protecting. She wondered what he would say when he heard that she had gone back to Jimmy, and what he would think.

She looked across at her husband, his eyes were wide open.

"Do you want anything?" he asked quickly.

"No, thank you." She seized upon the magazine again, she flushed in confusion.

"I've been wondering," said Jimmy gently, "where you would like to stay when we get to town. I think you'd be more comfortable in--in my rooms if you wouldn't mind going there, but----"

She interrupted hastily, "I'd much rather go to an hotel. I don't care where it is--any place will do."

She spoke hurriedly, as if she wished the conversation ended.

Jimmy looked at her wistfully, she was so pretty, much prettier than ever he had realised, he told himself with a sense of loss. A thousand times lately he found himself wishing that Cynthia Farrow had not died; not that he wanted her any more for himself, not that it any longer made him suffer to think of her and those first mad days of his engagement, but so that he might have proved to Christine that the fact of her being in London and near to him affected him not at all, that he might prove his infatuation for her to be a thing dead and done with.

Now he supposed she would never believe him. He looked at her pretty profile, and with sudden impulse he rose to his feet and crossed over to sit beside her.

"I want to speak to you," he said, when she made a little movement as if to escape him. "No, I'm not going to touch you."

There was a note of bitterness in his voice, once she had loved him to be near her--a few short weeks ago--and she would have welcomed this journey with him alone, but now things were so utterly changed.

"I must speak to you, just once, about Cynthia," he said urgently.

"Just this once, and then I'll never mention her again. I can't hope that you'll believe what I'm going to say, but--but I do beg of you to try and believe that I am not saying all this because--because she--she's dead. If she had lived it would make no difference to me now; if she were alive at this moment she would be no more to me than--than any other woman in the world."

Christine kept her eyes steadily before her; she listened because she could not help herself, but she felt as if someone were turning a knife in her heart.

"The night--the night she died," Jimmy went on disconnectedly, "I was going to make a clean breast of--of everything to you, and ask you to forgive me and let us start again. I was, 'pon my honour I was, but--but Fate stepped in, I suppose, and you know what happened. When I married you I'll admit that--that I didn't care for you as much as--as much as I ought to have done, but now----"

"But now"--Christine interrupted steadily though she was driven by intolerable pain--"now it's too late. I'm not with you to-night for any reason except that--that I think it's my duty, and because I don't want your brother to know or to blame you. We--we can't ever be anything--except ordinary friends. I suppose we can't get unmarried, can we?" she said with a little quivering laugh. "But--but at least we need never be anything more than--than friends----"

Jimmy was very white; Christine had spoken so quietly, so decidedly, they were not angry words, not even deliberately chosen to hurt him, they sounded just final!

He caught her hand.

"Oh, my G.o.d, you don't mean that, Christine, you're just saying it to--to punish me, just to--to--pay me out. You don't really mean it--you don't mean that you've forgotten all the old days, you don't mean that you don't care for me any more--that you never will care for me again. I can't bear it. Oh, for G.o.d's sake say you don't mean that."

There was genuine anguish in his voice now, and in his eyes, but Christine was not looking at him, she was only remembering that he had once loved another woman desperately, pa.s.sionately, and that because that woman was no longer living he wished to transfer his affections; she kept her eyes steadily before her, as she answered him:

"I am sorry, I don't want to hurt you, but--but I am afraid that--that is what I do mean."

There was a moment of absolute silence. She did not look at Jimmy; she was only conscious of the fierce desire in her heart to hurt him, to make him feel, make him suffer as he had once made her suffer in the days that seemed so far away now and dead that she could look back with wonderment at herself for the despair she had known then.

She was glad that she no longer suffered; glad that she had lost her pa.s.sionate love for him in this numbed indifference. She wondered if he really felt her words, or if he were only pretending.

Once he had pretended to her so well that she had married him; now, as a consequence, she found herself suspecting him at every turn, doubting him whenever he spoke.

The train shot into a tunnel, and Christine caught her breath. She shrank a little farther away from Jimmy in the darkness, but she need not have feared. Seeing her instinctive movement he rose at once and walked away to the other side of the carriage. He hardly spoke to her again till they reached London.

It was late then. Christine felt tired, and her head ached. She asked no more questions as to where they were going or what he proposed to do with her. She followed him into the taxi. She did not hear what directions he gave to the driver. It seemed a very little while before they stopped, and Jimmy was holding out his hand to help her to alight.

They went into the hotel together, and for a moment Jimmy left her alone in the wide, empty lounge while he went to make arrangements for her.

She looked round her dully. The old depression she had known when last she was in London returned. She hated the silence of the lounge; even the doors seemed to shut noiselessly, and everywhere the carpets were so thick that footsteps were m.u.f.fled.

Jimmy came back. He seemed to avoid her eyes.

"I have taken rooms for you; I think you will be comfortable. Will you--will you go up now? I have ordered supper; it will be ready in fifteen minutes. I will wait here."

Christine obeyed wearily. She went up in the lift feeling lonely and depressed. A kind-faced maid met her on the first landing. She went with Christine into her bedroom; she unpacked her bag and made the room comfortable for her; she talked away cheerily, almost as if she guessed what a sore heart the girl carried with her. Christine felt a little comforted as she went downstairs again.

It was nearly eleven o'clock. A few people were having supper in the room to which she was directed. Jimmy was there waiting for her.

They sat down together almost silently.

"A second honeymoon!" Gladys Leighton's words came back to Christine with a sort of mockery.

She looked at her husband. He was pale and silent. He only made a pretence of eating; they were both glad when the meal was over.

There was a moment of awkwardness when they rose from the table.

"I am tired," Christine said when he asked if she would care to go to the drawing-room for a little while. "I should like to go to bed."

"Very well." Jimmy held out his hand. "Good night." He looked at her and quickly away again. "I will come round in the morning."

She raised startled eyes to his face.

"You are not staying here then?"

He coloured a little.

"No; I thought you would prefer that I did not. I shall be at my rooms--if you want me."

"Very well." She just touched the tips of his fingers. The next moment she was walking alone up the wide staircase.

She never slept all night. Though she had felt tired at the end of her journey, she never once closed her eyes now.