A Bachelor Husband Part 30

"I mean that you're rather apt to lose sight of the fact that she's no longer a kind of sister to you, but a wife," Feathers said quietly. "Also, I suppose that when you were kids together she spoilt you like the devil, and it looks as if she means to go on spoiling you."

Chris laughed in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Spoils me--Marie spoils me! That's good!" He really thought it was. Like most men whose chief ambition it is to see that they get their own way no matter at what inconvenience to others, he was quite unconscious of the fact; he really thought he was rather an unselfish man; he certainly considered that perhaps with the exception of the little scene this morning when he had lost his temper he had treated Marie rather well.

"You don't understand women, my dear chap," he said cheerily.

Feathers looked at him squarely.

"Do you?" he asked.

Chris looked rather nonplussed.

"Well, perhaps I don't," he admitted. "And perhaps I don't want to.

I prefer a man's company any day to a woman's, you know that-- except Marie's, of course," he added hastily.

There was a little silence.

"What do you think of my wife, anyway?" he asked, with a rather forlorn attempt at jocularity.

"What do I think of her?" Feathers echoed. "Well--she's all right," he added lamely. He stopped, and bared his head to the cool sea breeze. "Hadn't we better turn back?" he asked.

They strolled back to the hotel together; a perspiring porter was staggering across the lounge with Marie's luggage. Chris'

portmanteau and suit-case stood already by the door.

"We're not going till after lunch," Chris said, "They turn you out of your rooms in a hurry, don't they? I wonder where Marie is?"

"She's sitting over there in the window." Feathers answered.

He had seen Marie as soon as they entered the lounge--seen something in her face, too, that pierced his heart like a knife as he turned deliberately and walked away from her.

He had been prepared to dislike Christopher's wife, because he had thought she would rob him of his friend, but in the last three weeks something seemed to have played pitch and toss with all his preconceived ideas of marriage and women.

He went out into the garden, and stayed there until he knew that lunch must be almost finished, then he strolled in.

Chris and his wife were in the lounge, dressed for traveling. Marie was looking anxiously towards the door as he came slowly forward and her wistful face lightened as she saw him.

"Where have you been?" Chris demanded. "We're just off, you old rotter."

"I didn't know it was so late." He looked at Marie. "I hope you'll have a pleasant journey back," he said. The words sounded absurdly formal and unlike him, and the girl's face flushed in faint perplexity.

"Thank you, I hope we shall."

There was a taxi at the door, piled with luggage; Mrs. Heriot was close by, dressed in a very smart tweed costume, and with her golf clubs slung over her shoulder.

She looked at Chris commiseratingly.

"You poor dear, going back to smoky old London! Don't you wish you were coming out on the downs with me?"

Chris laughed, and held out his hand.

"Good-by, Mrs. Heriot. Good-by and--what do people say?--until our next merry meeting!"

She shook hands with Marie.

"Good-by, you dear thing, and I'm so glad you're so much better."

Feathers was standing by the door of the taxi, his rather shabby slouch hat tilted over his eyes, his hands thrust into his pockets.

Marie turned to him.

"Good-by, Mr. Dakers."

"Good-by, Mrs. Lawless." He shook her hand in his big paw, squeezed it and let it go, standing back to make room for Chris.

Several of the hotel visitors who had been rather friendly with Chris came cl.u.s.tering for a last word.

"See you in town, old chap--cherio! Don't forget to look me up!

You've got my address."

The taxi-driver interposed.

"You ain't got too much time for the train, sir."

"Right-oh! Good-by." The taxicab wheeled about and out into the road. A sudden mist blurred Marie's eyes as she turned in her seat for a last look. She had been unhappy here, and yet--something within her shrank from the thought of leaving it all behind. She had grown to dread the future. In her nervous, apprehensive state she had no hope that this fresh step would be for the better, and she shrank from further pain and disappointment.

When the cab had vanished down the road Mrs. Heriot turned to Feathers.

"You haven't had any lunch," she said.

"No, no, I'm not hungry," he said absently.

He walked away from the door and into the hotel. The lounge was crowded with people, laughing and chattering together, and as he pa.s.sed the inquiry desk he heard one of the clerks say:

"We shan't have a room vacant for three weeks. I don't remember when we were so full."

Was the hotel full! Feathers turned and looked round the crowded lounge as he went slowly up the stairs to his room; strange that it seemed more empty and deserted to him than ever before.

As the train drew slowly out of the station, Chris looked across at his wife with a rather nervous smile.

"Well, that's the end of our honeymoon," he said grimly.

"Yes"--Marie had quite recovered from her breakdown of the morning and she answered quietly enough--"we've had a good time, haven't we?"