A Bachelor Husband Part 35

Chris put the new rod away rather offendedly.

"Of course, you don't care for sport," he said, "I forgot."

That hurt more than anything, especially as she knew that either Dorothy Webber or Mrs. Heriot would have thoroughly entered into a discussion with him upon the merits of bait and the various catches he had successfully landed.

Marie did her best during those last few days, but all her efforts went singularly unrewarded.

Chris was too engrossed in his preparations to take much notice of her, though once he brought her the old tweed coat to have a b.u.t.ton sewn on, and once he asked diffidently if she would mind marking some new handkerchiefs for him.

Marie did both little services with pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude to him for having asked her. During the last day she followed him round the house just as she had been wont to do when they were both children and he had come home for the holidays.

She ran errands for him, and did all the odd jobs which he did not want to do for himself, and at the last, when his fattest portmanteau would not close, she sat on the top of it to try and coax it to behave.

Chris was kneeling on the floor in his shirt sleeves, tugging at the straps and swearing under his breath. He looked up at her once to say what a pity it was she did not weigh more, but there was a smile in his eyes. "You're such a kid," he said affectionately.

But he managed to fasten the bag at last, and stood up, hot and perspiring.

"You've got my address, haven't you?" he asked, looking round his dismantled room. "Write if you want anything, and I'll send you some postcards. You've got plenty of money in the bank, and there's heaps more when that's gone. Have a good time."

"Yes," said Marie, and wondered if he would be very contemptuous if she told him that it felt like dying to know that he was going away and that she was to be left behind.

He had a last hurried lunch with her and Miss Chester, during which he looked at his watch almost every minute, and hoped that the taxi would not forget to come.

"You could have had the car, Chris," Miss Chester said, but Chris replied that it was not worth while and that a taxi would do.

He went out in the hall to have a last look at his luggage and make sure that nothing was forgotten, and Marie ran up to her room.

She stood there with clenched hands and lips firmly set; she was dreadfully afraid that she was going to cry and disgrace herself forever, and then what a memory Chris would have of her to carry away with him! She heard the taxi come up to the door, and the sound of the luggage being taken out, then Chris came running upstairs calling to her.

"Yes--here I am."

He came into the room in his overcoat; she had not seen him look so young or happy for weeks, and it gave her another pang to realize that he was quite pleased to be leaving her behind.

"I'm just off," he said. He came up to her and put his arm round her waist "Take care of yourself, Marie Celeste."

"Oh, yes." He turned her face upwards with a careless hand and kissed her cheek. "I'll send you a wire as soon as we get there."

"Yes." She stood quite impa.s.sively beside him, and then as he would have moved away she suddenly turned and put her arms round his neck.

"I hope you will have a very good time, Chris," she said, and for the first time since their marriage kissed him of her own accord.

The hot color flew to Chris' face; she had always been so cold and unemotional that this impulsive embrace embarra.s.sed him.

For a moment he looked at her wonderingly, then he asked:

"Why did you do that, Marie Celeste?"

She forced a little laugh.

"Because you're going away, of course."

"Oh, I see--well, good-by."

"Good-by." But still he hesitated before he turned to the door, but she did not speak, and he went on and downstairs again.

Marie went over to the window. There were tears in her eyes, but it did not matter now that Chris had gone. She pulled the curtain aside and looked down into the street.

What a heap of luggage he had taken! And she remembered how he had once said that he disliked traveling with a woman because she always took such quant.i.ties of baggage!

Then Chris came out of the house and got into the taxi. He slammed the door, and she heard him speak to the driver, and the next moment the taxicab had wheeled about and gone.

She let the curtain fall and looked round the room. How quickly things happened! A moment ago and she had stood here with his arms about her, and now he had gone--for how long she did not know.

When she had asked him he had answered vaguely that it all depended on the weather, but that he would let her know.

"A fortnight?" she hazarded timidly, and he had answered, "About that, I expect."

She went through the dividing door to his deserted room. It was all upside down as he had left it, and strewn with things he had discarded at the last moment.

It almost seemed as if he had died and would never come back, she thought drearily, then tried to laugh.

After all, there was nothing so strange in his going away for a holiday with his friends; she knew she would not have minded at all had things been all right between them. It was just this dreadful feeling that, although she was his wife, she held no place in his life, that made trivialities a tragedy. She did not count--he could give her a careless kiss just as he had done years ago when he came home from Cambridge or went back again, and walk out of the house without a single regret.

She wondered what Feathers thought about it all, and her heart warmed at the memory of him--kind, ugly Feathers! She wished she could see him again.

She did her best to be cheerful during the days that followed, but it was uphill work. After the first telegram she heard but seldom from Chris. The weather was topping--so he wrote on a postcard, and they were having splendid golf.

He never mentioned Feathers, or spoke of coming home, and it seemed to Marie as if he and she were in different worlds.

That he could enjoy himself and be quite happy without her seemed an impossibility when she was so miserable and restless.

Then one morning she ran across young Atkins in Regent Street. She would have pa.s.sed him without recognition but that he stopped and spoke her name.

"Mrs. Lawless!" He was unfeignedly delighted to see her. He insisted on her lunching with him.

"I've thought about you ever since we said good-by," he declared.

"I've often longed to call, but did not like to."

She laughed at his eagerness.

"Why ever not? I gave you my address. I should have been awfully pleased to see you."

"Really! It's topping of you to say so, but I don't think Chris would have been exactly tickled to death! He never forgave me for nearly drowning you, you know."

"Nonsense! And, besides, you didn't nearly drown me. It was my own fault," she laughed suddenly. "You know I never gave you that promised box of cigarettes. Don't you remember that we had a bet of a box of chocolates against a box of cigarettes? Well--you won."

She was delighted to see him again; he was very young and cheerful, and quite open in his adoration of her.