A Bachelor Husband Part 62

She shook her head.

"I don't know!"

Miss Chester came to the door.

"Marie, I've been looking everywhere for you--I've lost one of my knitting needles."

Marie flew to find it for her. She avoided Chris for the rest of the morning for she was afraid of him now. Although she had deliberately precipitated matters, she awaited the issue with dread.

Chris did not come in to lunch, and, though once during the afternoon Marie heard his voice in the house, he did not seek her out, and at dinner time he was absent again.

Though nothing was said. Miss Chester could feel the tension in the air, and late that night she asked hesitatingly: "Is anything the matter, Marie?"

"Nothing--no, auntie, of course not."

But Miss Chester was not deceived, and her mind was racked with anxiety.

Marie felt as if she were waiting for something great to happen, though what it was she did not know. Every knock or ring of the bell made her pulses race.

That Chris was deliberately avoiding her she knew, and she wondered how long it would be before the breaking point came. She longed to get it over.

Once she caught sight of herself in the gla.s.s and was startled by her pallor and the strained look in her eyes. A frightened look it was, she thought, and she pa.s.sed her hands across them as if to brush it out.

She stayed downstairs till Chris came in that night. She stood just outside the drawing-room door, her heart beating apprehensively.

Supposing he was the worse for drink, as he had been last night?

But she need not have been afraid. Chris was sober enough. He had been walking the streets for hours, beating against the invisible bars that had so suddenly appeared in his life.

When he saw his wife his face hardened.

"You ought to have gone to bed hours ago," he said.

"I waited for you; I want to speak to you; I waited last night, too," she added deliberately.

He did not look at all ashamed, only laughed rather defiantly.

"And I was the worse for drink, eh? I suppose the elevating fact did not do my cause any good."

She did not answer, wondering what he would say if she told him what determinating factor against him that glimpse over the banisters had been.

He leaned against the mantelpiece and looked at her.

"Well, I'm stone sober to-night, anyway," he said morosely.

There was a little silence.

"What do you want to see me about?" he asked. "Only the same old thing, I suppose--the desire to be free."

He took a sudden step towards her, tilting her downbent face backwards by her chin.

"Why did you marry me, if you hate me so?"

She closed her eyes to hide their pain.

"I was--was fond of you--I thought it would be all right--I thought you were fond of me."

"I have always been fond of you."

She looked up quickly.

"You would never have married me if it hadn't been for the money."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not in me to love any woman a great deal," he said evasively.

"I've never been a woman's man, you know that. There was never anything in that Mrs. Heriot affair, though I know you don't believe me."

He stood back from her, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"Supposing we could get a divorce--separation--whatever you like to call it, how much better off are you going to be?" he asked after a moment "What's the good of washing dirty linen for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the public?"

The burning color rushed to her face. She had lived so much in the clouds since the moment when she found that little dead flower in Feathers' coat pocket that Chris' blunt words sounded horribly brutal. Chris, watching her narrowly, saw the sudden quivering of her lips, and his heart smote him.

"Go to bed, Marie Celeste," he said more gently. "It's no use worrying about things to-night."

He cared so little. The thought stung her afresh as she turned away. He would have been quite content to go on in the old, semi-detached fashion, with not a thought for her.

Chris listened to her dragging steps as she went up the stairs.

They sounded as if they were already walking away out of his life, he thought, with a little feeling of superst.i.tion, and he wondered if the day would ever come when she would cease to belong to him.

He could not imagine his life without Marie Celeste. She had always been there, a willing little figure in the background of things.

All his boyhood and early manhood were studded with pictures in which she had played a part.

She had seemed happy enough when they were first married, or so it had appeared to his blindness. What had happened since to bring about such a change?

He could not believe it was altogether Feathers. He did not believe that his friend was the type of man to seriously interest Marie.

Feathers never took women seriously.

He looked at his watch--not yet half-past eleven.

He had not seen Feathers since they parted at the door on Sunday evening, and with sudden impulse he took his hat and went off to Albany Street.

There was a light in one of the windows of Feathers' rooms, and Chris threw up a stone.

The window was open, and almost immediately Feathers' rough head appeared against the light.

"Hullo! That you, Chris?"