A Bachelor Husband Part 7

"No--" And the silence came again before Chris said constrainedly:

"Very well--it shall be as you wish--of course!"

He waited a moment, but she did not speak, and he turned to the door. "Good-night, Marie Celeste."

"Good-night."

The door opened, and after a moment she heard it shut again softly, and the sound of his footsteps dying away down the corridor.

That n.o.body should know, that n.o.body should ever guess, was the one feverish thought in Marie's brain as she lay awake through the long night, listening to the sound of the waves on the sh.o.r.e, and trying to make some sort of plans for the future.

To behave as if nothing were the matter, as if she were quite happy. An impossible task it seemed, and yet she meant to do it.

She would not further alienate Chris by scenes and tears.

If he did not care for her she would not let him think that it worried her. Surely, if she were brave and turned a smiling face to a world that had suddenly grown so empty something good would come out of it all. Some small reward would creep out of the blackness that enveloped her.

Though she knew it was unjust in her heart she laid all the trouble at Dakers' door--"Feathers," as Chris and young Atkins called him.

She thought of his ugly, kindly face as she lay there in the darkness, and silently hated him. She would never be able to like him, she would never be able to forgive him. But for him and his carelessly spoken words ... and then she hid her face in the pillow, and for the first time the tears came. What was the use of blaming him when the blame was not his? How could he help it that Chris did not love her? What was it to do with him if Chris had seen fit to marry her in order to get her father's money?

It was fate, that was all. A cruel fate that had drawn a line through her happiness almost before the word had been written.

It hurt unbearably to think that Aunt Madge had known all the time.

Marie clenched her hands as she recalled the old lady's whispered good-by:

"G.o.d bless you and make you very happy!"

How could she have said such a thing--knowing what she knew?

"I will be happy, I will," the girl told herself over and over again. After all, there were other things in the world besides love.

She got up early, long before the other people in the hotel were astir, and went out and down to the sands.

It was a lovely morning, warm and sunny, and the tide was out, leaving a long wet stretch of golden sand behind.

A boy with bare, brown legs was pushing his way through the little waves with a shrimping net, and further along a man was strolling by the water's edge, idly picking up pebbles and throwing them into the sea.

Marie walked on, the fresh breeze blowing through her hair and fanning her tired face.

Only two months ago and she had been a girl at school, with her hair down her back and not a care in the world save an occasional heartache when she thought of Chris. Only two months! She felt as if she had taken a great spring across the gulf dividing girlhood from womanhood, and was looking back across it now with regretful eyes.

Why had she been in such a hurry to grow up? She understood for the first time what Aunt Madge and other grown-up people meant when they said that they looked upon their school days as the happiest of their lives.

"Are mine going to be the happiest?" Marie thought. Even they had not been very happy. She had never been very popular at school, and she had never been clever. Her lessons had always worried her, and she never quite got over het first feeling of homesickness as the other girls did.

"You're too sentimental, too romantic!" so her best friend, Dorothy Webber, had often told her. "If you don't cure yourself, my dear, you'll find a lot of trouble waiting for you in the future."

She had found it already, sooner even than Dorothy had dreamed.

She looked down at her hand with its new wedding ring, and a little blush rose to her pale cheeks.

"He's mine, at any rate," she told herself fiercely. "Even if he doesn't love me, he is my husband, and n.o.body else can have him."

It was some sort of comfort to know that the adored Chris was hers.

The knowledge sent some streak of sunshine across the blackness of last night.

She strolled along restlessly, blind to the beauty of the sea and sky, lost in her own bruised, bewildered thoughts. She had pa.s.sed the boy with the shrimping net, and had come abreast with the man sauntering at the water's edge without noticing it, until he spoke to her.

"Good morning, Mrs. Lawless."

She started, flushing painfully as her eyes met the kindly quizzical gaze of "Feathers."

He looked uglier than ever in the morning sunshine, was her first bitter thought, and he wore a loose, collarless shirt which was open at the neck and showed his thick, muscular throat.

His big feet were thrust into not over-clean white canvas shoes, and a damp towel and bathing costume hung inelegantly over one shoulder.

"Good morning," said Marie. "I thought I was the first one up," she added resentfully.

He laughed carelessly.

"I'm always up with the lark--or aren't there any larks at a place like this? I've had a dip--I like the sea to myself, before it's crowded with flappers and fat old ladies."

"Perhaps they prefer it, too," said Marie. The words had escaped her almost before she was aware of it, and she flushed hotly, ashamed of her rudeness.

But "Feathers" only laughed.

"I knew you didn't like me," he said in friendly fashion. "I could read it in your eyes last night."

She was nonplussed by his frankness.

"I can't like you or dislike you," she said after a moment. "I don't know anything about you."

"I know you don't," he agreed calmly. "But you think you do! And that's where you are mistaken! If you take my advice, Mrs. Lawless, you'll make a friend of me."

She stared at him with growing indignation.

"Why, whatever for?" she asked blankly. She had never been spoken to in such a manner before.

Feathers laughed again, and ran his fingers through his unruly hair.

"Well, for one thing, I'm your husband's best friend," he said sententiously. "And I always think it's policy for a woman to keep in with her husband's best friend. What do you think?"

There was nothing but friendliness in his voice and words, but they angered Marie.

"My husband's friends don't interest me in the least," she said untruthfully.

Feathers stooped and picked up another smooth pebble, with which he skillfully skimmed the surface of the sea half a dozen times.

"That's a pity," he said. "And sounds as if you are very young." He looked down at her. "How old are you?" he asked interestedly.