The Oyster Part 42

remember, only as your friend."

"Child, do you take me for a brute?" he said, as he drew her down beside him.

Poor Friendship, lending his cloak once more, standing mournfully as Love flings it over his pink shoulders; knowing so well how the G.o.d liked to hide and mock beneath the solid folds.

"Oh! I am so tired, Estelle," said Bertie.

Friends only--the cloak held firmly. But friends' lips do not meet with a thrill of joy; friends do not know the unrestful happiness which came to these two as they sat hand-in-hand--their two years' sham fight over.

CHAPTER XIII

"OH, bother!" said Denise Blakeney. "Bother!"

"What is it, Den?"

Sir Cyril sat on his wife's bed; he was up early, out about the place, arranging the day, looking at his horses, his herd of shorthorns, speaking to the keepers. His men feared Sir Cyril, and served him well.

Denise pushed a letter away.

She was pretty and fresh in her lace cap, her rose-pink wrapper.

"Oh, nothing!" she answered. "It's time to get up, isn't it?"

"To-morrow," he said, "it will be time an hour earlier."

"Shooting mornings are so long," yawned Denise.

"But what, or who, worried you, Den? Why did you exclaim?"

An insistent man, he held out his hand for the letter.

"Oh! nothing, Cyrrie. No, you mustn't see it. It's only from Esme, grumbling. I couldn't show it to you. There are things about herself--her health." Denise talked very fast, growing a little breathless. "And she wants a little loan--and I'm short. She was so good to me that time abroad, you know--she--"

"She's rankly extravagant," said Cyril, equably. The silken quilt had slipped on one side; he saw the figures 200 written plainly. Sir Cyril sat thinking, frowning as he thought. He gave Denise a huge allowance to do as she chose with; but twice in the last year she had asked him for more.

"She's rankly extravagant," he went on, "and she must not worry you, my dear. I'll send her five-and-twenty."

"No, Cyril, not you--it would be a breach of confidence."

"There can be no breaches of confidence between a wife and her husband." His eyes hardened, his big jaw stuck out. "No secrets, Den. I tell you that, and I mean it. If she has asked you before I should have known. I expect to know again."

Stooping, he kissed her lightly, but she knew the meaning in his voice, knew and dreaded him. The folly of her petty sinning had been crossed out, but since then she was his, and he would stand no deceiving.

"You fool! to write to me," almost whimpered Denise.

Esme had written excitedly. She had raved on at Bertie, stormed, cried, grown calm, and then angry. Money must be found now--must! Two hundred was not enough. Denise must send three, advance the money for January; she must give at least two hundred to the rapacious Claire. So her letter was a flurried one, lacking caution. "I must, Denise," she wrote--"I _must_ have money. I could have it of my own if I--if I--upset everything. You know what I mean. So don't refuse me, old girl, for old sake's sake. Send me something to sell if you can't manage coin. I'm really in a corner. Bertie's grumbling, Claire pressing. You know what Hugh has said--that if I had a child he'd leave us money, and so--" then a long blank.

"She is mad," whispered Denise, now white to the lips, shaking from sick fear. "If she told, if it came out. I'd deny it all! She dare not; but--if she did!" She sat up, shivering, and Sir Cyril, looking in, saw her.

"That Carteret girl is worrying Den," he said to himself.

"And I haven't got it," muttered Denise. "I don't think so, and I daren't send off jewels, for that tiresome Studley counts them all, and nothing wants mending."

She must slip into the town, get money and send it off. Cyrrie had been looking over her accounts lately; she had had to draw out money in small sums, and send them on.

Denise was frightened. She was going down when she saw the tell-tale letter lying on her bed. She ran back, tore it up, burnt it in her fire; came to breakfast shaken and looking ill.

Cyril was making his own tea; Denise took coffee; the boys, in their high chairs, were solemnly eating bread and milk, eating fast that they might reach the stage of scrambled eggs, and later, honey or jam.

"Oh, Cyril, how you mess!" Cyril had dropped his spoon. "You shan't have any jam now, or egg--only bread and b.u.t.ter."

"You're hard on him, Den. Any fellow can drop a spoon."

"He can also learn to hold it. Now don't cry, Cyril."

"I never does," said Cyril, quietly. "Never, mumsie."

"No--you sulk." Denise was venting her irritation on the boy.

Big Cyril was thinking. He thought quietly, and, equally quietly, acted. Denise must not be weak enough to go on paying for one winter's kindness.

"Say sorry and mumsie will give us jam," said Sir Cyril.

"Didn't drop it a pupus, dads." The clear baby eyes met Sir Cyril's, filled with the mystical reasoning of childhood. "Not a pupus--the dog joggled me, dad."

Sir Cyril grinned gently; Denise muttered something, and he helped the boys to egg.

Cyril, forgetting the wisdom of silence, wished to know why hens wouldn't lay eggs scrambled, an' save cook's trouble, and Cecil suggested telling the fowl-woman.

"I am going to Insminton, Cyril. I have to get some things."

"Yes. I'll come in with you. No one will be here before one."

Denise flushed; then she must go in the afternoon, and the bank would be shut.

She sat fidgeting, afraid to the bottom of her shallow soul of the big-jawed man she had married.

She had seen him angry--knew the depths of his cold anger, and his ideas of justice. The hard Blakeney pictured faces frowned down upon her from the dining-room walls; a race of human steamrollers, driven by the power of determination; diving aside respectfully for what they realized to be the rightful traffic of the road of life, but coming on mercilessly to grind what needed grinding.

"Coming, Den?" Sir Cyril called from the door.

Denise came reluctantly; she must pretend to have some errands, for she knew she would get no opportunity now of going to the bank. Her husband would do his own work quickly, then drive her about, waiting for her.

The big drapers scored by an order for silk and for table linen.