Chapter 15
"He hates me, you know," she explained to Chris as they went on down the road.
"He doesn't like any women," Chris said easily.
"You really think so?" she asked, raising her brows.
"I am sure of it." He seemed struck by her silence, and turned his head sharply. "What do you mean?"
"Only that I thought he seemed rather friendly with your little wife," she explained.
"Oh, with Marie!" Chris laughed. "Yes, I'm glad to say he is. They get on very well together. He saved her life, you know."
"Of course! How stupid of me!" She pretended that she had forgotten, and Chris frowned.
"Why on earth can't the woman be natural?" he was thinking impatiently. He had quite missed her venomous little shaft with regard to his wife and Feathers. His was a most unsuspicious nature, and he cared too little for Marie to feel the slightest jealousy.
He had laughed at Atkins' devotion to her. Atkins was a young idiot, but he had been pleased that she and Feathers had taken such a liking to one another. It argued well for a future in which Chris could see himself wanting to knock about town with Feathers as he had done before he was married.
They played a round of golf, and Mrs. Heriot beat him.
"What a triumph!" she said mockingly, when they sat down to rest on a gra.s.sy slope. "You're not playing well to-day, Chris."
She had always called him by his Christian name. She was one of those women who call all men by their Christian names without first being invited to do so.
She was a widow with a large income, and a spiteful nature. She did not actually wish to re-marry, because if she did so she would lose the money left her by her husband, but all the same, she did not like to see her men friends monopolized and married by other women.
She was thinking of her husband now, as she sat, chin on hand, staring down at Chris, sprawled beside her on the gra.s.s.
Duncan Heriot had died in India while his wife was in England, and he had died of too much drink and an enlarged liver. As she looked at Chris, with his handsome face and long, lithe figure, she was mentally contrasting him with the short, stubby man whom she had married solely for his money.
She liked Chris for the same reason that he liked her. They had many tastes in common and seldom bored one another.
She was a year or two older than he, but she was still a young woman, and had it not been for the money question she would have done her best to marry him; but she knew that Chris had no money, and life without money was to Mrs. Heriot very much as a motor-car would be without its engine. So she had launched the craft of Plato between them, and comforted herself with the thought that he was not a marrying man.
It had
Her quick eyes had already discovered that it had not been for love! She had made a life study of the opposite s.e.x, and she knew without any telling that there was another reason for which she must seek.
"You know," she said, abruptly, "I was ever so surprised to hear that you were married?"
"Were you?" Christ tilted his hat further over his eyes. "Most people were, I think. Poor old Feathers was absolutely disgusted."
"It was very sudden, wasn't it?" she pursued. "Quite romantic, from all accounts."
"Oh, I don't know. I've known her all my life--we were brought up together."
"Really!" She opened her eyes wide. "Cousins or something?" she hazarded.
"No. Marie's father adopted me."
Chris rose to his feet and yawned. He knew that he was being pumped.
"Shall we play another round?" he asked.
"Of course." She was a little chagrined. She had imagined that their friends.h.i.+p was on too secure a basis to permit of such a decided snubbing. She played badly, as she always did when she was annoyed, and Chris won easily.
"You threw that away deliberately," he challenged her.
She laughed. "Did I? Perhaps I did. You annoyed me."
"In what way?"
"I thought we were friends, and when I ventured to be interested in your marriage you snubbed me abominably."
Her eyes were plaintive as they met his, and, manlike, Chris felt slightly flattered.
Mrs. Heriot was a much-sought-after woman and he knew that she had always shown a distinct preference for his society.
"I did not think you would be interested." he said lamely. "And there is nothing to tell if you are looking for a romance."
"That is what you say." she declared. "But that is so like a man-- never will admit it when he cares for a woman."
Chris colored a little. He could not imagine what it was she wanted him to say.
"You've always been such a confirmed bachelor." she went on. "I am beginning to think that your wife must be a very wonderful woman to have so completely metamorphosed you."
Chris frowned. He resented this cross-examination even while he was half inclined to think it unreasonable of him to do so. After all, he had known Mrs. Heriot some considerable time, and, as she said, they had always been good friends.
"I can tell you one thing," he said half seriously. "And that is, that my wife is the only woman in the world for whom I would have given up my bachelor freedom! There, will that satisfy you?"
Mrs. Heriot smiled sweetly. She always smiled sweetly when she was feeling particularly vixenish.
"How sweet of you! How very sweet!" she murmured. "Of course, I have always said what a particularly charming girl she is--so unspoilt, so unsophisticated! I suppose it is just another case of like attracting unlike."
"I suppose it is," said Chris bluntly. He wished to goodness she would talk about something else. He was shrewd enough to detect the sting beneath her sugary words, and all his pride, if nothing more, rose in defense of Marie. He thought of her with a little glow of affectionate warmth.
"She's the most unselfish child I've ever met." he said impulsively.
She was still a child to him. It was odd that he still could not dissociate her in his mind from the little girl with the pigtail and wistful eyes who had waited on him hand and foot all his life.
Perhaps if he could have realized that Marie was a woman, at least in heart and thoughts, there might have been a better understanding between them; but as it was--well, everything was all right, and Marie had written to Aunt Madge that she was "ever so happy."
It was just as they reached the hotel again that Mrs. Heriot said with a sentimental sigh: "Perfect, perfect weather, isn't it?
Glorious days, and--oh, did you notice the moon last night?"
Chris stood quite still. With a shock of guilt he remembered Marie's little request to him and his own forgetfulness. The angry blood rushed to his face. He hated to feel that perhaps he had disappointed her.
He left Mrs. Heriot in the lounge and went straight up to his wife's room. She was not there, but a book which he knew she had been reading was lying open on her dressing-table and a little pair of white shoes stood neatly together on the rug.
Chris rubbed the back of his head with a curiously boyish look of embarra.s.sment. It seemed odd to think that he and little Marie Celeste were really husband and wife! He cast a furtive look at himself in her mirror. He did not look much like a married man, he thought, and laughed as he took up the book which Marie had been reading. It was a book of poems, and Chris made a little grimace.