Double Harness

He was puzzled still. He could not get down to the root of her objection; and she could not, or would not, put it plainly to him. She could not express the aspect of the affair that was, as she said, so terribly hateful to her. But it was there. All she had given she had given long ago--given freely long ago. Now was she not asking a price for it--and a price which her husband was to share? Only on that ground really was she there. For now the man loved her no more; there was no glamour and no screen. After all these years she came back and asked a price--a price John was to share.

But the case did not strike Caylesham at all like this. John suspected nothing, or John would not have sent his wife there. John had been a very good friend, he would like to do John a good turn. In his case the very circ.u.mstances which so revolted Christine made him more inclined to do John a good turn. Although he could not pretend that the affair had ever made him uncomfortable, still its existence in the past helped John's cause with him now.

"You're not a very trustworthy amba.s.sador," he said, smiling. "I don't think you're playing fair with John, you know."

"Why, do you--you--expect me to?" she asked bitterly.

He shrugged his shoulders in a discreet evasion, seeing the threatened opening of a discussion of a sort always painful and useless.

"John will take failure and all that devilish hard."

He took up the paper again and looked at it. He knew the business was a very good one; after such a warning as this a man would surely go steady; and Grantley Imason had lent money. He built a good deal on that. And--yes--in the end he was ready to run a risk, being a good-natured man and fond of John, and feeling that it would be a very becoming thing in him to do a service to John.

"Look here, I shall attend to your official message. I shan't take any notice of these private communications," he said lightly, but kindly, almost affectionately. "And you mustn't feel that sort of way about it.

Why, I've got a right to help you, anyhow; and I can't see why I mustn't help John."

He went to the table and wrote. He came back to her, holding a cheque in his hand.

"Here it is," he said. "John will send me a letter embodying the business side. I've post-dated the cheque four days, because I must see my bankers about it. Oh, it's not inconvenient; only needs a few days'

notice--and it'll be in time for what John wants. Here, take it, Christine."

He pressed the cheque into her hands, and with a playful show of force shut her fingers upon it.

"I know this has been a--a----" He looked round the room, seeming to seek an apt form of expression. "This has been an uncomfortable job for you, but you really mustn't look at it like that, you know."

"If you give it me, I must take it. I daren't accept the responsibility of refusing it."

He was

"You're doing quite right. You were perfectly square with me; now you're being perfectly square with John."

Perfectly square with John! Christine's lips curved in a smile of scorn.

But--well, sometimes one loses the right or the power to be perfectly square.

"And I'm downright glad to help--downright glad you came to me."

"I only came because I couldn't help it."

"Then I'm downright glad you couldn't help it."

She had loved this unalterable good-temper of his, and admired the tactful way he had of humouring women. If they wouldn't have it in one way, he had always been quite ready to offer it to them in the other, so long as they took it in the end; and this they generally did. She rose to her feet, holding the cheque in her hand.

"Your purse, perhaps?" he suggested, laughing. "You see, it might puzzle your young friend. And give old John my remembrances--and good luck to him. Are you going now?"

"Yes, Frank, I'm going now."

"Good-bye, Christine. I often think of you, you know. I often remember---- Ah, I see I mustn't often remember! Well, you're right, I suppose. But I'm always your friend. Don't be in any trouble without letting me know."

"I shall never come to you again."

He grew a little impatient at that, but still he was quite good-natured about it.

"What's the use of brooding?" he asked. "I mean, if you're running straight now, it's no good being remorseful and that sort of thing; it just wears you out. It would make you look old, if anything could. But I don't believe anything could, you know."

She gave him her hand. Her lips trembled, but she smiled at him now.

"Good-bye, Frank. If I have any hard thoughts, they won't be about you.

You can always"--she hesitated a minute--"always disarm criticism, can't you?"

Caylesham stooped and kissed her hand lightly.

"Don't fret, my dear," he said. "You're better than most by a long way.

Now take your cheque off to poor old John, and both of you be as jolly as you can." He pressed her hand cordially and led her to the door. "I'm glad we've settled things all right. Good-bye."

She shook her head at him, but still she could not help smiling as she said her last good-bye. With the turning of her face the smile disappeared.

Caylesham's smile lasted longer. He stood on his hearthrug, smiling as he remembered; and an idea which forced its way into his head did not drive away the smile. He wondered whether, by any chance, old John had any vague sort of--well, hardly suspicion--but some vague sort of an inkling. He would not have hinted that to Christine, since evidently she did not believe it, and it might have upset her. But really, in the end, was it not more odd to send Christine if he had no inkling at all than if he had just some sort of an idea that there was a reason why her request might be very much more potent than his own? He was inclined to think that John suspected just a flirtation. The notion made him considerably amused at John, but not at all angry with him. It was not a thing he would have done himself, perhaps. Still you can never tell what you will do when you are in a really tight corner. His racing experiences had presented him with a good many cases which supported this conclusion.

Christine felt very tired, but she was not going to give way to that; Anna Selford was too sharp-witted. She chatted gaily as they drove home, mainly about the subject which grieved them both so much--Mrs. Selford's taste in frocks. Matters were in an even more dire way now; Anna could get no frocks! Between pictures and dogs, she declared, her wardrobe stood no chance. Christine was genuinely unable to comprehend such a confusion of relative importance.

"I detest fads," she said severely.

"It doesn't give me a fair chance," lamented Anna, "because I should pay for dressing, shouldn't I, Mrs. Fanshaw?"

Christine reiterated her belief to that effect. It was a melancholy comfort to poor Anna.

"Suppose I'd been going to see Lord Caylesham, dressed like this!"

"My dear, he's old enough to be your father."

"That doesn't matter. He's so smart and good-looking. I see him riding sometimes with Mr. Imason, and he's just the sort of man I admire. I know I should fall in love with him."

Christine laughed, but turned her face a little away.

"I won't help you there; our alliance is only on the subject of frocks."

But how well she knew what Anna meant and felt! And now she was a trifle uneasy. Had any of that talk filtered through leaky Selford conversations to Anna's eagerly listening ears?

"Mamma once told me he'd been very, very wild."

"Stuff! They always say that about a man if he's a bachelor. Sheer feminine spite, in my belief, Anna!"

"What did you go to see him about? Oh, is it a secret?"

Christine was really rather glad to hear the question. It showed that nothing very much of the talk had filtered. And she had her story ready.

"Oh, about a horse. You know we've had to sell our bays, and he's got one that we thought we could buy cheap. John was so busy that I went.

But, alas, it's beyond us, after all."