A Bachelor Husband Part 13

"She was my best friend at school, and she was ever such a sport!

She could beat all the other girls at games, and she could ride horse-back, and--oh, lots of things like that!"

"She sounds rather a masculine young lady."

"Oh, no, she isn't! Not a bit! I think you would like her!" A faint smile stole into her eyes. "She was another person who was asked to my wedding and did not come," she added teasingly.

Feathers laughed. "And now I suppose if I stay any longer Chris will be on my track and say that I'm tiring you out."

"Does he say that?" she asked, and a little gleam of eagerness crossed her face. She loved to hear that Chris was anxious about her, or that he made it his business to see she was not overtired.

"As a matter of fact, I think it was the doctor who said it,"

Feathers answered innocently.

"Oh!" said Marie disappointedly... .

She persuaded Dr. Carey to allow her downstairs the following day, and Chris carried her out into the garden and propped her up in a deck chair with cus.h.i.+ons and rugs.

"I'm not an invalid really, you know," she said, looking up at him shyly. "I could have walked quite well."

She felt bound to say it, and yet not for worlds would she have forgone being carried in his arms. The distance had seemed all too short. Just for a little she had been quite, quite happy.

Young Atkins was fussing around. He had an enormous bunch of roses in one hand and all the newest magazines in the other. He could not do enough for her. As soon as Chris moved away he dragged a chair up and sat down beside her.

"You look heaps better." he declared fervently. He always said the same thing every time he saw her. "You do feel better, don't you?"

She laughed at his eagerness.

"I really feel quite well, but they will persist that I'm an invalid."

She looked around for Chris, but he had strolled away, and she gave a little sigh.

"I've got to go back to town to-morrow," young Atkins said presently. He spoke rather lugubriously.

"Rotten, isn't it? And, I say, Mrs. Lawless, I may come and see you when you get back, mayn't I?"

"If you want to--of course!"

"Of course I want to?" He had never been in love before, but he was fully persuaded that he was in love now, and he never lost an opportunity to scowl at Chris--when his back was turned!

He moved a little closer to Marie, and looked down at her earnestly.

"If ever there's anything you want done, never be afraid to ask me to do it!" he said. "You'll remember that, won't you?"

Marie did not take him seriously. She was not used to being made love to. She just looked upon him as a boy.

"Why, of course I will! And there's something you can do for me now, if you will--see if there are any letters."

"Of course!" He was off in an instant, and Marie looked across the garden, hoping desperately that Chris would see she was alone and return.

But he was laughing and talking with Mrs. Heriot and an elderly man and a little chill feeling of unwantedness stole into her heart.

Would life always be like this? she asked herself, and closed her eyes with a sudden feeling of dread.

Supposing she had been drowned! Supposing Feathers had not been in time after all!

She tried to believe that Chris would have been brokenhearted, but she knew the folly of such a belief. He would have been sorry, of course, for they had known one another so long--been such pals, in the past, at any rate!

"A penny for your thoughts," said Feathers beside her, and she looked up with a little half-sigh.

"You will be angry with me if I tell you."

"I shall not! Am I ever angry with you?"

"I think you could be," she answered, seriously.

He sat down in the chair young Atkins had left. "Tell me, and see,"

he suggested, half in fun.

Marie looked across at her husband, and then back at the man beside her.

"I was wondering," she said, "what would have happened if you had not pulled me out of the sea?"

"What would have happened?" He echoed her words with mock seriousness. "Well, you would have been drowned, of course."

"I know I--I don't mean that I--I mean, what would have happened to--to Chris--and everyone else."

Feathers did not answer. He vaguely felt that there was some serious question at the back of her words, but his experience of women was so small that he was unable to understand.

"We don't want to think of such things," he said briskly after a moment, "You are alive and well. Isn't that all that matters?"

She did not answer, and looking at her curiously, he was struck by the sadness of her face, by the downward curves of her pretty mouth and the wistfulness of her eyes, and suddenly he realized that he had inadvertently stumbled across a secret which he had never suspected, and it was--that this girl was unhappy!

Whose fault? The question clamored at his brain. Chris' fault or her own? He was conscious of anger against his friend.

Chris was sauntering back to them through the suns.h.i.+ne. He looked very careless and debonair, and was whistling as he came.

Feathers rose. "Take this chair." he said curtly.

"No, don't you get up." But Feathers insisted, and as soon as Chris was seated he walked off to the hotel.

He went into the lounge and aimlessly took up a paper, but he did not read a word.

Fond as he was of Chris, he knew all his faults and limitations, knew just how selfish he could be, and a vague fear for Marie grew in his heart.

A little distance from him Mrs. Heriot and another woman were talking. It was quiet in the lounge, and Feathers could hear what they were saying, without the smallest effort on his part to listen.

The newspaper screened his face, and he could only suppose afterwards that they were unconscious of his presence, for Mrs.

Heriot said with a rather cynical laugh: