A Bachelor Husband Part 4

"I met some fellows just now that I know," he said, as they sat down to table. "I'll introduce you later. They're stopping here."

She flushed sensitively. "Did you? Did they know you were married?"

she asked.

"I told them."

"Were they very surprised?"

"Well, they were--rather," he admitted, and frowned, recalling the very downright criticism which he had received from at least one of them.

At dinner Marie obediently drank one gla.s.s of champagne, and got a headache. She was rather glad to be left to herself for a little afterwards in the coolness of the lounge outside, while Chris went in search of his friends. She chose a chair that was not prominent, and sat down with closed eyes.

She had never stayed in a hotel before, and the noise and bustle of it all rather confused her. She was wondering how she would ever find her way through all the corridors to her room again, when she caught the mention of her husband's name.

It was spoken in a man's voice and spoken with a little laugh that sounded rather contemptuous, she thought.

She sat up instantly, headache forgotten. Probably this was one of the friends of whom Chris had spoken to her before dinner. She leaned a little forward, trying to see the speaker, but a group of ornamental palms and flowers successfully obscured him.

The man, whoever he was, was talking to another, for presently Marie heard a laugh and a second voice say: "Chris Lawless! Oh, yes, I know him! Is he really married?"

"Yes--married a girl he's known all his life. Quite a child, so they say."

"How romantic!"

"Romantic!" The man echoed the word rather cynically. "There's not much romance in it from all accounts--just a business arrangement, I should call it."

Marie sat quite still. She was not conscious of listening, but there seemed no other sound in all the world than this man's rather hard voice as he went on:

"Lawless was old Chester's adopted son, you know, and the girl was Chester's daughter. There was a stack of money to leave, it seems, and when the old man died he left it in his will that they were to have half each on condition they married--but if they didn't, the whole lot went to the girl! Well, you know what Lawless is? He wasn't going to let a good thing like that escape him, you bet! So he just made up to the girl and married her. They're down here on their honeymoon."

"You mean--he's not keen on the girl?"

"Of course he's not! He's not the sort. Never cared for women! Have you ever heard of him being mixed up with one? I never have! Of course, I don't know what the girl's like--I'm rather curious to meet her, I admit--but from what I know of Chris, and his way of living, I'm dashed sorry for her! She'll find she's married a bachelor husband, and no mistake."

Marie sat perfectly still, her eyes fixed on her white slippers as if she saw them now for the first time; her hands loosely clasped in her lap, her new wedding ring s.h.i.+ning in the light above her head.

It was strange that she never for one moment questioned the truth of what that voice had said. In her heart she knew that she had always thought her happiness too great to last. She drew a long, hard breath, as if it hurt her. The end had come sooner than she had expected, that was all!

"Don't think I'm running him down, you know," the voice went on emphatically. "I think he's the best old chap in the world; but some men are made like that, you know! Born bachelors."

Marie smiled faintly. Poor old Chris! What an awful position for him. She shut her eyes tightly with a quick feeling of giddiness.

What could she do now? What could she say to him? Ought she to tell him?

She tried to think, but somehow her brain felt woolly and would not work. There was a queer little pain in her hand, and looking down blankly, she saw that her nails had cut deeply into her flesh, their clasp of one another had been so cruel.

"The money was left between them on condition they married-- otherwise she got it all."

The words beat against her brain as if daring her to forget them.

Poor Chris! He had always been fond of money. He had never had enough to spend! She could remember when he first went to Oxford, how often he wrote home for extra money.

It had never been refused, either. She knew that her father had always preferred him to herself, strange as it might seem, and had encouraged him in his extravagances.

Incidents out of the past flitted before her like panoramic pictures; Chris as a long-legged schoolboy as she had first seen him, Chris in cricketing flannels, making her do all the bowling and fielding while he had the bat, Chris in his first silk hat, daring her to laugh at him--and, last of all, Chris as he had looked at her that day outside Westminster Abbey when he asked her to marry him.

She could remember that he had said, "Well, is the idea too dreadful?" and she supposed now he had said that because the idea had been dreadful to him.

A bachelor husband! It seemed so completely to sum up the situation, and before her eyes rose a dreadful picture of the future in which Chris would be nothing more to her than he had been during the past five years.

He would never want to be with her. He would still go his own way.

He would make his own friends and his own amus.e.m.e.nts, and she--what could she do with the rest of her life?

"He's on his honeymoon here, you know," the voice went on with just a shade of amus.e.m.e.nt in it. "Fancy a honeymoon in this hotel! He didn't mean to be dull, did he? I suppose he knew he was morally certain to meet half his pals down here."

Marie's hands were tearing a little lace handkerchief she carried-- it had been her wedding handkerchief--Aunt Madge had given it to her just before they started for church, and had told her that her mother had carried it at her wedding.

"But I hope you will be much, much happier than your mother, darling child," so Aunt Madge had said as she kissed her.

Poor Aunt Madge! And poor mother! Maria knew that her mother's marriage had been anything but happy, and she was glad when she saw that unconsciously she had torn the little lace handkerchief to rags. At least now it could not be handed on to any other poor little bride as an omen of ill-luck.

"What about that game of billiards?" the voice asked with a yawn, and there was a movement on the other side of the bank of ferns which hid the speaker from Marie.

She could not see him as he moved away, and she sat on, numbed and cold, until presently Chris came looking for her and found her out.

"Here you are then! I thought you were in the drawing-room. I want to introduce you to Dakers, Marie Celeste!" He seemed conscious all at once of her pallor. "Don't you feel well?" he asked.

She rose to her feet, forcing a smile.

"My head aches a little. I think it was the champagne."

Chris laughed.

"Silly kid! It will do you good."

He slipped a careless hand through her arm and led her across the lounge to where a group of men stood chatting and laughing together.

He touched one of them on the shoulder.

"Dakers--I want to introduce you to my wife----"

He rushed the last two words nervously. "Marie, this is Dakers-- otherwise Feathers. I hope you'll be friends."

Marie gave him her hand. Was this the man who had brought her castle tumbling down? she wondered and her brown eyes were full of unconscious pathos as she raised them to his face.

What an ugly man, she thought, with a sudden feeling of aversion, with blunt, roughly-cut features, and a skin burnt almost black by constant exposure to wind and weather, but his face when he smiled was kindly, and involuntarily she returned the pressure of his fingers.

And then he spoke, and she recognized his voice instantly as the voice of the man who, with careless indifference, had blasted her happiness.