“I suppose it was wrong of me to have said that,” she told herself in a panic as she went in to dinner.  “But after all, it serves him right!  Perhaps he’ll understand now something of what she suffered, poor darling.”

Out in the hall Jimmy was standing at the foot of the stairs looking up at Christine.

“I—­I feel such an awful brute,” he began agitatedly.  “I don’t deserve that you should consider me in the least.  I—­I’ll do my best, Christine.”

She seemed to avoid looking at him.  She moved quickly past him.

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” she said nervously.  “I’d much rather we did not talk about it.”  She went on into the dining-room without him.

Jimmy stood for a moment irresolute, he could not believe that it was Christine who had spoken to him like this.  Christine, who so obviously wished to avoid being with him.

A sudden flame of jealousy seared his heart, he clenched his fists.  Kettering—­damn the fellow, how dared he make love to another man’s wife!

But he had conquered his agitation before he followed Christine.  He did his best to be cheerful and amusing during dinner.  He was rewarded once by seeing the pale ghost of a smile on Christine’s sad little face; it was as if for a moment she allowed him to raise the veil of disillusionment that had fallen between them and step back into the old happy days when they had played at sweethearts.

But the dinner was over all too soon, and Gladys said it was time to think about trains, and she talked and hustled very cleverly, giving them no time to feel awkward or embarrassed.  She was going to escort them to the station, she declared, conscious, perhaps, that both of them would be glad of her company; she said that she wished, she could come with them all the way, but that, of course, they did not want her.  And neither of them dared to contradict her, though secretly Jimmy and Christine would both have given a great deal had she suddenly changed her mind and insisted on accompanying them to London.

She stood at the door of the railway carriage until the last minute; she sent all manner of absurd messages, to the Great Horatio; she told Christine to be sure, to give him her love; she kept up a running fire of chaff and banter till the train started away, and a pompous guard told her to “Stand back, there!” and presently the last glimpse of Christine’s pale little face and Jimmy’s worried eyes had been swallowed up in the darkness of evening.

Then Gladys turned to walk home alone with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart and an undignified smarting of tears in her eyes.

“I hope to goodness I’ve done the right thing in letting her go,” she thought, as she turned out on to the dark road again.  “I hope—­I beg your pardon,” she had bumped into a tall man coming towards her.

He stopped at sound of her voice, it was Kettering.

“Miss Leighton, what in the world——­” he began in amazement.