“I’ve been seeing Jimmy off,” Gladys explained airily, though her heart was beating uncomfortably.  “Jimmy and Christine; they’ve gone off on a second honeymoon,” she added flippantly.

“Jimmy—­and Christine!” he echoed her words in just the tone of voice she had dreaded and expected to hear, half hurt, half angry.  She could feel his eyes peering down at her, trying to read her face through the darkness, then he gave a short, angry laugh.

“I suppose you think you are protecting her from me,” he said roughly.

Gladys did not answer at once, and when she spoke it was in a queer, strangled voice: 

“Or perhaps I am protecting you—­from her!”

There was a little silence, then she moved a step from him.  “Good night,” she said.

He followed.  “I will walk back with you.”  He strode along beside her through the darkness; he was thinking of Christine and Jimmy, speeding away to London together, and a sort of impotent rage consumed him.

Jimmy was such a boy!  So ignorant of the way in which to love a woman like Christine; he asked an angry question: 

“Whose suggestion was this—­this——?” He could not go on.

“I don’t know—­they agreed between themselves, I think.  Horatio is coming home—­the Great Horatio, you knew,” Gladys told him, her voice sounded a little hysterical.

“And are you staying on here?”

“I shall for the present—­till Christine comes back—­if she ever does,” she added deliberately.

“You mean that you think she won’t?” he questioned sharply.

“I mean that I hope she won’t.”

They walked some little way in silence.

“You’ll find it dull—­alone at Upton House,” he said presently in a more friendly voice.

“Yes.”  Gladys was humiliated to know how near she was to weeping; she would rather have died than let Kettering know how desolate she felt.

“You don’t care for motoring, do you?” he said suddenly.  “Or I might come along and take you out sometimes.”

“I do, I love it.”

She could feel him staring at her in amazement.

“But you said——­” he began.

“I know what I said; it was only another way of expressing my disapproval of—­of——­ Well, you know!” she explained.

“Oh,” he said grimly; suddenly he laughed.  “Well, then, may I call and take you out sometimes?  We shall both be—­lonely,” he added with a sigh.  “And even if you don’t like me——­”

He waited, as if expecting her to contradict him, but she did not, and it was impossible for him to know that through the darkness her heart was racing, and her cheeks crimson because—­well, perhaps because she liked him too much for complete happiness.

CHAPTER XXII

TOO LATE!

Jimmy and Christine travelled to London at opposite ends of the carriage.