Jimmy had done his best to make his wife comfortable, he had wrapped a rug round her though it was a mild night, he had bought more papers and magazines than she could possibly read on a journey of twice the length, and seeing that she was disinclined to talk, he had finally retired to the other end of the carriage and pretended to be asleep.

He was dying for a smoke, he would have given his soul for a cigarette, but he was afraid to ask for permission, so he sat there in durance vile with his arms folded rightly and his eyes half closed, while the train sped on through the night towards London.

Christine turned the pages of her magazines diligently, though it is doubtful if she read a word or saw a single picture.

She felt very tired and dispirited, it was as if she had been forced back against her will to look once more on the day of her wedding, when the cold cheerlessness of the church and vestry had frightened her, and when Jimmy had asked Sangster to lunch with them.  The thought of Sangster gave her a gleam of comfort; she liked him, and she knew that he could be relied upon; she wondered how soon she would see him.

And then she thought of Kettering and the last words he had said to her on the steps at Upton House, and a little sigh escaped her.  She thought Jimmy was asleep, she put down the magazine and let herself drift.  There was something about Kettering that had appealed to her as no other man had ever done, something manly and utterly reliable which she found restful and protecting.  She wondered what he would say when he heard that she had gone back to Jimmy, and what he would think.

She looked across at her husband, his eyes were wide open.

“Do you want anything?” he asked quickly.

“No, thank you.”  She seized upon the magazine again, she flushed in confusion.

“I’ve been wondering,” said Jimmy gently, “where you would like to stay when we get to town.  I think you’d be more comfortable in—­in my rooms if you wouldn’t mind going there, but——­”

She interrupted hastily, “I’d much rather go to an hotel.  I don’t care where it is—­any place will do.”

She spoke hurriedly, as if she wished the conversation ended.

Jimmy looked at her wistfully, she was so pretty, much prettier than ever he had realised, he told himself with a sense of loss.  A thousand times lately he found himself wishing that Cynthia Farrow had not died; not that he wanted her any more for himself, not that it any longer made him suffer to think of her and those first mad days of his engagement, but so that he might have proved to Christine that the fact of her being in London and near to him affected him not at all, that he might prove his infatuation for her to be a thing dead and done with.

Now he supposed she would never believe him.  He looked at her pretty profile, and with sudden impulse he rose to his feet and crossed over to sit beside her.