Did she miss him at all? did she ever wish she could see him? ever wish for one hour out of the happy past?  Somehow he did not think so.  Much as he had loved her, Jimmy Challoner had always known hers to be the sort of nature that lived solely for the present; besides, if she wanted him, she had only got to send—­to telephone.  He looked across at the receiver standing idle on his desk.

So many times she had rung him up; so many times he had heard her pretty voice across the wire: 

“Is that you, Jimmy boy?”

He would never hear it again.  She did not want him any more.  He was—­ugly word—­jilted!

Jimmy writhed in his chair.  That any woman should dare to so treat him!  The hot blood surged into his face.

It was a good sign—­this sudden anger—­had he but known it.  When a man can be angry with a woman he has once loved he is already beginning to love her less; already beginning to see her as less perfect.

Some one tapped at his door; his man entered.

Costin was another bone of contention between Jimmy and the Great Horatio.

“I never had a valet when I was your age,” so his brother declared.  “What in the wide world you need a valet for is past my comprehension.”

Jimmy had felt strongly inclined to answer that most things were past his comprehension, but thought better of it; he could not, at any rate, imagine his life without Costin.  He knew in his heart that he had no least intention of sacking Costin, and Costin stayed.

“If you please, sir,” he began now, coming forward, “Mr. Sangster would like to see you.”

“Show him up,” said Jimmy.  He rose to his feet and stood gnawing his lower lip agitatedly.

How much did Sangster know, he wondered, about Cynthia?  He would have liked to refuse to see him, but—­well, they would have to meet sooner or later, and, after all, Sangster had been a good friend to him in more ways than one.

Jimmy said:  “Hallo, old chap!” with rather forced affability when Sangster entered.  The two men shook hands.

Sangster glanced at the breakfast-table.

“I’m rather an early visitor, eh?”

“No.  Oh, no.  Sit down.  Have a cigarette?”

“No, thanks.”

There was little silence.  Jimmy eyed his friend with a sort of suspicion.  Sangster had heard something.  Sangster probably knew all there was to know.  He shuffled his feet nervously.

Sangster was the sort of man at whom a woman like Cynthia Farrow would never have given a second glance, if, indeed, she thought him worthy of a first.  He was short and squarely built; his hair was undeniably red and ragged; his features were blunt, but he had a nice smile, and his small, nondescript eyes were kind.

He sat down in the chair Jimmy had vacated and looked up at him quizzically.

“Well,” he said bluntly, “is it true?”