“I’ll break every bone in Kettering’s confounded body.”  Jimmy burst out passionately.  “I’ll—­I’ll——­” He stopped suddenly and sat down with a humiliating sense of weakness, leaning his head in his hands.

Gladys’s eyes softened as she looked at him.

“You’ve been ill, haven’t you?” she asked.

He did not answer, and after a moment she left the tea-table, got up and went over to where he sat.

“Buck up, Jimmy, for heaven’s sake,” she said seriously.  She put her hand on his shoulder kindly enough.  “It’s not too late.  You’re married, after all, and you may as well make the best of it.  You may both live another fifty years.”

Jimmy said he was dashed if he wanted to.  He said he had had enough of life; it was a rotten swindle from beginning to end.

Gladys frowned.

“If you’re going to talk like an utter idiot!” she said impatiently.

He caught her hand when she would have moved away.

“I’m sorry.  You might be a pal to a chap, Gladys.  I—­well, I’m at my wits’ end to know what to do.  With Horatio coming home——­”

Her eyes grew scornful.

“Oh, so that’s why you’ve come here!”

“It is and it isn’t.  I wanted to see Christine.  You won’t believe me, I know, but I’ve been worried to death about her ever since she left me.  Ask Sangster, if you don’t believe me.  I swear to you that, if it were possible, I’d give my right hand this minute to undo all the rotten past and start again.  I suppose it’s too late.  I suppose she hates me.  She said she did that last night in London.  She looks as if she does now.  The way she asked me if I was going to stay to dinner—­a chap’s own wife!—­and in front of that brute Kettering!”

“He isn’t a brute.”

Gladys walked away and poured herself another cup of tea.

“Christine has been hurt—­hurt much more than you have,” she said at last.  She spoke slowly, as if she were carefully choosing her words.

“She was so awfully fond of you, Jimmy.”  Jimmy moved restlessly.  “It—­it must have been a dreadful shock to her, poor child.”  She looked at him impatiently.  “Oh, what on earth is the use of being a man if you can’t make a woman care for you?  She did once, and it ought not to be so very difficult to make her care again.  She—­she’s just longing for someone to be good to her and love her.  That’s why she seems to like Mr. Kettering, I know.  It is only seeming, Jimmy.  I know her better than you do.  It’s only that he came along just when she was so unhappy—­just when she was wanting someone to be good to her.  And he has been good to her—­he really has,” she added earnestly.

Jimmy drew a long breath.  He rose to his feet, stretching his arms wearily.

“I don’t deserve that she should forgive me,” he said, with a new sort of humility.  “But—­but if ever she does——­” He took a quick step forwards Gladys.  “Go and ask her to come and speak to me, there’s a dear.  I promise you that I won’t upset her.  I’ll do my very best.”