She went reluctantly, and as soon as the door had closed behind her, Jimmy Challoner went over to the looking-glass and stared at his pale reflection anxiously.  He had always rather admired himself, but this afternoon his pallor and thinness disgusted him.  No wonder Christine did not want to look at him or talk to him.  He passed a nervous hand over the refractory kink in his hair, flattening it down; then, remembering that Christine had once said she liked it, brushed it up again agitatedly.

It seemed a long time before she came down to him.  He was sure that half an hour must have passed since Gladys shut the door on him, before it opened again and Christine stood there, a little pale, a little defiant.

“You want to speak to me,” she said.  Her voice was antagonistic, the soft curves of her face seemed to have hardened.

“Yes.  Won’t you—­won’t you come and sit down?” Jimmy was horribly nervous.  He dragged forward a chair, but she ignored it.  She shut the door and stood leaning against it.

“I would rather stay here,” she said.  “And please be quick.  If there is anything important to say——­”

The indifference of her voice cut him to the heart.  He broke out with genuine grief: 

“Oh, Christine, aren’t you ever going to forgive me?”

Just for a moment a little quiver convulsed her face, but it was gone instantly.  She knew by past experience how easily Jimmy could put just that soft note into his voice.  She told herself that it was only because he wanted something from her, not that he was really in the very least sorry for what had happened, for the way he had hurt her, for the havoc he had made of her life.

“It isn’t a question of forgiveness at all,” she said.  “I didn’t ask you to come here.  I didn’t want you to come here, I was quite happy without you.”

“That is very evident,” he said bitterly.  The words escaped him before he could stop them.  He apologised agitatedly.

“I didn’t mean that; it slipped out; I ought not to have said it.  I hardly know what I am saying.  If you can’t ever forgive me, that settles it once and for all, of course; but——­”

She interrupted.

“Why have you come here?  What do you want?”

The question was direct enough, and in desperation he answered it as directly.

“I have come because my brother will be home next week, and I want to know what I am to tell him.”

For the first time she blenched a little.  Her eyes sought his with a kind of fear.

“Tell him?  What do you mean?  What does it matter what you tell him?”

“I mean about our marriage.  The old boy was so pleased when he knew that I—­that you——­ It will about finish him if he knows how—­if he knows that we—­” He floundered helplessly.

“You mean if he knows that you married me out of pique, and that I found it out?” she added bitterly.