Chapter 4 JIMMY GETS NEWS

There was a letter from the "Great Horatio" on Jimmy's plate the following morning. Jimmy looked at the handwriting and the foreign stamp and grimaced.

The Great Horatio seldom wrote unless something were the matter. He was a good many years older than Jimmy, and Jimmy held him in distinct awe.

He finished his breakfast before he even thought of breaking the seal, then he took up the letter and carried it over with him to the fire.

Jimmy Challoner was breakfasting in his dressing-gown. It was very seldom that he managed to get entirely dressed by the time breakfast was ready. He sat down now in a big chair and stuck his slippered feet out to the warmth.

He turned his brother's letter over and over distastefully. What the deuce did the old chap want now? he wondered. He gave a sigh of resignation, and broke open the flap.

He and the Great Horatio had not met for two years.

Horatio Ferdinand Challoner, to give him his full name, was a man whose health, or, rather, ill-health, was his hobby.

All his life he had firmly believed himself to be in a dying state; all his life he had lived more or less at Spas, or on the Riviera, or at health resorts of some kind or another.

He was a nervous, irritable man, as unlike Jimmy as it is possible for two brothers to be.

For the past two years he had been living in Australia. He had undertaken the voyage at the suggestion of some new doctor whose advice he had sought, and he had been so ill during the six weeks' voyage that, so far, he had never been able to summon sufficient pluck to start home again.

Jimmy had roared with laughter when he heard; he could so well imagine his brother's disgust and fear. As a matter of fact, it suited Jimmy very well that the head of the family should be so far removed from him. He hated supervision; he liked to feel that he had got a free hand; that he need not go in fear of running up against Horatio Ferdinand at every street corner.

He read his brother's closely written pages now with a long-suffering air. Jimmy hated writing letters, and he hated receiving them; most things bored him in these days; he had been drifting for so long, and under Cynthia Farrow's tuition he would very likely have finally drifted altogether into a slack, nothing-to-do man about town, very little good to himself or anyone else.

Horatio Ferdinand wrote:-

DEAR JAMES,- (He hated abbreviations; he would never allow people to call him "Horace"; his writing was cramped and formal like himself.) I have heard a rather disquieting rumour about you from a mutual friend, and shall be glad if you will kindly write to me upon receipt of this letter and inform me if there is any truth in the allegation that you are constantly seen in the company of a certain actress. I hardly think this can be so, as you well know my dislike of the stage and anything appertaining thereto. My health is greatly improved by my visit here, and all being well I shall probably risk making the return voyage after Christmas. Upon second consideration, I shall be glad if you will cable your reply to me, as the mail takes six weeks, as you know.-Your affectionate brother.

Jimmy crushed the letter in his hand.

"Damned old idiot!" he said under his breath. He got up, and began striding about the room angrily. The tassels of his dressing-gown swung wildly at each agitated step; the big carpet slippers he wore flapped ungracefully.

"Confounded old fathead."

Jimmy was flushed, and his eyes sparkled. He ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. After a few strides he felt better. He went back to the armchair and took up his brother's letter once more.

After a moment he laughed, rather a sore laugh, as if something in the stilted wording of the letter hurt him.

What would he not have given now to be able to cable back:

"Quite right; she is my wife."

But as it was--

"Let him think what he likes. I don't care a hang," was the thought in

Jimmy Challoner's mind.

He sat there with his chin drooping on his breast, lost in unhappy thought.

It was not yet two days since Cynthia had sent him away; it seemed an eternity.

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?"

Jimmy flushed.

"True! what the--"

The other man stopped him with a gesture.

"Don't be an ass, Jimmy; I haven't known you all these years for nothing. . . . Is it true that Cynthia's chucked you?"

"Yes." Jimmy's voice was hard. He stared up at the ceiling under scowling brows.

Sangster said "Humph!" with a sort of growl. He scratched his chin reflectively.

"Well, I can't say I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "It's the best thing that's ever happened to you, my son."

Jimmy's eyes travelled down from the ceiling slowly; perhaps it was coincidence that they rested on the place on the mantelshelf where Cynthia's portrait used to stand.

"Think so?" he said gruffly. "You never liked her."

"I did-but not as your wife. . . . She's much more suited to Henson Mortlake-I always thought so. He'll keep her in order; you never could have done."

Jimmy had been standing with his elbow on the mantelpiece; he swung round sharply.

"Mortlake; what's he got to do with it?" he asked fiercely. "What the deuce do you mean by dragging him in? It was nothing to do with Mortlake that she-she--"

Sangster was looking at him curiously.

"Oh! I understood-what was the reason, then?" he asked.

Jimmy turned away. He found the other man's eyes somehow disconcerting.

"She's married already," he said in a stifled voice. "I-I always knew she had been married, of course. She made no secret of it. He-the brute-left her years ago; but last week-well, he turned up again. . . . She-we-we had always believed he was dead."

There was a little silence. Sangster was no longer looking at Jimmy; he was staring into the fire. Presently he began to whistle softly. Jimmy rounded on him.

"Oh, shut up!" he said irritably.

Sangster stopped at once. After a moment:

"And the-er-husband!" he submitted dryly. "You've-you've seen him, of course."

"No, I haven't. If I did-if I did, I'd break every bone in his infernal carcase," said Jimmy Challoner, between his teeth.

He stared down at his friend with defiant, eyes as he spoke.

Sangster said "Humph!" again. Then: "Well, there's as good fish in the sea as any that were caught," he said cheerily. "Look at it philosophically, old son."

Jimmy kicked a footstool out of his way. He walked over to the window, and stood for a moment with his back turned. Presently:

"If anyone asks you, you might as well tell them the truth," he said jerkily. "I-don't let them think that brute Mortlake--"

He broke off.

"I'll tell 'em the truth," said Sangster.

He leaned over the fire, poking it vigorously.

"What are you doing to-night, Jimmy?" he asked, "I'm at a loose end--"

Jimmy turned.

"I'm taking some people to the theatre-old friends! Met them quite by chance the other night. Haven't you heard me speak of them-the Wyatts?"

"By Jove, yes!" Sangster dropped the poker unceremoniously. "People from Upton House. You used to be full of them when I first knew you, and that's how many years ago, Jimmy?"

"The Lord only knows!" said Jimmy dispiritedly. "Well, I've got a box for a show to-night, and asked them to come. Christine's dead nuts on theatres. Remember Christine?"

"I remember the name. Old sweetheart of yours, wasn't she?"

"When we were kids."

"Oh, like that, is it? Well, ask me to come along too."

"My dear fellow-come by all means."

Jimmy was rather pleased at the suggestion. "You'll like Mrs.

Wyatt-she's one of the best."

"And-Christine?"

"Oh she's all right; but she's only a child still," said Jimmy

Challoner with all the lordly superiority of half a dozen years.