Double Harness Part 18

He chucked the child under its chin, as he went by, gently and affectionately, and came with outstretched hand to his friend--for he liked sunny impetuous young Blake, though he thought very lightly of him. As they shook hands, Blake's eyes travelled past him, and dwelt again on Sibylla. She stood by her child, and her regard was on her husband. Then, for a moment, she met Blake's inquiring gaze. The slightest smile came on her lips, just a touch of colour in her cheeks.

"Yes, but it's time for him to go upstairs," she said.

Grantley had pa.s.sed on to the table, and was pouring himself out a cup of tea. Sibylla walked across the room and rang the bell for the baby's nurse. Blake took up his hat.

The spell was broken. What had it been and why was it dispelled? Blake did not know, but turgid feelings mingled with his aspirations now, and he looked at Grantley Imason with a new covert hostility.

CHAPTER IX

A SUCCESSFUL MISSION

Efforts were on foot to avert the scandal and public disaster which so imminently threatened the Courtlands. Grantley Imason, who had a real friends.h.i.+p for Tom, interested himself in them. Not merely the home was in danger, but Tom's position and career, also Tom's solvency. He had always lived up to his income; now, without doubt, he was spending sums far beyond it; and, as has been seen, the precautions which he had declared he would use were falling into neglect as the sense of hopelessness grew upon his mind. From such neglect to blank effrontery and defiance looked as though it would be but a short step. And he refused obstinately to make any advances to his wife; he would not hear of suing for peace.

"My dear fellow, think of the children!" Grantley urged.

Poor Tom often thought of the children, and often tried not to. He knew very well where he was going and what his going there must mean to them.

Yet he held on his way, obstinately a.s.suring himself that the fault for which they must suffer was not his.

"I do think of them, but---- It was past bearing, Grantley."

"I think you must have given her a real fright by now. Perhaps she'll be more amenable."

"Harriet amenable! Good Lord!"

"Look here, if she can be got to express regret and hold out the olive branch, you know, will you drop all this, and give the thing one more trial?"

It was a favourable moment for the request, since Tom happened to be cross with his pleasures too--they were so very expensive. He allowed himself to be persuaded to say yes.

But who was to beard Lady Harriet in her den? There was no eagerness to undertake the task; yet everybody agreed that a personal interview was the only chance. Grantley fairly "funked it," and honestly said so.

Raymore's nerves were still so upset that his excuses were accepted--it was morally certain that Harriet, if she became angry, would taunt him about his boy. Selford? That was absurd. And it was not a woman's work.

The lot fell on John Fanshaw--John, with his business prestige and high reputation for common sense. And Lady Harriet liked him best of them all. The choice was felt to be excellent by everyone--except John himself.

"Haven't I enough worries of my own?" he demanded. "Why the devil am I to take on Tom Courtland's too?"

"Oh, do try! It can't hurt you if she does fly into a pa.s.sion, John."

He grumbled a great deal more; and Christine, in an unusually chastened mood, performed the wifely function of meeting his grumbles with mingled consolation and praise.

"Well, I'll go on Sunday," he said at last, and added, with a look across the table: "Perhaps some of my own troubles will be off my mind by then."

Christine flushed a little.

"Oh, I hope so," she said rather forlornly.

"I do hope so!" he declared emphatically. "I build great hopes on it. It is to-day you're going, isn't it?"

"Yes, to-day. After lunch I said I'd come."

"Did he write back cordially?"

"Well, what could the poor man do, John?"

"Ha, ha! Well, I suppose a fellow generally does answer cordially when a pretty woman proposes to call on him. Ha, ha!" John's hopes made him merry and jovial. "I say, I shall get back as early as I can from the City, and try to be here in time to welcome you. And if it's gone all right, why----"

"Don't let yourself be too sure."

"No, I won't. Oh, no, I won't do that!"

But it was not hard to see how entirely he built all his trust on this last remaining chance. He rose from the breakfast-table.

"All right. To-day's Thursday. I'll go to Lady Harriet on Sunday. Not much harm can happen in three days. Good-bye, old girl, and--and good luck!"

Christine suffered his kiss--a ceremony not usual to their daily parting in the morning. When he had gone, she sat on a long while behind the tea-things at the breakfast-table, deep in thought, trying to picture the work of the day which lay before her. It was extraordinarily hateful to her, and she had hardly been able to endure John's jocularity and his talk about pretty women coming to call.

Because there had once been some talk, she had told Caylesham that she would bring a friend with her, naming Anna Selford. Anna would go in with her, and wait in another room while they had their meeting.

Caylesham thought this rather superfluous, but had no objection to make.

He could not form any idea why she was coming, until it occurred to him that perhaps he had a few letters of hers somewhere, and that women were apt to get frights about letters, picturing sudden deaths, and not remembering that a wise man chooses a discreet executor. With this notion in his head he hunted about, and did find two or three letters.

But they were quite harmless; in order to see this he read them through, and then laid them down with a smile. After a few moments of reflection he put them into an envelope, sealed them up, and placed them on a table by him, ready for Christine. He was a man of forty-five, and he looked it. But he was tall, thin, well set-up, and always exceedingly well turned-out. Beyond his rank and his riches, his only fame lay in sporting circles. He and John Fanshaw had first made acquaintance over horses, and he still went in for racing on a considerable scale. He was unmarried, and likely to remain so. There was a nephew to inherit: and he had pleased himself so much that he found it hard to please himself any more now. And he had, unlike Walter Blake, no aspirations. He had a code of morals, and a very strict one, so far as it went; but it was not co-extensive with more generally recognised codes.

Directly Christine came in, he noticed how pretty and dainty and young she looked; she, at least, pleased him still. He greeted her with great cordiality and with no embarra.s.sment, and made her sit down in a chair by the fire. She was a little pale, but he did not observe that; what he noted--and noted with a touch of amus.e.m.e.nt--was that she met his eyes as seldom as possible.

"I really couldn't think to what I owed this pleasure----" he began.

But she interrupted him.

"You couldn't possibly have guessed. I've got to tell you that."

"It's not these?"

He held up the letters in their envelope.

"What are they?"

"Only two or three notes of yours--all I've got, I think."

"Notes of mine? Oh, put them in the fire! It wasn't that."

"I suppose we may as well put them in the fire," he agreed.

As the fire burnt up the letters, Christine looked at the fire and said:

"John has sent me here."

"John sent you here?"