What was she doing? he was asking himself in an agony, even while he followed Christine across the hall to the dining-room; had she really meant him to accept that note of dismissal as final? or had it just been written in a moment of petulance?

He had not meant to think about her; he had vowed to put her out of his thoughts for ever, to let her see that he would not wear the willow for her; and yet—­oh, they were all very well, these fine resolves, but when a chap was utterly—­confoundedly down and out——­

He found himself shaking hands with Christine’s mother.

“Jimmy hasn’t had any lunch,” Christine was saying.  “So I asked him to have some with us.”

Her voice sounded very gay; the little flush had not died out of her cheeks.

“I am very pleased you have come,” said Christine’s mother.  She shook hands with Jimmy, and smiled at him with her mother-eyes.

Jimmy wished they would not be so kind to him.  It made him feel a thousand times more miserable.

When he began to eat he was surprised to find that he was really hungry.  A glass of wine cheered him considerably; he began to talk and make himself agreeable.  As a matter of course, they talked about the old days at Upton House; Jimmy began to remember things he had almost forgotten; there had been an old stable-loft——­

“Do you remember when you fell down the ladder?” Christine asked him laughingly.  “And the way you bumped your head——­”

“And the way you cried,” Jimmy reminded her.

“Didn’t she, Mrs. Wyatt?”

Mrs. Wyatt laughed.

“Don’t refer to me, please,” she said.  “I am beginning to think that I never knew half what you two did in those days.”

Christine looked at Jimmy shyly.

“They were lovely days,” she said with a sigh.

“Ripping!” Jimmy agreed.  He tried to put great enthusiasm into his voice, but in his heart he knew that he had long since outgrown the simple pleasures that had seemed so great to him then.  He thought of Cynthia, and the wild Bohemianism of the weeks that had passed since he first got engaged to her; that was life if you pleased, with a capital letter.  It seemed incredible that it was all ended and done with; that Cynthia wanted him no longer; that his place in her life was filled by another man; that he would never wait at the theatre for her any more; never——­ He caught his breath on a great sigh.  Christine looked at him with her brown eyes.  She, at least, had never outgrown the old days; to her they would always be the most wonderful of her whole life.

“And what are we going to do this afternoon?” Mrs. Wyatt asked when lunch was ended.

“Anything you like,” said Jimmy.  “I am entirely at your disposal.”

“Mother always likes a nap after lunch,” said Christine laughing.  “She never will stir till she has had it.”

“Very well; then you and I will go off somewhere together,” said Jimmy promptly.  “At least”—­he looked apologetically at Mrs. Wyatt—­“if we may?” he added.