his eyes. He felt dazed. After a moment he laughed. He
groped backwards for a chair and dropped into it.
"Still--living! Are you--are you sure?"
So it was not that she did not love him. His first thought was one of
utter relief--thank God, it was not that!
She put the little silver box down with a sort of impatience. "Yes," she
said. She spoke so softly he could hardly catch the monosyllable.
Challoner leaned his head in his hands. He was trying desperately to
think, to straighten out this hopeless tangle in his brain, but everything
was confused.
Of course, he knew that she had been married before--knew that years
and years ago, before she had really known her own mind, she had
married a man--a worthless waster--who had left her within a few
months of their marriage. She had told him this herself, quite
straightforwardly. Told him, too, that the man was dead.
And after all he was still living!
The knowledge hammered against his brain, but as yet he could not
realise its meaning. Cynthia went on jerkily.
"I only knew--yesterday. I wrote to you. I--at first I thought it could not
be true. But--but now I know it is. Oh, why don't you say
something--anything?" she broke out passionately.
Challoner looked up. "What can I say, if this is true?"
"It is true," her face was flushed. There was a hard look in her eyes as if
she were trying to keep back tears. After a moment she moved over to
where he sat and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Jimmy Challoner turned his head and kissed it.
"Don't take it so badly, Jimmy. It's--it's worse for me," her voice broke.
A cleverer man than Jimmy Challoner might have heard the little
theatrical touch in the words, but Jimmy was too genuinely miserable
himself to be critical.
At the first sob he was on his feet. He put his arms round her; he laid
his cheek against her hair; but he did not kiss her. Afterwards he
wondered what instinct it was that kept him from kissing her. He broke
out into passionate protestations.
"I can't give you up. There must be some way out for us all. You don't
love him, and you do care for me. It can't be true, it's--it's some
abominable trick to part us, Cynthia."
"It is true," she said again. "It is true."
She drew away from him. She began to cry, carefully, so as not to spoil
her make-up. She hid her face in her hands. Once she looked at him
through her white fingers to see how he was taking it. Jimmy Challoner
was taking it very badly indeed. He stood biting his lip hard. His hands
were clenched.
"For God's sake don't cry," he broke out at length. "It drives me mad to
see you cry. I'll find a way out. We should have been so happy. I can't
give you up."
He spoke incoherently and stammeringly. He was really very much in
love, and now the thought of separation was a burning glass,
magnifying that love a thousandfold.
There were voices outside. Cynthia hastily dried her eyes. She did not
look as if she had been crying very bitterly.
"That's my call. I shall have to go. Don't keep me now. I'll write, Jimmy.
I'll see you again."
"You promise me that, whatever happens?"
"I promise." He caught her fingers and kissed them. "Darling, I'll come
back for you when the show's over. I can't bear to leave you like this.
You do love me?"
"Do you need to ask?"
The words were an evasion, but he did not notice it. He went back to
the stage box feeling as if the world had come to an end.
He forgot all about the Wyatts in the stalls below. Christine's brown
eyes turned towards him again and again, but he never once looked her
way. His attention was centered on the stage and the woman who
played there.
She was so beautiful he could never give her up, he told himself
passionately. With each moment her charm seemed to grow. He
watched her with despairing eyes; life without her was a crude
impossibility. He could not imagine existence in a world where he
might not love her. That other fellow--curse the other fellow!--he
ground his teeth in impotent rage.
The brute had deserted her years ago and left her to starve. He had not
the smallest claim on her How. By the time the play was ended Jimmy
Challoner had worked himself into a white heat of rage and despair.
Christine Wyatt, glancing once more towards him as the curtain rose
for the final call, wondered a little at the tense, unyielding attitude of
his tall figure. He
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