"Evening!" he said; "evening, Trent my boy! How are you all? Settling down again, I suppose. Any news of the young couple?" He included them both in the benevolence of his greeting.
The last person James wished to see was Mary's brother Julius. "Good evening," he said, without shaking hands. "No, we've heard nothing yet."
"And how's poor little Mary?" her tactless brother went on. "Didn't seem very well when I saw her yesterday—upsetting things, these weddings." A joke—a mild enough joke—was on his lips, but he checked himself. A dull straight-laced lot, Mary's family. Even as a boy, James had been one of the plodding sort. He helped himself to one of James's cigars.
"She wants to see me, I think," he went on, as nobody answered. "Is she in?"
James was thinking as quickly as he could, so quickly that he forgot to be annoyed with "poor little Mary." In spite of their old friendship James had never grown used to this reprobate who spoke of his wife in familiar terms. Yesterday,—Julius, annoyed at not being made a director, had been saying things to Mary about the sale! "No," he said slowly, "I'm afraid she's not in."
Julius stared at him. Mary out alone at this time of night! "Oh, I suppose she's gone round to Laura's," he suggested. "Women never grow tired of talking things over. Will she be very late?"
If it really had been Julius who had been making mischief, James was thinking, Mary's brother or not, he would smash him! He stared heavily at his guest, but did not speak, and after a minute Trent felt obliged to say that they did not know.
Julius pulled out his watch. It wasn't yet half-past nine. He was not going to waste an evening with people like James and Trent. "Oh, very well," he said. "I expect to-morrow will suit her just as well. You might tell her from me, that I'll look in to-morrow morning." He smiled brightly again as he took another cigar.
But at this smile James's fretted self-control gave way. "No, I will not!" he said. "Mary will not be here to-morrow morning. Your sister, my good Julius, acting in a manner which you probably think very natural, has run away!"
"Run away! Mary! Mary!" said Julius, putting the cigar into his pocket, and automatically helping himself to another. "Well, I'm damned!"