“And he took that, and went?”
A sense of marvel possessed his wife at the easy relief of his tone. He thought his difficulty so easily overcome that it seemed to her childish. Could he really think that a nature like Evelyn Gregory’s would be so set aside, brushed off by a light excuse.
“Yes, he went—but——” She hesitated, and then it seemed that plain speaking was best. “He guessed what was wrong, Ally. He kept urging me to rouse you, and of course I could not. Then he said he would rouse you himself, and I had to stop him. He was very good—he spoke quite kindly, and told me not to worry—he would go to Maitso himself. But—I do not think he will forget, though things may seem as usual between you.”
Down the length of the table, between the tall silver vases of stephanotis and honeysuckle, she saw his handsome, despondent face, the dark head leaning on his hand, the passing gravity which made him seem noble clouding out his usual laughter. Gravity and a touch of pensive regret suited Alaric as even his debonair self-assurance did not do. He had never looked handsomer than just then.
“I am very sorry. I have made a fool of myself.” He spoke humbly, and yet somehow seemed more of a man than she had thought him since last night. “You are disappointed, Chum!”
“It’s not my loss, Ally, it’s yours. And it doesn’t matter being disappointed if we can go on all right now. I think we can pull straight again, old fellow.” She was pitifully anxious to help him, and to get that look off his face that made her heart ache. He must be encouraged like a child, as well as chidden. She hated to see him carry his head without the usual insolence of his own good looks. As she poured out a second cup of tea for him—the “drawn threads” of his throat burnt like thirst—she rose and carried it round to him herself, with a kind young hand laid on his shoulder. The little extra attention, when he knew she might have reproached him, touched Alaric the more, because he looked on his wife as an undemonstrative woman. He turned swiftly from the table and laid his head against her breast with a boyish gesture. In truth, he wanted comforting, for he was face to face with his own responsible mistake, and fortune had petted and spoiled him hitherto rather than met him with the grim face she wore to-day. There was a little silence while Leoline stroked the dark hair, and held him tenderly against her. But her eyes looked out over his head with the expression of one who has gazed in the face of Medusa. She had that new protective feeling for something weaker than herself, but it was no longer the theoretical Ally she had married and set on a hymeneal pedestal.
“Don’t, dear!” she said at last, and her voice was a whisper. “It is not a hanging matter—we won’t let it be. I will help you—may I?”
“You’re the best of Chums!” he whispered back with a rather uncertain smile. “But you shan’t have to pull me up for boozing. I don’t know how it happened last night—we were all playing Poker, and their quarters are so hot, and we kept on with whiskey after whiskey. I must have come down that hill like a madman!”
She gave a dismayed exclamation. “Did any one hear you?”
“Half the town I should think, and all our servants. It’s no use not facing it, you know, and fellows have got drunk before.”