"By all means; take what you like," said the other drowsily. "You mother's come, hasn't she?"
"Yes, mother and Jessie," said Archie, pouring himself out some whisky. The soda-water was nearly exhausted, but the dregs of it gurgled pleasantly over the spirit. He drank it in a couple of gulps.
"What are you going to do now?" asked his father.
"Only have a game with Jessie."
"All right. Call in here when it's time to go up and dress. There'll be a cocktail for you then. Infernal lazy fellows the servants are not to bring them in earlier. Chuck me over the evening paper, will you?"
The evening remission from deadness and dulness and misery had begun for Archie. He played his game with Jessie, drank his cocktail, and by the end of dinner had risen to such naturalness of good spirits again, that his mother commended herself for the wisdom of her plan that he should leave London and seek a change of mind in a change of scene. He had done some writing since he had been here; he seemed pleased with the way it was going, and she talked hopefully to Jessie when they held a rather protracted sitting in the drawing-room before the two men joined them. Perhaps they had both overrated the strength of Archie's attachment: certainly to-night he did not appear like a boy who had so lately suffered an overwhelming disappointment in his affections.
"And Blessington says he has been just as delightful and affectionate to her as usual," said Lady Tintagel. "He goes and talks to her every evening as he always did. I think you must have been wrong, dear Jessie, when you thought he was so mortally hurt."
Jessie did not reply at once: she felt sure that she, with the insight of that love which is more comprehending than any mother's love, was somehow right about that point. It was not the mere lapse of a week that had restored Archie. Besides, Blessington did not know about his troubles. She could easily conjecture what a relief he might find in that. She knew that she would feel the same in his place; she could understand how much easier it was to behave normally with those who did not know than with those who did. Yet Archie's father knew, and all through dinner she had seen how friendly and intimate the two had become. Archie used to be constrained and awkward with his father, while his father used to be rather contemptuous of him. But this evening there had been none of that on either side, and now they lingered together a long time over their talk and their cigarettes. It was as if some bond of sympathy was springing up between them. But she shrank from admitting the explanation to herself: it might be that a man, who had been so bitterly disappointed about a girl, found something in another man that suited his mood. Women would remind him of a woman…
There was a shout of laughter in the hall outside, and Archie came in, followed by his father. He did not communicate the grounds for his merriment, but, looking a little flushed, very handsome, and very content, sat down on the sofa by his mother.
"Well, mother darling?" he said.