The thought softened her face, and sent her back to call again, 'Mr. Raymond!'
He did not stir. Was the whisky-peg responsible for the soundness of his sleep? And was she responsible for the whisky-peg? She had known for years that he had drifted away, as it were, from everything that made life seem worth living to her, but the contrast between her fate and his had never come home to her before. The wife of a Lieutenant-Governor--as he might have been if he had not thrown up the service in a pet--and the Secretary to the club! What a miserable failure for such a man! A man who for two long years had been her ideal--who even now could do, should do---- She bent towards him suddenly, quite irrationally, and whispered, 'Jack!'
As she paused expectant, there was a half-mischievous smile in her pretty eyes; and yet they held a suspicion of tears. It was such an odd world. Why could not a woman forget when she had ceased to care? Men did; this one certainly had--no!----
The still small voice had apparently taken time to filter through to its destination; but it had found the chord of memory, and struck it sharply.
'Yes! what is it, dear?' came the answer drowsily. Then Jack Raymond stirred, stared, finally woke to facts.
'I beg your pardon, Lady Arbuthnot,' he began, rising hurriedly, 'I had been playing some hard games at racquets and----'
'But you always do sleep about this time, don't you? I've noticed you in the distance,' she said coolly. The suggestion in her words that she still had some right to criticise, added to his surprised irritation at finding that he had somehow gone back to the past. Why the deuce should the memory of the very inflection of her voice as she used to say 'Jack' have come back to confuse his brain, and absolutely make his heart beat?
'Yes!' he replied, with palpable hardihood, 'you're right. I generally do sleep. There's nothing else to do, you see, between tennis and whist. But if you want any stores from the go-down,[[5]] I am quite at your commands. There is an awfully good Stilton on cut, if you'd like some.'
She beat her foot impatiently. This thrusting forward of his duties as a sort of high-class grocer was impayable! He could not think she had sought him out in order to buy Stilton cheese of him! And yet--how like the old headstrong Jack it was!
'Do tennis and whist make up your day now, Mr. Raymond,' she said swiftly. 'It used not to be so.'