Sherry stared at him. “Are you mad?” he demanded. “What kind of a fellow do you take me for, in God’s name? My wife leaves me, and you don’t know whether I’m anxious?”
“Thought you would have been glad to know she was in good hands,” said Mr Ringwood painstakingly, “but didn’t know whether you cared much that she wasn’t living with you any more.”
“Not care!” Sherry exclaimed. “She’s my wife!”
Mr Ringwood polished his quizzing-glass, paying the greatest attention to the operation. “Going to be frank with you, Sherry,” he said.
“By God, I shall be glad of it!”
“Don’t fancy you will, dear boy, when it comes to it. Very delicate matter: wouldn’t mention it if I hadn’t got to. I know she’s your wife: came to the wedding. Point is, that was a devilish queer business, your marriage, Sherry. Never pretended you was in love with Kitten, did you?”
Sherry flushed, tried to speak, and failed.
“Good as told us all you wasn’t,” pursued his friend. “Not that there was any need: plain as a pikestaff! Something else plain as a pikestaff, too, but whether you saw it is what I don’t know, and never did. Tried several times to give you a hint, but it didn’t seem to me you took it up. Thought the world of you, did Kitten. Wouldn’t hear a word against you: wouldn’t even admit you can’t drive well enough for the F.H.C. That shows you! Always seemed to me she only thought of pleasing you. If she took a fancy to do something she shouldn’t, only had to tell her you wouldn’t like it, and she’d abandon it on the instant. Used to put me in mind of that rhyme, or whatever it was, I learned when I was a youngster. Something about loving and giving: that was Kitten! Mind you, I don’t say you wasn’t generous to her, encouraged her to spend what money she liked, and — ” He stopped, for Sherry had flung up a hand. “Well, no sense in going into that. Dare say you know what I mean. Dashed if I knew what to make of it all! Then you had that turn-up with her over the race she meant to engage in, and she came to me, because there was no one else she could turn to. Sat in my room, with that curst canary I once gave her, and the drawing-room clock, and cried as though her poor little heart was breaking. Don’t mind telling you, I was dashed near calling you out for that, Sherry! Seemed to me you’d been a curst brute to the poor little soul! But she never blamed you: stuck to it everything had been her fault from the outset. Said something which made me think a trifle, said you had never loved her, and it was the Incomparable you had really wished to marry.”
“No!” Sherry interjected, in a strangled voice.
“I must say, I never thought you cared a button for the Incomparable,” agreed Mr Ringwood. “Thought maybe you cared more for your Kitten than you knew.”