The small horsehair sofa where he sometimes tried to find a resting-place and failed; the tiny chiffonnier, unenlightened by a looking-glass or any ornament save a vase, which had been one of Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with its coarse cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, home with Gertrude.
The half loaf of bread and the pat of butter which always tasted of the chiffonnier-cupboard, but had to be kept there because when a piece went out to the larder, none ever returned, filled him with loathing this morning.
Why was there no letter from Gertrude? His landlady bustled in with his tea and a rasher of bacon and a slice of toast, the last item, as she remarked, being for a birthday treat, and he roused himself from his disappointment to thank her for the little attention, and when she was gone he slowly opened Charlie's letter.
It was just a newsy, chatty letter, telling of the pleasures of his holiday at Whitecliff and especially of the pleasure of being with Denys for a whole week, but when he came to one sentence, written only with the thought of giving pleasure to Reggie, Reggie stopped and frowned.
"Gertrude looks awfully well and seems enjoying herself tremendously," wrote Charlie. "She and Audrey are quite friends, which is convenient, and Denys and I don't feel selfish if we walk behind and let Gertrude, Audrey, and Cecil make the pace in front."
So Gertrude was at Whitecliff, and she had never thought it worth while to tell him she was going to have such a nice change!
She was enjoying herself tremendously! Hitherto she had always made him a sharer in her pleasures by her vivacious descriptions of them. Who was Cecil?
He looked across the narrow Scotch street, on to the row of small houses opposite him. The morning sunshine was flooding them, while his room lay in shadow. That was like his life. He was in the shadow and other people were in the sunshine—especially this Cecil.
He ate up his breakfast at last and made a good meal of it too, for he was a healthy fellow, and even stale bread and tasty butter go down when you are hungry, and then he got out his cycle and polished it up, for there was a club run on and he was going to ride part of the way out with them, returning early to attend a wedding in the afternoon.
He decided, as he rubbed away at his machine, that he would not be married on a Bank holiday, when his turn came. He would not like his guests to feel bored at losing one of their precious few-and-far-between holidays. Saturday was a much more sensible day for a wedding.