His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he, with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires of revels long since sunken into ashes.
He watched them for a while, his hands clenched where they rested in his coat pockets, the lean muscles in his cheeks twitching at intervals.
When Innisbrae took himself off, Winifred still lounged gracefully along the billiard table taking shots with any ball that lay for her. And Clive looked on,
absent-eyed, the flat jaw muscles working at intervals.
"Well?" she asked carelessly, laying her cue across the table.
"Nothing.... I think I'll clear out to-morrow."
"Oh."
She did not even inquire where he was going. For that matter he did not know, except that there was one place he could not go—home; the only place he cared to go.
He had already offered her divorce—thinking of Innisbrae, or of some of the others. But she did not want it. It was, perhaps, not in her to care enough for any man to go through that amount of trouble. Besides, Their Majesties disapproved divorce. And for this reason alone nothing would have induced her to figure in proceedings certain to exclude her from one or two sets.
"Anything I can do for you before I leave?" he asked, dully.