"A fortnight?" she hazarded timidly, and he had answered, "About that, I expect."
She went through the dividing door to his deserted room. It was all upside down as he had left it, and strewn with things he had discarded at the last moment.
It almost seemed as if he had died and would never come back, she thought drearily, then tried to laugh.
After all, there was nothing so strange in his going away for a holiday with his friends; she knew she would not have minded at all had things been all right between them. It was just this dreadful feeling that, although she was his wife, she held no place in his life, that made trivialities a tragedy. She did not count—he could give her a careless kiss just as he had done years ago when he came home from Cambridge or went back again, and walk out of the house without a single regret.
She wondered what Feathers thought about it all, and her heart warmed at the memory of him—kind, ugly Feathers! She wished she could see him again.
125 She did her best to be cheerful during the days that followed, but it was uphill work. After the first telegram she heard but seldom from Chris. The weather was topping—so he wrote on a postcard, and they were having splendid golf.
He never mentioned Feathers, or spoke of coming home, and it seemed to Marie as if he and she were in different worlds.
That he could enjoy himself and be quite happy without her seemed an impossibility when she was so miserable and restless.
Then one morning she ran across young Atkins in Regent Street. She would have passed him without recognition but that he stopped and spoke her name.
"Mrs. Lawless!" He was unfeignedly delighted to see her. He insisted on her lunching with him.