"You mean that she hasn't had either from me." he said. "I know you're right, but what the deuce can I do?"
"As you insist on my mounting the pulpit," Feathers said, rather wearily, "I'll repeat an old chestnut of a proverb which says that it's never too late to be what one might have been, or words to that effect. Have a Scotch?"
"No, thanks. I went home too merry and bright the night before last, and Marie was waiting up for me." Chris avoided his friend's eyes. "It's not a thing I often indulge in, you know that," he went on, gruffly, "but I felt like the devil that night."
Feathers made no comment, but he thought of Marie with passionate pity. He could understand so well what a shock it had been to her to see Chris the worse for drink—realize just how she would shrink from him.
The clock struck twelve, and Chris rose reluctantly.
"Well, I'll be off." He hesitated, then added, with a touch of embarrassment: "Thanks awfully for what you've said. I'll remember; I'll speak to her in the morning, and see if we can't patch things up." He went to the door and came back. "You—er, don't tell her I said anything about it to you."
"Of course not."
Chris went home full of good resolutions. He lay awake half the night, plotting and planning what he could do in the future to make amends. Though he did not love Marie, it seemed a dreadful thing to him that they were in such mortal danger of drifting finally apart. He fell asleep, meaning to have a good, long talk with her in the morning and try and straighten out the tangle.
But Marie did not appear at breakfast, and in reply to his inquiries the maid told him that Mrs. Lawless had a bad headache and was going to stay in her room.
219 "To avoid me, I'll be bound," Chris told himself savagely, and his good resolutions began to waver.