Chris was sauntering back to them through the sunshine. He looked very careless and debonair, and was whistling as he came.
54 Feathers rose. "Take this chair." he said curtly.
"No, don't you get up." But Feathers insisted, and as soon as Chris was seated he walked off to the hotel.
He went into the lounge and aimlessly took up a paper, but he did not read a word.
Fond as he was of Chris, he knew all his faults and limitations, knew just how selfish he could be, and a vague fear for Marie grew in his heart.
A little distance from him Mrs. Heriot and another woman were talking. It was quiet in the lounge, and Feathers could hear what they were saying, without the smallest effort on his part to listen.
The newspaper screened his face, and he could only suppose afterwards that they were unconscious of his presence, for Mrs. Heriot said with a rather cynical laugh:
"Did you see our heroine on the lawn, with her cavaliers? Very amusing, isn't it? I don't suppose she has ever had so much attention in her life? They say that he married her straight from the schoolroom."
"Really! She looks only a child!" the other woman answered interestedly. "By the way, which is her husband? The big, ugly man, or the good-looking one?"
Mrs. Heriot laughed. "My dear! Do you mean to say you don't know! Why, the good-looking one, of course!"