But it had taken over an hour, and afterwards another man who had watched the game had challenged Chris to another, and quite unintentionally Chris had forgotten all about his promise to Marie, and she had crept off to bed at ten o'clock without seeing him again.
"I shall get used to it, of course I shall," she told herself as she lay awake with the moonlight pouring through the open window. "Other women with husbands like Chris get used to it, and so shall I."
She never shed tears about him; all her tears seemed to have been dried up. Her only longing was that he should be happy, and that she should never bore him or prove a tie to his freedom.
She loved him with complete unselfishness—with complete foolishness, too, perhaps an unkind critic might have said.
His was a nature so easily spoilt. If anybody offered him his own way he took it without demur. He liked things to go smoothly. If he 58 was having a good time himself he took it for granted that everybody else was, too.
He went off to his golf quite happily. He told Mrs. Heriot that Marie had taken a book down to the sands.
"Alone?" Mrs. Heriot laughed. "How queer! Doesn't she find it dull?"
"She loves reading—she'll be quite happy."
And Chris really believed what he was saying.
He did not care a jot for Mrs. Heriot, but she played golf magnificently, and she was never tired. She could be out on the links all day and dance all night, and still look as fresh as paint—perhaps because she owed most of her freshness to paint and powder.