He was really quite anxious to kiss Christine; he was wondering whether she, too, was anxious for him to kiss her. After a moment he turned a little, and looked at her tentatively.
But Christine was not looking at him; she was sitting with her eyes fixed straight in front of her, a frozen look of horror on her little face. The letter had tumbled from her lap to the floor.
"Christine!" said Jimmy sharply. He was really alarmed; he took a big stride over to where she sat; he shook her. "Christine—what has happened? What is the matter?"
She looked at him then; she turned her beautiful eyes to his face, and at sight of them Jimmy caught his breath hard.
"Oh, Christine!" he said almost in a whisper.
His thoughts sped back incongruously to a day in the years that had gone; when he and she had been children together down in the country at Upton House.
He had stolen a gun belonging to the Great Horatio, and they had crept out into the woods together—he and she—to shoot rabbits, as he had confidently told her; and instead—oh, instead they had shot Christine's favourite dog Ruler.
All his life Jimmy remembered the broken-hearted look in Christine's eyes when she flung herself down by the fast-stiffening body of her favourite. And now she was looking like that again; looking at him as if he had broken her heart—as if—— Jimmy Challoner backed a step; his face had paled.
"In God's name, what is it—what is it?"
And then he saw the letter lying there on the floor between them in all its brazen pinkness. The faint scent of lilies was wafted to his brain before he stooped and grabbed it up. He held it at arm's length while he read it, as if already its writer had become repellent to him. There was a long, long silence.