The third morning Christine answered Sangster's letter. She wrote very stiltedly; she said she was sorry to hear that Jimmy was not well, but no doubt he was all right again by this time. She said she was enjoying herself in a quiet way, and very much preferred the country to London.
"I have so many friends here, you see," she added, with a faint hope that perhaps Sangster would show the letter to Jimmy, and that he would gather from it that she did not miss him in the very least.
And Sangster did show it to Jimmy; to a rather weak-looking Jimmy, propped up in an armchair, slowly recovering from the severe chill which had made him quite ill for the time being.
A Jimmy who spoke very little, and asked no questions at all, and who took the letter apathetically enough, and laid it by as soon as he had read it.
"You wrote to her, then," he said indifferently.
"Yes."
"You might have saved yourself the trouble; I knew she would not come. If you had asked me I could have told you. Of course, you suggested that she should come."
"Yes."
Jimmy's eyes smiled faintly.
"Interfering old ass," he said affectionately.