Christine was just crossing the hall of the hotel when Jimmy Challoner entered it. She saw him at once, and stood still with a little flush in her face.
"I was just thinking about you," she said. "I was just wondering if you would come and see us to-day; somehow I didn't think you would."
She spoke very simply and unaffectedly. She was genuinely pleased to see him, and saw no reason for hiding it. "Have you had lunch?" she asked. "Mother and I are just going to have ours."
If he had given way to his own inclinations he would have gone without lunch—without everything. He was utterly wretched. The kindness of Christine's eyes brought a lump to his throat. He did not want her to be kind to him. She was not the woman he wanted at all. Why, oh, why was he here when his heart was away—God alone knew where—with Cynthia!
What was she doing? he was asking himself in an agony, even while he followed Christine across the hall to the dining-room; had she really meant him to accept that note of dismissal as final? or had it just been written in a moment of petulance?
He had not meant to think about her; he had vowed to put her out of his thoughts for ever, to let her see that he would not wear the willow for her; and yet—oh, they were all very well, these fine resolves, but when a chap was utterly—confoundedly down and out——
He found himself shaking hands with Christine's mother.
"Jimmy hasn't had any lunch," Christine was saying. "So I asked him to have some with us."
Her voice sounded very gay; the little flush had not died out of her cheeks.
"I am very pleased you have come," said Christine's mother. She shook hands with Jimmy, and smiled at him with her mother-eyes.