Jimmy took his hat off the table. "Good-bye, then. I will come to-morrow morning." And he left the room without another word. As the door closed behind him, Vera stood up, straightened her hair in front of the glass on the mantelpiece, dabbed the tears out of her eyes with her handkerchief, and then went upstairs, holding her head rather erect, but otherwise showing no sign of emotion.
Jimmy filled his pipe whilst he went down the front steps, and as he rammed the tobacco into the bowl he noticed, with a cynical little smile, that his hand was perfectly steady. In his heart he did not believe that the quarrel would prove final, that she would break off the engagement on the grounds of his past failings. It was just a passing cloud, he told himself. Both of them would have been more upset had their love affair come to a sudden and abrupt close. He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. Far otherwise. The knowledge had made her more tender, more watchful over his comfort, more anxious to shield him from worries which might drive him into the power of his enemy. She had never blamed him, even by implication. And why? He knew the answer only too well. Because she had loved him. Now the fever, which the parting from Vera had failed to arouse, came on him again. His pipe went out, and, unconsciously, he quickened his steps, as was his way when deeply stirred.
Lalage loved him. Lalage loved him too well to turn on him. The words drummed through his brain with maddening persistency; and then, as a corollary to them, came the questions, "Did Vera love him well enough to take the risk, to give him a chance to run straight? Was he always to be the Black Sheep, and herd with others of his kind?"
CHAPTER XXX
It was only a couple of hours after Jimmy had left Vera that the chauffeur from Drylands brought him a note in Mrs. Grimmer's sprawling handwriting.
"It will be all right," Ethel wrote. "Vera has agreed to take the sensible view, and let you show outward and visible signs of reformation during your engagement. So you must be very good, and, if you can, even pious. Come up to lunch to-morrow with a jaunty air as though nothing had happened."
Jimmy heaved a sigh of relief as he folded up the note and thrust it into his pocket. So the crisis was safely over, after all. Straightway he began to make excuses for Vera, her youth, her inexperience, the atmosphere in which she had been reared; yet he could not help remembering that Lalage was younger, by a year at least, and that her chances of gaining experience at home had been far smaller, and still Lalage had understood him and tried to help him, whilst Vera was only taking him as an offender on probation.
The latter was not pleasant thought, especially as the final letter to Lalage remained unwritten. He had intended to do it that night, had really made up his mind to do it; but now this scene with Vera seemed to have shaken his nerves, and he felt he could stand no more strain until he had had a good sleep. There was really no immediate hurry for a day or two. Both his letters to Lalage and her letters to him were so brief and so few in number that no one could object to the correspondence. So, in the end, he went to bed, moderately satisfied with his own prospects, having written nothing at all.