"Well everything! Tell me all about the kids, about who's called, about where you've been, about everything. Come, Polly Anne, I think you might unbutton a little and be jolly when a chap's been away three weeks. How are John and Charlotte Eldridge?"
"Yes!—I think you might have asked about them. John has been at death's door. There's dinner!..." Challis made a sympathetic noise about Mr. Eldridge, but postponed inquiry. Nothing made it easy until he found himself a lonely soup-consumer; because, you see, Marianne wasn't hungry.
"What has it been?" Too concise, perhaps. But really death's door, with John on the step, had been the last thing mentioned.
"What has what been?"
"What you told me. What's been the matter with John?"
"Peritonitis. But he's going on well now. Dr. Kitt says he'll have to live very carefully for some time.... I know what you mean, but it's very unfeeling to laugh. Besides, I don't believe he eats more than other people." Challis felt indefensible. Just fancy!—there he was, eating gravy soup all by himself!
"I wasn't laughing, old girl," said he. "Poor Jack Eldridge! Peritonitis is no joke. I'll go round to-morrow."
"It won't be any use. He won't be able to see you. Yes—you can take the soup, Harmood. Mr. Challis isn't going to have any more...."
A mere rough sample of the conversation. It was not unlike others of the same sort on like occasions. But was Challis wrong in imagining that, this time, it was a little accentuated! Was it only his imagination, gathering suggestions from the atmosphere that his home had been that of self-denying endurance during his absence, and that his own selfish indulgences elsewhere were being actively forgiven for his sake? What had he done to deserve forgiveness? If he had known that he was incurring it, would he have committed the offence at all?
Also he did feel that Marianne hadn't played fair. What could have been more genial than her send-off, three weeks ago?—more apparently genuine than her refusal to accompany her husband to Royd on the ground of a real dislike for Society? To be sure, a throb of conscience reminded him of a certain breath of relief—almost—that he drew at the decisiveness of this refusal. Had Marianne been sharp enough to see it? His instinct told him that a woman might have a sharp department in her mind on points of this sort, and yet make a poor show in logic and mental philosophy.