When, seated at breakfast in their _salon_ some seven hours after Jean had burst into tears, Oliver read in the paper that _Plaisir et Cie_, Bankers, had suspended payment, he put a hand to his head. . . .
Then the door was opened, and Jean came into the room.
Oliver laid down the paper and buttered some bread.
“Well, old lady,” he said, “what’s the programme to-day?”
“Lunch with the Bostocks,” said Jean, selecting a roll. “Then to Molyneux with Maisie. Dinner with Pat Lafone. It’s his birthday, he says, and he swears we’ll light such a candle——”
“Let’s call it off,” said Pauncefote, “an’ keep the day to ourselves.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said her husband. “Only—only it’s our weddin’-day”—Jean frowned—“and I think perhaps we might mark it. You know. Just draw in our horns.”
“If you like,” said Pauncefote. “Let’s—let’s go for a walk in the _Bois_.”
“My dear Oliver,” she said, “your efforts to play the mug are too good to be true. Now eat your bread-and-butter like a good little boy and tell me what won the Church Congress—I mean, the Two Thousand. Where was Fire Guard?”
“Don’t know,” said her husband shortly. “But I mean what I say. I want to talk things over.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Jean. “I had my bust last night—my final bust. The incident’s closed. Besides, in the cold light of day——”
“Oliver,” she said, “we’ve never yet had a row—a proper row. But if you’re going to rake up the muck we picked over last night, we shall break our record with a bang. Now listen to me. Women are not like men. They may be as tough as teak, but once in a while they crumple—for half an hour. Something inside gives way. It’s humiliating, but there you are. . . . Well, I crumpled up last night. And you—you saw me. You witnessed my humiliation. Are you going to take advantage of what you saw?”
“No,” said Oliver, “I’m not. I’m not that sort of man. But I’ve things to say to you, Jean, that—that don’t concern the Bostocks or—or Pat Lafone.”
“It’s only ten now,” she said, “and what’s the matter with this room?”
Oliver rose to his feet and pushed back his chair.
The man’s brain was pounding. Jean’s sentences seemed to reach it by a circuitous route. On arrival they had to be parsed . . .
Mechanically he took out his case and lighted a cigarette. Then he continued slowly.