not have given now to be able to cable back:

"Quite right; she is my wife."

But as it was----

"Let him think what he likes. I don't care a hang," was the thought in
Jimmy Challoner's mind.

He sat there with his chin drooping on his breast, lost in unhappy
thought.

It was not yet two days since Cynthia had sent him away; it seemed an
eternity.

Did she miss him at all? did she ever wish she could see him? ever wish
for one hour out of the happy past? Somehow he did not think so. Much
as he had loved her, Jimmy Challoner had always known hers to be the
sort of nature that lived solely for the present; besides, if she
wanted him, she had only got to send--to telephone. He looked across
at the receiver standing idle on his desk.

So many times she had rung him up; so many times he had heard her
pretty voice across the wire:

"Is that you, Jimmy boy?"

He would never hear it again. She did not want him any more. He
was--ugly word--jilted!

Jimmy writhed in his chair. That any woman should dare to so treat
him! The hot blood surged into his face.

It was a good sign--this sudden anger--had he but known it. When a man
can be angry with a woman he has once loved he is already beginning to
love her less; already beginning to see her as less perfect.

Some one tapped at his door; his man entered.

Costin was another bone of contention between Jimmy and the Great
Horatio.

"I never had a valet when I was your age," so his brother declared.
"What in the wide world you need a valet for is past my comprehension."

Jimmy had felt strongly inclined to answer that most things were past
his comprehension, but thought better of it; he could not, at any rate,
imagine his life without Costin. He knew in his heart that he had no
least intention of sacking Costin, and Costin stayed.

"If you please, sir," he began now, coming forward, "Mr. Sangster would
like to see you."

"Show him up," said Jimmy. He rose to his feet and stood gnawing his
lower lip agitatedly.

How much did Sangster know, he wondered, about Cynthia? He would have
liked to refuse to see him, but--well, they would have to meet sooner
or later, and, after all, Sangster had been a good friend to him in
more ways than one.

Jimmy said: "Hallo, old chap!" with rather forced affability when
Sangster entered. The two men shook hands.

Sangster glanced at the breakfast-table.

"I'm rather an early visitor, eh?"

"No. Oh, no. Sit do