Freddie gave himself up to despondency: and, as always in these days when he was mournful, he thought of Jill. Jill’s sad case was a continual source of mental anguish to him. From the first he had blamed himself for the breaking-off of her engagement with Derek. If he had not sent the message to Derek from the police-station, the latter would never have known about their arrest, and all would have been well. And now, a few days ago, had come the news of her financial disaster, with its attendant complications.
It had descended on Freddie like a thunderbolt through the medium of Ronny Devereux.
“I say,” Ronny had said, “have you heard the latest? Your pal, Underhill, has broken off his engagement with Jill Mariner.”
“I know; rather rotten, what!”
“Rotten? I should say so! It isn’t done. I mean to say, chap can’t chuck a girl just because she’s lost her money. Simply isn’t on the board, old man!”
“Lost her money? What do you mean?”
Ronny was surprised. Hadn’t Freddie heard? Yes, absolute fact. He had it from the best authority. Didn’t know how it had happened and all that, but Jill Mariner had gone completely bust; Underhill had given her the miss-in-baulk; and the poor girl had legged it, no one knew where. Oh, Freddie had met her and she had told him she was going to America? Well, then, legged it to America. But the point was that the swine Underhill had handed her the mitten just because she was broke, and that was what Ronny thought so bally rotten. Broker a girl is, Ronny meant to say, more a fellow should stick to her.
“But—” Freddie rushed to his hero’s defence. “But it wasn’t that at all. Something quite different. I mean, Derek didn’t even know Jill had lost her money. He broke the engagement because —” Freddie stopped short. He didn’t want everybody to know of that rotten arrest business, as they infallibly would if he confided in Ronny Devereux. Sort of thing he would never hear the last of. “He broke it off because of something quite different.”
“Oh, yes!” said Ronny skeptically.
“But he did, really!”
Ronny shook his head.
“Don’t you believe it, old son. Don’t you believe it. Stands to reason it must have been because the poor girl was broke. You wouldn’t have done it and I wouldn’t have done it, but Underhill did, and that’s all there is to it. I mean, a tick’s a tick, and there’s nothing more to say. Well, I know he’s been a pal of yours, Freddie, but, next time I meet him, by Jove, I’ll cut him dead. Only I don’t know him to speak to, dash it!” concluded Ronny regretfully.
Ronny’s news had upset Freddie. Derek had returned to the Albany a couple of days ago, moody and silent. They had lunched together at the Bachelors, and Freddie had been pained at the attitude of his fellow clubmen. Usually, when he lunched at the Bachelors, his table became a sort of social center. Cheery birds would roll up to pass the time of day, and festive old eggs would toddle over to have coffee and so forth, and all that sort of thing. Jolly! On this occasion nobody had rolled, and all the eggs present had taken their coffee elsewhere. There was an uncomfortable chill in the atmosphere of which Freddie had been acutely conscious, though Derek had not appeared to notice it. The thing had only come home to Derek yesterday at the Albany, when the painful episode of Wally Mason had occurred. It was this way:
“Hullo, Freddie, old top! Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
Freddie looked up from his broken meditations, to find that his host had arrived.
“Hullo!”
“A quick bracer,” said Algy Martyn, “and then the jolly old food-stuffs. It’s pretty late, I see. Didn’t notice how time was slipping.”
Over the soup, Freddie was still a prey to gloom. For once the healing gin-and-vermouth had failed to do its noble work. He sipped sombrely, so sombrely as to cause comment from his host.
“Pipped?” enquired Algy solicitously.
“Pretty pipped,” admitted Freddie.
“Backed a loser?”