a study; now and then he gave a little choked exclamation of rage.

What the deuce did Sangster mean by taking such an attitude? It was
like his infernal cheek. It was no business of his if he chose to get
engaged to Christine and half a dozen other girls at the same time.
Anyone would think he had done a shabby trick by asking her to marry
him; anyone would think that there had been something disgraceful in
having done so; anyone would think----

"Damn it all!" said Jimmy Challoner.

He took a cigarette and lit it; but it went out almost immediately, and
he flung it into the fire and lit another.

In a minute or two he had thrown that away also; he lay back in his
chair and closed his eyes.

He was an engaged man--it was no novelty. He had been engaged before
to a woman whom he adored. Now he was engaged to Christine, the girl
who had been his boyhood's sweetheart; a girl whom he had not seen for
years.

He wondered if she believed that he loved her. He sat up, frowning.
He did love her--of course he did; or, at least, he would when they
were married and settled down. Men always loved their wives--decent
men, that is.

He tried to believe that. He tried to forget the heaps and heaps of
unhappy marriages which had been brought before his notice; friends of
his own--all jolly decent chaps, too.