The suggestion fitted in with the intimacy of their long talk, so that Jean did not realize she was doing anything unusual, until Jerome drew out her chair in a corner of an attractive tea-room. Then all the teas and luncheons she had had with Gregory in just such rooms marshaled before her, and Jean wished she had not come. In time it would be easy, but now it was difficult to keep her attention fixed, and the luncheon began in a restraint that Jerome felt, but whose origin puzzled him. It was not until the meal was over that, in the relief of its ending, Jean's mood lightened to its earlier cheerfulness.
"We'll give Mike Flannery a run for his money and the surprise of his life," she said, as the waitress departed with the bill.
"I suppose you'll want a few days' grace to get rested and set up the lares and penates."
"There's not a penate to set up. I am sharing a house with four other women and all the lares are in place. I'm with Catherine Lee and Nan Bonham, Brooklyn Relief."
"Grove Street!"
"Yes. Do you know them?"
Jerome laughed until Jean demanded:
"Why? Are we very ridiculous?"
"I beg your pardon. No, of course not. But Grove Street is the skeleton in my family closet. You give teas during the winter."
"Do we?"