Silence.
Martin Drake was faintly conscious of a murmur of voices from the other room, and the ticking of his wrist-watch. But he felt alone, and amid the stuffiness of the arms-room, with Jenny. At first his chest seemed light, light and hollow; then he felt a sensation almost like physical sickness.
Jenny, blonde and slender. Jenny, with the wide-spaced blue eyes, the eagerness and the — not, not naivete! some other expression! With intolerable vividness he remembered her, in the corner of the railway compartment her arms round his neck, and moonlight draining colour from her face, the rattlety-clack of the train dimming speech. Even now she was wearing a dark-blue tailored suit with a white blouse. Martin tried to speak. All he could force out was the inanity of, "Hello."
"Hello," said Jenny in a voice hardly above a whisper.
He started to walk towards her. Though they were separated only by the length of the green-felt-covered table with its weapons, it seemed an enormous distance. Then he noticed something else.
You are not permitted to smoke at Willaby's. Fumbling in her handbag, Jenny found a tortoise-shell cigarette case, the kind that contained only very small cigarettes. Jenny took, out a cigarette; and automatically he reached in his pocket for a lighter. But her hand was shaking so badly, as she lifted it, that she hastily put back the cigarette in the case.
Emotion caught these two like a net; it made them flounder; it kept them half deaf and partially blind. "Where were you on that train? I couldn't find you!" The blue eyes flashed up.
"I–I stayed behind on the platform. I thought you would too, so we shouldn't miss each other. — But it's too late!" she added. "It's too late!"
"How do you mean, it's too late?"
Jenny turned away from him, but he swung her back again. The softness of her shoulder under the blue coat, the brushing of the yellow hair in a long bob against his hand: he had to remember where he was. Then he lifted her left hand. Though there was no wedding-ring on the third finger, it held an engagement ring both costly and in good taste.