"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."
"You don't mean that?" he gasped.
"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here. People will begin to stare."
"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"
"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."
"No, I don't want to."
Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.
"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay, Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you stay? Just this once. Do."
Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.