One evening they sat in the Café d'Afrique, laughing to each other over the physical and social oddities of two Norwegians who had constituted themselves their hosts on the strength of a daring stage-door introduction. As Jenny paused in her laughter to catch some phrase of melody in the orchestra, she saw Castleton drawing near their table. He stopped in doubt, and looked at her from wide, gray eyes very eager under eyebrows arched in a question. She returned his gaze without a flicker of recognition, and, bowing imperceptibly, he passed out into the night. The doors swung together behind him, and Jenny, striking a match from the stand on the table, set the whole box alight to distract Irene's attention from what she feared in the blush of a memory.
"Come on; let's go," she said to her friend.
So the girls left the two Norwegians desolate and volubly unintelligible.
One morning in November Irene came into Jenny's room at Stacpole Terrace.
"My Danby's coming home this week," she announced. "And his brother, too."
Jenny often thought to herself that Danby was a riddle. It was four years now since he and Irene had been reputed in love; yet nothing seemed to have happened since the day when for a fancy he dressed his sweetheart in short frocks. Here he was coming back from France as he had come back time after time in company with his brother, at the notion of meeting whom Jenny had always scoffed.
"What of it?" she said.
"Now don't be nasty, young Jenny. I shall be glad to see him."
"I suppose this means every minute you can get together for a fortnight, and then he'll be off again for six months. Why doesn't he marry you?"
"He's going to," Irene asserted, twisting the knob on the corner of the bed round and round until it squeaked. "But I don't want to get married, not yet."