When Jenny and Irene reached the Gardens, the mud-splashed January darkness had already fallen; but for some reason the entrance-hall of the block containing the Danbys' flat was not yet lighted up. It seemed cavernous and chill; the stone stairs were repellent and the whole air full of hollow warnings. Half-way up, a watery exhalation filtered through the frosted glass of a flat's front door in a cold effulgence which added eerily to the lifelessness of all the other doors. The Danbys lived at the very top, and it took all Irene's powers of persuasion to induce Jenny to complete the ascent. At last, however, they gained their destination and immediately on the shrilling of an electric bell walked through a narrow hall misty with the fumes of Egyptian cigarettes. The sitting-room looked cosy with its deep crimson paper and fireglow and big arm-chairs heaped with downy cushions. Yet the atmosphere had the sickly oppression of an opiate, and it did not take Jenny long to pull back the purple velvet curtains and throw open the window to the raw winter night.
"It's like being in a bottle of port in this room. Phew! I shall have a most shocking headache soon," she prophesied.
"Won't you leave your coats and things in my room?" said Jack Danby.
"That's not such a dusty idea. Come on, young Ireen."
The two girls followed their host to his room which was hung with rose du Barri draperies prodigally braided with gold.
"What a glorious room," cried Jenny.
"You think so?" asked its owner.
"Rather."
The evening passed away without any development of the situation. The girls looked at books and pictures according to the custom of first visits, and drank Green Chartreuse after the supper which they had helped to lay. They also smoked many fat Egyptian cigarettes during an evening of heavy silences, broken by the crunch of subsiding coal and occasional cries that floated in from neighboring slums across the stillness of a wet Sunday night.
As Jenny paused on the step of the taxi that was to drive them home, Jack Danby held her hand very tightly.