The two young men were both profuse in their thanks. Mr. Moreton waved them away. 'There will be just three or four newspaper men,' he continued—'I put the names of the principal papers into a bottle and drew lots; the reporters who came down to Jersey State agreed to that—you two, your aunt and a young lady. You can go and finish your dinner now, boys. Your aunt and I, Jim, are going on to a cinema afterwards. We're going to make a real night of it.'
The two young men shook hands and made their adieux. As soon as they had resumed their places, Lavendale leaned across the table towards his friend with glowing face.
'Jimmy, you're a brick,' he declared. 'We'll have another bottle on the strength of this. The very night I arrive, too! Whoever heard of such luck! I don't suppose I should ever have got within a hundred yards of him but for you.'
'He's a shy old bird,' Moreton admitted. 'We certainly were in luck to-night though.'
'I wonder who the girl is who's going to be there,' Lavendale remarked idly.
His eyes had suddenly strayed once more over the brilliant yet uneasy panorama of flashing lights, huge buildings, the throbbing and clanging of cars across the distant line of the river to the blue spaces beyond. The leader of the little orchestra behind was playing a familiar waltz. Suzanne and he had danced it together one night in London. He was for a moment oblivious of the whole gamut of his surroundings. The world closed in upon him. He heard her voice, felt the touch of her fingers, saw a gleam of the tenderness which sometimes flashed out from beneath the suffering of her eyes. His friend glanced at him in wonder. It was the insistent voice of a waiter which brought him back from his reverie.
'French or Turkish coffee, sir?'
Lavendale made a heedless choice and climbed down to the present.
'Way back somewhere, weren't you?' Jim Moreton remarked.
His friend nodded.