“Haven’t we met somewhere?” she asked him bluntly.
Jerome got up, a little too hastily, perhaps, to do full justice to the poise and new nonchalance which were coming to be an intrinsic part of his nature.
“I don’t know,” he wobbled in surprise. “Have we?” Surely there was something about her he recognized. “Yes, I’m sure we have, but I’m sorry to say I can’t exactly place it.”
“That’s my difficulty, too,” she laughed.
And then something in her half satirical laugh, but especially in a certain unassailable bovine quality in her eyes, carried Jerome flashingly back across the waste of centuries to an all at once vividly remembered occasion.
“Miss Utterbourne?” he said, fumbling a bit with his hat, which seemed uncertain which hand, if either, would acquire an ultimate undisputed possession.
“Yes, I am,” she told him. “And it emphatically annoys me not to be able to place you more definitely. Wait—”
He gave her a courteous lift.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, though her expression scarcely changed, “that’s it. Now I remember perfectly. I dimly connected you in my mind with Stella Meade, but Borneo’s so far off, and you don’t look at all as I remember you.”