The next morning Jill went to work on the sachets again, though it was with the utmost difficulty that she managed to concentrate her thoughts upon anything at all save Jack and the new ring. As it was, her ideas kept wandering, and she caught herself every now and again breaking off into song—snatches of Music Hall choruses that she had heard the night before. And then in the midst of it in walked St. John, and seeing what she was doing he took the satin away from her in his masterful fashion, and crumpled it up in his hands before her horrified gaze.
“You said that the smirking idiot who gave you these to do made love to you,” he said. “I won’t brook any oily rivals of that description.”
Jill laughed. She rather enjoyed the idea of his being jealous.
“I thought you said that that was a hallucination,” she retorted. “I was almost prepared to believe you and to think that the next time he chucked me under the chin, or put his arm round my waist that it was only my vivid imagination.”
“He did that?” cried St. John fiercely.
“Oh, dear! yes; several times.”
“Give me his address,” commanded her lover. “I’ll stop his love-making propensities. Where does this greasy Lothario hang out?”
But Jill was too discreet to say.
“I forget,” she answered lamely; “I never was good at locality. Don’t look so savage, Jack; he only chucked me under the chin once, and I washed my face well directly I got back, indeed I did; I scrubbed so hard that I rubbed the skin off, I remember, and it was sore for two days.”
“You ought to have returned the work at once,” grumbled St. John. “I am surprised at your taking it after that.”