Jeffard smiled at the conceit, but he spoke to the truism.
"I hope your first impressions of me won't be lasting," he ventured. "I think I was more than usually churlish last night."
She glanced up quickly. "There should be no 'last night' for us," she averred.
"Forgive me; you are quite right. But no matter what happens there always will be."
Her gaze lost itself among the circling figures beyond the archway, and the truth of the assertion drove itself home with a twinge of something like regret. But when she turned to him again there was unashamed frankness in the clear gray eyes.
"What poor minions the conventions have made us," she said. "Let us be primitive and admit that our acquaintance began last night. Does that help you?"
"It will help me very much, if you will let me try to efface the first impression."
"Does it need effacing?"
"I think it must. I was moody and half desperate."