“Takes a lot to shock me. Have a peach?”
“I must!” she breathed. “I can’t let the chance slip. O-oh, what a scent!” She reached the peach towards him. “Grand, isn’t it!” Jenny discovered for Keith’s quizzical gaze an unexpected dimple in each pale cheek. He might have been Adam, and she the original temptress.
“Shall I peel it?”
“Seems a shame to take it off!” Jenny watched his deft fingers as he stripped the peach. The glowing skin of the fruit fell in lifeless peelings upon his plate, dying as it were under her eyes, Keith had poured wine for her in another, smaller, glass. She shook her head.
“I shall be drunk!” she protested. “Then I should sing! Horrible, it would be!”
“Not with a little port ... I’m not pressing you to a lot. Am I?” He brought coffee to the table, and she began to admire first of all the pattern of the silver tray. Jenny had never seen such a tray before, outside a shop, nor so delicately porcelain a coffee-service. It helped to give her the sense of strange, unforgettable experience.
“You didn’t say if you’d remember this evening,” she slowly reflected. Keith looked sharply up from the coffee, which he was pouring, she saw, from a thermos flask.
“Didn’t I?” he said. “Of course I shall remember it. I’ve done better. I’ve looked forward to it. That’s something you’ve not done. I’ve looked forward to it for weeks. You don’t think of that. We’ve been in the Mediterranean, coasting about. I’ve been planning what I’d do when we got back. Then Templecombe said he’d be coming right up to London; and I planned to see you.”
“Templecombe?” Jenny queried. “Who’s he?”
“He’s the lord who owns this yacht. Did you think it was my yacht?”