She hung about uncomfortably, her hand on the door-knob.
“Jenny’s better,” she volunteered at last.
“Is she?” quite indifferent. Then he burst out: “Deb, d’you know that I’ll be rich one day, when my uncle dies. Rich. People will treat me differently then. I tell you, Deb, money does everything with some people. Not with a young girl, of course—but with their mothers. I’m nobody now. Anyone can insult me, give me the sack. I wish I was dead and buried.... Bobby oughtn’t to be left the whole evening alone; tell Jenny I said so. That’s why I’m in here; that’s why; the only reason,” he mumbled. “Else why shouldn’t I be with the others?”
Apparently some shattering of the next-door alliance had occurred on this evening of happenings.
“Send Jenny in to me. I won’t sit alone. Why should I? She’s always shut away with you and Ames, when I want her.—Deb, I’m so wretched.”
“Yes ... but I don’t like you one bit,” reflected Deb. Aloud she said: “I expect it’ll be all right to-morrow, Dolph; La llorraine has sudden moods, like all artists.”
It was queer, this all-round tacit acceptance of unofficial affections, on the second floor landing at Montagu Hall.
Carew merely groaned again; which Deb interpreted as welcome dismissal.
III
... Had Jenny won that kiss in her absence?—Deb slid open the door, in a bewilderment of dread and curiosity. Had Jenny——