"Craig has told you?" she said softly.
"Yesterday. I wish you both all the usual things. I ought to have seen it from the first, I suppose, but as a matter of fact I did not. Certainly I never figured you in the lists when I spoke of the battle royal. Any war news?"
"We have exchanged calls without meeting."
"Preliminary skirmishes."
"Next came the dinner-invitation. Not exactly a war measure, should you say?"
"Knowing Julie, yes. I should call it the first engagement."
Jean perceived his military metaphor was but a thin disguise for a serious opinion.
"And the victor?" she said.
"Apparently yourself."
"I don't feel especially victorious," she said, a little wistfully. "What makes you think the battle is on? Oh, but we must not talk this way here," she immediately added. "We've eaten her salt."