“Oh, ah, yes,” he mumbled. “Well,” he added to Jill, “I suppose I may as well be toddling back. See you later and so forth.”
And with a faint ‘Good-bye-ee!’ Freddie removed himself, thoroughly unnerved.
Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right. She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.
“You shocked him!” she said, dimpling.
“Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn’t it!”
It was Jill’s turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.
“Freddie?”
“That was Freddie Rooke, wasn’t it? Surely I wasn’t mistaken?”
“But—do you know him? He didn’t seem to know you.”
“These are life’s tragedies. He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!”