“Don’t you remember sharing one of your father’s cigars with me behind the haystack in the meadow? We cut it in half. I finished my half, but I fancy about three puffs were enough for you. Those were happy days!”
“That one wasn’t! Of course I remember it now. I don’t suppose I shall ever forget it.”
“The thing was my fault, as usual. I recollect I dared you.”
“Yes. I always took a dare.”
“Do you still?”
“What do you mean?”
Wally knocked the ash off his cigarette.
“Well,” he said slowly, “suppose I were to dare you to get up and walk over to that table and look your fiancé in the eye and say, ‘Stop scowling at my back hair! I’ve a perfect right to be supping with an old friend!’—would you do it?”
“Is he?” said Jill, startled.
“Scowling? Can’t you feel it on the back of your head?” He drew thoughtfully at his cigarette. “If I were you I should stop that sort of thing at the source. It’s a habit that can’t be discouraged in a husband too early. Scowling is the civilized man’s substitute for wife-beating.”