"Ah you! the sunshine is here now." He bent over Esmé's hands, and his flattery was as water pattering off polished marble. Esmé had no use for the Gore Helmsleys of life; she had laughed when he had given her a flower as though it were made of diamonds. Jimmie made things as cheap for himself as he could.
But Esmé talked to him now. Jerry was almost whispering to Denise Blakeney, making his adoration foolishly conspicuous.
The restaurant was filling. Denise had ordered luncheon; she never trusted to chance. A soufflet of fish, asparagus, grilled fillets of beef.
As the fish was handed to them, Denise Blakeney started and flushed painfully. Her young admirer had been showing her a jewel flashing in a tiny box—a pear-shaped pink pearl.
"Oh!" she cried sharply, and pushed the box away.
A bluff man, with heavy features, had gone up the room and sat down at a small table. His companion was an elderly woman, dowdy, rather fussily impressed.
"It's Cyrrie!" said Denise. "Cyrrie and his old Aunt Grace. He asked me to have her at Grosvenor Square to-day, and I told him a fib to escape." Denise fidgeted uneasily, her colour changing. "I told one fib," she said, "now it will take a dozen more to make it credible."
"The fib is a mental fly," said Jimmie, laughing; "he's grown large quickly. Cheer up, Milady, don't look tragic."
The big man nodded to his wife with a careless smile. It is an Englishman's need to be outwardly pleasant, to glaze a volcano with a laugh—in public.
"He hasn't scolded me enough lately," said Denise, grimly. "And the nature of husbands being to scold, it makes me nervous." She watched Cyrrie narrowly.