“I met her on the steamer coming back. She is a Miss Dumont.”
Elorn’s smile was a careless dismissal of further interest. But in her heart perplexity and curiosity contended with concern. For she had seen Jim’s face. And had wondered.
He laid away his half-consumed cigarette. She was quite ready to go. She rose, and he laid the stole around her shoulders. She picked up her muff.
As she passed through the narrow aisle, she permitted herself a casual side-glance at this girl in black; and Palla looked up at her, kept her quietly in range of her brown eyes to the limit of breeding, then her glance dropped as Jim passed; and he heard her speaking serenely to the girl beside her.
At the revolving doors, Elorn said: “Shall I drop you at the office, Jim?”
“Thanks––if you don’t mind.”
In the car he talked continually, not very entertainingly, but there was more vivacity about him than there had been.
“Are you doing anything to-night?” he inquired.
She was, of course. Yet, she felt oddly relieved that he had asked her.... But the memory of the strange expression in his face persisted in her mind.
Who was this girl with whom he had crossed the 128 ocean? And why should he lose his self-possession on unexpectedly encountering her?