him?"

"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."

"You don't mean that?" he gasped.

"Don't I?"

"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here.
People will begin to stare."

"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"

"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."

"No, I don't want to."

Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.

"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant
it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay,
Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm
absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you
stay? Just this once. Do."

Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect
upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although
in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give
way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.

"Soppy me again," was all she said.

"No, darling you," Maurice whispered. "Such a darling, too. I hope
Castleton hasn't arrived yet. I want to tell you all over again how
frightfully sorry I am."

But when they had walked past the Buddha-like manager who, massive and
enigmatical, broods over the entrance to the cafe, they could see
Castleton in the corner. It was a pity; for the constraint of a lovers'
quarrel, not absolutely adjusted, hung over them still in the presence
of a third person before whom they had to simulate ease. Maurice,
indeed, was so boisterously cordial that Jenny resented his dramatic
ability, and, being incapable of simulation herself, showed plainly all
was not perfectly smooth.

"What is the matter with our Jenny to-night?" Castleton inquired.

"Nothing," she answered moodily.

"She feels rather seedy," Maurice explained.

"No, I don't."

"Do you like the opal brooch?" Castleton asked.

"I haven't seen it," Jenny replied.

"I was waiting to give it to her in here," Maurice suggested.

Jenny, who was examining herself in a pocket mirror, looked over at him
from narrowing eyes. He turned to her, defending himself against the
imputation of a lie.

"Castleton helped me to choose it. Look," he said, "it's an old brooch."

He produced from his pocket a worn leather case on the faded mauve
velvet of whose lining lay the brooch. It was an opal of some size set
unusually in silver filigree with seed pearls