Jenny in the firelight was
singing and rocking her baby to sleep. She jumped up to open the door to
his knock.

"Why, Fuz," she said simply.

He stood enormous against the last gleams of day, and Jenny realized
with what small people she had been living so long.

"Jane," he said, "this is a big moment."

He followed her into the room and waited while she lit the lamp and
pointed with warning finger to the child asleep in a silence of ticking
clocks.

"There's a surprise, or isn't it?"

"Rather," said Castleton. "It looks very well."

"Oh, Fuz. It! You are dreadful. He's called Frank, and fancy, I never
knew you were called Frank till you wrote to me last month."

"Another disappointment," sighed Castleton.

"What?"

"Why, of course I thought you altered his name to celebrate my visit."

"You never didn't?" said Jenny, already under slow rustic influences not
perfectly sure of a remark's intention. Then suddenly getting back to
older and lighter forms of conversation, she laughed.

"Well, how are you, Jenny?" he inquired.

"Oh, I'm feeling grand. Where are you staying?"

"The One and All Inn."

"Comfortable?"

"I fancy very, from a quick glance."

"You'll stay and have tea with us and meet my husband," Jenny invited.

"I shall be proud."

A silence fell on these two friends.

"Well, what about dear old London?" said Jenny at last.

"It's extraordinarily the same. Let me see, had tubes and taxis been
invented before you went away?" Castleton asked.

"Don't be silly. Of course," she exclaimed, outraged by such an
implication of antediluvian exile.

"Then flatly there is nothing to tell you about London. I was at the
Orient the other night. I need not say the ballet was precisely the same
as a dozen others I have seen, and you have helped at."

"Any pretty new girls?" Jenny asked.

"I believe there are one or two."

"How's Ronnie Walker?"

"He still lives more for painting than by painting, and has grown a
cream-colored beard."

"Oh, he never hasn't. Then he ought to get the bird."

"So that he could say: 'Four owls and a hen, two larks and a wren, have
all built their nests in my beard'? It isn't big enough, Jane."

"And Cunningham, how's he?"

"Cunningham is married. I don't know his wife, but I'm told she plays
the piano a great deal better than he does. As for myself," said
Castleton quickly, "I have chambers in the Temple, but live at home with
my people, who have moved to Kens