"What will you have to drink? Claret? Burgundy?" Keith was again upon
his feet. He poured out a large glass of red wine and laid it before
her. Jenny saw with marvel the reflections of light on the wine and of
the wine upon the tablecloth. She took a timid sip, and the wine ran
tingling into her being.

"High life," she murmured. "Don't make me tipsy!" They exchanged
overjoyed and intimate glances, laughing.

There followed trifle. Trifle had always been Jenny's dream; and this
trifle was her dream come true. It melted in the mouth; its flavours
were those of innumerable spices. She was transported with happiness at
the mere thought of such trifle. As her palate vainly tried to unravel
the secrets of the dish, Keith, who was closely observant, saw that she
was lost in a kind of fanatical adoration of trifle.

"You like it?" he asked.

"I shall never forget it!" cried Jenny. "Never as long as I live. When
I'm an old ... great-aunt...." She had hesitated at her destiny. "I
shall bore all the kids with tales about it. I shall say 'That night on
the yacht ... when I first knew what trifle meant....' They won't half
get sick of it. But I shan't."

"You'll like to think about it?" asked Keith. "Like to remember
to-night?"

"Will _you_?" parried Jenny. "The night you had Jenny Blanchard to
supper?" Their eyes met, in a long and searching glance, in which
candour was not unmixed with a kind of measuring distrust.

vii

Keith's face might have been carven for all the truth that Jenny got
from it then. There darted across her mind the chauffeur's certainty
that she was to be his passenger. She took another sip of wine.

"Yes," she said again, very slowly. "You _were_ sure I was coming. You
got it all ready. Been a bit of a sell if I hadn't come. You'd have had
to set to and eat it yourself.... Or get somebody else to help you."

She meant "another girl," but she did not know she meant that until the
words were spoken. Her own meaning stabbed her heart. That icy knowledge
that Keith was sure of her was bitterest of all. It made her happiness
defiant rather than secure. He was the only man for her. How did she
know there were not other women for Keith! How could she ever know that?
Rather, it sank into her consciousness that there must be other women.
His very ease showed her that. The equanimity of his laughing expression
brought her the unwelcome knowledge.

"I should have looked pretty small if I'd made no prep