"But--do you know him? He didn't seem to know you."

"These are life's tragedies. He has forgotten me. My boyhood friend!"

"Oh, you were at school with him?"

"No. Freddie went to Winchester, if I remember. I was at Haileybury.
Our acquaintance was confined to the holidays. My people lived near
his people in Worcestershire."

"Worcestershire!" Jill leaned forward excitedly. "But _I_ used to
live near Freddie in Worcestershire myself when I was small. I knew
him there when he was a boy. We must have met!"

"We met all right."

Jill wrinkled her forehead. That odd familiar look was in his eyes
again. But memory failed to respond. She shook her head.

"I don't remember you," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Never mind. Perhaps the recollection would have been painful."

"How do you mean, painful?"

"Well, looking back, I can see that I must have been a very
unpleasant child. I have always thought it greatly to the credit of
my parents that they let me grow up. It would have been so easy to
have dropped something heavy on me out of a window. They must have
been tempted a hundred times, but they refrained. Yes, I was a great