had struck him, she could not have offended Wally more deeply. There
are some men whose ebullient natures enable them to rise unscathed
from the worst snub. Wally, her intuition told her, was not that kind
of man.

There was only one way of mending the matter. In these clashes of
human temperaments, these sudden storms that spring up out of a clear
sky, it is possible sometimes to repair the damage, if the
psychological moment is resolutely seized, by talking rapidly and
with detachment on neutral topics. Words have made the rift, and
words alone can bridge it. But neither Jill nor her companion could
find words, and the silence lengthened grimly. When Wally spoke, it
was in the level tones of a polite stranger.

"Your friends have gone."

His voice was the voice in which, when she went on railway journeys,
fellow-travellers in the carriage enquired of Jill if she would
prefer the window up or down. It had the effect of killing her
regrets and feeding her resentment. She was a girl who never refused
a challenge, and she set herself to be as frigidly polite and aloof
as he.

"Really?" she said. "When did they leave?"

"A moment ago." The lights gave the warning flicker that announces
the arrival of the hour of closing. In the momentary darkness they
both rose. Wally scrawled his name across the check which the waiter
had insinuated upon his attention. "I suppose we had better be
moving?"