er eyebrows arched in a question. She returned his gaze without a
flicker of recognition, and, bowing imperceptibly, he passed out into
the night. The doors swung together behind him, and Jenny, striking a
match from the stand on the table, set the whole box alight to distract
Irene's attention from what she feared in the blush of a memory.

"Come on; let's go," she said to her friend.

So the girls left the two Norwegians desolate and volubly
unintelligible.

One morning in November Irene came into Jenny's room at Stacpole
Terrace.

"My Danby's coming home this week," she announced. "And his brother,
too."

Jenny often thought to herself that Danby was a riddle. It was four
years now since he and Irene had been reputed in love; yet nothing
seemed to have happened since the day when for a fancy he dressed his
sweetheart in short frocks. Here he was coming back from France as he
had come back time after time in company with his brother, at the notion
of meeting whom Jenny had always scoffed.

"What of it?" she said.

"Now don't be nasty, young Jenny. I shall be glad to see him."

"I suppose this means every minute you can get together for a fortnight,
and then he'll be off again for six months. Why doesn't he marry you?"

"He's going to," Irene asserted, twisting the knob on the corner of the
bed round and round until it squeaked. "But I don't want to get married,
not yet."

"Oh, no, it's only a rumor. Why ever not? If I loved a fellow as you
think you love Danby, I'd get married quick enough."

"Well, you didn't----"

"That's enough of you," said Jenny, sitting up in bed. "No, I know I
didn't. But that was different."

"Why was it different? My Danby's a gentleman."

"Yes, when he's asleep. He _can't_ be much or he wouldn't have dressed
you up such a sight. I'd like to see a man make such a poppy-show of
me," cried Jenny, indignant at the recollection of the incident.

"Oh, well, he doesn't do it now," said Irene pacifically. "Aren't you
coming out with us?"

"You're very free all of a sudden with your Danby," Jenny continued
mockingly. "I remember when you was afraid for your life some girl would
carry him off under your nose. Yet you let him go all the time to
France. I think you're silly."

Jenny could not refrain from teasing Irene. The habit was firmly
established and, although she had not now the sense of outraged
independence which prompted her attitude in old days, she kept it up
because s