himself, thoroughly
unnerved.

Jill looked out of the corner of her eye at Derek. He was still
occupied with the people in front. She turned to the man on her right.
She was not the slave to etiquette that Freddie was. She was much too
interested in life to refrain from speaking to strangers.

"You shocked him!" she said dimpling.

"Yes. It broke Freddie all up, didn't it!"

It was Jill's turn to be startled. She looked at him in astonishment.

"Freddie?"

"That _was_ Freddie Rooke, wasn't it? Surely I wasn't mistaken?"

"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 pest around the
home. My only redeeming point was the way I worshipped _you_!"

"What!"

"Oh, yes. You probably didn't notice it at the time, for I had a
curious way of expressing my adoration. But you remain the brightest
memory of a chequered youth."

Jill searched his face with grave eyes, then shook her head again.

"Nothing stirs?" asked the man sympathetically.

"It's too maddening! Why does one forget things?" She reflected. "You
aren't Bobby Morrison?"

"I am not. What is more, I never was!"

Jill dived into the past once more and emerged with another
possibility.

"Or--Charlie--Charlie what was it?--Charlie Field?"

"You wound me! Have you forgotten that Charlie Field wore velvet Lord
Fauntleroy suits and long golden curls? My past is not smirched with