"Oh, shut up," said Jenny, withdrawing her arm.
"But what are you making yourself miserable over? I haven't said I don't like your present. I haven't seen it."
"You're absolutely heartless. I don't believe you care a bit about me. I wish to God I'd never met you. I can't think about anything but you. I can't work. What's the good of being in love? It's a fool's game. It's unsettling. It's hopeless. I think I won't see you any more after to-night. I can't stand it."
Jenny had listened to his tirade without interruption; but now as they were passing the Empire, she stopped suddenly, and said in a voice cold and remote:
"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."
"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here. People will begin to stare."
"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"
"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."
Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.
"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay, Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you stay? Just this once. Do."
Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.
"No, darling you," Maurice whispered. "Such a darling, too. I hope Castleton hasn't arrived yet. I want to tell you all over again how frightfully sorry I am."
But when they had walked past the Buddha-like manager who, massive and enigmatical, broods over the entrance to the cafe, they could see Castleton in the corner. It was a pity; for the constraint of a lovers' quarrel, not absolutely adjusted, hung over them still in the presence of a third person before whom they had to simulate ease. Maurice, indeed, was so boisterously cordial that Jenny resented his dramatic ability, and, being incapable of simulation herself, showed plainly all was not perfectly smooth.
"What is the matter with our Jenny to-night?" Castleton inquired.