Jimmy Blake was twenty-seven, above medium height, lean of build and of the athletic type which keen tennis produces and which the war hardened and aged a little. There were lines in his thin, brown face which men of twenty-seven do not usually carry, but Jimmy had spent three years behind the controls of a fighting plane and the wings of the Dark Angel had brushed his cheek a dozen times and had departed. The reaction from the hard realities of war had not found expression in a way which is painfully usual. He had fled from the rigors of war to the lazy, go-as-you-please life which a wealthy man could afford. He was a wholesome, normal youth with a wholesome normal respect for his fellows, be they men or women, but he was the stuff from which confirmed bachelors are made and the prospect of spending an evening with the daughter of a master printer neither alarmed nor pleased him.
He went down to dinner when the gong sounded and found the party already at the table, which was Gerald's way. He recognized immediately the white-haired, white-mustached printer, and then he turned his eyes to the girl who sat at Gerald's right hand. And here he had his first pleasant shock. Remembering Sennett's age, he expected a woman of thirty-five and pictured her a little stout and a little awkward.
But this girl could not have been more than twenty-two. She was petite and dainty and dressed with delightful simplicity—the kind of dress that every man admires and so few women have the courage to wear. Her face was delicately molded. The eyes were a deep blue, almost violet, and when they looked up at him gravely, inquiringly, he experienced a queer and not unpleasant thrill.
“This is Mr. Blake,” introduced Gerald. “This is Miss Sennett, Jimmy. You know her father.”
Jimmy shook hands with both and sat down slowly. He could not take his eyes from the girl's face. She fascinated him, though why he could not understand, for he had met many beautiful women, women more stately and more impressive than she, and they had left him cold. She neither flushed nor grew embarrassed under a stare which she might reasonably have regarded as offensive, and Jimmy, recognizing his lapse of manners, turned his attention to the father.
“I was with young Ponter to-day,” said Jimmy.
Mr. Sennett did not seem impressed and the young man gathered that the heir to Ponters' publishing house was not regarded as an admirable member of society.
Jimmy could never recall what they talked about, Delia and he. Her name was Bedelia and she had been christened in the days when Bedelia was really a pretty name and before it had been promoted by the ragtime song writer to its present-day notoriety.
Gerald and Sennett were, of course, absorbed in the book. Old Sennett was, like most printers, a brilliantly knowledgeable man, for the printing trade represents the aristocracy of intellect. He was interesting, too, in another way. He told stories of work done in the locked room where government minutes are printed and which only he and another man occupied in the dark days of the war, when the cabinet secrets he “set” might have been sold to the enemy for fabulous sums.
Gerald and the old man went off to Van Roon's study.
“Now I'm afraid you're going to be bored,” said Jimmy as he showed her to the drawing-room. “I can't play or sing or do anything clever—I can't even give you a selection on the Maggerson calculus!”
Delia Sennett smiled.
“He's a very wonderful man, Mr. Blake,” she said, and he stared at her.
“Don't tell me you're a mathematician, too,” he gasped and she laughed. She had a sweet, low, musical laugh which was music to Jimmy's ears.
“I know nothing about it,” said Delia, “and I've been scared to death lest you were as clever as Mr. van Roon. He's a relation of yours, isn't he?”
Jimmy nodded.
“His mother was my mother's sister. She married a Dutch scientist, or, rather, a scientist with a Dutch name,” he explained. “Jerry and I have lived together in this house since we were kids and you're quite right about his being clever. You were equally discerning when you discovered I was not.”
“I didn't think you were very keen on scientific subjects,” she corrected.
“And I'm not,” said Jimmy. “Are you?”
She shook her head. He tried to keep the conversation on the personal note, but he observed she was uneasy and glanced at her watch.
“By Jove!” he said, suddenly jumping up. “I promised to see you home. Are you in any hurry?”
“I want to be home before ten,” she said, “I have a lesson to give at eight o'clock, to-morrow morning.”
She smiled at his look of astonishment.