introduced leaning over him and taking quite unpardonable liberties with
his back hair.
One says that Mr. Carmyle was annoyed. The word is weak. The
interruption coming at such a moment jarred every ganglion in his body.
The clicking noise of the drumsticks maddened him. And the gleaming
whiteness of Mr. Williams' friendly and benignant smile was the last
straw. His dignity writhed beneath this abominable infliction. People at
other tables were laughing. At him. A loathing for the Flower Garden
flowed over Bruce Carmyle, and with it a feeling of suspicion and
disapproval of everyone connected with the establishment. He sprang to
his feet.
"I think I will be going," he said.
Sally did not reply. She was watching Ginger, who still stood beside
the table recently vacated by Reginald Cracknell .
"Good night," said Mr. Carmyle between his teeth.
"Oh, are you going?" said Sally with a start. She felt embarrassed.
Try as she would, she was unable to find words of any intimacy. She
tried to realize that she had promised to marry this man, but never
before had he seemed so much a stranger to her, so little a part of her
life. It came to her with a sensation of the incredible that she had
done this thing, taken this irrevocable step.
The sudden sight of Ginger had shaken her. It was as though in the last
half-hour she had forgotten him and only now realized what marriage with
Bruce Carmyle would mean to their comradeship. From now on he was dead
to her. If anything in this world was certain that was. Sally Nicholas
was Ginger's pal, but Mrs. Carmyle, she realized, would never be allowed
to see him again. A devastating feeling of loss smote her like a blow.
"Yes, I've had enough of this place," Bruce Carmyle was saying.
"Good night," said Sally. She hesitated. "When shall I see you?" she
asked awkwardly.
It occurred to Bruce Carmyle that he was not showing himself at his
best. He had, he perceived, allowed his nerves to run away with him.
"You don't mind if I go?" he said more amiably. "The fact is, I can't
stand this place any longer. I'll tell you one thing, I'm going to take
you out of here quick."
"I'm afraid I can't leave at a moment's notice," said Sally, loyal to
her obligations.
"We'll talk over that to-morrow. I'll call for you in the morning and
take you for a drive somewhere in a car. You want some fresh air after
this." Mr. Carmyle looked about him in stiff disgust, and expressed his
unalterable sentiments concerning the Flower Garden, that apple of
Isadore Abrahams' eye, in a snort of loathing. "My God! What a place!"
He walked quickly away and disappeared. And Ginger, beaming happily,
swooped on Sally's table like a homing pigeon.
4
"Good Lord, I say, what ho!" cried Ginger. "Fancy meeting you here.
What a bit of luck!" He glanced over his shoulder warily. "Has that
blighter pipped?"
"Pipped?"
"Popped," explained Ginger. "I mean to say, he isn't coming back or any
rot like that, is he?"
"Mr. Carmyle? No, he has gone."
"Sound egg!" said Ginger with satisfaction. "For a moment, when I saw
you yarning away together, I thought he might be with your party. What
on earth is he doing over here at all, confound him? He's got all Europe
to play about in, why should he come infesting New York? I say, it
really is ripping, seeing you again. It seems years... Of course, one
get's a certain amount of satisfaction writing letters, but it's not the
same. Besides, I write such rotten letters. I say, this really is rather
priceless. Can't I get you something? A cup of coffee, I mean, or an egg
or something? By jove! this really is top-hole."
His homely, honest face glowed with pleasure, and it seemed to Sally as
though she had come out of a winter's night into a warm friendly room.
Her mercurial spirits soared.
"Oh, Ginger! If you knew what it's like seeing you!"
"No, really? Do you mean, honestly, you're braced?"
"I should say I am braced."
"Well, isn't that fine! I was afraid you might have forgotten me."
"Forgotten you!"
With something of the effect of a revelation it suddenly struck Sally
how far she had been from forgetting him, how large was the place he had
occupied in her thoughts.
"I've missed you dreadfully," she said, and felt the words inadequate as
she uttered them.
"What ho!" said Ginger, also internally condemning the poverty of speech
as a vehicle for conveying thought.
There was a brief silence. The first exhilaration of the reunion over,
Sally deep down in her heart was aware of a troubled feeling as though
the world were out of joint. She forced herself to ignore it, but it
would not be ignored. It grew. Dimly she was beginning to realize what
Ginger meant to her, and she fought to keep herself from realizing it.
Strange things were happening to her to-night, strange emotions stirring
her. Ginger seemed somehow different, as if she were really seeing him
for the first time.
"You're looking wonderfully well," she said trying to keep the
conversation on a pedestrian level.
"I am well," said Ginger. "Never felt fitter in my life. Been out in
the open all day long... simple life and all that... working like
blazes. I say, business is booming. Did you see me just now, handing
over Percy the Pup to what's-his-name? Five hundred dollars on that one
deal. Got the cheque in my pocket. But what an extraordinarily rummy
thing that I should have come to this place to deliver the goods just
when you happened to be here. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. I
say, I hope the people you're with won't think I'm butting in. You'll
have to explain that we're old pals and that you started me in business
and all that sort of thing. Look here," he said lowering his voice, "I
know how you hate being thanked, but I simply must say how terrifically
decent..."
"Miss Nicholas."
Lee Schoenstein was standing at the table, and by his side an expectant
youth with a small moustache and pince-nez. Sally got up, and the next
moment Ginger was alone, gaping perplexedly after her as she vanished
and reappeared in the jogging throng on the dancing floor. It was the
nearest thing Ginger had seen to a conjuring trick, and at that moment
he was ill-attuned to conjuring tricks. He brooded, fuming, at what
seemed to him the supremest exhibition of pure cheek, of monumental
nerve, and of undiluted crust that had ever come within his notice. To
come and charge into a private conversation like that and whisk her away
without a word...
"Who was that blighter?" he demanded with heat, when the music ceased
and Sally limped back.
"That was Mr. Schoenstein."
"And who was the other?"
"The one I danced with? I don't know."
"You don't know?"
Sally perceived that the conversation had arrived at an embarrassing
point. There was nothing for it but candour.
"Ginger," she said, "you remember my telling you when we first met that
I used to dance in a Broadway place? This is the place. I'm working
again."
Complete unintelligence showed itself on Ginger's every feature.
"I don't understand," he said - unnecessarily, for his face revealed the
fact.
"I've got my old job back."
"But why?"
"Well, I had to do something." She went on rapidly. Already a light
dimly resembling the light of understanding was beginning to appear in
Ginger's eyes. "Fillmore went smash, you know - it wasn't his fault, poor
dear. He had the worst kind of luck - and most of my money was tied up in
his business, so you see..."
She broke off confused by the look in his eyes, conscious of an absurd
feeling of guilt. There was amazement in that look and a sort of
incredulous horror.
"Do you mean to say..." Ginger gulped and started again. "Do you mean
to tell me that you let me have... all that money... for the
dog-business... when you were broke? Do you mean to say..."
Sally stole a glance at his crimson face and looked away again quickly.
There was an electric silence.
"Look here," exploded Ginger with sudden violence, "you've got to marry
me. You've jolly well got to marry me! I don't mean that," he added
quickly. "I mean to say I know you're going to marry whoever you
please... but won't you marry me? Sally, for God's sake have a dash at
it! I've been keeping it in all this time because it seemed rather
rotten to bother you about it, but now... .Oh, dammit, I wish I could
put it into words. I always was rotten at talking. But... well, look
here, what I mean is, I know I'm not much of a chap, but it seems to me
you must care for me a bit to do a thing like that for a fellow...
and... I've loved you like the dickens ever since I met you... I do wish
you'd have a stab at it, Sally. At least I could look after you, you
know, and all that... I mean to say, work like the deuce and try to give
you a good time... I'm not such an ass as to think a girl like you could
ever really... er... love a blighter like me, but..."
Sally laid her hand oh his.
"Ginger, dear," she said, "I do love you. I ought to have known it all
along, but I seem to be understanding myself to-night for the first
time." She got up and bent over him for a swift moment, whispering in
his ear, "I shall never love anyone but you, Ginger. Will you try to
remember that." She was moving away, but he caught at her arm and
stopped her.
"Sally..."
She pulled her arm away, her face working as she fought against the
tears that would not keep back.
"I've made a fool of myself," she said. "Ginger, your cousin... Mr.
Carmyle... just now he asked me to marry him, and I said I would."
She was gone, flitting among the tables like some wild creature running
to its home: and Ginger, motionless, watched her go.
5
The telephone-bell in Sally's little sitting-room was ringing jerkily as
she let herself in at the front door. She guessed who it was at the
other end of the wire, and the noise of the bell sounded to her like the
voice of a friend in distress crying for help. Without stopping to close
the door, she ran to the table and unhooked the receiver. Muffled,
plaintive sounds were coining over the wire.
"Hullo... Hullo... I say... Hullo..."
"Hullo, Ginger," said Sally quietly.
An ejaculation that was half a shout and half gurgle answered her.
"Sally! Is that you?"
"Yes, here I am, Ginger."
"I've been trying to get you for ages."
"I've only just come in. I walked home."
There was a pause.
"Hullo."
"Yes?"
"Well, I mean..." Ginger seemed to be finding his usual difficulty in
expressing himself. "About that, you know. What you said."
"Yes?" said Sally, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
"You said..." Again Ginger's vocabulary failed him. "You said you loved
me."
"Yes," said Sally simply.
Another odd sound floated over the wire, and there was a moment of
silence before Ginger found himself able to resume.
"I... I... Well, we can talk about that when we meet. I mean, it's no
good trying to say what I think over the 'phone, I'm sort of knocked
out. I never dreamed... But, I say, what did you mean about Bruce?"
"I told you, I told you." Sally's face was twisted and the receiver
shook in her hand. "I've made a fool of myself. I never realized... And
now it's too late."
"Good God!" Ginger's voice rose in a sharp wail. "You can't mean you
really... You don't seriously intend to marry the man?"
"I must. I've promised."
"But, good heavens..."
"It's no good. I must."
"But the man's a blighter!"
"I can't break my word."
"I never heard such rot," said Ginger vehemently. "Of course you can.
A girl isn't expected..."
"I can't, Ginger dear, I really can't."
"But look here..."
"It's really no good talking about it any more, really it isn't... Where
are you staying to-night?"
"Staying? Me? At the Plaza. But look here..."
Sally found herself laughing weakly.
"At the Plaza! Oh, Ginger, you really do want somebody to look after
you. Squandering your pennies like that... Well, don't talk any more
now. It's so late and I'm so tired. I'll come and see you to-morrow.
Good night."
She hung up the receiver quickly, to cut short a fresh outburst of
protest. And as she turned away a voice spoke behind her.
"Sally!"
Gerald Foster was standing in the doorway.
CHAPTER XVII
SALLY LAYS A GHOST
1
The blood flowed slowly back into Sally's face, and her heart, which
had leaped madly for an instant at the sound of his voice, resumed its
normal beat. The suddenness of the shock over, she was surprised to find
herself perfectly calm. Always when she had imagined this meeting,
knowing that it would have to take place sooner or later, she had felt
something akin to panic: but now that it had actually occurred it hardly
seemed to stir her. The events of the night had left her incapable of
any violent emotion.
"Hullo, Sally!" said Gerald.
He spoke thickly, and there was a foolish smile on his face as he stood
swaying with one hand on the door. He was in his shirt-sleeves,
collarless: and it was plain that he had been drinking heavily. His face
was white and puffy, and about him there hung like a nimbus a sodden
disreputableness.
Sally did not speak. Weighed down before by a numbing exhaustion, she
seemed now to have passed into that second phase in which over-tired
nerves enter upon a sort of Indian summer of abnormal alertness. She
looked at him quietly, coolly and altogether dispassionately, as if he
had been a stranger.
"Hullo!" said Gerald again.
"What do you want?" said Sally.
"Heard your voice. Saw the door open. Thought I'd come in."
"What do you want?"
The weak smile which had seemed pinned on Gerald's face vanished. A
tear rolled down his cheek. His intoxication had reached the maudlin
stage.
"Sally... S-Sally... I'm very miserable." He slurred awkwardly over the
difficult syllables. "Heard your voice. Saw the door open. Thought I'd
come in."
Something flicked at the back of Sally's mind. She seemed to have been
through all this before. Then she remembered. This was simply Mr.
Reginald Cracknell over again.
"I think you had better go to bed, Gerald," she said steadily. Nothing
about him seemed to touch her now, neither the sight of him nor his
shameless misery.
"What's the use? Can't sleep. No good. Couldn't sleep. Sally, you
don't know how worried I am. I see what a fool I've been."
Sally made a quick gesture, to check what she supposed was about to
develop into a belated expression of regret for his treatment of
herself. She did not want to stand there listening to Gerald apologizing
with tears for having done his best to wreck her life. But it seemed
that it was not this that was weighing upon his soul.
"I was a fool ever to try writing plays," he went on. "Got a winner
first time, but can't repeat. It's no good. Ought to have stuck to
newspaper work. I'm good at that. Shall have to go back to it. Had
another frost to-night. No good trying any more. Shall have to go back
to the old grind, damn it."
He wept softly, full of pity for his hard case.
"Very miserable," he murmured.
He came forward a step into the room, lurched, and retreated to the
safe support of the door. For an instant Sally's artificial calm was
shot through by a swift stab of contempt. It passed, and she was back
again in her armour of indifference.
"Go to bed, Gerald," she said. "You'll feel better in the morning."
Perhaps some inkling of how he was going to feel in the morning worked
through to Gerald's muddled intelligence, for he winced, and his manner
took on a deeper melancholy.
"May not be alive in the morning," he said solemnly. "Good mind to end
it all. End it all!" he repeated with the beginning of a sweeping
gesture which was cut off abruptly as he clutched at the friendly door.
Sally was not in the mood for melodrama.
"Oh, go to bed," she said impatiently. The strange frozen indifference
which had gripped her was beginning to pass, leaving in its place a
growing feeling of resentment - resentment against Gerald for degrading
himself like this, against herself for ever having found glamour in the
man. It humiliated her to remember how utterly she had once allowed his
personality to master hers. And under the sting of this humiliation she
felt hard and pitiless. Dimly she was aware that a curious change had
come over her to-night. Normally, the sight of any living thing in
distress was enough to stir her quick sympathy: but Gerald mourning over
the prospect of having to go back to regular work made no appeal to
her - a fact which the sufferer noted and commented upon.
"You're very unsymp... unsympathetic," he complained.
"I'm sorry," said Sally. She walked briskly to the door and gave it a
push. Gerald, still clinging to his chosen support, moved out into the
passage, attached to the handle, with the air of a man the foundations
of whose world have suddenly lost their stability. He released the
handle and moved uncertainly across the passage. Finding his own door
open before him, he staggered over the threshold; and Sally, having
watched him safely to his journey's end, went into her bedroom with the
intention of terminating this disturbing night by going to sleep.
Almost immediately she changed her mind. Sleep was out of the question.
A fever of restlessness had come upon her. She put on a kimono, and went
into the kitchen to ascertain whether her commissariat arrangements
would permit of a glass of hot milk.
She had just remembered that she had that morning presented the last of
the milk to a sandy cat with a purposeful eye which had dropped in
through the window to take breakfast with her, when her regrets for
this thriftless hospitality were interrupted by a muffled crash.
She listened intently. The sound had seemed to come from across the
passage. She hurried to the door and opened it. As she did so, from
behind the door of the apartment opposite there came a perfect fusillade
of crashes, each seeming to her strained hearing louder and more
appalling than the last.
There is something about sudden, loud noises in the stillness of the
night which shatters the most rigid detachment. A short while before,
Gerald, toying with the idea of ending his sorrows by violence, had left
Sally unmoved: but now her mind leapt back to what he had said, and
apprehension succeeded indifference. There was no disputing the fact
that Gerald was in an irresponsible mood, under the influence of which
he was capable of doing almost anything. Sally, listening in the
doorway, felt a momentary panic.
A brief silence had succeeded the fusillade, but, as she stood there
hesitating, the noise broke out again; and this time it was so loud and
compelling that Sally hesitated no longer. She ran across the passage
and beat on the door.
2
Whatever devastating happenings had been going on in his home, it was
plain a moment later that Gerald had managed to survive them: for there
came the sound of a dragging footstep, and the door opened. Gerald stood
on the threshold, the weak smile back on his face.
"Hullo, Sally!"
At the sight of him, disreputable and obviously unscathed, Sally's
brief alarm died away, leaving in its place the old feeling of impatient
resentment. In addition to her other grievances against him, he had
apparently frightened her unnecessarily.
"Whatever was all that noise?" she demanded.
"Noise?" said Gerald, considering the point open-mouthed.
"Yes, noise," snapped Sally.
"I've been cleaning house," said Gerald with the owl-like gravity of a
man just conscious that he is not wholly himself.
Sally pushed her way past him. The apartment in which she found herself
was almost an exact replica of her own, and it was evident that Elsa
Doland had taken pains to make it pretty and comfortable in a niggly
feminine way. Amateur interior decoration had always been a hobby of
hers. Even in the unpromising surroundings of her bedroom at Mrs.
Meecher's boarding-house she had contrived to create a certain
daintiness which Sally, who had no ability in that direction herself,
had always rather envied. As a decorator Elsa's mind ran in the
direction of small, fragile ornaments, and she was not afraid of
over-furnishing. Pictures jostled one another on the walls: china of all
description stood about on little tables: there was a profusion of lamps
with shades of parti-coloured glass: and plates were ranged along a
series of shelves.
One says that the plates were ranged and the pictures jostled one
another, but it would be more correct to put it they had jostled and had
been ranged, for it was only by guess-work that Sally was able to
reconstruct the scene as it must have appeared before Gerald had
started, as he put it, to clean house. She had walked into the flat
briskly enough, but she pulled up short as she crossed the threshold,
appalled by the majestic ruin that met her gaze. A shell bursting in the
little sitting-room could hardly have created more havoc.
The psychology of a man of weak character under the influence of alcohol
and disappointed ambition is not easy to plumb, for his moods follow one
another with a rapidity which baffles the observer. Ten minutes before,
Gerald Foster had been in the grip of a clammy self-pity, and it seemed
from his aspect at the present moment that this phase had returned. But
in the interval there had manifestly occurred a brief but adequate spasm
of what would appear to have been an almost Berserk fury. What had
caused it and why it should have expended itself so abruptly, Sally was
not psychologist enough to explain; but that it had existed there was
ocular evidence of the most convincing kind. A heavy niblick, flung
petulantly - or remorsefully - into a corner, showed by what medium the
destruction had been accomplished.
Bleak chaos appeared on every side. The floor was littered with every
imaginable shape and size of broken glass and china. Fragments of
pictures, looking as if they had been chewed by some prehistoric animal,
lay amid heaps of shattered statuettes and vases. As Sally moved slowly
into the room after her involuntary pause, china crackled beneath her
feet. She surveyed the stripped walls with a wondering eye, and turned
to Gerald for an explanation.
Gerald had subsided on to an occasional table, and was weeping softly
again. It had come over him once more that he had been very, very badly
treated.
"Well!" said Sally with a gasp. "You've certainly made a good job of
it!"
There was a sharp crack as the occasional table, never designed by its
maker to bear heavy weights, gave way in a splintering flurry of broken
legs under the pressure of the master of the house: and Sally's mood
underwent an abrupt change. There are few situations in life which do
not hold equal potentialities for both tragedy and farce, and it was the
ludicrous side of this drama that chanced to appeal to Sally at this
moment. Her sense of humour was tickled. It was, if she could have
analysed her feelings, at herself that she was mocking - at the feeble
sentimental Sally who had once conceived the absurd idea of taking this
preposterous man seriously. She felt light-hearted and light-headed, and
she sank into a chair with a gurgling laugh.
The shock of his fall appeared to have had the desirable effect of
restoring Gerald to something approaching intelligence. He picked
himself up from the remains of a set of water-colours, gazing at Sally
with growing disapproval.
"No sympathy," he said austerely.
"I can't help it," cried Sally. "It's too funny."
"Not funny," corrected Gerald, his brain beginning to cloud once more.
"What did you do it for?"
Gerald returned for a moment to that mood of honest indignation, which
had so strengthened his arm when wielding the niblick. He bethought him
once again of his grievance.
"Wasn't going to stand for it any longer," he said heatedly. "A
fellow's wife goes and lets him down... ruins his show by going off and
playing in another show... why shouldn't I smash her things? Why should
I stand for that sort of treatment? Why should I?"
"Well, you haven't," said Sally, "so there's no need to discuss it. You
seem to have acted in a thoroughly manly and independent way."
"That's it. Manly independent." He waggled his finger impressively.
"Don't care what she says," he continued. "Don't care if she never comes
back. That woman..."
Sally was not prepared to embark with him upon a discussion of the
absent Elsa. Already the amusing aspect of the affair had begun to fade,
and her hilarity was giving way to a tired distaste for the sordidness
of the whole business. She had become aware that she could not endure
the society of Gerald Foster much longer. She got up and spoke
decidedly.
"And now," she said, "I'm going to tidy up."
Gerald had other views.
"No," he said with sudden solemnity. "No! Nothing of the kind. Leave
it for her to find. Leave it as it is."
"Don't be silly. All this has got to be cleaned up. I'll do it. You
go and sit in my apartment. I'll come and tell you when you can come
back."
"No!" said Gerald, wagging his head.
Sally stamped her foot among the crackling ruins. Quite suddenly the
sight of him had become intolerable.
"Do as I tell you," she cried.
Gerald wavered for a moment, but his brief militant mood was ebbing
fast. After a faint protest he shuffled off, and Sally heard him go into
her room. She breathed a deep breath of relief and turned to her task.
A visit to the kitchen revealed a long-handled broom, and, armed with
this, Sally was soon busy. She was an efficient little person, and
presently out of chaos there began to emerge a certain order. Nothing
short of complete re-decoration would ever make the place look habitable
again, but at the end of half an hour she had cleared the floor, and the
fragments of vases, plates, lamp-shades, pictures and glasses were
stacked in tiny heaps against the walls. She returned the broom to the
kitchen, and, going back into the sitting-room, flung open the window
and stood looking out.
With a sense of unreality she perceived that the night had gone. Over
the quiet street below there brooded that strange, metallic light which
ushers in the dawn of a fine day. A cold breeze whispered to and fro.
Above the house-tops the sky was a faint, level blue.
She left the window and started to cross the room. And suddenly there
came over her a feeling of utter weakness. She stumbled to a chair,
conscious only of being tired beyond the possibility of a further
effort. Her eyes closed, and almost before her head had touched the
cushions she was asleep.
3
Sally woke. Sunshine was streaming through the open window, and with it
the myriad noises of a city awake and about its business. Footsteps
clattered on the sidewalk, automobile horns were sounding, and she could
hear the clank of street cars as they passed over the points. She could
only guess at the hour, but it was evident that the morning was well
advanced. She got up stiffly. Her head was aching.
She went into the bathroom, bathed her face, and felt better. The dull
oppression which comes of a bad night was leaving her. She leaned out of
the window, revelling in the fresh air, then crossed the passage and
entered her own apartment. Stertorous breathing greeted her, and she
perceived that Gerald Foster had also passed the night in a chair. He
was sprawling by the window with his legs stretched out and his head
resting on one of the arms, an unlovely spectacle.
Sally stood regarding him for a moment with a return of the distaste
which she had felt on the previous night. And yet, mingled with the
distaste, there was a certain elation. A black chapter of her life was
closed for ever. Whatever the years to come might bring to her, they
would be free from any wistful yearnings for the man who had once been
woven so inextricably into the fabric of her life. She had thought that
his personality had gripped her too strongly ever to be dislodged, but
now she could look at him calmly and feel only a faint half-pity,
half-contempt. The glamour had departed.
She shook him gently, and he sat up with a start, blinking in the strong
light. His mouth was still open. He stared at Sally foolishly, then
scrambled awkwardly out of the chair.
"Oh, my God!" said Gerald, pressing both his hands to his forehead and
sitting down again. He licked his lips with a dry tongue and moaned.
"Oh, I've got a headache!"
Sally might have pointed out to him that he had certainly earned one,
but she refrained.
"You'd better go and have a wash," she suggested.
"Yes," said Gerald, heaving himself up again.
"Would you like some breakfast?"
"Don't!" said Gerald faintly, and tottered off to the bathroom.
Sally sat down in the chair he had vacated. She had never felt quite
like this before in her life. Everything seemed dreamlike. The splashing
of water in the bathroom came faintly to her, and she realized that she
had been on the point of falling asleep again. She got up and opened the
window, and once more the air acted as a restorative. She watched the
activities of the street with a distant interest. They, too, seemed
dreamlike and unreal. People were hurrying up and down on mysterious
errands. An inscrutable cat picked its way daintily across the road. At
the door of the apartment house an open car purred sleepily.
She was roused by a ring at the bell. She went to the door and opened
it, and found Bruce Carmyle standing on the threshold. He wore a light
motor-coat, and he was plainly endeavouring to soften the severity of
his saturnine face with a smile of beaming kindliness.
"Well, here I am!" said Bruce Carmyle cheerily. "Are you ready?"
With the coming of daylight a certain penitence had descended on Mr.
Carmyle. Thinking things over while shaving and subsequently in his
bath, he had come to the conclusion that his behaviour overnight had not
been all that could have been desired. He had not actually been brutal,
perhaps, but he had undoubtedly not been winning. There had been an
abruptness in the manner of his leaving Sally at the Flower Garden which
a perfect lover ought not to have shown. He had allowed his nerves to
get the better of him, and now he desired to make amends. Hence a
cheerfulness which he did not usually exhibit so early in the morning.
Sally was staring at him blankly. She had completely forgotten that he
had said that he would come and take her for a drive this morning. She
searched in her mind for words, and found none. And, as Mr. Carmyle was
debating within himself whether to kiss her now or wait for a more
suitable moment, embarrassment came upon them both like a fog, and the
genial smile faded from his face as if the motive-power behind it had
suddenly failed.
"I've - er - got the car outside, and..."
At this point speech failed Mr. Carmyle, for, even as he began the
sentence, the door that led to the bathroom opened and Gerald Foster
came out. Mr. Carmyle gaped at Gerald: Gerald gaped at Mr. Carmyle.
The application of cold water to the face and head is an excellent thing
on the morning after an imprudent night, but as a tonic it only goes
part of the way. In the case of Gerald Foster, which was an extremely
serious and aggravated case, it had gone hardly any way at all. The
person unknown who had been driving red-hot rivets into the base of
Gerald Foster's skull ever since the moment of his awakening was still
busily engaged on that task. He gazed at Mr. Carmyle wanly.
Bruce Carmyle drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, and stood rigid.
His eyes, burning now with a grim light, flickered over Gerald's person
and found nothing in it to entertain them. He saw a slouching figure in
shirt-sleeves and the foundations of evening dress, a disgusting,
degraded figure with pink eyes and a white face that needed a shave. And
all the doubts that had ever come to vex Mr. Carmyle's mind since his
first meeting with Sally became on the instant certainties. So Uncle
Donald had been right after all! This was the sort of girl she was!
At his elbow the stout phantom of Uncle Donald puffed with satisfaction.
"I told you so!" it said.
Sally had not moved. The situation was beyond her. Just as if this had
really been the dream it seemed, she felt incapable of speech or action.
"So..." said Mr. Carmyle, becoming articulate, and allowed an impressive
aposiopesis to take the place of the rest of the speech. A cold fury had
gripped him. He pointed at Gerald, began to speak, found that he was
stuttering, and gulped back the words. In this supreme moment he was not
going to have his dignity impaired by a stutter. He gulped and found a
sentence which, while brief enough to insure against this disaster, was
sufficiently long to express his meaning.
"Get out!" he said.
Gerald Foster had his dignity, too, and it seemed to him that the time
had come to assert it. But he also had a most excruciating headache, and
when he drew himself up haughtily to ask Mr. Carmyle what the devil he
meant by it, a severe access of pain sent him huddling back immediately
to a safer attitude. He clasped his forehead and groaned.
"Get out!"
For a moment Gerald hesitated. Then another sudden shooting spasm
convinced him that no profit or pleasure was to be derived from a
continuance of the argument, and he began to shamble slowly across to
the door. Bruce Carmyle watched him go with twitching hands. There was a
moment when the human man in him, somewhat atrophied from long disuse,
stirred him almost to the point of assault; then dignity whispered more
prudent counsel in his ear, and Gerald was past the danger-zone and out
in the passage. Mr. Carmyle turned to face Sally, as King Arthur on a
similar but less impressive occasion must have turned to deal with
Guinevere.
"So..." he said again.
Sally was eyeing him steadily - considering the circumstances, Mr.
Carmyle thought with not a little indignation, much too steadily.
"This," he said ponderously, "is very amusing."
He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing.
"I might have expected it," said Mr. Carmyle with a bitter laugh.
Sally forced herself from the lethargy which was gripping her.
"Would you like me to explain?" she said.
"There can be no explanation," said Mr. Carmyle coldly.
"Very well," said Sally.
There was a pause.
"Good-bye," said Bruce Carmyle.
"Good-bye," said Sally.
Mr. Carmyle walked to the door. There he stopped for an instant and
glanced back at her. Sally had walked to the window and was looking out.
For one swift instant something about her trim little figure and the
gleam of her hair where the sunlight shone on it seemed to catch at
Bruce Carmyle's heart, and he wavered. But the next moment he was strong
again, and the door had closed behind him with a resolute bang.
Out in the street, climbing into his car, he looked up involuntarily to
see if she was still there, but she had gone. As the car, gathering
speed, hummed down the street. Sally was at the telephone listening to
the sleepy voice of Ginger Kemp, which, as he became aware who it was
that had woken him from his rest and what she had to say to him,
magically lost its sleepiness and took on a note of riotous ecstasy.
Five minutes later, Ginger was splashing in his bath, singing
discordantly.
CHAPTER XVIII
JOURNEY'S END
Darkness was beginning to gather slowly and with almost an apologetic
air, as if it regretted the painful duty of putting an end to the
perfect summer day. Over to the west beyond the trees there still
lingered a faint afterglow, and a new moon shone like a silver sickle
above the big barn. Sally came out of the house and bowed gravely three
times for luck. She stood on the gravel, outside the porch, drinking in
the sweet evening scents, and found life good.
The darkness, having shown a certain reluctance at the start, was now
buckling down to make a quick and thorough job of it. The sky turned to
a uniform dark blue, picked out with quiet stars. The cement of the
state road which led to Patchogue, Babylon, and other important centres
ceased to be a pale blur and became invisible. Lights appeared in the
windows of the houses across the meadows. From the direction of the
kennels there came a single sleepy bark, and the small white woolly dog
which had scampered out at Sally's heels stopped short and uttered a
challenging squeak.
The evening was so still that Ginger's footsteps, as he pounded along
the road on his way back from the village, whither he had gone to buy
provisions, evening papers, and wool for the sweater which Sally was
knitting, were audible long before he turned in at the gate. Sally could
not see him, but she looked in the direction of the sound and once again
fell that pleasant, cosy thrill of happiness which had come to her every
evening for the last year.
"Ginger," she called.
"What ho!"
The woolly dog, with another important squeak, scuttled down the drive
to look into the matter, and was coldly greeted. Ginger, for all his
love of dogs, had never been able to bring himself to regard Toto with
affection. He had protested when Sally, a month before, finding Mrs.
Meecher distraught on account of a dreadful lethargy which had seized
her pet, had begged him to offer hospitality and country air to the
invalid.
"It's wonderful what you've done for Toto, angel," said Sally, as he
came up frigidly eluding that curious animal's leaps of welcome. "He's a
different dog."
"Bit of luck for him," said Ginger.
"In all the years I was at Mrs. Meecher's I never knew him move at
anything more rapid than a stately walk. Now he runs about all the
time."
"The blighter had been overeating from birth," said Ginger. "That was
all that was wrong with him. A little judicious dieting put him right.
We'll be able," said Ginger brightening, "to ship him back next week."
"I shall quite miss him."
"I nearly missed him - this morning - with a shoe," said Ginger. "He was
up on the kitchen table wolfing the bacon, and I took steps."
"My cave-man!" murmured Sally. "I always said you had a frightfully
brutal streak in you. Ginger, what an evening!"
"Good Lord!" said Ginger suddenly, as they walked into the light of the
open kitchen door.
"Now what?"
He stopped and eyed her intently.
"Do you know you're looking prettier than you were when I started down
to the village!"
Sally gave his arm a little hug.
"Beloved!" she said. "Did you get the chops?"
Ginger froze in his tracks, horrified.
"Oh, my aunt! I clean forgot them!"
"Oh, Ginger, you are an old chump. Well, you'll have to go in for a
little judicious dieting, like Toto."
"I say, I'm most awfully sorry. I got the wool."
"If you think I'm going to eat wool..."
"Isn't there anything in the house?"
"Vegetables and fruit."
"Fine! But, of course, if you want chops..."
"Not at all. I'm spiritual. Besides, people say that vegetables are
good for the blood-pressure or something. Of course you forgot to get
the mail, too?"
"Absolutely not! I was on to it like a knife. Two letters from fellows
wanting Airedale puppies."
"No! Ginger, we are getting on!"
"Pretty bloated," agreed Ginger complacently. "Pretty bloated. We'll
be able to get that two-seater if things go buzzing on like this. There
was a letter for you. Here it is."