________________________________________________
_ "And after all I've done for her," said Mr. Reginald Cracknell, his
voice tremulous with self-pity and his eyes moist with the combined
effects of anguish and over-indulgence in his celebrated private stock,
"after all I've done for her she throws me down."
Sally did not reply. The orchestra of the Flower Garden was of a
calibre that discouraged vocal competition; and she was having,
moreover, too much difficulty in adjusting her feet to Mr. Cracknell's
erratic dance-steps to employ her attention elsewhere. They manoeuvred
jerkily past the table where Miss Mabel Hobson, the Flower Garden's
newest "hostess," sat watching the revels with a distant hauteur. Miss
Hobson was looking her most regal in old gold and black, and a sorrowful
gulp escaped the stricken Mr. Cracknell as he shambled beneath her eye.
"If I told you," he moaned in Sally's ear, "what... was that your ankle?
Sorry! Don't know what I'm doing to-night... If I told you what I had
spent on that woman, you wouldn't believe it. And then she throws me
down. And all because I said I didn't like her in that hat. She hasn't
spoken to me for a week, and won't answer when I call up on the 'phone.
And I was right, too. It was a rotten hat. Didn't suit her a bit. But
that," said Mr. Cracknell, morosely, "is a woman all over!"
Sally uttered a stifled exclamation as his wandering foot descended on
hers before she could get it out of the way. Mr. Cracknell interpreted
the ejaculation as a protest against the sweeping harshness of his last
remark, and gallantly tried to make amends.
"I don't mean you're like that," he said. "You're different. I could
see that directly I saw you. You have a sympathetic nature. That's why
I'm telling you all this. You're a sensible and broad-minded girl and
can understand. I've done everything for that woman. I got her this job
as hostess here--you wouldn't believe what they pay her. I starred her
in a show once. Did you see those pearls she was wearing? I gave her
those. And she won't speak to me. Just because I didn't like her hat. I
wish you could have seen that hat. You would agree with me, I know,
because you're a sensible, broad-minded girl and understand hats. I
don't know what to do. I come here every night." Sally was aware of
this. She had seen him often, but this was the first time that Lee
Schoenstein, the gentlemanly master of ceremonies, had inflicted him on
her. "I come here every night and dance past her table, but she won't
look at me. What," asked Mr. Cracknell, tears welling in his pale eyes,
"would you do about it?"
"I don't know," said Sally, frankly.
"Nor do I. I thought you wouldn't, because you're a sensible,
broad-minded... I mean, nor do I. I'm having one last try to-night, if
you can keep a secret. You won't tell anyone, will you?" pleaded Mr.
Cracknell, urgently. "But I know you won't because you're a sensible...
I'm giving her a little present. Having it brought here to-night. Little
present. That ought to soften her, don't you think?"
"A big one would do it better."
Mr. Cracknell kicked her on the shin in a dismayed sort of way.
"I never thought of that. Perhaps you're right. But it's too late now.
Still, it might. Or wouldn't it? Which do you think?"
"Yes," said Sally.
"I thought as much," said Mr. Cracknell.
The orchestra stopped with a thump and a bang, leaving Mr. Cracknell
clapping feebly in the middle of the floor. Sally slipped back to her
table. Her late partner, after an uncertain glance about him, as if he
had mislaid something but could not remember what, zigzagged off in
search of his own seat. The noise of many conversations, drowned by the
music, broke out with renewed vigour. The hot, close air was full of
voices; and Sally, pressing her hands on her closed eyes, was reminded
once more that she had a headache.
Nearly a month had passed since her return to Mr. Abrahams' employment.
It had been a dull, leaden month, a monotonous succession of lifeless
days during which life had become a bad dream. In some strange nightmare
fashion, she seemed nowadays to be cut off from her kind. It was weeks
since she had seen a familiar face. None of the companions of her old
boarding-house days had crossed her path. Fillmore, no doubt from
uneasiness of conscience, had not sought her out, and Ginger was working
out his destiny on the south shore of Long Island.
She lowered her hands and opened her eyes and looked at the room. It
was crowded, as always. The Flower Garden was one of the many
establishments of the same kind which had swum to popularity on the
rising flood of New York's dancing craze; and doubtless because, as its
proprietor had claimed, it was a nice place and run nice, it had
continued, unlike many of its rivals, to enjoy unvarying prosperity. In
its advertisement, it described itself as "a supper-club for
after-theatre dining and dancing," adding that "large and spacious, and
sumptuously appointed," it was "one of the town's wonder-places, with
its incomparable dance-floor, enchanting music, cuisine, and service de
luxe." From which it may be gathered, even without his personal
statements to that effect, that Isadore Abrahams thought well of the
place.
There had been a time when Sally had liked it, too. In her first period
of employment there she had found it diverting, stimulating and full of
entertainment. But in those days she had never had headaches or, what
was worse, this dreadful listless depression which weighed her down and
made her nightly work a burden.
"Miss Nicholas."
The orchestra, never silent for long at the Flower Garden, had started
again, and Lee Schoenstein, the master of ceremonies, was presenting a
new partner. She got up mechanically.
"This is the first time I have been in this place," said the man, as
they bumped over the crowded floor. He was big and clumsy, of course.
To-night it seemed to Sally that the whole world was big and clumsy.
"It's a swell place. I come from up-state myself. We got nothing like
this where I come from." He cleared a space before him, using Sally as a
battering-ram, and Sally, though she had not enjoyed her recent
excursion with Mr. Cracknell, now began to look back to it almost with
wistfulness. This man was undoubtedly the worst dancer in America.
"Give me li'l old New York," said the man from up-state,
unpatriotically. "It's good enough for me. I been to some swell shows
since I got to town. You seen this year's 'Follies'?"
"No."
"You go," said the man earnestly. "You go! Take it from me, it's a
swell show. You seen 'Myrtle takes a Turkish Bath'?"
"I don't go to many theatres."
"You go! It's a scream. I been to a show every night since I got here.
Every night regular. Swell shows all of 'em, except this last one. I
cert'nly picked a lemon to-night all right. I was taking a chance,
y'see, because it was an opening. Thought it would be something to say,
when I got home, that I'd been to a New York opening. Set me back
two-seventy-five, including tax, and I wish I'd got it in my kick right
now. 'The Wild Rose,' they called it," he said satirically, as if
exposing a low subterfuge on the part of the management. "'The Wild
Rose!' It sure made me wild all right. Two dollars seventy-five tossed
away, just like that."
Something stirred in Sally's memory. Why did that title seem so
familiar? Then, with a shock, she remembered. It was Gerald's new play.
For some time after her return to New York, she had been haunted by the
fear lest, coming out other apartment, she might meet him coming out of
his; and then she had seen a paragraph in her morning paper which had
relieved her of this apprehension. Gerald was out on the road with a new
play, and "The Wild Rose," she was almost sure, was the name of it.
"Is that Gerald Foster's play?" she asked quickly.
"I don't know who wrote it," said her partner, "but let me tell you he's
one lucky guy to get away alive. There's fellows breaking stones on the
Ossining Road that's done a lot less to deserve a sentence. Wild Rose!
I'll tell the world it made me go good and wild," said the man from
up-state, an economical soul who disliked waste and was accustomed to
spread out his humorous efforts so as to give them every chance. "Why,
before the second act was over, the people were beating it for the
exits, and if it hadn't been for someone shouting 'Women and children
first' there'd have been a panic."
Sally found herself back at her table without knowing clearly how she
had got there.
"Miss Nicholas."
She started to rise, and was aware suddenly that this was not the voice
of duty calling her once more through the gold teeth of Mr. Schoenstein.
The man who had spoken her name had seated himself beside her, and was
talking in precise, clipped accents, oddly familiar. The mist cleared
from her eyes and she recognized Bruce Carmyle.
"I called at your place," Mr. Carmyle was saying, "and the hall porter
told me that you were here, so I ventured to follow you. I hope you do
not mind? May I smoke?"
He lit a cigarette with something of an air. His fingers trembled as he
raised the match, but he flattered himself that there was nothing else
in his demeanour to indicate that he was violently excited. Bruce
Carmyle's ideal was the strong man who can rise superior to his
emotions. He was alive to the fact that this was an embarrassing moment,
but he was determined not to show that he appreciated it. He cast a
sideways glance at Sally, and thought that never, not even in the garden
at Monk's Crofton on a certain momentous occasion, had he seen her
looking prettier. Her face was flushed and her eyes aflame. The stout
wraith of Uncle Donald, which had accompanied Mr. Carmyle on this
expedition of his, faded into nothingness as he gazed.
There was a pause. Mr. Carmyle, having lighted his cigarette, puffed
vigorously.
"When did you land?" asked Sally, feeling the need of saying something.
Her mind was confused. She could not have said whether she was glad or
sorry that he was there. Glad, she thought, on the whole. There was
something in his dark, cool, stiff English aspect that gave her a
curious feeling of relief. He was so unlike Mr. Cracknell and the man
from up-state and so calmly remote from the feverish atmosphere in
which she lived her nights that it was restful to look at him.
"I landed to-night," said Bruce Carmyle, turning and faced her squarely.
"To-night!"
"We docked at ten."
He turned away again. He had made his effect, and was content to leave
her to think it over.
Sally was silent. The significance of his words had not escaped her.
She realized that his presence there was a challenge which she must
answer. And yet it hardly stirred her. She had been fighting so long,
and she felt utterly inert. She was like a swimmer who can battle no
longer and prepares to yield to the numbness of exhaustion. The heat of
the room pressed down on her like a smothering blanket. Her tired nerves
cried out under the blare of music and the clatter of voices.
"Shall we dance this?" he asked.
The orchestra had started to play again, a sensuous, creamy melody which
was making the most of its brief reign as Broadway's leading song-hit,
overfamiliar to her from a hundred repetitions.
"If you like."
Efficiency was Bruce Carmyle's gospel. He was one of these men who do
not attempt anything which they cannot accomplish to perfection.
Dancing, he had decided early in his life, was a part of a gentleman's
education, and he had seen to it that he was educated thoroughly. Sally,
who, as they swept out on to the floor, had braced herself automatically
for a repetition of the usual bumping struggle which dancing at the
Flower Garden had come to mean for her, found herself in the arms of a
masterful expert, a man who danced better than she did, and suddenly
there came to her a feeling that was almost gratitude, a miraculous
slackening of her taut nerves, a delicious peace. Soothed and
contented, she yielded herself with eyes half closed to the rhythm of
the melody, finding it now robbed in some mysterious manner of all its
stale cheapness, and in that moment her-whole attitude towards Bruce
Carmyle underwent a complete change.
She had never troubled to examine with any minuteness her feelings
towards him: but one thing she had known clearly since their first
meeting--that he was physically distasteful to her. For all his good
looks, and in his rather sinister way he was a handsome man, she had
shrunk from him. Now, spirited away by the magic of the dance, that
repugnance had left her. It was as if some barrier had been broken down
between them.
"Sally!"
She felt his arm tighten about her, the muscles quivering. She caught
sight of his face. His dark eyes suddenly blazed into hers and she
stumbled with an odd feeling of helplessness; realizing with a shock
that brought her with a jerk out of the half-dream into which she had
been lulled that this dance had not postponed the moment of decision, as
she had looked to it to do. In a hot whisper, the words swept away on
the flood of the music which had suddenly become raucous and blaring
once more, he was repeating what he had said under the trees at Monk's
Crofton on that far-off morning in the English springtime. Dizzily she
knew that she was resenting the unfairness of the attack at such a
moment, but her mind seemed numbed.
The music stopped abruptly. Insistent clapping started it again, but
Sally moved away to her table, and he followed her like a shadow.
Neither spoke. Bruce Carmyle had said his say, and Sally was sitting
staring before her, trying to think. She was tired, tired. Her eyes were
burning. She tried to force herself to face the situation squarely. Was
it worth struggling? Was anything in the world worth a struggle? She
only knew that she was tired, desperately tired, tired to the very
depths of her soul.
The music stopped. There was more clapping, but this time the orchestra
did not respond. Gradually the floor emptied. The shuffling of feet
ceased. The Flower Garden was as quiet as it was ever able to be. Even
the voices of the babblers seemed strangely hushed. Sally closed her
eyes, and as she did so from somewhere up near the roof there came the
song of a bird.
Isadore Abrahams was a man of his word. He advertised a Flower Garden,
and he had tried to give the public something as closely resembling a
flower-garden as it was possible for an overcrowded, overheated,
overnoisy Broadway dancing-resort to achieve. Paper roses festooned the
walls; genuine tulips bloomed in tubs by every pillar; and from the roof
hung cages with birds in them. One of these, stirred by the sudden
cessation of the tumult below, had began to sing.
Sally had often pitied these birds, and more than once had pleaded in
vain with Abrahams for a remission of their sentence, but somehow at
this moment it did not occur to her that this one was merely praying in
its own language, as she often had prayed in her thoughts, to be taken
out of this place. To her, sitting there wrestling with Fate, the song
seemed cheerful. It soothed her. It healed her to listen to it. And
suddenly before her eyes there rose a vision of Monk's Crofton, cool,
green, and peaceful under the mild English sun, luring her as an oasis
seen in the distance lures the desert traveller ...
She became aware that the master of Monk's Crofton had placed his hand
on hers and was holding it in a tightening grip. She looked down and
gave a little shiver. She had always disliked Bruce Carmyle's hands.
They were strong and bony and black hair grew on the back of them. One
of the earliest feelings regarding him had been that she would hate to
have those hands touching her. But she did not move. Again that vision
of the old garden had flickered across her mind... a haven where she
could rest...
He was leaning towards her, whispering in her ear. The room was hotter
than it had ever been, noisier than it had ever been, fuller than it had
ever been. The bird on the roof was singing again and now she understood
what it said. "Take me out of this!" Did anything matter except that?
What did it matter how one was taken, or where, or by whom, so that one
was taken.
Monk's Crofton was looking cool and green and peaceful...
"Very well," said Sally.
Bruce Carmyle, in the capacity of accepted suitor, found himself at
something of a loss. He had a dissatisfied feeling. It was not the
manner of Sally's acceptance that caused this. It would, of course, have
pleased him better if she had shown more warmth, but he was prepared to
wait for warmth. What did trouble him was the fact that his correct mind
perceived now for the first time that he had chosen an unsuitable
moment and place for his outburst of emotion. He belonged to the
orthodox school of thought which looks on moonlight and solitude as the
proper setting for a proposal of marriage; and the surroundings of the
Flower Garden, for all its nice-ness and the nice manner in which it was
conducted, jarred upon him profoundly.
Music had begun again, but it was not the soft music such as a lover
demands if he is to give of his best. It was a brassy, clashy rendering
of a ribald one-step, enough to choke the eloquence of the most ardent.
Couples were dipping and swaying and bumping into one another as far as
the eye could reach; while just behind him two waiters had halted in
order to thrash out one of those voluble arguments in which waiters love
to indulge. To continue the scene at the proper emotional level was
impossible, and Bruce Carmyle began his career as an engaged man by
dropping into Smalltalk.
"Deuce of a lot of noise," he said querulously.
"Yes," agreed Sally.
"Is it always like this?"
"Oh, yes."
"Infernal racket!"
"Yes."
The romantic side of Mr. Carmyle's nature could have cried aloud at the
hideous unworthiness of these banalities. In the visions which he had
had of himself as a successful wooer, it had always been in the moments
immediately succeeding the all-important question and its whispered
reply that he had come out particularly strong. He had been accustomed
to picture himself bending with a proud tenderness over his partner in
the scene and murmuring some notably good things to her bowed head. How
could any man murmur in a pandemonium like this. From tenderness Bruce
Carmyle descended with a sharp swoop to irritability.
"Do you often come here?"
"Yes."
"What for?"
"To dance."
Mr. Carmyle chafed helplessly. The scene, which should be so romantic,
had suddenly reminded him of the occasion when, at the age of twenty, he
had attended his first ball and had sat in a corner behind a potted palm
perspiring shyly and endeavouring to make conversation to a formidable
nymph in pink. It was one of the few occasions in his life at which he
had ever been at a complete disadvantage. He could still remember the
clammy discomfort of his too high collar as it melted on him. Most
certainly it was not a scene which he enjoyed recalling; and that he
should be forced to recall it now, at what ought to have been the
supreme moment of his life, annoyed him intensely. Almost angrily he
endeavoured to jerk the conversation to a higher level.
"Darling," he murmured, for by moving his chair two feet to the right
and bending sideways he found that he was in a position to murmur, "you
have made me so..."
"Batti, batti! I presto ravioli hollandaise," cried one of the disputing
waiters at his back--or to Bruce Carmyle's prejudiced hearing it
sounded like that.
"La Donna e mobile spaghetti napoli Tettrazina," rejoined the second
waiter with spirit.
"... you have made me so..."
"Infanta Isabella lope de Vegas mulligatawny Toronto," said the first
waiter, weak but coming back pluckily.
"... so happy..."
"Funiculi funicula Vincente y Blasco Ibanez vermicelli sul campo della
gloria risotto!" said the second waiter clinchingly, and scored a
technical knockout.
Bruce Carmyle gave it up, and lit a moody cigarette. He was oppressed
by that feeling which so many of us have felt in our time, that it was
all wrong.
The music stopped. The two leading citizens of Little Italy vanished
and went their way, probably to start a vendetta. There followed
comparative calm. But Bruce Carmyle's emotions, like sweet bells
jangled, were out of tune, and he could not recapture the first fine
careless rapture. He found nothing within him but small-talk.
"What has become of your party?" he asked.
"My party?"
"The people you are with," said Mr. Carmyle. Even in the stress of his
emotion this problem had been exercising him. In his correctly ordered
world girls did not go to restaurants alone.
"I'm not with anybody."
"You came here by yourself?" exclaimed Bruce Carmyle, frankly aghast.
And, as he spoke, the wraith of Uncle Donald, banished till now,
returned as large as ever, puffing disapproval through a walrus
moustache.
"I am employed here," said Sally.
Mr. Carmyle started violently.
"Employed here?"
"As a dancer, you know. I..."
Sally broke off, her attention abruptly diverted to something which had
just caught her eye at a table on the other side of the room. That
something was a red-headed young man of sturdy build who had just
appeared beside the chair in which Mr. Reginald Cracknell was sitting in
huddled gloom. In one hand he carried a basket, and from this basket,
rising above the din of conversation, there came a sudden sharp yapping.
Mr. Cracknell roused himself from his stupor, took the basket, raised
the lid. The yapping increased in volume.
Mr. Cracknell rose, the basket in his arms. With uncertain steps and a
look on his face like that of those who lead forlorn hopes he crossed
the floor to where Miss Mabel Hobson sat, proud and aloof. The next
moment that haughty lady, the centre of an admiring and curious crowd,
was hugging to her bosom a protesting Pekingese puppy, and Mr.
Cracknell, seizing his opportunity like a good general, had deposited
himself in a chair at her side. The course of true love was running
smooth again.
The red-headed young man was gazing fixedly at Sally.
"As a dancer!" ejaculated Mr. Carmyle. Of all those within sight of the
moving drama which had just taken place, he alone had paid no attention
to it. Replete as it was with human interest, sex-appeal, the punch, and
all the other qualities which a drama should possess, it had failed to
grip him. His thoughts had been elsewhere. The accusing figure of Uncle
Donald refused to vanish from his mental eye. The stern voice of Uncle
Donald seemed still to ring in his ear.
A dancer! A professional dancer at a Broadway restaurant! Hideous doubts
began to creep like snakes into Bruce Carmyle's mind. What, he asked
himself, did he really know of this girl on whom he had bestowed the
priceless boon of his society for life? How did he know what she was--he
could not find the exact adjective to express his meaning, but he knew
what he meant. Was she worthy of the boon? That was what it amounted to.
All his life he had had a prim shrinking from the section of the
feminine world which is connected with the light-life of large cities.
Club acquaintances of his in London had from time to time married into
the Gaiety Chorus, and Mr. Carmyle, though he had no objection to the
Gaiety Chorus in its proper place--on the other side of the
footlights--had always looked on these young men after as social
outcasts. The fine dashing frenzy which had brought him all the way from
South Audley Street to win Sally was ebbing fast.
Sally, hearing him speak, had turned. And there was a candid honesty in
her gaze which for a moment sent all those creeping doubts scuttling
away into the darkness whence they had come. He had not made a fool of
himself, he protested to the lowering phantom of Uncle Donald. Who, he
demanded, could look at Sally and think for an instant that she was not
all that was perfect and lovable? A warm revulsion of feeling swept over
Bruce Carmyle like a returning tide.
"You see, I lost my money and had to do something," said Sally.
"I see, I see," murmured Mr. Carmyle; and if only Fate had left him
alone who knows to what heights of tenderness he might not have soared?
But at this moment Fate, being no respecter of persons, sent into his
life the disturbing personality of George Washington Williams.
George Washington Williams was the talented coloured gentleman who had
been extracted from small-time vaudeville by Mr. Abrahams to do a
nightly speciality at the Flower Garden. He was, in fact, a
trap-drummer: and it was his amiable practice, after he had done a few
minutes trap-drumming, to rise from his seat and make a circular tour of
the tables on the edge of the dancing-floor, whimsically pretending to
clip the locks of the male patrons with a pair of drumsticks held
scissor-wise. And so it came about that, just as Mr. Carmyle was bending
towards Sally in an access of manly sentiment, and was on the very verge
of pouring out his soul in a series of well-phrased remarks, he was
surprised and annoyed to find an Ethiopian to whom he had never been
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.
"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.
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. _
Read next: CHAPTER XVII - SALLY LAYS A GHOST
Read previous: CHAPTER XV - UNCLE DONALD SPEAKS HIS MIND
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