3
It seemed to Ginger that in the silence which followed, brooding over
the room like a living presence, even the noises in the street had
ceased, as though what he had said had been a spell cutting Sally and
himself off from the outer world. Only the little clock on the
mantelpiece ticked--ticked--ticked, like a heart beating fast.
He stared straight before him, conscious of a strange rigidity. He felt
incapable of movement, as he had sometimes felt in nightmares; and not
for all the wealth of America could he have raised his eyes just then to
Sally's face. He could see her hands. They had tightened on the arm of
the chair. The knuckles were white.
He was blaming himself bitterly now for his oafish clumsiness in
blurting out the news so abruptly. And yet, curiously, in his remorse
there was something of elation. Never before had he felt so near to her.
It was as though a barrier that had been between them had fallen.
Something moved... It was Sally's hand, slowly relaxing. The fingers
loosened their grip, tightened again, then, as if reluctantly relaxed
once more. The blood flowed back.
"Your cigarette's out."
Ginger started violently. Her voice, coming suddenly out of the
silence, had struck him like a blow.
"Oh, thanks!"
He forced himself to light another match. It sputtered noisily in the
stillness. He blew it out, and the uncanny quiet fell again.
Ginger drew at his cigarette mechanically. For an instant he had seen
Sally's face, white-cheeked and bright-eyed, the chin tilted like a flag
flying over a stricken field. His mood changed. All his emotions had
crystallized into a dull, futile rage, a helpless fury directed at a man
a thousand miles away.
Sally spoke again. Her voice sounded small and far off, an odd flatness
in it.
"Married?"
Ginger threw his cigarette out of the window. He was shocked to find
that he was smoking. Nothing could have been farther from his intention
than to smoke. He nodded.
"Whom has he married?"
Ginger coughed. Something was sticking in his throat, and speech was
difficult.
"A girl called Doland."
"Oh, Elsa Doland?"
"Yes."
"Elsa Doland." Sally drummed with her fingers on the arm of the chair.
"Oh, Elsa Doland?"
There was silence again. The little clock ticked fussily on the
mantelpiece. Out in the street automobile horns were blowing. From
somewhere in the distance came faintly the rumble of an elevated train.
Familiar sounds, but they came to Sally now with a curious, unreal sense
of novelty. She felt as though she had been projected into another world
where everything was new and strange and horrible--everything except
Ginger. About him, in the mere sight of him, there was something known
and heartening.
Suddenly, she became aware that she was feeling that Ginger was behaving
extremely well. She seemed to have been taken out of herself and to be
regarding the scene from outside, regarding it coolly and critically;
and it was plain to her that Ginger, in this upheaval of all things, was
bearing himself perfectly. He had attempted no banal words of sympathy.
He had said nothing and he was not looking at her. And Sally felt that
sympathy just now would be torture, and that she could not have borne to
be looked at.
Ginger was wonderful. In that curious, detached spirit that had come
upon her, she examined him impartially, and gratitude welled up from the
very depths of her. There he sat, saying nothing and doing nothing, as
if he knew that all she needed, the only thing that could keep her sane
in this world of nightmare, was the sight of that dear, flaming head of
his that made her feel that the world had not slipped away from her
altogether.
Ginger did not move. The room had grown almost dark now. A spear of
light from a street lamp shone in through the window.
Sally got up abruptly. Slowly, gradually, inch by inch, the great
suffocating cloud which had been crushing her had lifted. She felt alive
again. Her black hour had gone, and she was back in the world of living
things once more. She was afire with a fierce, tearing pain that
tormented her almost beyond endurance, but dimly she sensed the fact
that she had passed through something that was worse than pain, and,
with Ginger's stolid presence to aid her, had passed triumphantly.
"Go and have dinner, Ginger," she said. "You must be starving."
Ginger came to life like a courtier in the palace of the Sleeping
Beauty. He shook himself, and rose stiffly from his chair.
"Oh, no," he said. "Not a bit, really."
Sally switched on the light and set him blinking. She could bear to be
looked at now.
"Go and dine," she said. "Dine lavishly and luxuriously. You've
certainly earned..." Her voice faltered for a moment. She held out her
hand. "Ginger," she said shakily, "I... Ginger, you're a pal."
When he had gone. Sally sat down and began to cry. Then she dried her
eyes in a business-like manner.
"There, Miss Nicholas!" she said. "You couldn't have done that an hour
ago... We will now boil you an egg for your dinner and see how that
suits you!"
