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.
