The Adventures of Sally Part 29

"Yes," said Sally, still agitated but pleased that she had at last shaken him out of his trying att.i.tude of detachment.

Ginger was scowling.

"That's a bit off," he observed.

"I think so, too."

"I don't like that."

"Nor do I."

"Do you know what I think?" said Ginger, ever a man of plain speech and a reckless plunger into delicate subjects. "The blighter's in love with you."

Sally flushed. After examining the evidence before her, she had reached the same conclusion in the privacy of her thoughts, but it embarra.s.sed her to hear the thing put into bald words.

"I know Bruce," continued Ginger, "and, believe me, he isn't the sort of cove to take any kind of flutter without a jolly good motive. Of course, he's got tons of money. His old guvnor was the Carmyle of Carmyle, Brent & Co.--coal mines up in Wales, and all that sort of thing--and I suppose he must have left Bruce something like half a million. No need for the fellow to have worked at all, if he hadn't wanted to. As far as having the stuff goes, he's in a position to back all the shows he wants to.

But the point is, it's right out of his line. He doesn't do that sort of thing. Not a drop of sporting blood in the chap. Why I've known him stick the whole family on to me just because it got noised about that I'd dropped a couple of quid on the Grand National. If he's really brought himself to the point of sh.e.l.ling out on a risky proposition like a show, it means something, take my word for it. And I don't see what else it can mean except... well, I mean to say, is it likely that he's doing it simply to make your brother look on him as a good egg and a pal, and all that sort of thing?"

"No, it's not," agreed Sally. "But don't let's talk about it any more.

Tell me all about your trip to Chicago."

"All right. But, returning to this binge for a moment, I don't see how it matters to you one way or the other. You're engaged to another fellow, and when Bruce rolls up and says: 'What about it?' you've simply to tell him that the shot isn't on the board and will he kindly melt away. Then you hand him his hat and out he goes."

Sally gave a troubled laugh.

"You think that's simple, do you? I suppose you imagine that a girl enjoys that sort of thing? Oh, what's the use of talking about it? It's horrible, and no amount of arguing will make it anything else. Do let's change the subject. How did you like Chicago?"

"Oh, all right. Rather a grubby sort of place."

"So I've always heard. But you ought not to mind that, being a Londoner."

"Oh, I didn't mind it. As a matter of fact, I had rather a good time.

Saw one or two shows, you know. Got in on my face as your brother's representative, which was all to the good. By the way, it's rummy how you run into people when you move about, isn't it?"

"You talk as if you had been dashing about the streets with your eyes shut. Did you meet somebody you knew?"

"Chap I hadn't seen for years. Was at school with him, as a matter of fact. Fellow named Foster. But I expect you know him, too, don't you? By name, at any rate. He wrote your brother's show."

Sally's heart jumped.

"Oh! Did you meet Gerald--Foster?"

"Ran into him one night at the theatre."

"And you were really at school with him?"

"Yes. He was in the footer team with me my last year."

"Was he a scrum-half, too?" asked Sally, dimpling.

Ginger looked shocked.

"You don't have two scrum-halves in a team," he said, pained at this ignorance on a vital matter. "The scrum-half is the half who works the scrum and..."

"Yes, you told me that at Roville. What was Gerald--Mr. Foster then? A six and seven-eighths, or something?"

"He was a wing-three," said Ginger with a gravity befitting his theme.

"Rather fast, with a fairly decent swerve. But he would not learn to give the reverse pa.s.s inside to the centre."

"Ghastly!" said Sally.

"If," said Ginger earnestly, "a wing's bottled up by his wing and the back, the only thing he can do, if he doesn't want to be bundled into touch, is to give the reverse pa.s.s."

"I know," said Sally. "If I've thought that once, I've thought it a hundred times. How nice it must have been for you meeting again. I suppose you had all sorts of things to talk about?"

Ginger shook his head.

"Not such a frightful lot. We were never very thick. You see, this chap Foster was by way of being a bit of a worm."

"What!"

"A tick," explained Ginger. "A rotter. He was pretty generally barred at school. Personally, I never had any use for him at all."

Sally stiffened. She had liked Ginger up to that moment, and later on, no doubt, she would resume her liking for him: but in the immediate moment which followed these words she found herself regarding him with stormy hostility. How dare he sit there saying things like that about Gerald?

Ginger, who was lighting a cigarette without a care in the world, proceeded to develop his theme.

"It's a rummy thing about school. Generally, if a fellow's good at games--in the cricket team or the footer team and so forth--he can hardly help being fairly popular. But this blighter Foster somehow--n.o.body seemed very keen on him. Of course, he had a few of his own pals, but most of the chaps rather gave him a miss. It may have been because he was a bit sidey... had rather an edge on him, you know...

Personally, the reason I barred him was because he wasn't straight.

You didn't notice it if you weren't thrown a goodish bit with him, of course, but he and I were in the same house, and..."

Sally managed to control her voice, though it shook a little.

"I ought to tell you," she said, and her tone would have warned him had he been less occupied, "that Mr. Foster is a great friend of mine."

But Ginger was intent on the lighting of his cigarette, a delicate operation with the breeze blowing in through the open window. His head was bent, and he had formed his hands into a protective framework which half hid his face.

"If you take my tip," he mumbled, "you'll drop him. He's a wrong 'un."

He spoke with the absent-minded drawl of preoccupation, and Sally could keep the conflagration under no longer. She was aflame from head to foot.

"It may interest you to know," she said, shooting the words out like bullets from between clenched teeth, "that Gerald Foster is the man I am engaged to marry."

Ginger's head came slowly up from his cupped hands. Amazement was in his eyes, and a sort of horror. The cigarette hung limply from his mouth. He did not speak, but sat looking at her, dazed. Then the match burnt his fingers, and he dropped it with a start. The sharp sting of it seemed to wake him. He blinked.

"You're joking," he said, feebly. There was a note of wistfulness in his voice. "It isn't true?"

Sally kicked the leg of her chair irritably. She read insolent disapproval into the words. He was daring to criticize...