THE ADVENTURES OF SALLY

By P. G. Wodehouse

CHAPTER I. SALLY GIVES A PARTY

Sally looked contentedly down the long table. She felt happy at last.

Everybody was talking and laughing now, and her party, rallying after an

uncertain start, was plainly the success she had hoped it would be. The

first atmosphere of uncomfortable restraint, caused, she was only too

well aware, by her brother Fillmore's white evening waistcoat, had

worn off; and the male and female patrons of Mrs. Meecher's select

boarding-house (transient and residential) were themselves again.

At her end of the table the conversation had turned once more to the

great vital topic of Sally's legacy and what she ought to do with it.

The next best thing to having money of one's own, is to dictate the

spending of somebody else's, and Sally's guests were finding a good deal

of satisfaction in arranging a Budget for her. Rumour having put the

sum at their disposal at a high figure, their suggestions had certain

spaciousness.

"Let me tell you," said Augustus Bartlett, briskly, "what I'd do, if

I were you." Augustus Bartlett, who occupied an intensely subordinate

position in the firm of Kahn, Morris and Brown, the Wall Street brokers,

always affected a brisk, incisive style of speech, as befitted a man

in close touch with the great ones of Finance. "I'd sink a couple of

hundred thousand in some good, safe bond-issue--we've just put one out

which you would do well to consider--and play about with the rest. When

I say play about, I mean have a flutter in anything good that crops up.

Multiple Steel's worth looking at. They tell me it'll be up to a hundred

and fifty before next Saturday."

Elsa Doland, the pretty girl with the big eyes who sat on Mr. Bartlett's

left, had other views.

"Buy a theatre. Sally, and put on good stuff."

"And lose every bean you've got," said a mild young man, with a deep

voice across the table. "If I had a few hundred thousand," said the

mild young man, "I'd put every cent of it on Benny Whistler for the

heavyweight championship. I've private information that Battling Tuke

has been got at and means to lie down in the seventh..."

"Say, listen," interrupted another voice, "lemme tell you what I'd do

with four hundred thousand..."

"If I had four hundred thousand," said Elsa Doland, "I know what would

be the first thing I'd do."

"What's that?" asked Sally.

"Pay my bill for last week, due this morning."

Sally got up quickly, and flitting down the table, put her arm round her

friend's shoulder and whispered in her ear:

"Elsa darling, are you really broke? If you are, you know, I'll..."

Elsa Doland laughed.

"You're an angel, Sally. There's no one like you. You'd give your last

cent to anyone. Of course I'm not broke. I've just come back from the

road, and I've saved a fortune. I only said that to draw you."

Sally returned to her seat, relieved, and found that the company had now

divided itself into two schools of thought. The conservative and prudent

element, led by Augustus Bartlett, had definitely decided on three

hundred thousand in Liberty Bonds and the rest in some safe real estate;

while the smaller, more sporting section, impressed by the mild young

man's inside information, had already placed Sally's money on Benny

Whistler, doling it out cautiously in small sums so as not to spoil the

market. And so solid, it seemed, was Mr. Tuke's reputation with those

in the inner circle of knowledge that the mild young man was confident

that, if you went about the matter cannily and without precipitation,

three to one might be obtained. It seemed to Sally that the time had

come to correct certain misapprehensions.

"I don't know where you get your figures," she said, "but I'm afraid

they're wrong. I've just twenty-five thousand dollars."

The statement had a chilling effect. To these jugglers with

half-millions the amount mentioned seemed for the moment almost too

small to bother about. It was the sort of sum which they had been

mentally setting aside for the heiress's car fare. Then they managed to

adjust their minds to it. After all, one could do something even with a

pittance like twenty-five thousand.

"If I'd twenty-five thousand," said Augustus Bartlett, the first to

rally from the shock, "I'd buy Amalgamated..."

"If I had twenty-five thousand..." began Elsa Doland.

"If I'd had twenty-five thousand in the year nineteen hundred," observed

a gloomy-looking man with spectacles, "I could have started a revolution

in Paraguay."

He brooded sombrely on what might have been.

"Well, I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do," said Sally. "I'm

going to start with a trip to Europe... France, specially. I've heard

France well spoken of--as soon as I can get my passport; and after I've

loafed there for a few weeks, I'm coming back to look about and find

some nice cosy little business which will let me put money into it and

keep me in luxury. Are there any complaints?"

"Even a couple of thousand on Benny Whistler..." said the mild young

man.

"I don't want your Benny Whistler," said Sally. "I wouldn't have him if

you gave him to me. If I want to lose money, I'll go to Monte Carlo and

do it properly."

"Monte Carlo," said the gloomy man, brightening up at the magic name.

"I was in Monte Carlo in the year '97, and if I'd had another fifty

dollars... just fifty... I'd have..."

At the far end of the table there was a stir, a cough, and the grating

of a chair on the floor; and slowly, with that easy grace which actors

of the old school learned in the days when acting was acting, Mr.

Maxwell Faucitt, the boarding-house's oldest inhabitant, rose to his

feet.

"Ladies," said Mr. Faucitt, bowing courteously, "and..." ceasing to bow

and casting from beneath his white and venerable eyebrows a quelling

glance at certain male members of the boarding-house's younger set who

were showing a disposition towards restiveness, "... gentlemen. I feel

that I cannot allow this occasion to pass without saying a few words."

His audience did not seem surprised. It was possible that life, always

prolific of incident in a great city like New York, might some day

produce an occasion which Mr. Faucitt would feel that he could allow to

pass without saying a few words; but nothing of the sort had happened as

yet, and they had given up hope. Right from the start of the meal they

had felt that it would be optimism run mad to expect the old gentleman

to abstain from speech on the night of Sally Nicholas' farewell

dinner party; and partly because they had braced themselves to it, but

principally because Miss Nicholas' hospitality had left them with a

genial feeling of repletion, they settled themselves to listen

with something resembling equanimity. A movement on the part of the

Marvellous Murphys--new arrivals, who had been playing the Bushwick with

their equilibristic act during the preceding week--to form a party of

the extreme left and heckle the speaker, broke down under a cold look

from their hostess. Brief though their acquaintance had been, both of

these lissom young gentlemen admired Sally immensely.

And it should be set on record that this admiration of theirs was not

misplaced. He would have been hard to please who had not been attracted

by Sally. She was a small, trim, wisp of a girl with the tiniest hands

and feet, the friendliest of smiles, and a dimple that came and went

in the curve of her rounded chin. Her eyes, which disappeared when she

laughed, which was often, were a bright hazel; her hair a soft mass of

brown. She had, moreover, a manner, an air of distinction lacking in the

majority of Mrs. Meecher's guests. And she carried youth like a banner.

In approving of Sally, the Marvellous Murphys had been guilty of no

lapse from their high critical standard.

"I have been asked," proceeded Mr. Faucitt, "though I am aware that

there are others here far worthier of such a task--Brutuses compared

with whom I, like Marc Antony, am no orator--I have been asked to

propose the health..."

"Who asked you?" It was the smaller of the Marvellous Murphys who spoke.

He was an unpleasant youth, snub-nosed and spotty. Still, he could

balance himself with one hand on an inverted ginger-ale bottle while

revolving a barrel on the soles of his feet. There is good in all of us.

"I have been asked," repeated Mr. Faucitt, ignoring the unmannerly

interruption, which, indeed, he would have found it hard to answer, "to

propose the health of our charming hostess (applause), coupled with the

name of her brother, our old friend Fillmore Nicholas."

The gentleman referred to, who sat at the speaker's end of the table,

acknowledged the tribute with a brief nod of the head. It was a nod of

condescension; the nod of one who, conscious of being hedged about by

social inferiors, nevertheless does his best to be not unkindly. And

Sally, seeing it, debated in her mind for an instant the advisability

of throwing an orange at her brother. There was one lying ready to her

hand, and his glistening shirt-front offered an admirable mark; but

she restrained herself. After all, if a hostess yields to her primitive

impulses, what happens? Chaos. She had just frowned down the exuberance

of the rebellious Murphys, and she felt that if, even with the highest

motives, she began throwing fruit, her influence for good in that

quarter would be weakened.

She leaned back with a sigh. The temptation had been hard to resist. A

democratic girl, pomposity was a quality which she thoroughly disliked;

and though she loved him, she could not disguise from herself that,

ever since affluence had descended upon him some months ago, her brother

Fillmore had become insufferably pompous. If there are any young men

whom inherited wealth improves, Fillmore Nicholas was not one of them.

He seemed to regard himself nowadays as a sort of Man of Destiny. To

converse with him was for the ordinary human being like being received

in audience by some more than stand-offish monarch. It had taken Sally

over an hour to persuade him to leave his apartment on Riverside Drive

and revisit the boarding-house for this special occasion; and, when he

had come, he had entered wearing such faultless evening dress that he

had made the rest of the party look like a gathering of tramp-cyclists.

His white waistcoat alone was a silent reproach to honest poverty,

and had caused an awkward constraint right through the soup and fish

courses. Most of those present had known Fillmore Nicholas as an

impecunious young man who could make a tweed suit last longer than one

would have believed possible; they had called him "Fill" and helped him

in more than usually lean times with small loans: but to-night they had

eyed the waistcoat dumbly and shrank back abashed.

"Speaking," said Mr. Faucitt, "as an Englishman--for though I have long

since taken out what are technically known as my 'papers' it was as a

subject of the island kingdom that I first visited this great country--I

may say that the two factors in American life which have always made

the profoundest impression upon me have been the lavishness of American

hospitality and the charm of the American girl. To-night we have been

privileged to witness the American girl in the capacity of hostess, and

I think I am right in saying, in asseverating, in committing myself to

the statement that his has been a night which none of us present here

will ever forget. Miss Nicholas has given us, ladies and gentlemen, a

banquet. I repeat, a banquet. There has been alcoholic refreshment. I

do not know where it came from: I do not ask how it was procured, but we

have had it. Miss Nicholas..."

Mr. Faucitt paused to puff at his cigar. Sally's brother Fillmore

suppressed a yawn and glanced at his watch. Sally continued to lean

forward raptly. She knew how happy it made the old gentleman to deliver

a formal speech; and though she wished the subject had been different,

she was prepared to listen indefinitely.

"Miss Nicholas," resumed Mr. Faucitt, lowering his cigar, "... But why,"

he demanded abruptly, "do I call her Miss Nicholas?"

"Because it's her name," hazarded the taller Murphy.

Mr. Faucitt eyed him with disfavour. He disapproved of the marvellous

brethren on general grounds because, himself a resident of years

standing, he considered that these transients from the vaudeville stage

lowered the tone of the boarding-house; but particularly because the one

who had just spoken had, on his first evening in the place, addressed

him as "grandpa."

"Yes, sir," he said severely, "it is her name. But she has another name,

sweeter to those who love her, those who worship her, those who have

watched her with the eye of sedulous affection through the three years

she has spent beneath this roof, though that name," said Mr. Faucitt,

lowering the tone of his address and descending to what might almost be

termed personalities, "may not be familiar to a couple of dud acrobats

who have only been in the place a week-end, thank heaven, and are off

to-morrow to infest some other city. That name," said Mr. Faucitt,

soaring once more to a loftier plane, "is Sally. Our Sally. For three

years our Sally has flitted about this establishment like--I choose the

simile advisedly--like a ray of sunshine. For three years she has

made life for us a brighter, sweeter thing. And now a sudden access of

worldly wealth, happily synchronizing with her twenty-first birthday, is

to remove her from our midst. From our midst, ladies and gentlemen,

but not from our hearts. And I think I may venture to hope, to

prognosticate, that, whatever lofty sphere she may adorn in the future,

to whatever heights in the social world she may soar, she will still

continue to hold a corner in her own golden heart for the comrades of

her Bohemian days. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our hostess, Miss

Sally Nicholas, coupled with the name of our old friend, her brother

Fillmore."

Sally, watching her brother heave himself to his feet as the cheers died

away, felt her heart beat a little faster with anticipation. Fillmore

was a fluent young man, once a power in his college debating society,

and it was for that reason that she had insisted on his coming here

tonight.

She had guessed that Mr. Faucitt, the old dear, would say all sorts of

delightful things about her, and she had mistrusted her ability to

make a fitting reply. And it was imperative that a fitting reply should

proceed from someone. She knew Mr. Faucitt so well. He looked on these

occasions rather in the light of scenes from some play; and, sustaining

his own part in them with such polished grace, was certain to be pained

by anything in the nature of an anti-climax after he should have ceased

to take the stage. Eloquent himself, he must be answered with eloquence,

or his whole evening would be spoiled.

Fillmore Nicholas smoothed a wrinkle out of his white waistcoat; and

having rested one podgy hand on the table-cloth and the thumb of the

other in his pocket, glanced down the table with eyes so haughtily

drooping that Sally's fingers closed automatically about her orange, as

she wondered whether even now it might not be a good thing...

It seems to be one of Nature's laws that the most attractive girls

should have the least attractive brothers. Fillmore Nicholas had not

worn well. At the age of seven he had been an extraordinarily beautiful

child, but after that he had gone all to pieces; and now, at the age of

twenty-five, it would be idle to deny that he was something of a mess.

For the three years preceding his twenty-fifth birthday, restricted

means and hard work had kept his figure in check; but with money there

had come an ever-increasing sleekness. He looked as if he fed too often

and too well.

All this, however, Sally was prepared to forgive him, if he would only

make a good speech. She could see Mr. Faucitt leaning back in his chair,

all courteous attention. Rolling periods were meat and drink to the old

gentleman.

Fillmore spoke.

"I'm sure," said Fillmore, "you don't want a speech... Very good of you

to drink our health. Thank you."

He sat down.

The effect of these few simple words on the company was marked, but not

in every case identical. To the majority the emotion which they brought

was one of unmixed relief. There had been something so menacing, so easy

and practised, in Fillmore's attitude as he had stood there that the

gloomier-minded had given him at least twenty minutes, and even the

optimists had reckoned that they would be lucky if they got off with

ten. As far as the bulk of the guests were concerned, there was

no grumbling. Fillmore's, to their thinking, had been the ideal

after-dinner speech.

Far different was it with Mr. Maxwell Faucitt. The poor old man was

wearing such an expression of surprise and dismay as he might have

worn had somebody unexpectedly pulled the chair from under him. He was

feeling the sick shock which comes to those who tread on a non-existent

last stair. And Sally, catching sight of his face, uttered a sharp

wordless exclamation as if she had seen a child fall down and hurt

itself in the street. The next moment she had run round the table and

was standing behind him with her arms round his neck. She spoke across

him with a sob in her voice.

"My brother," she stammered, directing a malevolent look at the

immaculate Fillmore, who, avoiding her gaze, glanced down his nose

and smoothed another wrinkle out of his waistcoat, "has not said

quite--quite all I hoped he was going to say. I can't make a speech,

but..." Sally gulped, "... but, I love you all and of course I shall

never forget you, and... and..."

Here Sally kissed Mr. Faucitt and burst into tears.

"There, there," said Mr. Faucitt, soothingly. The kindest critic could

not have claimed that Sally had been eloquent: nevertheless Mr. Maxwell

Faucitt was conscious of no sense of anti-climax.

Sally had just finished telling her brother Fillmore what a pig he was.

The lecture had taken place in the street outside the boarding-house

immediately on the conclusion of the festivities, when Fillmore, who

had furtively collected his hat and overcoat, had stolen forth into the

night, had been overtaken and brought to bay by his justly indignant

sister. Her remarks, punctuated at intervals by bleating sounds from the

accused, had lasted some ten minutes.

As she paused for breath, Fillmore seemed to expand, like an indiarubber

ball which has been sat on. Dignified as he was to the world, he had

never been able to prevent himself being intimidated by Sally when

in one of these moods of hers. He regretted this, for it hurt his

self-esteem, but he did not see how the fact could be altered. Sally

had always been like that. Even the uncle, who after the deaths of their

parents had become their guardian, had never, though a grim man, been

able to cope successfully with Sally. In that last hectic scene three

years ago, which had ended in their going out into the world, together

like a second Adam and Eve, the verbal victory had been hers. And it

had been Sally who had achieved triumph in the one battle which Mrs.

Meecher, apparently as a matter of duty, always brought about with each

of her patrons in the first week of their stay. A sweet-tempered

girl, Sally, like most women of a generous spirit, had cyclonic

potentialities.

As she seemed to have said her say, Fillmore kept on expanding till he

had reached the normal, when he ventured upon a speech for the defence.

"What have I done?" demanded Fillmore plaintively.

"Do you want to hear all over again?"

"No, no," said Fillmore hastily. "But, listen. Sally, you don't

understand my position. You don't seem to realize that all that sort of

thing, all that boarding-house stuff, is a thing of the past. One's got

beyond it. One wants to drop it. One wants to forget it, darn it! Be

fair. Look at it from my viewpoint. I'm going to be a big man..."

"You're going to be a fat man," said Sally, coldly.

Fillmore refrained from discussing the point. He was sensitive.

"I'm going to do big things," he substituted. "I've got a deal on at

this very moment which... well, I can't tell you about it, but it's

going to be big. Well, what I'm driving at, is about all this sort of

thing"--he indicated the lighted front of Mrs. Meecher's home-from-home

with a wide gesture--"is that it's over. Finished and done with. These

people were all very well when..."

"... when you'd lost your week's salary at poker and wanted to borrow a

few dollars for the rent."

"I always paid them back," protested Fillmore, defensively.

"I did."

"Well, we did," said Fillmore, accepting the amendment with the air of

a man who has no time for chopping straws. "Anyway, what I mean is, I

don't see why, just because one has known people at a certain period in

one's life when one was practically down and out, one should have

them round one's neck for ever. One can't prevent people forming an

I-knew-him-when club, but, darn it, one needn't attend the meetings."

"One's friends..."

"Oh, friends," said Fillmore. "That's just where all this makes me so

tired. One's in a position where all these people are entitled to call

themselves one's friends, simply because father put it in his will that

I wasn't to get the money till I was twenty-five, instead of letting me

have it at twenty-one like anybody else. I wonder where I should have

been by now if I could have got that money when I was twenty-one."

"In the poor-house, probably," said Sally.

Fillmore was wounded.

"Ah! you don't believe in me," he sighed.

"Oh, you would be all right if you had one thing," said Sally.

Fillmore passed his qualities in swift review before his mental eye.

Brains? Dash? Spaciousness? Initiative? All present and correct. He

wondered where Sally imagined the hiatus to exist.

"One thing?" he said. "What's that?"

"A nurse."

Fillmore's sense of injury deepened. He supposed that this was always

the way, that those nearest to a man never believed in his ability

till he had proved it so masterfully that it no longer required the

assistance of faith. Still, it was trying; and there was not much

consolation to be derived from the thought that Napoleon had had to go

through this sort of thing in his day. "I shall find my place in the

world," he said sulkily.

"Oh, you'll find your place all right," said Sally. "And I'll come

round and bring you jelly and read to you on the days when visitors are

allowed... Oh, hullo."

The last remark was addressed to a young man who had been swinging

briskly along the sidewalk from the direction of Broadway and who now,

coming abreast of them, stopped.

"Good evening, Mr. Foster."

"Good evening. Miss Nicholas."

"You don't know my brother, do you?"

"I don't believe I do."

"He left the underworld before you came to it," said Sally. "You

wouldn't think it to look at him, but he was once a prune-eater among

the proletariat, even as you and I. Mrs. Meecher looks on him as a son."

The two men shook hands. Fillmore was not short, but Gerald Foster

with his lean, well-built figure seemed to tower over him. He was an

Englishman, a man in the middle twenties, clean-shaven, keen-eyed, and

very good to look at. Fillmore, who had recently been going in for one

of those sum-up-your-fellow-man-at-a-glance courses, the better to fit

himself for his career of greatness, was rather impressed. It seemed to

him that this Mr. Foster, like himself, was one of those who Get There.

If you are that kind yourself, you get into the knack of recognizing the

others. It is a sort of gift.

There was a few moments of desultory conversation, of the kind that

usually follows an introduction, and then Fillmore, by no means sorry

to get the chance, took advantage of the coming of this new arrival to

remove himself. He had not enjoyed his chat with Sally, and it seemed

probable that he would enjoy a continuation of it even less. He was glad

that Mr. Foster had happened along at this particular juncture. Excusing

himself briefly, he hurried off down the street.

Sally stood for a minute, watching him till he had disappeared round the

corner. She had a slightly regretful feeling that, now it was too late,

she would think of a whole lot more good things which it would have been

agreeable to say to him. And it had become obvious to her that Fillmore

was not getting nearly enough of that kind of thing said to him

nowadays. Then she dismissed him from her mind and turning to Gerald

Foster, slipped her arm through his.

"Well, Jerry, darling," she said. "What a shame you couldn't come to the

party. Tell me all about everything."

It was exactly two months since Sally had become engaged to Gerald

Foster; but so rigorously had they kept the secret that nobody at Mrs.

Meecher's so much as suspected it. To Sally, who all her life had hated

concealing things, secrecy of any kind was objectionable: but in this

matter Gerald had shown an odd streak almost of furtiveness in his

character. An announced engagement complicated life. People fussed about

you and bothered you. People either watched you or avoided you. Such

were his arguments, and Sally, who would have glossed over and found

excuses for a disposition on his part towards homicide or arson, put

them down to artistic sensitiveness. There is nobody so sensitive as

your artist, particularly if he be unsuccessful: and when an artist has

so little success that he cannot afford to make a home for the woman

he loves, his sensitiveness presumably becomes great indeed. Putting

herself in his place, Sally could see that a protracted engagement,

known by everybody, would be a standing advertisement of Gerald's

failure to make good: and she acquiesced in the policy of secrecy,

hoping that it would not last long. It seemed absurd to think of Gerald

as an unsuccessful man. He had in him, as the recent Fillmore had

perceived, something dynamic. He was one of those men of whom one could

predict that they would succeed very suddenly and rapidly--overnight, as

it were.

"The party," said Sally, "went off splendidly." They had passed the

boarding-house door, and were walking slowly down the street. "Everybody

enjoyed themselves, I think, even though Fillmore did his best to spoil

things by coming looking like an advertisement of What The Smart Men

Will Wear This Season. You didn't see his waistcoat just now. He

had covered it up. Conscience, I suppose. It was white and bulgy and

gleaming and full up of pearl buttons and everything. I saw Augustus

Bartlett curl up like a burnt feather when he caught sight of it. Still,

time seemed to heal the wound, and everybody relaxed after a bit. Mr.

Faucitt made a speech and I made a speech and cried, and...oh, it was

all very festive. It only needed you."

"I wish I could have come. I had to go to that dinner, though. Sally..."

Gerald paused, and Sally saw that he was electric with suppressed

excitement. "Sally, the play's going to be put on!"

Sally gave a little gasp. She had lived this moment in anticipation for

weeks. She had always known that sooner or later this would happen. She

had read his plays over and over again, and was convinced that they were

wonderful. Of course, hers was a biased view, but then Elsa Doland also

admired them; and Elsa's opinion was one that carried weight. Elsa was

another of those people who were bound to succeed suddenly. Even old Mr.

Faucitt, who was a stern judge of acting and rather inclined to consider

that nowadays there was no such thing, believed that she was a girl with

a future who would do something big directly she got her chance.

"Jerry!" She gave his arm a hug. "How simply terrific! Then Goble and

Kohn have changed their minds after all and want it? I knew they would."

A slight cloud seemed to dim the sunniness of the author's mood.

"No, not that one," he said reluctantly. "No hope there, I'm afraid. I

saw Goble this morning about that, and he said it didn't add up right.

The one that's going to be put on is 'The Primrose Way.' You remember?

It's got a big part for a girl in it."

"Of course! The one Elsa liked so much. Well, that's just as good. Who's

going to do it? I thought you hadn't sent it out again."

"Well, it happens..." Gerald hesitated once more. "It seems that this

man I was dining with to-night--a man named Cracknell..."

"Cracknell? Not the Cracknell?"

"The Cracknell?"

"The one people are always talking about. The man they call the

Millionaire Kid."

"Yes. Why, do you know him?"

"He was at Harvard with Fillmore. I never saw him, but he must be rather

a painful person."

"Oh, he's all right. Not much brains, of course, but--well, he's all

right. And, anyway, he wants to put the play on."

"Well, that's splendid," said Sally: but she could not get the right

ring of enthusiasm into her voice. She had had ideals for Gerald. She

had dreamed of him invading Broadway triumphantly under the banner of

one of the big managers whose name carried a prestige, and there seemed

something unworthy in this association with a man whose chief claim to

eminence lay in the fact that he was credited by metropolitan gossip

with possessing the largest private stock of alcohol in existence.

"I thought you would be pleased," said Gerald.

"Oh, I am," said Sally.

With the buoyant optimism which never deserted her for long, she had

already begun to cast off her momentary depression. After all, did

it matter who financed a play so long as it obtained a production? A

manager was simply a piece of machinery for paying the bills; and if

he had money for that purpose, why demand asceticism and the finer

sensibilities from him? The real thing that mattered was the question

of who was going to play the leading part, that deftly drawn character

which had so excited the admiration of Elsa Doland. She sought

information on this point.

"Who will play Ruth?" she asked. "You must have somebody wonderful. It

needs a tremendously clever woman. Did Mr. Cracknell say anything about

that?"

"Oh, yes, we discussed that, of course."

"Well?"

"Well, it seems..." Again Sally noticed that odd, almost stealthy

embarrassment. Gerald appeared unable to begin a sentence to-night

without feeling his way into it like a man creeping cautiously down a

dark alley. She noticed it the more because it was so different from

his usual direct method. Gerald, as a rule, was not one of those who

apologize for themselves. He was forthright and masterful and inclined

to talk to her from a height. To-night he seemed different.

He broke off, was silent for a moment, and began again with a question.

"Do you know Mabel Hobson?"

"Mabel Hobson? I've seen her in the 'Follies,' of course."

Sally started. A suspicion had stung her, so monstrous that its

absurdity became manifest the moment it had formed. And yet was

it absurd? Most Broadway gossip filtered eventually into the

boarding-house, chiefly through the medium of that seasoned sport, the

mild young man who thought so highly of the redoubtable Benny Whistler,

and she was aware that the name of Reginald Cracknell, which was always

getting itself linked with somebody, had been coupled with that of Miss

Hobson. It seemed likely that in this instance rumour spoke truth,

for the lady was of that compellingly blonde beauty which attracts the

Cracknells of this world. But even so...

"It seems that Cracknell..." said Gerald. "Apparently this man

Cracknell..." He was finding Sally's bright, horrified gaze somewhat

trying. "Well, the fact is Cracknell believes in Mabel Hobson...and...

well, he thinks this part would suit her."

"Oh, Jerry!"

Could infatuation go to such a length? Could even the spacious heart of

a Reginald Cracknell so dominate that gentleman's small size in heads as

to make him entrust a part like Ruth in "The Primrose Way" to one who,

when desired by the producer of her last revue to carry a bowl of roses

across the stage and place it on a table, had rebelled on the plea that

she had not been engaged as a dancer? Surely even lovelorn Reginald

could perceive that this was not the stuff of which great emotional

actresses are made.

"Oh, Jerry!" she said again.

There was an uncomfortable silence. They turned and walked back in the

direction of the boarding-house. Somehow Gerald's arm had managed to get

itself detached from Sally's. She was conscious of a curious dull ache

that was almost like a physical pain.

"Jerry! Is it worth it?" she burst out vehemently.

The question seemed to sting the young man into something like his usual

decisive speech.

"Worth it? Of course it's worth it. It's a Broadway production. That's

all that matters. Good heavens! I've been trying long enough to get a

play on Broadway, and it isn't likely that I'm going to chuck away my

chance when it comes along just because one might do better in the way

of casting."

"But, Jerry! Mabel Hobson! It's... it's murder! Murder in the first

degree."

"Nonsense. She'll be all right. The part will play itself. Besides,

she has a personality and a following, and Cracknell will spend all the

money in the world to make the thing a success. And it will be a start,

whatever happens. Of course, it's worth it."

Fillmore would have been impressed by this speech. He would have

recognized and respected in it the unmistakable ring which characterizes

even the lightest utterances of those who get there. On Sally it had not

immediately that effect. Nevertheless, her habit of making the best of

things, working together with that primary article of her creed that

the man she loved could do no wrong, succeeded finally in raising her

spirits. Of course Jerry was right. It would have been foolish to refuse

a contract because all its clauses were not ideal.

"You old darling," she said affectionately attaching herself to the

vacant arm once more and giving it a penitent squeeze, "you're quite

right. Of course you are. I can see it now. I was only a little startled

at first. Everything's going to be wonderful. Let's get all our chickens

out and count 'em. How are you going to spend the money?"

"I know how I'm going to spend a dollar of it," said Gerald completely

restored.

"I mean the big money. What's a dollar?"

"It pays for a marriage-licence."

Sally gave his arm another squeeze.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said. "Look at this man. Observe him. My

partner!"

CHAPTER II. ENTER GINGER

Sally was sitting with her back against a hillock of golden sand,

watching with half-closed eyes the denizens of Roville-sur-Mer at their

familiar morning occupations. At Roville, as at most French seashore

resorts, the morning is the time when the visiting population assembles

in force on the beach. Whiskered fathers of families made cheerful

patches of colour in the foreground. Their female friends and relatives

clustered in groups under gay parasols. Dogs roamed to and fro, and

children dug industriously with spades, ever and anon suspending their

labours in order to smite one another with these handy implements. One

of the dogs, a poodle of military aspect, wandered up to Sally: and

discovering that she was in possession of a box of sweets, decided to

remain and await developments.

Few things are so pleasant as the anticipation of them, but Sally's

vacation had proved an exception to this rule. It had been a magic month

of lazy happiness. She had drifted luxuriously from one French town to

another, till the charm of Roville, with its blue sky, its Casino,

its snow-white hotels along the Promenade, and its general glitter

and gaiety, had brought her to a halt. Here she could have stayed

indefinitely, but the voice of America was calling her back. Gerald had

written to say that "The Primrose Way" was to be produced in Detroit,

preliminary to its New York run, so soon that, if she wished to see the

opening, she must return at once. A scrappy, hurried, unsatisfactory

letter, the letter of a busy man: but one that Sally could not ignore.

She was leaving Roville to-morrow.

To-day, however, was to-day: and she sat and watched the bathers with

a familiar feeling of peace, revelling as usual in the still novel

sensation of having nothing to do but bask in the warm sunshine and

listen to the faint murmur of the little waves.

But, if there was one drawback, she had discovered, to a morning on the

Roville plage, it was that you had a tendency to fall asleep: and this

is a degrading thing to do so soon after breakfast, even if you are on

a holiday. Usually, Sally fought stoutly against the temptation, but

to-day the sun was so warm and the whisper of the waves so insinuating

that she had almost dozed off, when she was aroused by voices close at

hand. There were many voices on the beach, both near and distant, but

these were talking English, a novelty in Roville, and the sound of the

familiar tongue jerked Sally back from the borders of sleep. A few feet

away, two men had seated themselves on the sand.

From the first moment she had set out on her travels, it had been one of

Sally's principal amusements to examine the strangers whom chance threw

in her way and to try by the light of her intuition to fit them out with

characters and occupations: nor had she been discouraged by an almost

consistent failure to guess right. Out of the corner of her eye she

inspected these two men.

The first of the pair did not attract her. He was a tall, dark man whose

tight, precise mouth and rather high cheeks bones gave him an appearance

vaguely sinister. He had the dusky look of the clean-shaven man whose

life is a perpetual struggle with a determined beard. He certainly

shaved twice a day, and just as certainly had the self-control not to

swear when he cut himself. She could picture him smiling nastily when

this happened.

"Hard," diagnosed Sally. "I shouldn't like him. A lawyer or something, I

think."

She turned to the other and found herself looking into his eyes. This

was because he had been staring at Sally with the utmost intentness ever

since his arrival. His mouth had opened slightly. He had the air of a

man who, after many disappointments, has at last found something worth

looking at.

"Rather a dear," decided Sally.

He was a sturdy, thick-set young man with an amiable, freckled face and

the reddest hair Sally had ever seen. He had a square chin, and at one

angle of the chin a slight cut. And Sally was convinced that, however

he had behaved on receipt of that wound, it had not been with superior

self-control.

"A temper, I should think," she meditated. "Very quick, but soon over.

Not very clever, I should say, but nice."

She looked away, finding his fascinated gaze a little embarrassing.

The dark man, who in the objectionably competent fashion which, one

felt, characterized all his actions, had just succeeded in lighting

a cigarette in the teeth of a strong breeze, threw away the match and

resumed the conversation, which had presumably been interrupted by the

process of sitting down.

"And how is Scrymgeour?" he inquired.

"Oh, all right," replied the young man with red hair absently. Sally was

looking straight in front of her, but she felt that his eyes were still

busy.

"I was surprised at his being here. He told me he meant to stay in

Paris."

There was a slight pause. Sally gave the attentive poodle a piece of

nougat.

"I say," observed the red-haired young man in clear, penetrating tones

that vibrated with intense feeling, "that's the prettiest girl I've seen

in my life!"

At this frank revelation of the red-haired young man's personal

opinions, Sally, though considerably startled, was not displeased. A

broad-minded girl, the outburst seemed to her a legitimate comment on a

matter of public interest. The young man's companion, on the other hand,

was unmixedly shocked.

"My dear fellow!" he ejaculated.

"Oh, it's all right," said the red-haired young man, unmoved. "She can't

understand. There isn't a bally soul in this dashed place that can speak

a word of English. If I didn't happen to remember a few odd bits of

French, I should have starved by this time. That girl," he went on,

returning to the subject most imperatively occupying his mind, "is an

absolute topper! I give you my solemn word I've never seen anybody to

touch her. Look at those hands and feet. You don't get them outside

France. Of course, her mouth is a bit wide," he said reluctantly.

Sally's immobility, added to the other's assurance concerning the

linguistic deficiencies of the inhabitants of Roville, seemed to

reassure the dark man. He breathed again. At no period of his life

had he ever behaved with anything but the most scrupulous correctness

himself, but he had quailed at the idea of being associated even

remotely with incorrectness in another. It had been a black moment for

him when the red-haired young man had uttered those few kind words.

"Still you ought to be careful," he said austerely.

He looked at Sally, who was now dividing her attention between the

poodle and a raffish-looking mongrel, who had joined the party, and

returned to the topic of the mysterious Scrymgeour.

"How is Scrymgeour's dyspepsia?"

The red-haired young man seemed but faintly interested in the

vicissitudes of Scrymgeour's interior.

"Do you notice the way her hair sort of curls over her ears?" he said.

"Eh? Oh, pretty much the same, I think."

"What hotel are you staying at?"

"The Normandie."

Sally, dipping into the box for another chocolate cream, gave an

imperceptible start. She, too, was staying at the Normandie. She

presumed that her admirer was a recent arrival, for she had seen nothing

of him at the hotel.

"The Normandie?" The dark man looked puzzled. "I know Roville pretty

well by report, but I've never heard of any Hotel Normandie. Where is

it?"

"It's a little shanty down near the station. Not much of a place. Still,

it's cheap, and the cooking's all right."

His companion's bewilderment increased.

"What on earth is a man like Scrymgeour doing there?" he said. Sally

was conscious of an urgent desire to know more and more about the absent

Scrymgeour. Constant repetition of his name had made him seem almost

like an old friend. "If there's one thing he's fussy about..."

"There are at least eleven thousand things he's fussy about,"

interrupted the red-haired young man disapprovingly. "Jumpy old

blighter!"

"If there's one thing he's particular about, it's the sort of hotel

he goes to. Ever since I've known him he has always wanted the best. I

should have thought he would have gone to the Splendide." He mused on

this problem in a dissatisfied sort of way for a moment, then seemed to

reconcile himself to the fact that a rich man's eccentricities must be

humoured. "I'd like to see him again. Ask him if he will dine with me at

the Splendide to-night. Say eight sharp."

Sally, occupied with her dogs, whose numbers had now been augmented by

a white terrier with a black patch over its left eye, could not see

the young man's face: but his voice, when he replied, told her that

something was wrong. There was a false airiness in it.

"Oh, Scrymgeour isn't in Roville."

"No? Where is he?"

"Paris, I believe."

"What!" The dark man's voice sharpened. He sounded as though he were

cross-examining a reluctant witness. "Then why aren't you there? What

are you doing here? Did he give you a holiday?"

"Yes, he did."

"When do you rejoin him?"

"I don't."

"What!"

The red-haired young man's manner was not unmistakably dogged.

"Well, if you want to know," he said, "the old blighter fired me the day

before yesterday."

There was a shuffling of sand as the dark man sprang up. Sally, intent

on the drama which was unfolding itself beside her, absent-mindedly gave

the poodle a piece of nougat which should by rights have gone to the

terrier. She shot a swift glance sideways, and saw the dark man standing

in an attitude rather reminiscent of the stern father of melodrama about

to drive his erring daughter out into the snow. The red-haired young

man, outwardly stolid, was gazing before him down the beach at a fat

bather in an orange suit who, after six false starts, was now actually

in the water, floating with the dignity of a wrecked balloon.

"Do you mean to tell me," demanded the dark man, "that, after all the

trouble the family took to get you what was practically a sinecure

with endless possibilities if you only behaved yourself, you have

deliberately thrown away..." A despairing gesture completed the

sentence. "Good God, you're hopeless!"

The red-haired young man made no reply. He continued to gaze down the

beach. Of all outdoor sports, few are more stimulating than watching

middle-aged Frenchmen bathe. Drama, action, suspense, all are here. From

the first stealthy testing of the water with an apprehensive toe to the

final seal-like plunge, there is never a dull moment. And apart from the

excitement of the thing, judging it from a purely aesthetic standpoint,

his must be a dull soul who can fail to be uplifted by the spectacle of

a series of very stout men with whiskers, seen in tight bathing suits

against a background of brightest blue. Yet the young man with red hair,

recently in the employment of Mr. Scrymgeour, eyed this free circus

without any enjoyment whatever.

"It's maddening! What are you going to do? What do you expect us to do?

Are we to spend our whole lives getting you positions which you won't

keep? I can tell you we're... it's monstrous! It's sickening! Good God!"

And with these words the dark man, apparently feeling, as Sally had

sometimes felt in the society of her brother Fillmore, the futility of

mere language, turned sharply and stalked away up the beach, the dignity

of his exit somewhat marred a moment later by the fact of his straw hat

blowing off and being trodden on by a passing child.

He left behind him the sort of electric calm which follows the falling

of a thunderbolt; that stunned calm through which the air seems still to

quiver protestingly. How long this would have lasted one cannot say:

for towards the end of the first minute it was shattered by a purely

terrestrial uproar. With an abruptness heralded only by one short, low

gurgling snarl, there sprang into being the prettiest dog fight that

Roville had seen that season.

It was the terrier with the black patch who began it. That was Sally's

opinion: and such, one feels, will be the verdict of history. His best

friend, anxious to make out a case for him, could not have denied that

he fired the first gun of the campaign. But we must be just. The fault

was really Sally's. Absorbed in the scene which had just concluded and

acutely inquisitive as to why the shadowy Scrymgeour had seen fit to

dispense with the red-haired young man's services, she had thrice in

succession helped the poodle out of his turn. The third occasion was too

much for the terrier.

There is about any dog fight a wild, gusty fury which affects the

average mortal with something of the helplessness induced by some vast

clashing of the elements. It seems so outside one's jurisdiction. One is

oppressed with a sense of the futility of interference. And this was no

ordinary dog fight. It was a stunning mкlйe, which would have excited

favourable comment even among the blasй residents of a negro quarter or

the not easily-pleased critics of a Lancashire mining-village. From all

over the beach dogs of every size, breed, and colour were racing to the

scene: and while some of these merely remained in the ringside seats

and barked, a considerable proportion immediately started fighting one

another on general principles, well content to be in action without

bothering about first causes. The terrier had got the poodle by the

left hind-leg and was restating his war-aims. The raffish mongrel

was apparently endeavouring to fletcherize a complete stranger of the

Sealyham family.

Sally was frankly unequal to the situation, as were the entire crowd of

spectators who had come galloping up from the water's edge. She had been

paralysed from the start. Snarling bundles bumped against her legs and

bounced away again, but she made no move. Advice in fluent French rent

the air. Arms waved, and well-filled bathing suits leaped up and down.

But nobody did anything practical until in the centre of the theatre of

war there suddenly appeared the red-haired young man.

The only reason why dog fights do not go on for ever is that Providence

has decided that on each such occasion there shall always be among those

present one Master Mind; one wizard who, whatever his shortcomings in

other battles of life, is in this single particular sphere competent and

dominating. At Roville-sur-Mer it was the red-haired young man. His dark

companion might have turned from him in disgust: his services might not

have seemed worth retaining by the haughty Scrymgeour: he might be a

pain in the neck to "the family"; but he did know how to stop a dog

fight. From the first moment of his intervention calm began to steal

over the scene. He had the same effect on the almost inextricably

entwined belligerents as, in mediaeval legend, the Holy Grail, sliding

down the sunbeam, used to have on battling knights. He did not look like

a dove of peace, but the most captious could not have denied that he

brought home the goods. There was a magic in his soothing hands, a

spell in his voice: and in a shorter time than one would have believed

possible dog after dog had been sorted out and calmed down; until

presently all that was left of Armageddon was one solitary small Scotch

terrier, thoughtfully licking a chewed leg. The rest of the combatants,

once more in their right mind and wondering what all the fuss was about,

had been captured and haled away in a whirl of recrimination by voluble

owners.

Having achieved this miracle, the young man turned to Sally. Gallant,

one might say reckless, as he had been a moment before, he now gave

indications of a rather pleasing shyness. He braced himself with that

painful air of effort which announces to the world that an Englishman is

about to speak a language other than his own.

"J'espиre," he said, having swallowed once or twice to brace himself up

for the journey through the jungle of a foreign tongue, "J'espиre que

vous n'кtes pas--oh, dammit, what's the word--J'espиre que vous n'кtes

pas blessйe?"

"Blessйe?"

"Yes, blessйe. Wounded. Hurt, don't you know. Bitten. Oh, dash it.

J'espиre..."

"Oh, bitten!" said Sally, dimpling. "Oh, no, thanks very much. I wasn't

bitten. And I think it was awfully brave of you to save all our lives."

The compliment seemed to pass over the young man's head. He stared at

Sally with horrified eyes. Over his amiable face there swept a vivid

blush. His jaw dropped.

"Oh, my sainted aunt!" he ejaculated.

Then, as if the situation was too much for him and flights the only

possible solution, he spun round and disappeared at a walk so rapid that

it was almost a run. Sally watched him go and was sorry that he had torn

himself away. She still wanted to know why Scrymgeour had fired him.

Bedtime at Roville is an hour that seems to vary according to one's

proximity to the sea. The gilded palaces along the front keep deplorable

hours, polluting the night air till dawn with indefatigable jazz: but at

the pensions of the economical like the Normandie, early to bed is the

rule. True, Jules, the stout young native who combined the offices of

night-clerk and lift attendant at that establishment, was on duty in the

hall throughout the night, but few of the Normandie's patrons made use

of his services.

Sally, entering shortly before twelve o'clock on the night of the day

on which the dark man, the red-haired young man, and their friend

Scrymgeour had come into her life, found the little hall dim and silent.

Through the iron cage of the lift a single faint bulb glowed: another,

over the desk in the far corner, illuminated the upper half of Jules,

slumbering in a chair. Jules seemed to Sally to be on duty in some

capacity or other all the time. His work, like women's, was never done.

He was now restoring his tissues with a few w

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 1012