"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 G.o.d!" 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.
CHAPTER XVII. SALLY LAYS A GHOST
1
The blood flowed slowly back into Sally"s face, and her heart, which had leaped madly for an instant at the sound of his voice, resumed its normal beat. The suddenness of the shock over, she was surprised to find herself perfectly calm. Always when she had imagined this meeting, knowing that it would have to take place sooner or later, she had felt something akin to panic: but now that it had actually occurred it hardly seemed to stir her. The events of the night had left her incapable of any violent emotion.
"Hullo, Sally!" said Gerald.
He spoke thickly, and there was a foolish smile on his face as he stood swaying with one hand on the door. He was in his shirt-sleeves, collarless: and it was plain that he had been drinking heavily. His face was white and puffy, and about him there hung like a nimbus a sodden disreputableness.
Sally did not speak. Weighed down before by a numbing exhaustion, she seemed now to have pa.s.sed into that second phase in which over-tired nerves enter upon a sort of Indian summer of abnormal alertness. She looked at him quietly, coolly and altogether dispa.s.sionately, as if he had been a stranger.
"Hullo!" said Gerald again.
"What do you want?" said Sally.
"Heard your voice. Saw the door open. Thought I"d come in."
"What do you want?"
The weak smile which had seemed pinned on Gerald"s face vanished. A tear rolled down his cheek. His intoxication had reached the maudlin stage.
"Sally... S-Sally... I"m very miserable." He slurred awkwardly over the difficult syllables. "Heard your voice. Saw the door open. Thought I"d come in."
Something flicked at the back of Sally"s mind. She seemed to have been through all this before. Then she remembered. This was simply Mr.
Reginald Cracknell over again.
"I think you had better go to bed, Gerald," she said steadily. Nothing about him seemed to touch her now, neither the sight of him nor his shameless misery.
"What"s the use? Can"t sleep. No good. Couldn"t sleep. Sally, you don"t know how worried I am. I see what a fool I"ve been."