"I say," said Ginger, dexterously plucking Sally out of the crowd, "this is topping, meeting you like this. I"ve been looking for you everywhere."
"It"s funny you didn"t find me, then, for that"s where I"ve been. I was looking for you."
"No, really?" Ginger seemed pleased. He led the way to the quiet ante-room outside the gambling-hall, and they sat down in a corner.
It was pleasant here, with n.o.body near except the gorgeously uniformed attendant over by the door. "That was awfully good of you."
"I felt I must have a talk with you before my train went."
Ginger started violently.
"Your train? What do you mean?"
"The puff-puff," explained Sally. "I"m leaving to-night, you know."
"Leaving?" Ginger looked as horrified as the devoutest of the congregation of which Sally had just ceased to be a member. "You don"t mean leaving? You"re not going away from Roville?"
"I"m afraid so."
"But why? Where are you going?"
"Back to America. My boat sails from Cherbourg tomorrow."
"Oh, my aunt!"
"I"m sorry," said Sally, touched by his concern. She was a warm-hearted girl and liked being appreciated. "But..."
"I say..." Ginger Kemp turned bright scarlet and glared before him at the uniformed official, who was regarding their tete-a-tete with the indulgent eye of one who has been through this sort of thing himself. "I say, look here, will you marry me?"
2
Sally stared at his vermilion profile in frank amazement. Ginger, she had realized by this time, was in many ways a surprising young man, but she had not expected him to be as surprising as this.
"Marry you!"
"You know what I mean."
"Well, yes, I suppose I do. You allude to the holy state. Yes, I know what you mean."
"Then how about it?"
Sally began to regain her composure. Her sense of humour was tickled.
She looked at Ginger gravely. He did not meet her eye, but continued to drink in the uniformed official, who was by now so carried away by the romance of it all that he had begun to hum a love-ballad under his breath. The official could not hear what they were saying, and would not have been able to understand it even if he could have heard; but he was an expert in the language of the eyes.
"But isn"t this--don"t think I am trying to make difficulties--isn"t this a little sudden?"
"It"s got to be sudden," said Ginger Kemp, complainingly. "I thought you were going to be here for weeks."
"But, my infant, my babe, has it occurred to you that we are practically strangers?" She patted his hand tolerantly, causing the uniformed official to heave a tender sigh. "I see what has happened," she said.
"You"re mistaking me for some other girl, some girl you know really well, and were properly introduced to. Take a good look at me, and you"ll see."
"If I take a good look at you," said Ginger, feverishly, "I"m dashed if I"ll answer for the consequences."
"And this is the man I was going to lecture on "Enterprise.""
"You"re the most wonderful girl I"ve ever met, dash it!" said Ginger, his gaze still riveted on the official by the door "I dare say it is sudden. I can"t help that. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, and there you are!"
"But..."
"Now, look here, I know I"m not much of a chap and all that, but...
well, I"ve just won the deuce of a lot of money in there..."
"Would you buy me with your gold?"
"I mean to say, we should have enough to start on, and... of course I"ve made an infernal hash of everything I"ve tried up till now, but there must be something I can do, and you can jolly well bet I"d have a goodish stab at it. I mean to say, with you to buck me up and so forth, don"t you know. Well, I mean..."
"Has it struck you that I may already be engaged to someone else?"
"Oh, golly! Are you?"
For the first time he turned and faced her, and there was a look in his eyes which touched Sally and drove all sense of the ludicrous out of her. Absurd as it was, this man was really serious.
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I am," she said soberly.
Ginger Kemp bit his lip and for a moment was silent.
"Oh, well, that"s torn it!" he said at last.
Sally was aware of an emotion too complex to a.n.a.lyse. There was pity in it, but amus.e.m.e.nt too. The emotion, though she did not recognize it, was maternal. Mothers, listening to their children pleading with engaging absurdity for something wholly out of their power to bestow, feel that same wavering between tears and laughter. Sally wanted to pick Ginger up and kiss him. The one thing she could not do was to look on him, sorry as she was for him, as a reasonable, grown-up man.
"You don"t really mean it, you know."
"Don"t I!" said Ginger, hollowly. "Oh, don"t I!"
"You can"t! There isn"t such a thing in real life as love at first sight. Love"s a thing that comes when you know a person well and..."
She paused. It had just occurred to her that she was hardly the girl to lecture in this strain. Her love for Gerald Foster had been sufficiently sudden, even instantaneous. What did she know of Gerald except that she loved him? They had become engaged within two weeks of their first meeting. She found this recollection damping to her eloquence, and ended by saying tamely:
"It"s ridiculous."
Ginger had simmered down to a mood of melancholy resignation.
"I couldn"t have expected you to care for me, I suppose, anyway," he said, sombrely. "I"m not much of a chap."
It was just the diversion from the theme under discussion which Sally had been longing to find. She welcomed the chance of continuing the conversation on a less intimate and sentimental note.