I've come from Detroit."

"Yes, I heard you were in Detroit."

Sally's eyes opened.

"You heard I was in Detroit? Good gracious! How?"

"I--ah--called at your New York address and made inquiries," said Mr.
Carmyle a little awkwardly.

"But how did you know where I lived?"

"My cousin--er--Lancelot told me."

Sally was silent for a moment. She had much the same feeling that
comes to the man in the detective story who realizes that he is being
shadowed. Even if this almost complete stranger had not actually come to
America in direct pursuit of her, there was no disguising the fact that
he evidently found her an object of considerable interest. It was a
compliment, but Sally was not at all sure that she liked it. Bruce
Carmyle meant nothing to her, and it was rather disturbing to find that
she was apparently of great importance to him. She seized on the mention
of Ginger as a lever for diverting the conversation from its present too
intimate course.

"How is Mr. Kemp?" she asked.

Mr. Carmyle's dark face seemed to become a trifle darker.

"We have had no news of him," he said shortly.

"No news? How do you mean? You speak as though he had disappeared."

"He has disappeared!"

"Good heavens! When?"

"Shortly after I saw you last."

"Disappeared!"

Mr. Carmyle frowned. Sally, watching him, found her antipathy stirring
again. There was something about this man which she had disliked
instinctively from the first, a sort of hardness.

"But where has he gone to?"

"I don't know." Mr. Carmyle frowned again. The subject of Ginger was
plainly a sore one. "And I don't want to know," he went on heatedly,
a dull flush rising in the cheeks which Sally was sure he had to shave
twice a day. "I don't care to know. The Family have washed their hands
of him. For the future he may look after himself as best he can. I
believe he is off his head."

Sally's rebellious temper was well ablaze now, but she fought it down.
She would dearly have loved to give battle to Mr. Carmyle--it was odd,
she felt, how she seemed to have constituted herself Ginger's champion
and protector--but she perceived that, if she wished, as she did, to
hear more of her red-headed friend, he must be humoured and conciliated.

"But what happened? What was all the trouble about?"

Mr. Carmyle's eyebrows met.

"He--insulted his uncle. His uncle Donald. He insulted him--grossly. The
one man in the world he should have made a point of--er--"

"Ke