ak for a moment.

"You were quite right," she said at last, in a sober voice that had
nothing in it of her customary flippancy. She paused again. "And what
are you going to do now?" she said.

"I don't know."

"You'll get something?"

"Oh, yes, I shall get something, I suppose. The family will be pretty
sick, of course."

"For goodness' sake! Why do you bother about the family?" Sally burst
out. She could not reconcile this young man's flabby dependence on his
family with the enterprise and vigour which he had shown in his dealings
with the unspeakable Scrymgeour. Of course, he had been brought up to
look on himself as a rich man's son and appeared to have drifted as such
young men are wont to do; but even so... "The whole trouble with you,"
she said, embarking on a subject on which she held strong views, "is
that..."

Her harangue was interrupted by what--at the Normandie, at one o'clock
in the morning--practically amounted to a miracle. The front door of
the hotel opened, and there entered a young man in evening dress.
Such persons were sufficiently rare at the Normandie, which catered
principally for the staid and middle-aged, and this youth's presence was
due, if one must pause to explain it, to the fact that, in the middle
of his stay at Roville, a disastrous evening at the Casino had so
diminished his funds that he had been obliged to make a hurried shift
from the Hotel Splendide to the humbler Normandie. His late appearance
to-night was caused by the fact that he had been attending a dance
at the Splendide, principally in the hope of finding there some
kind-hearted friend of his prosperity from whom he might borrow.

A rapid-fire dialogue having taken place between Jules and the newcomer,
the keys were handed through the cage, the door opened and the lift was
set once more in motion. And a few minutes later, Sally, suddenly aware
of an overpowering sleepiness, had switched off her light and jumped
into bed. Her last waking thought was a regret that she had not been
able to speak at length to Mr. Ginger Kemp on the subject of enterprise,
and resolve that the address should be delivered at the earliest
opportunity.

CHAPTER III. THE DIGNIFIED MR. CARMYLE

1

By six o'clock on the following evening, however. Sally had been forced
to the conclusion that Ginger would have to struggle through life as
best he could without the assistance of her contemplated remarks: for
she had seen nothing o