rbed
by life's little surprises, but at the present moment he could not help
feeling slightly dazed. He recognized Sally now as the French girl who
had attracted his cousin Lancelot's notice on the beach. At least he had
assumed that she was French, and it was startling to be addressed by
her now in fluent English. How had she suddenly acquired this gift of
tongues? And how on earth had she had time since yesterday, when he
had been a total stranger to her, to become sufficiently intimate with
Cousin Lancelot to be sprinting with him down station platforms and
addressing him out of railway-carriage windows as Ginger? Bruce Carmyle
was aware that most members of that sub-species of humanity, his
cousin's personal friends, called him by that familiar--and, so Carmyle
held, vulgar--nickname: but how had this girl got hold of it?

If Sally had been less pretty, Mr. Carmyle would undoubtedly have looked
disapprovingly at her, for she had given his rather rigid sense of the
proprieties a nasty jar. But as, panting and flushed from her run, she
was prettier than any girl he had yet met, he contrived to smile.

"Not at all," he said in answer to her question, though it was far from
the truth. His left big toe was aching confoundedly. Even a girl with
a foot as small as Sally's can make her presence felt on a man's toe if
the scrum-half who is handling her aims well and uses plenty of vigour.

"If you don't mind," said Sally, sitting down, "I think I'll breathe a
little."

She breathed. The train sped on.

"Quite a close thing," said Bruce Carmyle, affably. The pain in his toe
was diminishing. "You nearly missed it."

"Yes. It was lucky Mr. Kemp was with me. He throws very straight,
doesn't he."

"Tell me," said Carmyle, "how do you come to know my Cousin? On the
beach yesterday morning..."

"Oh, we didn't know each other then. But we were staying at the same
hotel, and we spent an hour or so shut up in an elevator together. That
was when we really got acquainted."

A waiter entered the compartment, announcing in unexpected English that
dinner was served in the restaurant car. "Would you care for dinner?"

"I'm starving," said Sally.

She reproved herself, as they made their way down the corridor, for
being so foolish as to judge anyone by his appearance. This man was
perfectly pleasant in spite of his grim exterior. She had decided by the
time they had seated themselves at the table she liked him.

At the table,