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How could any man murmur in a pandemonium like this. From tenderness Bruce Carmyle descended with a sharp swoop to irritability. "Do you often come here?" "Yes." "What for?" "To dance." Mr. Carmyle chafed helplessly.
She wanted to end the suspense. "Fillmore was telling me over the 'phone that you had some bad news for me." Mrs. Fillmore scratched at the carpet for a moment with the end of her parasol without replying. When she spoke it was not in answer to the question. "Sally, who's this man Carmyle over in England?" "Oh, did Fillmore tell you about him?"
Everybody travels nowadays, of course, and there is nothing really remarkable in finding a man in America whom you had supposed to be in Europe: but nevertheless she was conscious of a dream-like sensation, as though the clock had been turned back and a chapter of her life reopened which she had thought closed for ever. "Mr. Carmyle!" she cried.
Carmyle, for, even as he began the sentence, the door that led to the bathroom opened and Gerald Foster came out. Mr. Carmyle gaped at Gerald: Gerald gaped at Mr. Carmyle. The application of cold water to the face and head is an excellent thing on the morning after an imprudent night, but as a tonic it only goes part of the way.
"Rosbif," said the waiter genially, manifesting himself suddenly beside them as if he had popped up out of a trap. Bruce Carmyle attacked his roast beef morosely. Sally who was in the mood when she knew that she would be ashamed of herself later on, but was full of battle at the moment, sat in silence. "I am sorry," said Mr. Carmyle ponderously, "if my eyes are fishy.
Carmyle, who had been irritably waving aside the servitor's light-hearted advice at the Hotel Splendide the waiters never bent over you and breathed cordial suggestions down the side of your face gave his order crisply in the Anglo-Gallic dialect of the travelling Briton. The waiter remarked, "Boum!" in a pleased sort of way, and vanished. "Nice old man!" said Sally.
My doctor seemed to think I was a trifle run down. It seemed a good opportunity to visit America. Everybody," said Mr. Carmyle oracularly, endeavouring, as he had often done since his ship had left England, to persuade himself that his object in making the trip had not been merely to renew his acquaintance with Sally, "everybody ought to visit America at least once. It is part of one's education."
She pulled her arm away, her face working as she fought against the tears that would not keep back. "I've made a fool of myself," she said. "Ginger, your cousin... Mr. Carmyle... just now he asked me to marry him, and I said I would." She was gone, flitting among the tables like some wild creature running to its home: and Ginger, motionless, watched her go.
"And what are your impressions of our glorious country?" said Sally rallying. Mr. Carmyle seemed glad of the opportunity of lecturing on an impersonal subject. He, too, though his face had shown no trace of it, had been embarrassed in the opening stages of the conversation. The sound of his voice restored him. "I have been visiting Chicago," he said after a brief travelogue. "Oh!"
"There can be no explanation," said Mr. Carmyle coldly. "Very well," said Sally. There was a pause. "Good-bye," said Bruce Carmyle. "Good-bye," said Sally. Mr. Carmyle walked to the door. There he stopped for an instant and glanced back at her. Sally had walked to the window and was looking out.
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