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Bruce Carmyle's customary respectfulness was tinged with something approaching dislike as he looked at him. Uncle Donald's walrus moustache heaved gently upon his laboured breath, like seaweed on a ground-swell. There had been stairs to climb. "What's this? What's this?" he contrived to ejaculate at last. "You packing?" "Yes," said Mr. Carmyle, shortly.
In all the years of their acquaintance he could not recall another such exhibition of geniality on his cousin's part. He was surprised, indeed, at Mr. Carmyle's speaking to him at all, for the affaire Scrymgeour remained an un-healed wound, and the Family, Ginger knew, were even now in session upon it. "Been back in London long?" "Day or two."
Men usually made themselves extremely agreeable to her, and she reacted belligerently under the stiff unfriendliness which had come over her companion in the last few minutes. "He told me all about himself." "And you found that interesting?" "Why not?" "Well..." A frigid half-smile came and went on Bruce Carmyle's dark face.
His fingers trembled as he raised the match, but he flattered himself that there was nothing else in his demeanour to indicate that he was violently excited. Bruce Carmyle's ideal was the strong man who can rise superior to his emotions. He was alive to the fact that this was an embarrassing moment, but he was determined not to show that he appreciated it.
Hideous doubts began to creep like snakes into Bruce Carmyle's mind. What, he asked himself, did he really know of this girl on whom he had bestowed the priceless boon of his society for life? How did he know what she was he could not find the exact adjective to express his meaning, but he knew what he meant. Was she worthy of the boon? That was what it amounted to.
She had always disliked Bruce Carmyle's hands. They were strong and bony and black hair grew on the back of them. One of the earliest feelings regarding him had been that she would hate to have those hands touching her. But she did not move. Again that vision of the old garden had flickered across her mind... a haven where she could rest... He was leaning towards her, whispering in her ear.
Carmyle, and the fact that he had found someone to share the bad news, seemed to cheer him a little. "Not here?" "No. Apparently..." Bruce Carmyle's scowl betrayed that resentment which a well-balanced man cannot but feel at the unreasonableness of others. "... Apparently, for some extraordinary reason, she has taken it into her head to dash over to England." Ginger tottered.
If Sally had been constantly in Bruce Carmyle's thoughts since they had parted on the Paris express, Mr. Carmyle had been very little in Sally's so little, indeed, that she had had to search her memory for a moment before she identified him. "We're always meeting on trains, aren't we?" she went on, her composure returning. "I never expected to see you in America." "I came over."
"Darling," he murmured, for by moving his chair two feet to the right and bending sideways he found that he was in a position to murmur, "you have made me so..." "Batti, batti! I presto ravioli hollandaise," cried one of the disputing waiters at his back or to Bruce Carmyle's prejudiced hearing it sounded like that.
Her tired nerves cried out under the blare of music and the clatter of voices. "Shall we dance this?" he asked. The orchestra had started to play again, a sensuous, creamy melody which was making the most of its brief reign as Broadway's leading song-hit, overfamiliar to her from a hundred repetitions. "If you like." Efficiency was Bruce Carmyle's gospel.
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