The Adventures of Sally, P. G. Wodehouse [interesting novels in english txt] 📗

drumsticks maddened him. And the gleaming whiteness of Mr. Williams' friendly and benignant smile was the last straw. His dignity writhed beneath this abominable infliction. People at other tables were laughing. At him. A loathing for the Flower Garden flowed over Bruce Carmyle, and with it a feeling of suspicion and disapproval of everyone connected with the establishment. He sprang to his feet.

“I think I will be going,” he said.

Sally did not reply. She was watching Ginger, who still stood beside the table recently vacated by Reginald Cracknell.

“Good night,” said Mr. Carmyle between his teeth.

“Oh, are you going?” said Sally with a start. She felt embarrassed. Try as she would, she was unable to find words of any intimacy. She tried to realize that she had promised to marry this man, but never before had he seemed so much a stranger to her, so little a part of her life. It came to her with a sensation of the incredible that she had done this thing, taken this irrevocable step.

The sudden sight of Ginger had shaken her. It was as though in the last half-hour she had forgotten him and only now realized what marriage with Bruce Carmyle would mean to their comradeship. From now on he was dead to her. If anything in this world was certain that was. Sally Nicholas was Ginger's pal, but Mrs. Carmyle, she realized, would never be allowed to see him again. A devastating feeling of loss smote her like a blow.

“Yes, I've had enough of this place,” Bruce Carmyle was saying.

“Good night,” said Sally. She hesitated. “When shall I see you?” she asked awkwardly.

It occurred to Bruce Carmyle that he was not showing himself at his best. He had, he perceived, allowed his nerves to run away with him.

“You don't mind if I go?” he said more amiably. “The fact is, I can't stand this place any longer. I'll tell you one thing, I'm going to take you out of here quick.”

“I'm afraid I can't leave at a moment's notice,” said Sally, loyal to her obligations.

“We'll talk over that to-morrow. I'll call for you in the morning and take you for a drive somewhere in a car. You want some fresh air after this.” Mr. Carmyle looked about him in stiff disgust, and expressed his unalterable sentiments concerning the Flower Garden, that apple of Isadore Abrahams' eye, in a snort of loathing. “My God! What a place!”

He walked quickly away and disappeared. And Ginger, beaming happily, swooped on Sally's table like a homing pigeon.

4

“Good Lord, I say, what ho!” cried Ginger. “Fancy meeting you here. What a bit of luck!” He glanced over his shoulder warily. “Has that blighter pipped?”

“Pipped?”

“Popped,” explained Ginger. “I mean to say, he isn't coming back or any rot like that, is he?”

“Mr. Carmyle? No, he has gone.”

“Sound egg!” said Ginger with satisfaction. “For a moment, when I saw you yarning away together, I thought he might be with your party. What on earth is he doing over here at all, confound him? He's got all Europe to play about in, why should he come infesting New York? I say, it really is ripping, seeing you again. It seems years... Of course, one get's a certain amount of satisfaction writing letters, but it's not the same. Besides, I write such rotten letters. I say, this really is rather priceless. Can't I get you something? A cup of coffee, I mean, or an egg or something? By jove! this really is top-hole.”

His homely, honest face glowed with pleasure, and it seemed to Sally as though she had come out of a winter's night into a warm friendly room. Her mercurial spirits soared.

“Oh, Ginger! If you knew what it's like seeing you!”

“No, really? Do you mean, honestly, you're braced?”

“I should say I am braced.”

“Well, isn't that fine! I was afraid you might have forgotten me.”

“Forgotten you!”

With something of the effect of a revelation it suddenly struck Sally how far she had been from forgetting him, how large was the place he had occupied in her thoughts.

“I've missed you dreadfully,” she said, and felt the words inadequate as she uttered them.

“What ho!” said Ginger, also internally condemning the poverty of speech as a vehicle for conveying thought.

There was a brief silence. The first exhilaration of the reunion over, Sally deep down in her heart was aware of a troubled feeling as though the world were out of joint. She forced herself to ignore it, but it would not be ignored. It grew. Dimly she was beginning to realize what Ginger meant to her, and she fought to keep herself from realizing it. Strange things were happening to her to-night, strange emotions stirring her. Ginger seemed somehow different, as if she were really seeing him for the first time.

“You're looking wonderfully well,” she said trying to keep the conversation on a pedestrian level.

“I am well,” said Ginger. “Never felt fitter in my life. Been out in the open all day long... simple life and all that... working like blazes. I say, business is booming. Did you see me just now, handing over Percy the Pup to what's-his-name? Five hundred dollars on that one deal. Got the cheque in my pocket. But what an extraordinarily rummy thing that I should have come to this place to deliver the goods just when you happened to be here. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. I say, I hope the people you're with won't think I'm butting in. You'll have to explain that we're old pals and that you started me in business and all that sort of thing. Look here,” he said lowering his voice, “I know how you hate being thanked, but I simply must say how terrifically decent...”

“Miss Nicholas.”

Lee Schoenstein was standing at the table, and by his side an expectant youth with a small moustache and pince-nez. Sally got up, and the next moment Ginger was alone, gaping perplexedly after her as she vanished and reappeared in the jogging throng on the dancing floor. It was the nearest thing Ginger had seen to a conjuring trick, and at that moment he was ill-attuned to conjuring tricks. He brooded, fuming, at what seemed to him the supremest exhibition of pure cheek, of monumental nerve, and of undiluted crust that had ever come within his notice. To come and charge into a private conversation like that and whisk her away without a word...

“Who was that blighter?” he demanded with heat, when the music ceased and Sally limped back.

“That was Mr. Schoenstein.”

“And who was the other?”

“The one I danced with? I don't know.”

“You don't know?”