Some few days later, owing to the fact that the latter, beingpreoccupied, did not see him first, Bruce Carmyle met his cousinLancelot in Piccadilly. They had returned by different routes fromRoville, and Ginger would have preferred the separation to continue. Hewas hurrying on with a nod, when Carmyle stopped him.
"Just the man I wanted to see," he observed.
"Oh, hullo!" said Ginger, without joy.
"I was thinking of calling at your club.""Yes?""Yes. Cigarette?"Ginger peered at the proffered case with the vague suspicion of the manwho has allowed himself to be lured on to the platform and is acceptinga card from the conjurer. He felt bewildered. In all the years of theiracquaintance he could not recall another such exhibition of geniality onhis cousin's part. He was surprised, indeed, at Mr. Carmyle's speakingto 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.""I heard quite by accident that you had returned and that you werestaying at the club. By the way, thank you for introducing me to MissNicholas."Ginger started violently.
"What!""I was in that compartment, you know, at Roville Station. You threw herright on top of me. We agreed to consider that an introduction. Anattractive girl."Bruce Carmyle had not entirely made up his mind regarding Sally, but onone point he was clear, that she should not, if he could help it, passout of his life. Her abrupt departure had left him with that baffled anddissatisfied feeling which, though it has little in common with love atfirst sight, frequently produces the same effects. She had had, hecould not disguise it from himself, the better of their late encounterand he was conscious of a desire to meet her again and show her thatthere was more in him than she apparently supposed. Bruce Carmyle, in aword, was piqued: and, though he could not quite decide whether he likedor disliked Sally, he was very sure that a future without her would havean element of flatness.
"A very attractive girl. We had a very pleasant talk.""I bet you did," said Ginger enviously.
"By the way, she did not give you her address by any chance?""Why?" said Ginger suspiciously. His attitude towards Sally's addressresembled somewhat that of a connoisseur who has acquired a unique workof art. He wanted to keep it to himself and gloat over it.
"Well, I--er--I promised to send her some books she was anxious toread...""I shouldn't think she gets much time for reading.""Books which are not published in America.""Oh, pretty nearly everything is published in America, what? Bound tobe, I mean.""Well, these particular books are not," said Mr. Carmyle shortly. Hewas finding Ginger's reserve a little trying, and wished that he hadbeen more inventive.
"Give them to me and I'll send them to her," suggested Ginger.
"Good Lord, man!" snapped Mr. Carmyle. "I'm capable of sending a fewbooks to America. Where does she live?"Ginger revealed the sacred number of the holy street which had the luckto be Sally's headquarters. He did it because with a persistent devillike his cousin there seemed no way of getting out of it: but he did itgrudgingly.
"Thanks." Bruce Carmyle wrote the information down with a gold pencil ina dapper little morocco-bound note-book. He was the sort of man whoalways has a pencil, and the backs of old envelopes never enter into hislife.
There was a pause. Bruce Carmyle coughed.
"I saw Uncle Donald this morning," he said.
His manner had lost its geniality. There was no need for it now, and hewas a man who objected to waste. He spoke coldly, and in his voice therewas a familiar sub-tingle of reproof.
"Yes?" said Ginger moodily. This was the uncle in whose office he hadmade his debut as a hasher: a worthy man, highly respected in theNational Liberal Club, but never a favourite of Ginger's. There wereother minor uncles and a few subsidiary aunts who went to make up theFamily, but Uncle Donald was unquestionably the managing director ofthat body and it was Ginger's considered opinion that in this capacityhe approximated to a human blister.
"He wants you to dine with him to-night at Bleke's."Ginger's depression deepened. A dinner with Uncle Donald would hardlyhave been a cheerful function, even in the surroundings of a banquet inthe Arabian Nights. There was that about Uncle Donald's personalitywhich would have cast a sobering influence over the orgies of theEmperor Tiberius at Capri. To dine with him at a morgue like that relicof Old London, Bleke's Coffee House, which confined its customprincipally to regular patrons who had not missed an evening there forhalf a century, was to touch something very near bed-rock. Ginger wasextremely doubtful whether flesh and blood were equal to it.
"To-night?" he said. "Oh, you mean to-night? Well...""Don't be a fool. You know as well as I do that you've got to go."Uncle Donald's invitations were royal commands in the Family. "Ifyou've another engagement you must put it off.""Oh, all right.""Seven-thirty sharp.""All right," said Ginger gloomily.
The two men went their ways, Bruce Carmyle eastwards because he hadclients to see in his chambers at the Temple; Ginger westwards becauseMr. Carmyle had gone east. There was little sympathy between thesecousins: yet, oddly enough, their thoughts as they walked centred on thesame object. Bruce Carmyle, threading his way briskly through the crowdsof Piccadilly Circus, was thinking of Sally: and so was Ginger as heloafed aimlessly towards Hyde Park Corner, bumping in a sort of comafrom pedestrian to pedestrian.
Since his return to London Ginger had been in bad shape. He moonedthrough the days and slept poorly at night. If there is one thingrottener than another in a pretty blighted world, one thing which givesa fellow the pip and reduces him to the condition of an absolute onion,it is hopeless love. Hopeless love had got Ginger all stirred up. Hishad been hitherto a placid soul. Even the financial crash which had soaltered his life had not bruised him very deeply. His temperament hadenabled him to bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune with aphilosophic "Right ho!" But now everything seemed different. Thingsirritated him acutely, which before he had accepted as inevitable--hisUncle Donald's moustache, for instance, and its owner's habit ofemploying it during meals as a sort of zareba or earthwork against theassaults of soup.
"By gad!" thought Ginger, stopping suddenly opposite Devonshire House.
"If he uses that damned shrubbery as soup-strainer to-night, I'll sloshhim with a fork!"Hard thoughts... hard thoughts! And getting harder all the time, fornothing grows more quickly than a mood of rebellion. Rebellion is aforest fire that flames across the soul. The spark had been lighted inGinger, and long before he reached Hyde Park Corner he was ablaze andcrackling. By the time he returned to his club he was practically amenace to society--to that section of it, at any rate, which embracedhis Uncle Donald, his minor uncles George and William, and his auntsMary, Geraldine, and Louise.
Nor had the mood passed when he began to dress for the dismalfestivities of Bleke's Coffee House. He scowled as he struggled moroselywith an obstinate tie. One cannot disguise the fact--Ginger was warmingup. And it was just at this moment that Fate, as though it had beenwaiting for the psychological instant, applied the finishing touch.
There was a knock at the door, and a waiter came in with a telegram.
Ginger looked at the envelope. It had been readdressed and forwarded onfrom the Hotel Normandie. It was a wireless, handed in on board theWhite Star liner Olympic, and it ran as follows:
Remember. Death to the Family. S.
Ginger sat down heavily on the bed.
The driver of the taxi-cab which at twenty-five minutes past seven drewup at the dingy door of Bleke's Coffee House in the Strand was ratherstruck by his fare's manner and appearance. A determined-looking sort ofyoung bloke, was the taxi-driver's verdict.
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