If Ginger Kemp had been asked to enumerate his good qualities, it is notprobable that he would have drawn up a very lengthy list. He might havestarted by claiming for himself the virtue of meaning well, but afterthat he would have had to chew the pencil in prolonged meditation. And,even if he could eventually have added one or two further items to thecatalogue, tact and delicacy of feeling would not have been among them.

　　Yet, by staying away from Sally during the next few days he showedconsiderable delicacy. It was not easy to stay away from her, but heforced himself to do so. He argued from his own tastes, and was stronglyof opinion that in times of travail, solitude was what the sufferer mostdesired. In his time he, too, had had what he would have described asnasty jars, and on these occasions all he had asked was to be allowed tosit and think things over and fight his battle out by himself.

　　By Saturday, however, he had come to the conclusion that some form ofaction might now be taken. Saturday was rather a good day for picking upthe threads again. He had not to go to the office, and, what was stillmore to the point, he had just drawn his week's salary. Mrs. Meecher haddeftly taken a certain amount of this off him, but enough remained toenable him to attempt consolation on a fairly princely scale. Therepresented itself to him as a judicious move the idea of hiring a car andtaking Sally out to dinner at one of the road-houses he had heard aboutup the Boston Post Road. He examined the scheme. The more he looked atit, the better it seemed.

　　He was helped to this decision by the extraordinary perfection of theweather. The weather of late had been a revelation to Ginger. It was hisfirst experience of America's Indian Summer, and it had quite overcomehim. As he stood on the roof of Mrs. Meecher's establishment on theSaturday morning, thrilled by the velvet wonder of the sunshine, itseemed to him that the only possible way of passing such a day was totake Sally for a ride in an open car.

　　The Maison Meecher was a lofty building on one of the side-streets atthe lower end of the avenue. From its roof, after you had worked yourway through the groves of washing which hung limply from theclothes-line, you could see many things of interest. To the left layWashington Square, full of somnolent Italians and roller-skatingchildren; to the right was a spectacle which never failed to intrigueGinger, the high smoke-stacks of a Cunard liner moving slowly down theriver, sticking up over the house-tops as if the boat was travellingdown Ninth Avenue.

　　To-day there were four of these funnels, causing Ginger to deduce theMauritania. As the boat on which he had come over from England, theMauritania had a sentimental interest for him. He stood watching herstately progress till the higher buildings farther down the town shuther from his sight; then picked his way through the washing and wentdown to his room to get his hat. A quarter of an hour later he was inthe hall-way of Sally's apartment house, gazing with ill-concealeddisgust at the serge-clad back of his cousin Mr. Carmyle, who wasengaged in conversation with a gentleman in overalls.

　　No care-free prospector, singing his way through the Mojave Desert andsuddenly finding himself confronted by a rattlesnake, could haveexperienced so abrupt a change of mood as did Ginger at this revoltingspectacle. Even in their native Piccadilly it had been unpleasant to runinto Mr. Carmyle. To find him here now was nothing short of nauseating.

　　Only one thing could have brought him to this place. Obviously, he musthave come to see Sally; and with a sudden sinking of the heart Gingerremembered the shiny, expensive automobile which he had seen waiting atthe door. He, it was clear, was not the only person to whom the idea hadoccurred of taking Sally for a drive on this golden day.

　　He was still standing there when Mr. Carmyle swung round with a frown onhis dark face which seemed to say that he had not found the janitor'sconversation entertaining. The sight of Ginger plainly did nothing tolighten his gloom.

　　"Hullo!" he said.

　　"Hullo!" said Ginger.

　　Uncomfortable silence followed these civilities.

　　"Have you come to see Miss Nicholas?""Why, yes.""She isn't here," said Mr. Carmyle, and the fact that he had foundsomeone to share the bad news, seemed to cheer him a little.

　　"Not here?""No. Apparently..." Bruce Carmyle's scowl betrayed that resentmentwhich a well-balanced man cannot but feel at the unreasonableness ofothers. "... Apparently, for some extraordinary reason, she has taken itinto her head to dash over to England."Ginger tottered. The unexpectedness of the blow was crushing. Hefollowed his cousin out into the sunshine in a sort of dream. BruceCarmyle was addressing the driver of the expensive automobile.

　　"I find I shall not want the car. You can take it back to the garage."The chauffeur, a moody man, opened one half-closed eye and spatcautiously. It was the way Rockefeller would have spat when approachingthe crisis of some delicate financial negotiation.

　　"You'll have to pay just the same," he observed, opening his other eyeto lend emphasis to the words.

　　"Of course I shall pay," snapped Mr. Carmyle, irritably. "How much isit?"Money passed. The car rolled off.

　　"Gone to England?" said Ginger, dizzily.

　　"Yes, gone to England.""But why?""How the devil do I know why?" Bruce Carmyle would have found his bestfriend trying at this moment. Gaping Ginger gave him almost a physicalpain. "All I know is what the janitor told me, that she sailed on theMauretania this morning."The tragic irony of this overcame Ginger. That he should have stood onthe roof, calmly watching the boat down the river...

　　He nodded absently to Mr. Carmyle and walked off. He had no furtherremarks to make. The warmth had gone out of the sunshine and allinterest had departed from his life. He felt dull, listless, at a looseend. Not even the thought that his cousin, a careful man with his money,had had to pay a day's hire for a car which he could not use brought himany balm. He loafed aimlessly about the streets. He wandered in the Parkand out again. The Park bored him. The streets bored him. The whole citybored him. A city without Sally in it was a drab, futile city, andnothing that the sun could do to brighten it could make it otherwise.

　　Night came at last, and with it a letter. It was the first evenpassably pleasant thing that had happened to Ginger in the whole of thisdreary and unprofitable day: for the envelope bore the crest of the goodship Mauretania. He snatched it covetously from the letter-rack, andcarried it upstairs to his room.

　　Very few of the rooms at Mrs. Meecher's boarding-house struck any noteof luxury. Mrs. Meecher was not one of your fashionable interiordecorators. She considered that when she had added a Morris chair to theessentials which make up a bedroom, she had gone as far in the directionof pomp as any guest at seven-and-a-half per could expect her to go. Asa rule, the severity of his surroundings afflicted Ginger with a touchof gloom when he went to bed; but to-night--such is the magic of aletter from the right person--he was uplifted and almost gay. There aremoments when even illuminated texts over the wash-stand cannot whollyquell us.

　　There was nothing of haste and much of ceremony in Ginger's method ofapproaching the perusal of his correspondence. He bore himself afterthe manner of a small boy in the presence of unexpected ice-cream,gloating for awhile before embarking on the treat, anxious to make itlast out. His first move was to feel in the breast-pocket of his coatand produce the photograph of Sally which he had feloniously remo............