hat an introduction. An
attractive girl."

Bruce Carmyle had not entirely made up his mind regarding Sally, but on
one point he was clear, that she should not, if he could help it, pass
out of his life. Her abrupt departure had left him with that baffled and
dissatisfied feeling which, though it has little in common with love at
first sight, frequently produces the same effects. She had had, he could
not disguise it from himself, the better of their late encounter and he
was conscious of a desire to meet her again and show her that there was
more in him than she apparently supposed. Bruce Carmyle, in a word,
was piqued: and, though he could not quite decide whether he liked or
disliked Sally, he was very sure that a future without her would have an
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 address
resembled somewhat that of a connoisseur who has acquired a unique work
of 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 to
read..."

"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 to
be, I mean."

"Well, these particular books are not," said Mr. Carmyle shortly. He was
finding Ginger's reserve a little trying, and wished that he had been
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 few
books to America. Where does she live?"

Ginger revealed the sacred number of the holy street which had the luck
to be Sally's headquarters. He did it because with a persistent devil
like his cousin there seemed no way of getting out of it: but he did it
grudgingly.

"Thanks." Bruce Carmyle wrote the information down with a gold pencil
in a dapper little morocco-bound note-book. He was the sort of man who
always has a pencil, and the backs of old envelopes never enter into his
life.

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 he
was a man who objected to waste. He spoke coldly, and in his voice there
was a familiar sub-ting