ger did not abandon his attempts to indicate the silver lining.

"I think you are making too much of all this, you know. I mean to say,
it's quite likely he's found some mug... what I mean is, it's just
possible that your brother isn't standing the entire racket himself.
Perhaps some rich Johnnie has breezed along with a pot of money. It
often happens like that, you know. You read in the paper that some
manager or other is putting on some show or other, when really the chap
who's actually supplying the pieces of eight is some anonymous lad in
the background."

"That is just what has happened, and it makes it worse than ever.
Fillmore tells me that your cousin, Mr. Carmyle, is providing the
money."

This did interest Ginger. He sat up with a jerk.

"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," said Sally, still agitated but pleased that she had at last
shaken him out of his trying attitude of detachment.

Ginger was scowling.

"That's a bit off," he observed.

"I think so, too."

"I don't like that."

"Nor do I."

"Do you know what I think?" said Ginger, ever a man of plain speech and
a reckless plunger into delicate subjects. "The blighter's in love with
you."

Sally flushed. After examining the evidence before her, she had reached
the same conclusion in the privacy of her thoughts, but it embarrassed
her to hear the thing put into bald words.

"I know Bruce," continued Ginger, "and, believe me, he isn't the sort of
cove to take any kind of flutter without a jolly good motive. Of course,
he's got tons of money. His old guvnor was the Carmyle of Carmyle, Brent
& Co.--coal mines up in Wales, and all that sort of thing--and I suppose
he must have left Bruce something like half a million. No need for the
fellow to have worked at all, if he hadn't wanted to. As far as having
the stuff goes, he's in a position to back all the shows he wants to.
But the point is, it's right out of his line. He doesn't do that sort
of thing. Not a drop of sporting blood in the chap. Why I've known him
stick the whole family on to me just because it got noised about that
I'd dropped a couple of quid on the Grand National. If he's really
brought himself to the point of shelling out on a risky proposition like
a show, it means something, take my word for it. And I don't see what
else it can mean except... well, I mean to say, is it likely that he's
doing it simply to make your brother look on him as a good egg and a
pal, and all that sort o