as she was for him, as a reasonable, grown-up man.

"You don't really mean it, you know."

"Don't I!" said Ginger, hollowly. "Oh, don't I!"

"You can't! There isn't such a thing in real life as love at first
sight. Love's a thing that comes when you know a person well and..." She
paused. It had just occurred to her that she was hardly the girl to
lecture in this strain. Her love for Gerald Foster had been sufficiently
sudden, even instantaneous. What did she know of Gerald except that she
loved him? They had become engaged within two weeks of their first
meeting. She found this recollection damping to her eloquence, and ended
by saying tamely:

"It's ridiculous."

Ginger had simmered down to a mood of melancholy resignation.

"I couldn't have expected you to care for me, I suppose, anyway," he
said, sombrely. "I'm not much of a chap."

It was just the diversion from the theme under discussion which Sally
had been longing to find. She welcomed the chance of continuing the
conversation on a less intimate and sentimental note.

"That's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about," she said, seizing
the opportunity offered by this display of humility. "I've been looking
for you all day to go on with what I was starting to say in the lift
last night when we were interrupted. Do you mind if I talk to you like