Mr. Carmyle was not a man who readily allowed himself to be disturbed by
life's little surprises, but at the present moment he could not help
feeling slightly dazed. He recognized Sally now as the French girl who
had attracted his cousin Lancelot's notice on the beach. At least he had
assumed that she was French, and it was startling to be addressed by her
now in fluent English. How had she suddenly acquired this gift of
tongues? And how on earth had she had time since yesterday, when he had
been a total stranger to her, to become sufficiently intimate with
Cousin Lancelot to be sprinting with him down station platforms and
addressing him out of railway-carriage windows as Ginger? Bruce Carmyle
was aware that most members of that sub-species of humanity, his
cousin's personal friends, called him by that familiar--and, so Carmyle
held, vulgar--nickname: but how had this girl got hold of it?

If Sally had been less pretty, Mr. Carmyle would undoubtedly have
looked disapprovingly at her, for she had given his rather rigid sense
of the proprieties a nasty jar. But as, panting and flushed from her
run, she was prettier than any girl he had yet met, he contrived to
smile.

"Not at all," he said in answer to her question, though it was far from
the truth. His left big toe was aching confoundedly. Even a girl with a
foot as small as Sally's can make her presence felt on a man's toe if
the scrum-half who is handling her aims well and uses plenty of vigour.

"If you don't mind," said Sally, sitting down, "I think I'll breathe a
little."