“I did call him interesting.” Sally was beginning to feel the exhilaration of battle. Men usually made themselves extremely agreeable to her, and she reacted belligerently under the stiff unfriendliness which had come over her companion in the last few minutes.     

       “He told me all about himself.”      

       “And you found that interesting?”      

       “Why not?”      

       “Well...” A frigid half-smile came and went on Bruce Carmyle's dark face.       “My cousin has many excellent qualities, no doubt—he used to play football well, and I understand that he is a capable amateur pugilist—but I should not have supposed him entertaining. We find him a little dull.”      

       “I thought it was only royalty that called themselves 'we.'”      

       “I meant myself—and the rest of the family.”      

       The mention of the family was too much for Sally. She had to stop talking in order to allow her mind to clear itself of rude thoughts.     

       “Mr. Kemp was telling me about Mr. Scrymgeour,” she went on at length.     

       Bruce Carmyle stared for a moment at the yard or so of French bread which the waiter had placed on the table.     

       “Indeed?” he said. “He has an engaging lack of reticence.”      

       The waiter returned bearing soup and dumped it down.     

       “V'la!” he observed, with the satisfied air of a man who has successfully performed a difficult conjuring trick. He smiled at Sally expectantly, as       though confident of applause from this section of his audience at least. But Sally's face was set and rigid. She had been snubbed, and the sensation was as pleasant as it was novel.     

       “I think Mr. Kemp had hard luck,” she said.     

       “If you will excuse me, I would prefer not to discuss the matter.”      

       Mr. Carmyle's attitude was that Sally might be a pretty girl, but she was a stranger, and the intimate affairs of the Family were not to be discussed with strangers, however prepossessing.     

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