II

II

Fillmore heaved a sigh of relief and began to sidle from the room. It was a large room, half barn, half gymnasium. Athletic appliances of various kinds hung on the walls and in the middle there was a wide roped-off space, around which a small crowd had distributed itself with an air of expectancy. This is a commercial age, and the days when a prominent pugilist’s training activities used to be hidden from the public gaze are over. Today, if the public can lay its hands on fifty cents, it may come and gaze its fill. This afternoon, plutocrats to the number of about forty had assembled, though not all of these, to the regret of Mr. Lester Burrowes, the manager of the eminent Bugs Butler, had parted with solid coin. Many of those present were newspaper representatives and on the free list⁠—writers who would polish up Mr. Butler’s somewhat crude prognostications as to what he proposed to do to Mr. Lew Lucas, and would report him as saying, “I am in really superb condition and feel little apprehension of the issue,” and artists who would depict him in a state of semi-nudity with feet several sizes too large for any man.

The reason for Fillmore’s relief was that Mr. Burrowes, who was a great talker and had buttonholed him a quarter of an hour ago, had at last had his attention distracted elsewhere, and had gone off to investigate some matter that called for his personal handling, leaving Fillmore free to slide away to the hotel and get a bite to eat, which he sorely needed. The zeal which had brought him to the training-camp to inspect the final day of Mr. Butler’s preparation⁠—for the fight was to take place on the morrow⁠—had been so great that he had omitted to lunch before leaving New York.

So Fillmore made thankfully for the door. And it was at the door that he encountered Sally. He was looking over his shoulder at the moment, and was not aware of her presence till she spoke.

“Hullo, Fillmore!”

Sally had spoken softly, but a dynamite explosion could not have shattered her brother’s composure with more completeness. In the leaping twist which brought him facing her, he rose a clear three inches from the floor. He had a confused sensation, as though his nervous system had been stirred up with a pole. He struggled for breath and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, staring at her continuously during the process.

Great men, in their moments of weakness, are to be pitied rather than scorned. If ever a man had an excuse for leaping like a young ram, Fillmore had it. He had left Sally not much more than a week ago in England, in Shropshire, at Monk’s Crofton. She had said nothing of any intention on her part of leaving the country, the county, or the house. Yet here she was, in Bugs Butler’s training-camp at White Plains, in the State of New York, speaking softly in his ear without even going through the preliminary of tapping him on the shoulder to advertise her presence. No wonder that Fillmore was startled. And no wonder that, as he adjusted his faculties to the situation, there crept upon him a chill apprehension.

For Fillmore had not been blind to the significance of that invitation to Monk’s Crofton. Nowadays your wooer does not formally approach a girl’s nearest relative and ask permission to pay his addresses; but, when he invites her and that nearest relative to his country home and collects all the rest of the family to meet her, the thing may be said to have advanced beyond the realms of mere speculation. Shrewdly Fillmore had deduced that Bruce Carmyle was in love with Sally, and mentally he had joined their hands and given them a brother’s blessing. And now it was only too plain that disaster must have occurred. If the invitation could mean only one thing, so also could Sally’s presence at White Plains mean only one thing.

“Sally!” A croaking whisper was the best he could achieve. “What⁠ ⁠… what⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Did I startle you? I’m sorry.”

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at Monk’s Crofton?”

Sally glanced past him at the ring and the crowd around it.

“I decided I wanted to get back to America. Circumstances arose which made it pleasanter to leave Monk’s Crofton.”

“Do you mean to say⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Yes. Don’t let’s talk about it.”

“Do you mean to say,” persisted Fillmore, “that Carmyle proposed to you and you turned him down?”

Sally flushed.

“I don’t think it’s particularly nice to talk about that sort of thing, but⁠—yes.”

A feeling of desolation overcame Fillmore. That conviction, which saddens us at all times, of the wilful bone-headedness of our fellows swept coldly upon him. Everything had been so perfect, the whole arrangement so ideal, that it had never occurred to him as a possibility that Sally might take it into her head to spoil it by declining to play the part allotted to her. The match was so obviously the best thing that could happen. It was not merely the suitor’s impressive wealth that made him hold this opinion, though it would be idle to deny that the prospect of having a brother-in-lawful claim on the Carmyle bank-balance had cast a rosy glamour over the future as he had envisaged it. He honestly liked and respected the man. He appreciated his quiet and aristocratic reserve. A well-bred fellow, sensible withal, just the sort of husband a girl like Sally needed. And now she had ruined everything. With the capricious perversity which so characterizes her otherwise delightful sex, she had spilled the beans.

“But why?”

“Oh, Fill!” Sally had expected that realization of the facts would produce these symptoms in him, but now that they had presented themselves she was finding them rasping to the nerves. “I should have thought the reason was obvious.”

“You mean you don’t like him?”

“I don’t know whether I do or not. I certainly don’t like him enough to marry him.”

“He’s a darned good fellow.”

“Is he? You say so. I don’t know.”

The imperious desire for bodily sustenance began to compete successfully for Fillmore’s notice with his spiritual anguish.

“Let’s go to the hotel and talk it over. We’ll go to the hotel and I’ll give you something to eat.”

“I don’t want anything to eat, thanks.”

“You don’t want anything to eat?” said Fillmore incredulously. He supposed in a vague sort of way that there were eccentric people of this sort, but it was hard to realize that he had met one of them. “I’m starving.”

“Well, run along then.”

“Yes, but I want to talk⁠ ⁠…”

He was not the only person who wanted to talk. At the moment a small man of sporting exterior hurried up. He wore what his tailor’s advertisements would have called a “nobby” suit of checked tweed and⁠—in defiance of popular prejudice⁠—a brown bowler hat. Mr. Lester Burrowes, having dealt with the business which had interrupted their conversation a few minutes before, was anxious to resume his remarks on the subject of the supreme excellence in every respect of his young charge.

“Say, Mr. Nicholas, you ain’t goin’? Bugs is just getting ready to spar.”

He glanced inquiringly at Sally.

“My sister⁠—Mr. Burrowes,” said Fillmore faintly. “Mr. Burrowes is Bugs Butler’s manager.”

“How do you do?” said Sally.

“Pleased to meecher,” said Mr. Burrowes. “Say⁠ ⁠…”

“I was just going to the hotel to get something to eat,” said Fillmore.

Mr. Burrowes clutched at his coat-button with a swoop, and held him with a glittering eye.

“Yes, but, say, before-you-go-lemme-tell-ya-somef’n. You’ve never seen this boy of mine, not when he was feeling right. Believe me, he’s there! He’s a wizard. He’s a Hindu! Say, he’s been practising up a left shift that⁠ ⁠…”

Fillmore’s eye met Sally’s wanly, and she pitied him. Presently she would require him to explain to her how he had dared to dismiss Ginger from his employment⁠—and make that explanation a good one: but in the meantime she remembered that he was her brother and was suffering.

“He’s the cleverest lightweight,” proceeded Mr. Burrowes fervently, “since Joe Gans. I’m telling you and I know! He⁠ ⁠…”

“Can he make a hundred and thirty-five ringside without being weak?” asked Sally.

The effect of this simple question on Mr. Burrowes was stupendous. He dropped away from Fillmore’s coat-button like an exhausted bivalve, and his small mouth opened feebly. It was as if a child had suddenly propounded to an eminent mathematician some abstruse problem in the higher algebra. Females who took an interest in boxing had come into Mr. Burrowes’ life before⁠—in his younger days, when he was a famous featherweight, the first of his three wives had been accustomed to sit at the ringside during his contests and urge him in language of the severest technicality to knock opponents’ blocks off⁠—but somehow he had not supposed from her appearance and manner that Sally was one of the elect. He gaped at her, and the relieved Fillmore sidled off like a bird hopping from the compelling gaze of a snake. He was not quite sure that he was acting correctly in allowing his sister to roam at large among the somewhat Bohemian surroundings of a training-camp, but the instinct of self-preservation turned the scale. He had breakfasted early, and if he did not eat right speedily it seemed to him that dissolution would set in.

“Whazzat?” said Mr. Burrowes feebly.

“It took him fifteen rounds to get a referee’s decision over Cyclone Mullins,” said Sally severely, “and K-leg Binns⁠ ⁠…”

Mr. Burrowes rallied.

“You ain’t got it right,” he protested. “Say, you mustn’t believe what you see in the papers. The referee was dead against us, and Cyclone was down once for all of half a minute and they wouldn’t count him out. Gee! You got to kill a guy in some towns before they’ll give you a decision. At that, they couldn’t do nothing so raw as make it anything but a win for my boy, after him leading by a mile all the way. Have you ever seen Bugs, ma’am?”

Sally had to admit that she had not had that privilege. Mr. Burrowes with growing excitement felt in his breast-pocket and produced a picture-postcard, which he thrust into her hand.

“That’s Bugs,” he said. “Take a slant at that and then tell me if he don’t look the goods.”

The photograph represented a young man in the irreducible minimum of clothing who crouched painfully, as though stricken with one of the acuter forms of gastritis.

“I’ll call him over and have him sign it for you,” said Mr. Burrowes, before Sally had had time to grasp the fact that this work of art was a gift and no mere loan. “Here, Bugs⁠—wantcher.”

A youth enveloped in a bathrobe, who had been talking to a group of admirers near the ring, turned, started languidly towards them, then, seeing Sally, quickened his pace. He was an admirer of the sex.

Mr. Burrowes did the honours.

“Bugs, this is Miss Nicholas, come to see you work out. I have been telling her she’s going to have a treat.” And to Sally. “Shake hands with Bugs Butler, ma’am, the coming lightweight champion of the world.”

Mr. Butler’s photograph, Sally considered, had flattered him. He was, in the flesh, a singularly repellent young man. There was a mean and cruel curve to his lips and a cold arrogance in his eye; a something dangerous and sinister in the atmosphere he radiated. Moreover, she did not like the way he smirked at her.

However, she exerted herself to be amiable.

“I hope you are going to win, Mr. Butler,” she said.

The smile which she forced as she spoke the words removed the coming champion’s doubts, though they had never been serious. He was convinced now that he had made a hit. He always did, he reflected, with the girls. It was something about him. His chest swelled complacently beneath the bathrobe.

“You betcher,” he asserted briefly.

Mr. Burrowes looked at his watch.

“Time you were starting, Bugs.”

The coming champion removed his gaze from Sally’s face, into which he had been peering in a conquering manner, and cast a disparaging glance at the audience. It was far from being as large as he could have wished, and at least a third of it was composed of non-payers from the newspapers.

“All right,” he said, bored.

His languor left him, as his gaze fell on Sally again, and his spirits revived somewhat. After all, small though the numbers of spectators might be, bright eyes would watch and admire him.

“I’ll go a couple of rounds with Reddy for a starter,” he said. “Seen him anywheres? He’s never around when he’s wanted.”

“I’ll fetch him,” said Mr. Burrowes. “He’s back there somewheres.”

“I’m going to show that guy up this afternoon,” said Mr. Butler coldly. “He’s been getting too fresh.”

The manager bustled off, and Bugs Butler, with a final smirk, left Sally and dived under the ropes. There was a stir of interest in the audience, though the newspaper men, blasé through familiarity, exhibited no emotion. Presently Mr. Burrowes reappeared, shepherding a young man whose face was hidden by the sweater which he was pulling over his head. He was a sturdily built young man. The sweater, moving from his body, revealed a good pair of shoulders.

A last tug, and the sweater was off. Red hair flashed into view, tousled and disordered: and, as she saw it, Sally uttered an involuntary gasp of astonishment which caused many eyes to turn towards her. And the redheaded young man, who had been stooping to pick up his gloves, straightened himself with a jerk and stood staring at her blankly and incredulously, his face slowly crimsoning.