' Hasn't he realized the fruitlessness of that yet?' he asked. ' Sybil refused him point-blank, I know; and really, when she follows that up by going out to Davos to coax Charlie back to life, you would have thought that a third party was not—well, exactly of the party.'
' Sybil is an enigma,' said Ginger. ' She went to America in the autumn with the avowed intention of getting married, with Bilton indicated. She comes back in a scurry, refuses him, and instantly constitutes herself life-preserver to Charlie, whom she had also refused. What is she playing at? That's what I want to know.'
Bertie took up a quantity of waste-papers, and thrust them down into the basket.
' She's not playing at anything just now,' he said. ' She's just being a human woman, trying to save the life of a friend. Judy talked to me about it. The only interest in life to Charlie was she, and she is trying to get him to take an interest in life that isn't her!'
' That will require some delicacy of touch,' remarked Ginger.
' It will. She has it—whether enough remains to be seen. Charlie had one foot in the grave when she came back, I'm told; she has taken that out, anyhow.'
' But does she mean to marry him?' asked Ginger. ' I can't believe she will succeed in getting him back to life without, anyhow, holding that out as a prospect.'
' It's really a delicate position,' said Bertie; ' and it is made more interesting by the fact that physically Charlie is so like Bilton. In other respects,' he added, ' they are remarkably dissimilar.'
' Do you like him?'
' No; I have got an awful distaste for him. Why I don't quite know. That rather accentuates it.'
Ginger sat up from his reclining attitude.
' Bertie, I'm awfully interested in one thing, and I haven't
