seen you since you came back,' he said. ' Was there any—well, any difficulty with Dorothy Emsworth?'
Bertie paused in his labours, divided in his mind as to whether he should tell Ginger or not. He had a great opinion of his shrewdness, but, having himself managed his crisis, paid up, and got back the letter, he did not consider that there was any need for advice or counsel from anybody. So he decided not to tell him.
' She was quite friendly in America,' he said; ' I saw her several times; she even stayed down at Port Washington.'
Ginger, as has been seen, was immensely interested in other people's affairs, having none, as he said, of his own which could possibly interest anybody. On this occasion he could not quite stifle his curiosity.
' I remember you telling me that you once wrote her a very—very friendly letter,' he said.
' Certainly. It is in my possession now. I keep it as an interesting memento.'
Ginger shuddered slightly.
' I should as soon think of keeping a corpse,' he said. ' Burn it. She's rather a brick to have given it you back, though. Sort of wedding-present?'
' Yes, a valuable one.'
' Does she still carry on with Bilton?' asked Ginger.
' I don't know.'
' Well, I hope she didn't show it him before she returned it,' said the other.
January in London, with few exceptions, had been a month of raw and foggy days—days that were bitter cold, with the coldness of a damp cloth, and stuffy with the airlessness of that which a damp cloth covers. Far otherwise was it at Davos, where morning after morning, after nights of still, intense cold, the sun rose over the snow-covered hills, and flamed like a golden giant, rejoicing in his strength,
