THE CONSTANT HEART

Eleanor Farnes

There were three conflicting interests in Alex's life: two men -- and her career as a dress designer. Terence offered her his love, but Charles Viddell could help her career. She knew that Charles found her attractive -- but she also knew of his reputation as a breaker of hearts, and she had no intentions of getting emotionally involved with him. Alex thought she could control the whole situations - but could she? Or would her heart take over from her head?

CHAPTER I

Alex Paul was standing at a small gilt table in the showroom, turning over samples of beautiful materials,, when Charles Viddell came into the room. She looked up, and her eyes looked into a pair of dark-brown eyes set in a brown face. Her attention was caught immediately, and she received a swift impression of dynamic force, easily controlled; an impression that disappeared when he said, in an easy, pleasant voice:

"Good morning. I've called for Mrs. Field."

"Good morning," said Alex. "She's having her fitting, but she won't keep you long. Please sit down."

He sat down in one of the soft armchairs, and Alex went on turning over her materials. The girls in the showroom suddenly took on a new activity, inventing excuses for passing him, for giving him smiling good mornings, but Alex did not again look up. Thoughtfully she went on choosing materials, setting aside some, discarding others: a rather tall, slender girl in a slim, dark suit, a girl with a wonderfully upright carriage and a lovely figure. Charles Viddell watched her. Sooner or later, he thought, she will look at me to see if I am watching her. But she did not. She took several pieces of material in her hands, turned away from him, and was about to leave the room without glancing at him.

"Would you mind," he asked pleasantly, "asking Mrs. Field to hurry? We have a luncheon appointment."

She turned then, and their eyes met again, and once more his intensity made an impact on her.

"Kathleen," she said to one of the showroom girls, "will you please remind Mrs. Field that she has a luncheon appointment, and that a gentleman is waiting for her?"

"Thank you," said Charles Viddell, and rose to his feet as she went out of the room with a smile and a "Good morning" for him.

When Alex stepped into the street a little later to go to lunch, it was to discover this same man .escorting Mrs. Field towards an elegant waiting car; and though she would have passed by, he stopped at once, and smiled.

"May we drop you somewhere?" he asked.

Mrs. Field looked at him in surprise, and Alex guessed that he did not often offer lifts to the dressmaker's staff.

"I am only going round the corner," she said, "but thank you."

That was all. That was all the conversation between them, and there was nothing in such ordinary exchanges to bring them back, again and again, to Alex's mind. Yet they recurred frequently. His exact words, how he had said them, how he had looked. When Madame returned, she would ask her who he was.

Alex had her own small sanctum, next to Madame's opulent office, and in this room she produced the designs, for which Madame paid her well, and which she was pleased to use on her most favoured customers. Alex had been with Madame for nearly ten years, and during those ten years she had worked and studied hard, had kept her eyes and her mind wide open, and felt there was little about the business that she did not know. Once or twice she had been on the point of leaving. Once, long ago, when it seemed Madame would never promote her to be fitter, she had secured a job with a rival firm, and Madame had promptly promoted her, paid her more and kept her. Again, when Alex wanted to concentrate on design, there had been a battle of wills between them which ended in Alex's getting her own sanctum and a very privileged position in the firm. She knew that Madame was far too shrewd and businesslike to do anything that was not for her firm's ends, and took these things as confirmation of her own worth.

Madame returned during the afternoon, a small, plain woman, always impeccably groomed, faultlessly made up. She had a wonderful head for business and good judgment in choosing her staff. Although she would never have admitted as much to Alex, she knew that in this girl she had a pearl beyond price.

After a session with her secretary, she rang for Alex.

"Well," she asked, when Alex stood before her, "how did the new designs go down with Mrs. Field?"

"I think she'll like them," said Alex. "She was in one of her obstinate, grudging moods when nothing would please her, so she would not admit that she liked them. But, going on past experience with her, I think she will have them all. Poor Miss Lawson couldn't do a thing right for her."

"Miss Lawson is a good fitter, but hopelessly unable to convince a customer or reassure her."

"I wonder who it was who called for Mrs. Field? A very dark man, one of these magnetic personalities - would you know who it was?"

"Without a doubt, since he has been Mrs. Field's escort for two or three months. I expect you mean Charles Viddell."

"Who is he? What does he do? Is he going to be the next husband, do you think?"

Madame looked at Alex thoughtfully. Alex, who was rarely interested in any man.

"Why do you want to know about him? He would be no good to you, Alex."

"He interested me - but I only had a glimpse or two of him."

"My dear, he interests almost everybody - you are hardly alone in that; but you haven't chosen a good person to be interested in."

"Why not? Tell me about him."

"His reputation is bad - his reputation with women, that is. As far as I know, his business reputation is above reproach. He has a finger in hundreds of industrial pies, and wherever money is being made, you will find the name of Charles Viddell. He makes money, and he spends it; yachts, villas, racehorses, women - all the usual things, and some of the unusual ones."

"And Mrs. Field?"

"Hopes, I imagine, to make him husband number four; but Charles Viddell is a confirmed bachelor, I think she is wasting her time. By the way, was she fitted with that burnt-orange gown to-day?"

"Yes, I supervised it myself. It's a dream. It even got a glimmer of approval from her."

They discussed business, and Madame forgot all about Charles Viddell. Not so Alex. She thought about him and the information Madame had given her about him many times. She looked up Mrs. Field's appointments and was at hand to see if he called for her, but he did not. She looked him up in reference books, and the data was of the scantiest. He did not put in another appearance at the dress salon, and in a week or two she had given up expecting him.

Then, on a. morning when Mrs. Field had cancelled her appointment and Alex was about to go to lunch, she met him in the entrance hall.

"I've called for Mrs. Field," he said, raising his hat to the slender girl in the dark suit.

"I'm so sorry," said Alex. "She cancelled her fitting this morning."

"So," he said. "Then I've wasted my time."

They walked out into the street together. At the edge of the kerb his car waited - the car, reflected Alex, one would expect to belong to a man who could afford racehorses, a yacht, and country houses.

"May I take you anywhere?" he asked.

"No, thank you. Once more, I'm only going round the corner, to lunch."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

"You always lunch alone?"

"Usually. There are exceptions."

"Shall we make today an exception?"

"You mean?"

"Will you lunch with me?"

Alex looked up at him. He was very little taller than she, and she encountered the full glance of his dark eyes. She hesitated, looking at him.

"Yes," she said at last, "I should like to."

"Good," he said, and opened the car door for her.

He drove off. Alex sat at his side in silence.

"Any preferences as to where we eat?" he asked her.

"No," she said, softening her monosyllable with a smile.

"Are you always so ready to take pity on a man who has been deserted?"

"No."

"Why were you to-day?"

She glanced briefly at him without answering. He felt the glance and waited.

"Well?" he prompted her.

"I thought I should like to talk to you."

"Oh. Well, that's nice of you - and honest. I shall like to talk to you, too. I feel that we have plenty to say to each other."

"I think so, too," said Alex. "But not perhaps the kind of things you expect."

"I expect nothing - yet. If I don't know you, how do I know what to expect of you?"

"You know one thing about me."

"And what is that?"

"That I came to lunch with you as soon as you asked me."

"Yes, without any subterfuge. What is your name?"

"Paul."

"Paul? That's unusual. Short for something? Pauline, Paula, Paulette?"

"No. Paul is my surname. Alex Paul."

"Alex Paul. Am I to say Miss Paul? or shall it be Alex?"

"Isn't it a little early in our acquaintance to call me Alex?"

"Perhaps it is. Here we are. I'll park the car here."

He helped her out, and they walked into the restaurant. Alex sat opposite him and looked at him. He returned her look, and they measured each other for a long minute.

"Well, do you like what you see?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she said. "I can see so little."

"So?"

"I can see that you are complicated - not easy."

"I like very much what I see," he told her. "You are a lovely girl, Alex Paul."

Alex lowered her eyes. The smile went from her lips and left her quite serious.

"The iron safety curtain has come down," said Charles Viddell. "I find you unexpected, you know ..." He broke off there to order their meal, and turned back to her. "Yes, I find you unexpected. Are we going to know each other better, Paul?"

"Paul," she said, "is my surname."

"So it is. It seems to have crept into my mind as your Christian name. Are we going to know each other better?"

"I hope so," she said.

"You surprise me. Why do you hope so?"

She looked at him. Something in his face, in his eyes, made her own eyes light up. She suddenly laughed, a clear, amused laugh. He did not know how unusual that was in Alex, but he liked it.

"Because," she said, "I have ulterior motives. I have designs on you."

He was interested, intrigued, provoked into curiosity. "Well, I'm damned," he said softly.

Alex shook her head.

"You don't understand," she said, "but it doesn't matter."

"You are an unusual girl," he said.

"Perhaps more unusual than you imagine," she said, remembering that her ideas were likely to differ from his.

"How long have you worked at that place?" he asked.

"Years and years."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a dress designer."

"A good one?"

"Very good."

"Who says so?"

"Nobody says so. Nobody goes around saying that Alex Paul is a good dress designer. Madame pays me well and uses my designs on her most pampered customers. I know that I am good."

"Do you design Mrs. Field's clothes?"

"Some of than."

"I see. You are very interested in your work?"

Alex smiled faintly.

"Are you?" he wanted to know.

"My work," she said, in a whisper, "is my love, my darling, my joy."

"What did you say?" asked Charles Viddell.

"It doesn't matter."

"Tell me what you said."

"No, it doesn't matter."

"I heard it. My God, but you're a strange one, Alex Paul."

"I don't think I'm strange at all," said Alex.

They were eating their meal, and he saw that she glanced at her watch once or twice.

"Do you go back to your work after lunch?" he asked.

"Yes, and I must go soon. I mustn't be late."

"I'll take you back. When shall we see each other again?"

"When would you like to see me again?"

"Have dinner with me to-morrow."

"No. Tomorrow is Friday, and I'm going to the country for the week-end."

"You don't work on Saturday?"

"Yes, but this is special - I have time off."

He wondered briefly what was special to her.

"Then on Monday evening you will have dinner with me?"

"I should like to very much."

She was gathering her gloves and bag.

"I shall look forward to Monday," he told her.

"I shall too," she said, with her faint smile.

At the end of that working day, Alex made her way homeward, by tube and bus, to the flat she had shared for many years with a friend. The tedious journey rarely proved tedious to her, for she used this time to think - to think out designs and materials and colour schemes, her mind full of richness, a kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns. This evening, however, all this gave place to Charles Viddell. He occupied her whole mind, and she went over their conversation again and again. She knew he was interested in her. She must keep him interested. She had not deliberately chosen a way to rouse that interest, but by being her usual uncommunicative self, and by speaking the truth when most people would have disguised the truth, she had aroused it.

She let herself into the old house where she and Cicely had their flat, and went up the many stairs to the two attic rooms and the small kitchenette which had spelt home to them for so long. Cicely was there before her, surrounded by suitcases and boxes, clothes and tissue paper, pots and pans and crockery.

"Alex, the flat is in a frightful mess - I do hope you don't mind. I want to get these ready for the carrier in the morning."

"I'll help you."

"Good. I really need help to rope up those boxes. But we'll eat first. There's a delicious concoction in the oven."

"I can smell it," Alex saw that their meal was laid on the small table by the window. "I shan't eat nearly as well when you've gone, Cicely."

"Well, I hope you'll have some sense and eat enough, anyway. If I ever find you looking thin and undernourished, I shall whisk you off to the country to fatten you up."

Alex laughed. Together they carried things to the table, and settled themselves to eat.

"I just can't imagine," said Alex, "what it will be like living here without you, after living with you for so long."

"Heavenly peace, I should think," said Cicely. "No, seriously, I do hope you'll like it. It's been nearly nine years, hasn't it?"

"Yes. Do you remember the fuss your mother made about us having a flat together? She wanted us to live in a hostel."

"I know - and got Mrs. Rabinowitz to promise to keep an eye on us. And what a dragon's eye it turned out to be - she pounced upon us if we dared to come home late...." (For Mrs. Rabinowitz was their landlady, a stately woman of enormous proportions with a sense of humour that had brought both the girls to love her.)

"And I," said Alex, "made clothes for her, thinking that if I could dress Mrs. Rabinowitz I could dress anybody on earth."

"As you can," said Cicely. "My wedding dress and my going-away outfit are absolutely perfect."

"You always had tremendous faith in me," said Alex, "even when we were children at school and I was wretched and difficult and really undernourished. If ever I get anywhere in this world, Cicely, it will be entirely due to you and your mother."

"What nonsense! It will be entirely due to your own talent."

"Which my family would have killed for ever."

"I don't think talent dies so easily," said Cicely, but they were both quiet for a moment, thinking back to Alex's family; a shiftless, feckless lot, none of whom had wanted Alex when she arrived in the family so long after the other children - an unwanted afterthought. The others were grown up when she was still a child. They all earned well but spent more than they earned - hard-drinking, fast-living people, who turned Alex out to play in the streets, and sent her to bed when she appeared in the house: so that Cicely's mother, sorry for the child, allowed her to play with Cicely in their house, allowed her to stay for tea and sometimes for supper; gave her standards to live up to, encouraged her drawing and her reading, and later introduced her to the theatre and ballet and music. And when the Paul family moved away, they were quite content to leave Alex behind with Mrs. Barnes. Then they had moved on again, sending no address, and Alex had felt finally freed from them. The thin, pale, moody child had developed happily and amazingly into a beautiful girl of a black-and-white beauty; the darkness of her hair, the brilliance of her brown eyes, the pale olive of her oval face creating a striking impression.

Cicely said:

"Coming to the end of something one has always enjoyed makes one very nostalgic."

"You shouldn't feel like that, with all the exciting present and future: the wedding, the new house and furniture, not to mention Douglas."

"Bless him. But I was feeling nostalgic. Taking down my books, and my ornaments, and so on. Remembering where and when I bought them all. All these ballet books! That craze we had for ballet…"

"I shall never forget that first time - your mother took us to Swan Lake. It was a revelation to me: it was that evening, really, that opened up my life. I suddenly saw, for the first time, that beauty was something I could get hold of and work with - not something far off simply to worship. I suddenly made up my mind that I was going to design for the stage and ballet: and even if I never do, it was one of the milestones on the way - that evening." She broke off, and laughed. "Oh, Cicely, sweet Cicely, you're bad for me, you know. You listen to my ramblings and encourage me. I never talk to anybody else like this. You're my safety valve. And there's something else I want to tell you, too. About a man I lunched with to-day ..." and she told Cicely how she had met and lunched with Charles Viddell, and promised to dine with him the following Monday.

"And what sort of man is he?" asked Cicely.

"The sort you dislike intensely. Man of the world. Disgustingly rich - or so Madame says. Bad reputation with women. Racehorses, villas in the south of France, cosmopolitan society, and so on."

"And he is interested in you?"

"Yes," said Alex. They looked at each other, and Alex smiled faintly. "Don't worry, Cicely. Mr. Viddell is in for a surprise. I just want to keep him interested long enough."

"Long enough to get him to finance you."

"Exactly."

Cicely looked doubtful.

"As long as there are no unpleasant strings," she said.

"There won't be. At least, I think not. I don't know him yet, but I think he might be straight enough, decent enough, to be able to do business with, without the strings. The trouble is," added Alex with disarming ingenuousness, "that I just haven't any money at all."

They laughed together, but Cicely knew that Alex would never be happy until she was working for herself, with her own establishment, able to give her ideas full rein, able to prove to the world that she, Alex Paul, with no material benefits, child of a feckless family, could make a success of life.

They spent the week-end in the country, in the village to which Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had retired, and where Cicely had lately met the young farmer who was now to become her husband. Most of the time was spent in the farmhouse, laying carpets, arranging furniture, hanging curtains, making last-minute plans for the wedding the following week. On Sunday evening Alex returned to London alone.

This, in itself, was strange. Always, she and Cicely had come back together, after a visit to Cicely's parents. Always, they returned to the flat together, chatting of the week-end, making themselves some coffee or tea. Now she came back to it alone, and it seemed echoingly empty. She was not afraid of being alone. Often she longed for solitariness; but she had not lived alone. She wondered how it would turn out.

That first week hardly proved to be a fair test, for on Monday she dined with Charles Viddell, on Wednesday she lunched with him, and on Friday he waited for her at some distance from Madame's establishment, to dine with her once more. They drove into the country to an inn where Charles was known, where they enjoyed a good dinner and afterwards sat in a swing seat in the darkening garden while Charles smoked a cigar. Alex sat beside him in silence.

She sat very still without fidgeting, and he liked that in her, her capacity for stillness. He liked the fact that she did not chatter. He found himself wondering what she was thinking, and this speculation did not usually bother him, because, if he expected women to chatter, he did not expect most of them to think.

He would have been astonished had he known the thoughts that did occupy her, for they all concerned himself, but in a way that he could not have expected. Alex had few illusions about men. The whole of her life had tended to strip them from her. She knew that Charles Viddell found her attractive, and she knew that by using careful tactics and ingenuity and cleverness, by the right amounts of encouragement and discouragement, she could use him to her own ends along conventional lanes of conduct. But accepted lanes of conduct did not appeal to her. She had no intention of becoming the mistress of this wealthy man in order to secure his financial backing - and perhaps ousting the beautiful Vivien Field to do so. That this was the way he thought of her, Alex did not doubt, but there was a surprise in store for him. She would have his backing on an entirely businesslike footing, or she would not have it at all. Her main hope was that he would become so interested in her that he would be willing to back her.

"I've never known such a silent woman," he said into the darkness.

"No?"

"Yet your reason for coming to lunch with me last week was that you thought you would like to talk to me."

"Yes."

"When are you going to begin?"

"Later," she said, "later."

"How do you know there will be a 'later" for us?"

"I think there will," said Alex. "Don't you?"

"Yes," he replied, "I think so."

He took her hand in his. Alex smiled. Of course, he did not understand her at all, but for that she could not blame him. She withdrew her hand gently but very decidedly. No hesitation, but no hurry; not offended, but not an invitation to a second attempt.

"No?" said Charles Viddell.

"No," said Alex.

"A little early in our acquaintance for that, too?"

She smiled, but did not answer.

"Just why did you come to lunch that day I asked you?" he wanted to know.

"I will tell you later, when I know you a little better," she said.

"Do you know me at all yet?"

"Oh, yes, I know a little about you."

"What do you know?" asked Charles.

"I know that you are a business-man - that you are wealthy..."

"And what else?"

"That you have a liking for beautiful women."

"Tactful, my dear young Paul, very tactful. Anything else?"

"You are confident and sure of yourself. But all that could add up to a very nice person; or you could be all that and be very undesirable."

"And which do you think I am?"

"I don't know," said Alex.

He laughed aloud.

"Come along," he said. "I'm taking you back to London."

He tucked his hand confidently under her arm as he led her to the car.

"You are a very provoking young person, Paul," he said, as he handed her in.

"Paul," she reminded him, "is my surname."

"So it is," he said. "So it is."

He drove her home. Her flat was in a wide street of once-fashionable houses, now almost all converted into boarding-houses or apartments. It was quiet, respectable, the home of office girls and secretaries, clerks and Civil Servants.

"So this is where you live?" said Charles, looking up and down the street.

"Yes."

"With your family?''

"Alone," said Alex.

"What, no family?" asked Charles.

She hesitated, then shook her head. No family, he thought, that she intends to tell me about.

"I see," he said. "Are you going to ask me to come up?"

"No. My landlady would imagine I was up to no good."

His smile reached his eyes, so that they twinkled as they looked at her.

"It's that kind of house, is it?" he asked.

"We are very quiet and very respectable," said Alex, nodding, "and we keep ourselves to ourselves."

"Excellent. I can think of no better background for a young woman living alone."

"I can," said Alex. "I can think of plenty."

"Next time we have dinner together," he said, "you must tell me what those backgrounds are."

He misunderstood her, however. She was far from thinking of a simple transference to a more luxurious background. What he had not foreseen was that there would be nothing that was simplest all about their relationship.

CHAPTER II

Alex lay back lazily in her deck-chair, enjoying the warmth of the sun's rays and the coolness of the breeze on her forehead, and watched Cicely busily weeding her herbaceous border.

The soft grass of the lawn ended in a bank of azaleas which were in full bloom, and behind these the countryside rose gently in curving hills, partly wooded, to a skyline on which a windmill still held undamaged sweeps to the wind.

"This is utter bliss," said Alex.

Cicely straightened her back and stood smiling at her friend.

"Isn't it?" she agreed. "I wake up every morning saying Lucky, lucky me. Lucky to have Douglas, to have such a nice house, to have a garden already established like this one ..."

Douglas farmed with his father, but the older people had built themselves a small modern house and had vacated the farmhouse for the young people, and this suited them all very well.

"I know the house is rather big," said Cicely, "but I intend to have a large family, anyway. And you would almost think I had a family already - Douglas's nephews and nieces are always here. It was a second home for them when their grannie and granddad were here, and they think it still is. And as they live in the village, they just adore the freedom they find on the farm."

"Do you mind?"

"Not a bit - I rather like it. They're nice children. And as for the house being big - I want to entertain quite a bit. Douglas has dozens of friends. And of course, your room is your room just whenever you want to come to it."

"Lovely," said Alex. "Just hang out a little red flag when I'm not wanted."

"You know how often that would be!"

"You might come to it yet: this is so lovely after the grey old streets of London."

Cicely smiled at her.

"This may be my spiritual home," she said. "I really believe it is. But it isn't yours. Yours is quite definitely Bond Street, with the Ritz thrown in. I wouldn't go back to live in London for a king's ransom."

"And I suppose really I wouldn't live out of it for a king's ransom," said Alex. "But it's nice to come and see you here. I suppose I still miss you." She smiled a little wryly. "Would you believe I still listen for your step on the stairs, and still feel surprised to wake up and find nobody in the other bed?"

"Well, it's only a month since my wedding - five weeks since I left the flat. Can't you do something to help fill the gap?"

"Charles Viddell is helping to fill it. I suppose I should be grateful to him for that. He's getting tickets for the ballet this coming week."

"Which one?"

"I don't know yet. And we dine pretty often together."

"Nothing mentioned yet about the high finance?"

"No - though sometimes I can hardly wait. Then I tell myself that I must give him time to know me; to see for himself if I have enough sense."

"And, on better acquaintance, does he still seem such an undesirable person?"

"I never said he was undesirable, Cicely, I'm sure of that. No, in a way, he's rather fun."

"As long as you don't let him sweep you away."

"I have no intention of letting that happen," said Alex.

The week-end with Cicely revived her and put a light tan on her olive cheeks. The children appeared at the farm and helped to entertain her, and Douglas seemed genuinely pleased to welcome her. Although she went back alone to the flat, it did not seem quite so desolate as the first time, especially as Charles had sent a large bouquet of beautiful flowers which Mrs. Rabinowitz had put in water for her.

She met him one evening of that week to go to the ballet, wearing an evening dress of her own designing and making; and she knew that, behind Charles's compliments, he was really pleased with her appearance. She had measured up to his high standard.

The ballet was Swan Lake, and as the lights were lowered and the curtain went up, and the audience was hushed into silence, Alex was transported to that other evening, her very first at the ballet, with Cicely and her mother, when she had seen Swan Lake for the first time and a whole world of beauty had been opened up to her. Since then she had seen it again, and the music had even become hackneyed to her; but she would never forget how then, for the first time, she had felt a power in herself to create beauty. That evening had formulated her ambition. It had been a milestone.

Then why shouldn't this particular evening be another milestone? Why shouldn't she grasp her opportunity while she had it? Why not speak to Charles this evening?

Charles found her preoccupied and distrait. When he spoke to her, she seemed to come back from a long distance before she understood him and answered him. She took little notice of him the whole evening. He became slowly more and more exasperated. Even during supper, although she seemed friendly and sweet-tempered, he had a feeling that only half of her was with him, while the other half was thinking about something else. As he drove her home in his car, he said irritably:

"Just why do you come out with me when I ask you?"

"Why," said Alex, coming out of her reverie, "I come because I like to."

"That I hardly believe. What are the ulterior motives you mentioned to me once?"

"I will tell you," she said. "To-night should be a good night for me."

"Why?"

"Because they danced Swan Lake." She hummed the melody she remembered so well. "I remember the first time I ever saw the ballet, so well. That was a wonderful night."

"Who went with you?" he asked, jealous of that night.

"Cicely and her mother."

"Oh. Well," bringing her back to the present, in which he was far more interested, "what are these ulterior motives?"

"It will sound very brazen," said Alex.

"Yes - well?"

"I'm interested in your money."

"It does sound brazen - so much so that I know there is a qualification somewhere."

"No. I am interested in your money, Mr. Viddell."

"Why, Miss Paul?" He was feeling his way carefully.

"Can I possibly tell you, I wonder?"

"I think it quite possible that you would tell me anything."

"No, I'm not nearly as brave as that. In fact, my courage is failing me now."

"Screw it up a little," he said. "Tell me quickly while you have a little left why you are interested in my money."

"Because I would like a little of it, Mr, Viddell."

"Good God!"

"I'm sorry. I knew it would shock you."

"Curiouser and curiouser," he said.

They drove on in silence until once more the car stood before the quiet house in the quiet street. Then they turned to look at each other in the faintly lit darkness.

"Well," he said at last. "Out with it. Out with it."

"Mr. Viddell..." she began.

"And don't sound so desperate. You've been as cool as a cucumber up to now."

"Oh, no, I haven't," she said. "I've been as frightened as a rabbit - sick with fright."

"You've hidden it very well. Go on."

"Mr. Viddell, I have a passion for dress designing. I think I am a very good designer, and I think I could run a dressmaking business. I have been in the business since my first job, and I know it thoroughly from the very bottom to the top. It has always been my ambition to have my own business - I feel absolutely confident that I could make good. But - I have no capital."

"I see," he said. "I see."

After a silence, he said:

"So that's where I come in?"

"Yes," she said.

"How much capital do you think you need to start this business of yours?"

"It depends," said Alex eagerly, "entirely on how I start. If I start in a small way, it's safer, no doubt. But I don't want to start in too small a way. I would like really good premises, and a flying start. Perhaps that is asking too much, though."

"It doesn't frighten you to think of venturing alone?"

"No. It excites me."

"What do you know of the business side of it?"

She began to pour out her words, telling him all that she had done in the last ten years; she had studied book-keeping, and had studied French; she had learned about prices and profits and overheads; recently she had been much in Madame's confidence and had done much of the buying; she had made useful contacts and was becoming known in the necessary places. It poured out of" her now, the accumulation of years and years of wishing and working.

When she paused, he said:

"You're very young, Paul."

"I know. But youth isn't always a handicap."

"Twenty-five?"

"Nearly twenty-six, Mr. Viddell."

"That is young to take on so much responsibility."

"But I feel that I could. I feel that I am wasted now. I'm bursting with ideas, and the more I use, the more come to me. I can dress people to make them look their best, the thin ones plumper, the fat ones thinner. I can create a sort of beauty in people and they will come to me for it. I want to dress stage shows, and ballet ...This isn't a flash in the pan, Mr. Viddell. It's what I've wanted for years. I live for my work. Will you come up and see some of my designs for yourself?"

"Your landlady," he said softly, "will think we're up to no good."

"Bother her. Will you come?"

"No," he said. "You can bring them to me. And I will think about this request of yours."

"Please, please think kindly of it."

He looked at her and smiled.

"I didn't dream," he said, "that you could talk so much. But now I know the magic button. Press it, and you release the flood-gate!"

"I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry. Good night, Alex."

She gathered her gloves and bag. He walked round the car to open the door for her and helped her to alight. He detained her with a hand on her arm.

"Whether you like it or not," he said, "I'm going to kiss you good night." And he did so, thoroughly. Then he watched her as she went up the stone steps and let herself into the house with her latch-key. But he could not see her when she stood motionless inside the closed door, looking with unseeing eyes into the darkness of the hall. No, she thought. No, no, no. It's not going to be that way. It will be completely businesslike or it will not be at all. I will never run my life that way. I must make it plain to him. I must make it plain to him.

Making it plain to him was not as difficult as Alex had thought it would be. She did, however, take the precaution of waiting until the whole matter of this financial backing was practically settled; and when he had thought over the subject and come to the conclusion that Alex would probably be a good investment, she approached him somewhat tentatively with the words:

"There is just one thing, Mr. Viddell, before we go any further."

"What is it?"

"It's a little difficult to put into words." This much, and various other openings, she had planned many times; but how the conversation would continue depended upon him.

"You've been singularly successful with your other requests."

"But they were of a different kind. This is much more personal."

"Well?"

"I would like . . ." she began, and paused. "I wish you would..." she started again, and again paused.

He waited, watching her, giving her no help, and she collected her words.

"I would very much like to have your assurance that - well, that everything connected with this business - everything between us, Mr. Viddell, should be on a strictly business basis."

"Have I not been businesslike so far?"

"Yes, very, and I'm so grateful to you, but it is very important to me to have that assurance, too."

"You think it necessary?"

"Am I to be honest with you?"

"I'm beginning to believe you can't be anything else."

"Then I do think it necessary."

"Oh," he said seriously, "you think I have designs on your virtue."

"Now you're laughing at me," she said.

"Yes, why not? You're so serious, Paul - sorry, Alex. So I am to put a clause in our agreement about all that?"

"There's no need for a clause in any agreement - your assurance will do."

"Very rash of you. Why do you insist on this?"

"It's so important to me."

"But why?"

"Because I must make my way according to my own principles."

"You are certainly an unusual girl, Alex. But I will give you this assurance - that I will never persuade you to any course of action against your will. You wish this to be a purely business transaction. It shall be as you wish. This is how we shall keep it as long as you want it this way."

"Thank you, Mr. Viddell. That will be for always."

He smiled at her, a smile that made her feel very young.

"Always? It's surprising, Alex, how our wants in this world go on changing. But now, we have the thorny question settled. I am to treat you just as I would treat a young man in whom I had confidence and to whom I agreed to lend a large sum of money?"

"Would you lend a large sum of money to a young man?"

"Yes, I have done that very thing. I have a great deal of money, Alex, and often look about me for something to invest it in."

"I do hope," she said earnestly, "that I'll prove to be a good investment."

"I'm sure you will. And you mustn't be above a little advice from me, or about having dinner with me sometimes, to discuss progress. Do you think that will be in order?"

"I shall always be glad of your advice, and to have dinner with you, Mr. Viddell, I'm really most grateful to you for all this. I will try most desperately hard. I've prayed for so long for somebody to come along who would give me a start. Without capital, it's impossible. I will work like a slave."

"I shouldn't want that," he said. "I don't want you to be in bondage."

"It won't be bondage. It won't be slavery, because I shall love every minute of it..."

But she did not love every minute of it. That would have been impossible and far too much to expect. There were nights of panic, days of fear and worry, innumerable unexpected trials and problems, unending demands on her patience, her tact, and her courage. Most of her staff was unknown to her, and there were petty differences among its members for her to settle. There was an exaggerated desire to satisfy every new customer and to magnify the slightest complaint into a tragedy for the business. Hundreds of times in the first few months she told herself to keep calm, took a firm grip on rising panic, forced herself to read through sleepless nights, and refused to go to Charles Viddell with her every problem.

He watched her. He saw that she lost a little weight, but did not comment on it. He saw that she was carrying burdens she would not let him share, but did not offer his help unless she asked for it. He took her to dinner, listened to her reports, gave his advice when she needed it, and admired her courage. And she pulled through the first anxious months with a steadily growing stream of satisfied customers flowing through her doors.

"Of course," she said to him when they dined together in his flat one night in the winter, "you are a wonderful help in bringing in the clients. Half of them seem to come through you."

"How Madame must be reviling me!"

"I suppose so. She will never quite forgive me, although she says she saw it coming years ago. And she will never forgive me for stealing Lawson, although she made the poor woman's life a misery to her."

"Lawson seems to me rather an abject specimen. I can't see why you set such store by her ."

"Oh, but she's an excellent worker, Charles. She has no courage - that's true. But she is such a good worker. I used to watch her at Madame's, we worked together for years. When she was nagged, and Madame was always nagging somebody, she went to pieces; and then she did things wrong. And when she did things wrong she succumbed to headaches and toothache and frightful depression. All nerves, of course. I knew that what she wanted was encouragement, a word of praise, some self-confidence. Well, I give her that. I know she deserves it. And she never gets headaches or toothache - why, she positively flowers, in her modest way."

"Alex, Alex, you're good at managing people, aren't you? See how well you managed me at the beginning of our acquaintance!"

"So I did. I'm a horrid, managing woman," she said, smiling brilliantly at him.

He watched the smile. He thought: One day, I shall kiss that smile off her mouth when she is teasing me. And he felt in imagination the parted warmth of her mouth.

Alex saw him grave. She rose to her feet and went to his side, her hand outstretched to him.

"Charles, I didn't mean it," she said. "I would never try to manage you - you are too good to me. You've been good, good for me all the time."

He saw her come to him. He saw her beautiful figure and the lovely breasts outlined beneath her dress. Still in imagination he felt them beneath his hands. In fact, he took her hand into his, and he gave it a brief, hard shake.

"I hope whatever I do will be good for you. Alex." he said.

They were thinking entirely different things. Alex was lulled into a false security by the impeccable behaviour that Charles had imposed upon himself for months. Charles thought that he was approaching the edge of a new experience, a sharp, sweet, vital experience that he would not forgo for all the kingdoms of the world.

Although most of that first year was sheer hard work, with a lot of anxiety and doubt as to how things would, turn out, there were highlights which seemed to make all the hard work worth while. There was the breathless excitement of her first show: the crescendo of busyness and chaos before it, the peace after it. She had found a keen pleasure in choosing which designs should be made for it, and which mannequins should show which models. For she had all the advantages of her years of work with Madame. She had helped to organise dress shows before, she knew most of the models, and they knew her; but now they walked along her raised platform, between banks of flowers which she had chosen, wearing jewels which Charles had arranged for her to hire and which were being watched by detectives, who mingled with the crowd. The gilt chairs which she had seen arranged in Madame's salon were now arranged in her own, and the panic which fluttered her nerves lest people should not turn up gradually disappeared as more and more of those chairs were occupied, until at last all were used and only standing room was left. She recognised the critics, the fashion writers. Thank goodness she had always been charming to them in the days when it had not mattered so much to her, had always looked after them and entertained them for Madame. Now they were prepared to find her show interesting, and afterwards they reported on it very favourably.

One of the mannequins, impressed by the startling quality of Alex's own beauty, her dark hair and eyes against the olive creaminess of her skin, said:

"You could model your designs yourself, as well as any of us could."

Alex laughed.

"No. I'm not quite tall enough, not quite thin enough. And I should find it quite impossible to saunter before all those people. I should charge to the end and back to see what was happening back here."

They all laughed at that. She was so obviously charged with energy and nervous tension, and would never restrain herself to the long-legged, mincing walk of the mannequin.

Afterwards, late in the evening, Charles took her to dinner.

"Well, it was a success," he said.

"Do you think so?"

"Undoubtedly. I think it will have put you on the map."

"At least none of the jewels were stolen. I'm relieved that they are safely back where they belong."

"All but this," he said. "I kept this back - for you. I thought the first show should be commemorated in some way," and he produced a box that contained a diamond clip.

Alex shook her head slowly.

"No, Charles. Thank you, but no. I won't accept jewellery from you. Please don't mind about it - I would rather not have it."

Charles pocketed the box without more ado.

"You don't mind?" she asked, a little anxiously.

"I do mind," he said. "It would have given me pleasure if you could have forgotten your independence for once. But it doesn't matter - we'll forget it."

The show brought in many definite orders. Alex had to engage more staff. She dressed weddings, silver weddings, and a golden wedding. She made jaunty sports wear, elegant evening wear, chic town wear. She stayed up late into the night, designing, designing. She combed through books from all parts of the world, getting ideas for accessories. She said to Cicely, when she spent one of her rare week-ends in the country (because although she was always intending to go, she would find herself too busy to leave London):

"When I feel I'm really settled, I must open a boutique; because I want to design my own costume jewellery and accessories. I do now, of course, in a small way; and sometimes I have to search for what I want. I think I could design and make my own - I don't see why it shouldn't be a very prosperous proposition."

"What does Charles think about it?''

"I haven't mentioned it to him yet. He seems very pleased with my progress so far. I think I've been rather a surprise to him. I think perhaps he expected to lose his money, and now he thinks he may not, after all. I, of course, shall live for the day when it is all paid back."

"He could hardly have guessed how talented you are, or how well equipped for putting that talent across."

"Oh, you, Cicely, have always been prejudiced in my favour. From the very beginning. I wonder what I should have done without you? Even in the very first days -do you remember? When I picked up pins and picked up pins. The hundreds of thousands of pins I picked up! And thought I should never get past that job, and making the tea and sewing on the shoulder straps! When I wanted to be doing the whole boiling. I must admit I got a most thorough training from Madame, though I didn't appreciate it in those early days. But even then, when I boasted to you that, one day, I would have my own dress business, you believed it."

"See how well I was justified. I always used to see your ideas leaping on ahead, while I trundled along behind. And I suppose I'm still trundling."

"You're as happy as a sand-boy; and you know it," said Alex. "With a kind of happiness I don't suppose I shall ever know. I'm too detached and cold: it's sad that it should be so, but I can't help it. Only sometimes I can lose myself - perhaps in music; most often in music - perhaps in ballet. But never in people." She would have added, but reserve held her back, that Cicely was the only person for whom she felt a warm love.

"That," said Cicely, "is simply that you haven't yet met the right people. Somewhere in the world, at some time or other, you will meet somebody who will change all that. I hope so, anyway. Work may be satisfying and rewarding, but it's no substitute for love."

"Pooh," said Alex, laughing.

"You may laugh - but I'm an expert, remember. I've found the love that lifts life up on to a different plane altogether. I did wonder, at one time, if perhaps Charles Viddell would provide it for you ‑"

Alex laughed again.

"Oh, Charles," she said, making the idea sound impossible and ridiculous.

"You see him so much. You're always having dinner with him. You go to his flat - he is always advising you."

"Charles wouldn't know the first thing about the kind of love you are talking about," said Alex. "His is a much less demanding and absorbing kind. A much more convenient kind. You know the kind of women who are his friends and companions. If they aren't beautiful, then they are sure to be striking, or original: they all dress beautifully (but that is due to Charles), they all wear lovely jewels (and that is Charles again); and presumably they are satisfied that it satisfies Charles."

"Well, if Charles isn't the one, I hope somebody else will be," said Cicely finally. "Now you can sit and toast the crumpets while I go and get tea ready, because Douglas will be in at any moment, probably cold, and certainly starving."

So Alex sat before a glowing fire and toasted crumpets, happy in the warm friendliness that wrapped her round in this place, but sceptical of ever finding the kind of love that Cicely talked of; determined, moreover, that however large a number of men came into her life, not one should come between her and her work.

CHAPTER III

Cicely walked between Douglas and his friend Terence Whitemore on to the platform of the small country station, a few minutes before the train from London was due. Except for themselves, it was deserted, and a lazy but fresh breeze gently stirred the daffodils that were growing in neat ranks in the station garden.

"What sort of girl is this Alex we've come to meet?" asked Terence, as they strolled up and down the deserted platform.

"Cicely's childhood - and bosom - friend," said Douglas. "I felt I ought really to marry them both rather than separate them, but the law of the country didn't allow it."

"I can think of somebody else who wouldn't allow it," said Cicely, slipping her hand into Douglas's arm.

"As nice as Cicely?" asked Terence.

"No," said Douglas at the moment that Cicely said, "Yes."

"But different," added Cicely.

"How so?" asked Terence.

"Well, beautiful where I'm plain, striking where I'm brown and mousy, clever where I'm rather dumb - and terribly chic, which you can see I'm not."

"If she's so very different from you, she can't possibly be nice."

"Terence, you make the finest compliments. Or do you? Was that a bit back-handed? Anyway, Alex is a dear, and you'll like her; and if she isn't too overworked and tired, I'll let you escort her to the Cuthberts' for dancing to-night."

"We could all go," put in Douglas.

"If you think I'm going dancing while I'm this shape and size," said Cicely, "you can think again." For Cicely would have her first baby within a month or two. "No, you and I will stay at home, Douglas, and Terence can take Alex."

"Here's the train," said Terence, and waited behind the other two with some curiosity to see the girl who had been described as beautiful and striking and clever. People's descriptions of their friends were so often biased that he was prepared for something less than Cicely's estimate; but" when Alex came towards them, her smile warm and delighted for Cicely, his heart gave a sudden jolt. Lord, what a girl, he thought, and stepped forward to take her hand as Cicely introduced them.

Alex was dressed for a country week-end.

"Not," Cicely commented with admiration, "in the way that country people dress, but in the way the haute couture thinks they dress."

"Isn't it suitable?" asked Alex.

"Well, it's suitable for standing on the lawn and saying how nice the garden looks; or for looking over a fence at the pigs and scratching their backs with, a stick; but not exactly for anything more practical."

"That's all I intend to do," laughed Alex. "I'm tired right through to my bones."

They were walking towards Douglas's car.

"That's a pity," said Terence, looking down at Alex, who walked beside him. "Cicely had delegated me to take you dancing this evening."

She looked up at him. A man had to be quite tall for Alex to look up into his face. Charles was a few inches taller than she; this man seemed much taller. Very handsome, thought Alex, and he looks nice, too.

"Perhaps by this evening," she said, "I shall have revived." They paused at the car. "Cicely and Cicely's house always have a wonderfully reviving effect on me. And this air," she added, sniffing it appreciatively. "Oh, this air. So fresh. You feel nobody else has used it before it gets to you."

"Poor child of the London gutter," said Douglas, with mock sympathy. "If you would stop sniffing the air and get into the car, we can all have some of Cicely's reviving tea."

So that evening, Alex was escorted by a new man. She had protested that she would be quite happy to spend a cosy evening by the fireside, but since everybody pressed her to go dancing, and she thought that Cicely might find too many guests and too much conversation tiring, she went. She wore a soft velvet dress of mushroom colour, very simply made, which managed to get a second look from everybody who noticed it. Terence was proud to escort her into the room.

"This is where the village social club meets," explained Terence. "The Cuthberts have this enormous room - a Victorian forebear with grandiose ideas built it on as a ballroom - so they let the village use it. As you see by the ping-pong tables, they meet here for games; and they have a drama group, but on Saturdays there is always dancing."

"Do you live in the village too?" asked Alex.

"No. I'm about twenty miles from here - a good deal nearer to London, but I've been here before with Douglas and Cicely. Douglas and I met at University." He led her to an enormous and rather ugly Victorian sofa. "In spite of its forbidding appearance," he said, "it's most comfortable."

They sat down, and Alex confirmed that it was indeed most comfortable.

"I shan't want to get up to dance," she said.

"What has made you so tired?" he wanted to know.

"Overwork, I suppose. I've been working non-stop for so long that if I don't have a break soon, I shall collapse."

"What do you do?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, I thought perhaps Cicely had explained me before I arrived," said Alex, and proceeded to tell him what she did; and because he was a most sympathetic listener and seemed to ask just the right questions to draw her on, she found that she was chatting away to him as she might chat to Cicely, but certainly to nobody else.

"It sounds to me," said Terence, "as if you have achieved wonders for one so young. It's wonderful to be doing the one job in the world that excites and satisfies you."

"Don't you?" asked Alex.

"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact."

"Tell me what it is," she said with a smile.

"Yes, but first let's dance. I can see Mrs. Cuthbert approaching us with a determined look in her eye, and I think she might take you away." They got up and started to dance before Mrs. Cuthbert reached them, and Terence put an arm about her and drew her against him with an amount of delight that surprised himself.

"We dance so well together that we won't dance with anybody else all the evening," he said, a little masterfully.

"Won't that look rather impolite?" asked Alex, laughing.

"Well, one or two duty dances elsewhere. Otherwise, together. Agreed?"

"Agreed," said Alex, and thought that many other girls in the room might not approve of that arrangement, for she had already noticed the number of glances cast in his direction. He was very handsome and most attractive too; attracting by his frankness and disarming smile, by his quick and ready interest and the air of bonhomie about him. He looks, thought Alex, as if all is right with his world.

They returned to their sofa, and Terence brought her a drink and sat down beside her.

"Now tell me what you do," she said, settling herself in the corner and giving him a radiant smile. He looked at her for a moment or two and took a long breath.

"You almost deprive me of the powers of thought and speech," he said.

"Oh, dear," replied Alex.

"And I suppose that's the sort of crass thing that all men say to you?"

"No, they don't. Actually, and this may surprise you, I have very little to do with men."

"It surprises me very much. It must be your own choice."

"I think that it's really that I'm just too busy. I'm more interested in something else. But you see, we're starting to talk about me again, and I want to hear about you."

So he told her about himself. He farmed, like Douglas. His mother had died some years ago, and now his father had married again, a much younger woman, and Terence had felt they should have their house to themselves. He had farmed with his father until then, but he had used the money his mother had left him to buy this farm twenty miles from Douglas, and was settling down in it and getting everything the way he wanted it.

"You must come and see me there," he said.

"I should like to, but I warn you I know absolutely nothing about farms. I had never been on one until I came to Cicely's: oh, I probably trespassed at times like everybody else, but I've never stayed on one. I shall make appalling howlers."

"I shall take pleasure in putting you right," he said. "I think you'll like my farm - it must have had a farmer's wife with ideas of her own. The house is lovely, and the kitchen department a wonder of efficiency and brightness; and the views are really something. Look, can we go and see it tomorrow? I'm spending the night at Doug's, and I could drive you over."

"It's neglecting Cicely rather shamefully..."

"I'm sure she would approve," said Terence.

They danced again and again. Terence did his duty dances with the Cuthbert girls and one or two others, whereupon partners immediately sprang up for Alex, but as soon as possible, they were back together. Alex felt wonderfully comfortable with him - he had an easy manner that smoothed their path before them. She watched him as he talked to her, and it came into her mind that he made a strong contrast to Charles. In appearance and manner and character. His light-brown hair, with golden streaks and golden lights in it, waved crisply away from a tanned and weathered face. There were lines above his keen blues eyes that came from looking over long distances in all weathers. He was open and frank and disarming where Charles was reserved and withdrawn and inscrutable. He spoke to her with open admiration, while Charles always maintained a slightly mocking attitude towards her. He was comfortable to be with, and Charles, she realised with slight surprise, was often very uncomfortable. She felt strongly drawn towards Terence.

He drove her back to the farm, where they discovered that Cicely and Douglas had gone to bed, but had left them some sandwiches and coffee. Alex heated the coffee on the stove and carried it into the sitting-room, and they sat over their late supper chatting idly before the dying fire, until Alex at last declared she must go to bed.

Terence rose to his feet at once.

"You were so tired," he said, "and I've kept you up shockingly late. But I've enjoyed the evening so much that I suppose I don't want it to end."

He walked to the door with her.

"I've enjoyed it too," said Alex. "Good night."

"I'll just stay down and lock up and put the lights out," he said. "Good night, Alex."

She gave him her hand, and he took it in his. There was a strange, silent pause that lasted a moment or two, then he pulled her very gently towards him. There was plenty of time for Alex to pull away if she wished to: he did not hurry her, but she did not draw away. So that his strong arms closed round her, and he kissed her with a long, serious kiss. She closed her eyes and relaxed against him, and he kissed her again with quick delight. Then she drew gently away from him, smiled at him, gave his hand a quick pressure with her own, and went away upstairs.

In the morning, she lay in her bed, listening to all the unfamiliar sounds of the farm and country, and wondered what had come over her. And even as she wondered, she realised how much she had enjoyed herself. Nobody had made her feel so contented, so happy, for years. It had been a wonderful relief to fall into his arms and let him kiss her. She had always kept men at arm's length, had never really wanted a closeness with anybody; but Terence was different from all the others. He had a selfless, likeable personality that immediately drew people towards him, and she, Alex, had been no exception. She wanted to see him again. Even now, although she was so tired, she must get up and see if he was about. So she got up and went downstairs, and Cicely met her, saying:

"I was going to bring you your breakfast in bed, thinking you'd be half dead this morning."

"It's you who should have your breakfast in bed," said Alex.

"Not I. I much prefer to get up; and don't try to invalid me, because I'm going to be aggressively normal and healthy right up to the last moment."

Alex laughed.

"If you like to go over to the barn and bring Terence in," said Cicely, "I'll have some more eggs cooked by the time you get back."

So Alex went to the barn, and in its dim interior, lighted by shafts of . dusty sunlight through the open door, she found Terence.

"Good morning," she said. "I've been sent to tell you that breakfast is ready, and to bring you back."

He came to her side quickly, looking down into her face, trying to read in one quick moment if she had regrets about the night before. But she smiled at him quite brilliantly, and there in the dim sweet mustiness of the barn she held out her hand to him.

"Come along," she said. "I have a tremendous appetite this morning."

He took her hand, but she did not move towards the door. They looked into each other's eyes, then he bent his head and kissed her.

"You're lovely," he said.

"And hungry," she replied. She took his face in her hands and kissed him swiftly on the lips. Then she went to the open door, a slim figure in the sunlight, waiting for him to join her. "What a nice man you are, Terence," she said as they walked to the farmhouse together.

"You haven't known me long enough to be sure," he said warningly.

After lunch, Terence drove her to see his own farm, but brought her back to Cicely in the early evening; and it was Terence who drove, her to the station for the last train to London.

"You will come down again soon, won't you?" he asked.

"I can't, Terence. I don't get down very often. I really am very busy."

"Then can I come up and see you?"

"You mustn't neglect that nice farm for me."

"I have workers there, and it won't fall to pieces if I have an evening now and then in London. Would you like it if I came?"

"Yes, I should," she said frankly.

"Then I'll certainly come - I'll always ring you first to make sure you're free. Give me your telephone number."

She gave it to him, and was not surprised that he used it within a week. He picked her up at her showroom, and Alex saw that he wore a dinner jacket. "Now," she said, "I shall have to go home and change. But come in first and see where I work." She showed him over her premises, and he was impressed. "You see," she pointed out, "what lovely light and airy rooms the work-girls have. That's because I started in the workroom myself and know only too well what they can be like. These are fitting-rooms ... and this is my office. Isn't it grand? But the showroom is the piece de resistance; how do you like it? I designed it myself."

"I'm overwhelmed," he said. "Truly overwhelmed - you're marvellous."

"You're awfully good for my ego," laughed Alex. "Now if you drive me home, I can change, and we can go somewhere really nice for dinner. I wonder what Mrs. Rabinowitz will think? Which will be the greater - her surprise at my taking a man home, or her horror at my taking him upstairs?"

"Who is Mrs. Rabinowitz?" he asked, and Alex found herself giving Terence a short resume of her life.

"You're a terrible person for making me talk," she said, as she let herself into the house and took him to her flat. She left him with a drink while she went to change, and then came out to him with a smile. Terence spread his hands out in a gesture of invitation, and she walked into his arms. They kissed with swift kindling of passion between them, with a delight in each other, and a joyousness that was new to Alex; and then stood away, smiling at each other with pleasure.

"Where would you like to go?" he asked, when they were once more in the car.

She mentioned two or three places she liked, places she had come to know through Charles, and they chose one of them which was quiet, where they would be able to talk in peace.

They found they had a great deal to say to each other. The harmony between them amazed Alex. She was so often irritated or annoyed by small things, but Terence did nothing that irritated her. She so often felt an urge to be up and doing, so often was unable to relax, yet here with Terence she let everything else drop out of her mind, and was content to sit and watch him and listen to him talking.

At last he said:

"There's a man over there who has been watching you ever since he came in. Do you know him, Alex?"

She turned and glanced over her shoulder, and at once her face broke into a smile.

"Why, yes," she said. "That's Charles." And waved her hand at Charles, who was watching them both with dark, inscrutable eyes. Charles bowed in response, and Alex beckoned him to come and join them. He made his excuses to the people he was dining with, and came across to their table.

"You must meet Charles," Alex said to Terence as she saw Charles rise from his chair. "I would never have got as far as I have without Charles."

She introduced them, and the two men exchanged politenesses while they attempted to sum each other up. Alex, watching them, thought how different they were; and she saw, with a slight shock of surprise, that they were obviously not kindly disposed towards each other. Terence's friendly smile was superseded by one more wary, Charles's was definitely mocking. She was rather relieved when he went away to join his friends, and glad that he had not invited herself and Terence to go with him.

Terence was inclined to be silent after that, until Alex chided him about it.

"I was wondering," he said, "why you would never have got where you are without Charles."

"Oh, that's easily explained," she said. "He financed me. He put up a large sum of money so that I could get going on my own - he had a reassuring faith in my capability. And, although I didn't realise it at the time, he lent it to me at an extremely low rate of interest."

"I can imagine," said Terence, a little gloomily.

She looked at him for a moment or two, and then smiled gently at him.

"He lent it," she said, "entirely without conditions, entirely without strings of any kind."

"He doesn't look to me the kind of man who would do that."

"But he did," she said. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes," he said reluctantly, "of course I believe you."

But when he had taken her back to her flat, and was holding her in his arms to say good night, he reflected:

"I should have known better than to take you at your word when you said you had little to do with men."

"That was true, Terence, too. Charles is different. Socially I have almost nothing to do with them - Charles is a business associate; although, of course, I do see a great deal of him outside business."

"Now," he said, "my peace is ruined." And his kiss was passionate, his ardour tinged with jealousy. "Does Charles do this?" he wanted to know, asking the question into her hair, almost ashamed to ask it at all.

"Heavens, no," said Alex. "Never, never. It was, in fact, part of the original agreement that he shouldn't."

"The man must be mad," said Terence, and kissed her again.

She next saw Charles on a day that had been particularly arduous for her. He telephoned her towards the end of the working day to inform her that she was having dinner with him, and Alex replied that she was too tired to have dinner with anybody.

"You have to eat," he observed mildly.

"No, I don't even have to do that. I just want to go home and rest."

"That's ridiculous," said Charles. "Overworking and then not eating. I will pick you up and we'll have dinner here in my flat, so that you needn't change." And when he had her installed in his own comfortable drawing-room, he continued his lecture.

"It isn't sense, Alex, to get yourself as worn out as this. You must have a holiday at this point, or you'll be having a nervous breakdown."

"Nonsense - do I look as if I'm approaching a nervous breakdown?"

"You look very tired."

"Well, I have promised myself a holiday. The shows are over, my clientele is rushing off from London in all holiday directions, so I might as well rush off too."

"Where to?" asked Charles.

"Cicely, I expect: she insists I should go there, although I feel I shouldn't when she's going to have her baby so soon."

"Certainly you shouldn't. I have a better idea. You will come to my villa at Florence with me."

"With you, Charles?"

"With me - and half a dozen other friends. All perfectly above board, my dear, have no fear. Or would you prefer the Riviera? Both will be very hot at this time of year, but I didn't think for a moment you would leave London any earlier."

"If I went anywhere," said Alex slowly, "I'd prefer Florence." She thought of all the treasures that were in Florence, things she had wanted to see for many years, and she knew a sudden yearning to go and see them now. "Michelangelo all over the place," she said. "What a temptation! And all the quite beautiful things Italians make for the fashion world: the leather and embroidery and straw stuff. Oh, yes, Charles, I'll come to Florence - if you meant it."

"Well," said Charles, "you make no bones about not coming for love of my dark eyes. Then that's settled. I shall see to plane reservations and so on. Your passport is in order, I suppose, as you went to the Paris shows? Good. You tidy up your odds and ends, and I'll let you know what date I can get tickets for."

"Who will the other guests be?" asked Alex.

"I wonder why you ask. Just to make sure there will be other guests?"

"Why are you always so mocking?" she asked.

"Because you, dear Alex, are so transparent. I shall ask Ralph and Laura Tintern, Maggie Alvero and one other man; I don't know yet who it will be. And anybody else I think of who would add to the interest."

Alex found that her excitement mounted as the days sped by. She would shut down entirely for a fortnight, giving the whole staff its holiday. She said to Miss Lawson:

"You must need a holiday every bit as much as I do. Where will you go?"

"I shall go to my sister in Wales."

"How nice - and what will you do there?"

"If I'm not mistaken," said Miss Lawson, a little dryly, "I shall be making new dresses for my sister and her two little girls."

"Oh, no! What a busman's holiday." Alex thought of the adventure before herself and felt sorry for Miss Lawson, but Miss Lawson, in actual fact, enjoyed the reputation she had in her sister's village, enjoyed becoming a personality who had fitted dresses for film and stage stars and other celebrities.

Alex made her journey with Charles alone. Charles did not comment on the absence of other guests, and Alex was too proud to do so. They sat in the plane and the train together, Charles an attentive escort, and were met in Florence by a handsome, smiling chauffeur with an even more handsome car.

"We won't drive through the town," said Charles, "after our journey. You shall come fresh to it after you have rested. We'll go straight up to the villa."

They were whisked away through an incredible amount of traffic, which seemed to Alex at first glance to obey no known laws, and were soon out on the climbing, winding road towards Fiesole. Then the car turned on to a narrow, still winding road, hot, white, and dusty, from which the private drives of villas led to the villas themselves, usually through magnificent gates. The car swept on to one of these drives, and down a steeply-falling gradient to the house.

Charles opened the car door for Alex, while the chauffeur dealt with the luggage.

"This is the back of the villa," he said. "The front is more beautiful, looking over the view. Come in and see it."

He walked with Alex into a broad, cool hall, paved with patterned tiles, and through this to a long, drawing-room, with wide windows opening on to a magnificent view of Florence below.

"It's possible to have the windows open at this time of the day," explained Charles, "because the villa is built with two side wings which are joined by this room; so we have shade morning and evening, and sun in the middle of the day only. And that is taken care of by the wistaria," and he took Alex out through the french window to see it. Between the wings a long and deep pergola supported a truly giant wistaria, its twisting stem a foot thick, its leaves spreading to give deep shade below. "For the sun fiends," went on Charles, "there is all the rest of the terrace."

They stepped out of the shade into the sun. It beat down on them with a fierce heat, but they stood there for a while so that Alex could admire the view. Immediately below them, a small terraced garden sloped quickly away to the olive groves, which stretched, silvery-grey, from the villa towards Florence. She could see teams of oxen working between the rows of olive-trees, and hear the cicadas in the trees. In Charles's garden, the bright colour of oranges glowed from the darkness of their leaves. Other villas were dotted on the hillside, contained in their own trees - the tall, pointed Italian cypresses, some pine and some evergreen oak; and down below rested Florence itself, a city of white and yellow buildings, red-roofed, dominated by the red dome of the Cathedral and its tall campanile, and the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio. Alex sighed a sigh of pure delight.

"Oh, Charles, what a heavenly place!"

"You must see it at night, when Firenze is lit up; and then it's cool too, out here on the terrace."

She turned to look at the villa itself with its cream-coloured walls and red-tiled roof; at the garden furniture set about the terrace, at the orange-trees in tubs and the mass of agapanthus in flower at each end. Then she looked at Charles, who owned all this, and wondered briefly how different her own life would have been if she had fallen in with his obvious plans at the beginning of their acquaintance. She was glad that she was here independently, a guest in his house, still mistress of herself.

"Dinner will be in an hour," said Charles. "Come down a little early for a drink. Now come and see your room."

He took her himself into the house and up the wide stone staircase to the first floor. He opened the door of a beautiful room, and then left her; and she went in to explore delightedly for herself. The shutters facing south were still closed, while those to the east had been opened, and the windows opened wide. Alex opened everything, and saw that she had once more the view over Florence. Her room was more luxurious than any she had ever occupied, and she had a bathroom leading from it that provided every possible toilet comfort and extravagance. A young maid, shy and softly speaking a broken English, came to unpack her clothes, and Alex stood at the window, now looking at the view, and now at the girl working silently and swiftly, and pondered on the great distance between the young Alex Paul who had been deserted by her family and who had started her career by picking up pins, and the Alex Paul, elegantly dressed, who had flown from London with Charles Viddell.

She wore a very simple white evening dress, of silk so stiff that it would stand alone; and when she went to join Charles he stood still and studied her for a few moments.

"There's no doubt about it, Alex," he said. "You have a wonderful flair. The dress is perfect."

"Thank you," she said. The thought crossed her mind that Terence would have seen the woman in the dress rather than the dress itself.

Charles brought her a sherry, and they walked out on to the terrace with their glasses. Nobody else had yet appeared on the scene, and still Alex would not mention the fact. If Charles expected her to refer to the other guests, or to start to make a scene, he was to be disappointed. But when they had been talking for a few minutes, they heard a car arriving, and then the main door opening, and next moment two people had burst into the drawing-room and joined Charles and Alex on the terrace.

"Charles darling! We meant to be back to welcome you. So dreadful of us. We went to Siena, expecting a small and quiet place, and my dear, the milling crowds! Do forgive us. Oh, Alex, you look wonderful, and so cool and rested: I must dash up and change for dinner at once."

That was Maggie Alvero, whom Alex had met only once. The man, Geoffrey Lacey, was more coherent. He enquired after their journey, said how pleased he was to see them both, assured Charles he was enjoying himself immensely at the villa, and followed Maggie upstairs to change. Charles looked at Alex.

"Are you reassured?" he asked, with a faint smile.

"I was not in need of reassurance," said Alex.

"What, have you learned to trust me after all this time?"

"I have always trusted you, Charles."

"Up to a point, he said, "up to a point. You may like to know that the Tinterns will be here to-morrow, and the Careys next week. All people you will like - I hand-picked them for you."

"You are always so kind to me, Charles."

"Kind? I don't like the word," he said. "I would like to be much more than kind to you."

She did not reply. He stood beside her, fighting down an impulse to crush her in his arms, to be anything but kind to her.

CHAPTER IV

There followed for Alex a never-to-be-forgotten holiday. In the villa there was a particularly friendly atmosphere, an accord that was not once disturbed. In Florence there was a great abundance of riches for any girl as sensitive to beauty as Alex; in the countryside another kind of beauty; and over everything sunshine that arrived inevitably every day with the dawn.

It seemed to be tacitly understood by the other guests that Charles wanted to be with Alex. If Alex wanted to go to Pisa, then the others had already been to Pisa, and Charles would take her. With Siena and Assisi it was the same. In Florence itself, the others had already marched through the many galleries, or had no wish to, so that Alex and Charles went together. Charles, rather surprisingly, knew where everything was, and all the best things to see.

"You can't possibly see everything - it would take you years. You must see the few best things and leave the rest." So she stood before Michelangelo's David and was greatly moved ("It would be worth coming to Florence for this alone," she said to Charles afterwards), and sought out more of his work in the Medici chapel, and went to the Pitti Palace and strolled through the galleries and felt ideas and inspiration working in her.

She was excited, too, by a different kind of beauty - the leather work for which the Florentines were famous, the silver work, the wonderful embroidery and articles of straw. From a fashion point of view, there were delightful things to be had.

"Wonderful touches," said Alex enthusiastically. Everywhere the women worked hard; driving through the country villages, she saw knots of women in the doorways, seated in the shade, busily plaiting the soft Italian straw, or making it into handbags and baskets and hats; or working magnificent embroidery on fine linen or lawn. "I'm teeming with a million ideas," she said to Charles.

They went out in the morning, or in the late afternoon. After lunch everybody had a siesta. In the evening they dined late, sometimes on the terrace, and as the evening grew darker and all the lights of Florence sprang up, a new magic was born. They never wanted to do anything after dinner but sit on the terrace talking, with the serene night about them, the air wonderfully cool and full of sweet scents, the cicadas providing an everlasting accompaniment. The, others were very lazy. Florence was too crowded and too hot to go sightseeing, they said, and they sunbathed on the terrace and became very tanned. They did not know how Alex could stand all this rushing about, but rushing about was not uncomfortable when it could be done in Charles's car, with Charles as escort.

He took her to see an old friend of his, who owned a famous antique shop in Florence and a farm beyond Fiesole. They went to see him at Fiesole, where he walked with Alex in his fields, explaining the method of cultivation; the olive-trees in rows, the vines growing between the trees and often in them, the wheat or maize growing between the rows. Here, as in Charles's villa, enormous bowls of fruit tempted the visitor, peaches and melons, black cherries, greengages, and plums. "You are too early," the old man told Alex, "for the grapes and figs. Next month for those." He took it for granted that she and Charles were lovers, to Charles's amusement and her faint embarrassment, and insisted that Charles must take her on to Rome, and there and then made out for her a list of things she simply must see.

It was that evening, when they were returning to the villa to dinner, with twilight already falling over the countryside, that Alex confessed herself utterly exhausted.

"I must have walked miles with him," she said, "and although I love the heat, I'm not really used to it. So don't be surprised if I fall asleep before we get back."

"You could rest against my shoulder," suggested Charles, "and snatch forty winks while I drive."

"That would be heaven," said Alex, and promptly rested her head on Charles's shoulder and closed her eyes. Charles drove steadily on.

There had been times during that summer when he fancied he saw indications of her weakening, indications that the bulwarks she had erected against his attack were crumbling. It was possible, he admitted to himself, that it was because she had come through a busy season of the year and was thoroughly tired, and in her tiredness turned to him in softer mood than usual, more compliant, more malleable. Charles had not, during his long period of waiting, entirely denied himself the favours of other young women, but these favours he knew for what they were worth. He would give all of them for the few occasions on which Alex permitted him to draw her hand through his arm to lie in his own firm clasp, or, as now, rested against his shoulder. For there were a few such occasions, little straws in the wind.

The whole holiday did nothing to spoil the growing harmony between them. Alex thought they were on a new basis of friendliness, for he treated her with a gentleness and consideration that intensified her warmth towards him; so that Charles was persuaded that she would soon realise that they were indispensable to each other.

They came back to London, Alex refreshed and ready to start work again; Charles to prepare for a trip to the United States. And almost at once, Terence walked back into her life, Terence, whose image had faded considerably in her mind, but whom she had remembered to the extent of sending him some postcards. With his coming, all her old liking for him came back, too.

"I missed you terribly," he said. "I've never, in my life, missed anybody like it. Don't go away again for ages."

"I shan't be able to," laughed Alex. "It's back to the grindstone now."

"With time off for seeing me," he insisted.

"With time off for seeing you," she agreed.

"Did you think about me at all?" he asked. "I never ceased to think about you."

"Yes, I did, Terence. I thought you were rather like Michelangelo's David."

"My dear good woman, you must be demented," he said.

"And that's what I get," she complained, "for paying you a compliment!"

They saw a great deal of each other. Two or three Sundays Alex spent at his farm. Sometimes, in mid-week, he came to have dinner with her, or to take her to a theatre. She was now preparing to move from the flat where she had lived for many years to one which Charles had helped her to find; a far more comfortable one, with a better address and near to her work. She was excited and delighted about the move, but sorry to leave Mrs. Rabinowitz, who had become an institution in her life.

Terence asked:

"Isn't it lonely, Alex, living alone?"

"On the whole, no, because I'm busy. Sometimes, yes. Everybody living alone must have occasional desolations. You should know. You're in the same case. You have a housekeeper, you have work you like, but you're really alone."

"I wish I weren't, Alex. Now that I've found you, I know that it's a second best. Alex, I know that we've known each other about five minutes, but I couldn't be more sure in my mind if I had known you five years. I'm in love with you, darling, and I want you to marry me."

Alex looked at him in astonishment.

"Oh," she said, and paused, at a loss for words.

"Is it so astounding?" he wanted to know, "that I should love you and want you for my wife?"

"But Terence, I hardly know you. I never dreamed of such a thing. I don't want to be married - or not for ages, anyway."

"Then you don't love me, Alex."

"I don't think I do. I like you immensely - you know that. I love being with you. But marriage!" She looked almost hunted, thinking of marriage and what it would mean. "You know, Terence, if I wanted to be married, there's no one on earth I'd rather marry than you - but I want to be alone; to do my job. I suppose I'm in love with my work. I don't want any man to come between it and me."

"I wouldn't, Alex. I wouldn't dream of it. I know what it means to you, and I'd like you to go on with it. We could combine our jobs with marriage."

"And how would we do that? You have a country job, and I have a town one. Your heart is in the country, and mine is here in London. A strange sort of marriage that, Terence. No, my dear, I'm very sorry, but my answer is no."

"It can't be an irrevocable no, Alex. At least, we will go on seeing each other, won't we? You will consent to that?"

"Of course, darling. If that's what you want."

Terence thought he would make her change her mind in time, he would make himself indispensable to her.

Charles knew that she was seeing this man a good deal. He did not think Alex would marry him, knowing Alex very well. Nor did he think that she was likely to give Terence anything she had refused to give to himself. But the relationship troubled him a little. He must watch it. He, too, thought that Terence might become indispensable to her, and if any man is going to be indispensable to her, thought Charles, I know who it is going to be.

On an evening in August, Alex had dinner with Charles at his flat. The day had been hot and overcast, the atmosphere heavy and exhausting, so that Alex had preferred the refreshing coolness of Charles's sitting room to the noise and bustle of a restaurant. The long window was open on to the narrow balcony, but no breath of wind stirred the curtains. When they had had dinner and the waiter had gone, Alex sat in the deep settee with a liqueur glass in her hand and relaxed, appreciating the quiet and restfulness.

Silence settled round them. Charles smoked and sipped his brandy. Alex leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Every inch of her body and limbs was limp and at peace. She was quiet for so long that Charles thought she was sleeping.

"Are you asleep?" he asked softly.

"No."

"Very tired?"

"No. Beautifully rested."

"What will you do with yourself while I am in the States?"

"Work, of course."

"Not all the time. With your leisure?"

"Oh, I shall manage to amuse myself."

"With this farming Adonis who takes so much of your time?"

"Perhaps," she assented lazily.

He walked to the window and stood looking out. The evening was darkening and the street was quiet. Charles did not see the deserted street. He saw only Alex, saw her with her head tilted back and her eyes closed, her white throat young in its smooth loveliness, and seeming vulnerable. She had become an indispensable part of his life. He had never allowed anything or anybody to be indispensable to him before. He had enjoyed his friends, his lovers, but had always at heart been self-sufficient. He had known, on first meeting Alex, that he and she had something to give each other and had thought, automatically, of a love affair. Alex had shown him plainly what she thought of that. She had had no use for his love, but she had a great gift for friendship; and Charles was surprised to find that his liking for her grew as fast as his love, to find that, even if she continued to refuse his love, he would want her friendship.

Yes, but first and foremost, he wanted her love. He had waited a long time for her full red lips, for the comfort of her arms, the light in her eyes, the passion in her body ... He stirred and looked back into the room. This would not do - this was not the right time, when she was tired, wanting only to rest.

"Would you like some music?" he asked.

Alex smiled at him without moving her head.

"That would be nice," she said, but she wasn't thinking about music. She, too, had been far away in her thoughts, and Charles's voice had brought her back from a world where the immature Alex had planned for her future. She did not know what had transported her to the world of her childhood, but while Charles stood at the window and thought of Alex, Alex had been thinking of that grey street where her family had been notorious, of the child who was sent out to play in the street, and of Cicely and her mother, who had taken her in. She had not thought of her family for a long time. She did not want to know what had happened to them. She had nothing to thank them for. It was Cicely's mother her thanks would go to; who had given her everything worth while, from an ordinary love of cleanliness to a standard of life that was orderly, restrained, and decent; to a knowledge of worlds she had never dreamed of. Without them, where would I be, she wondered, what would have become of me?

Then Charles had asked her if she would like some music. He stood there, in front of the record cabinet, looking along the gold-lettered titles, taking some time ova: his choice. It will probably be his beloved Mozart, thought Alex idly, and sank back into her own thoughts.

It was some time before the music seeped into her consciousness. This, she realized, was already linked up with the thoughts in her mind. Why, yes, Swan Lake. Swan Lake, how strange! Why had he chosen that? He did not particularly like it - his musical taste had gone beyond it to greater subtleties and greater satisfaction. He had chosen it for her. It was a coincidence, for this music had been the next step on the way from that dreary childhood to an exciting adolescence. It had been a signpost. She remembered every detail of that night, the whirling forms of the dancers, the soaring of the music, the summer night outside the theatre ... A divine unrest had troubled her then, a groping aspiration. She felt something of the same unrest now.

She could sit still no longer. She rose to her feet and walked to the window. She was restless, imprisoned, wondering if there were still evenings in her life that were to be important milestones, if there were still great events ahead of her as there had been on that other evening; if there was no end to the things that life could offer one or demand from one....

Charles was standing watching her, rather anxiously.

"Charles," she said, "isn't life a strange and perplexing business? How are we supposed to cope with it?"

He saw that some strange mood was on her, but he did not know what it was, or what had caused it. He answered all that he could answer at that moment.

"I suppose we have to live it," he said, "as fully as we know how; as high and as deep, as completely as we can."

She turned and looked at him. Only one soft light burned near the gramophone, and they could not see each other clearly. Alex's strange and passionate emotion was filling the room, stretching between them. Suddenly, swiftly, they moved, met in the centre of the room, arms about each other, bodies held together, lips meeting in a kiss, in a wild upsurge of feeling.

At last Alex leaned back her head.

"Charles," she whispered, "oh, Charles."

They went back to the settee near the window. There was passion between them, and gentleness, too, and, at last, serenity and peace. Alex's head was on Charles's shoulder, and she did not talk. She was empty now, cool, refreshed, tired, yet at peace. No longer restless or imprisoned. Was this the milestone she had thought of? Was this the answer to how she could cope with her life?

"I love you, Alex," said Charles, "and you love me?"

"Do I?" she asked.

He laughed. It was low and satisfied.

"You are happy," she said to him, surprised.

"Why shouldn't I be - now that I know you love me?"

"I'm not sure that I do."

"I think you do, Alex. I think this is what you've wanted for a long time. I have too, but I knew it and you didn't."

The next day was a busy one for Alex. She was dressing the bride, the bride's mother, and the bridesmaids for a fashionable wedding, and the day was filled with important fittings. She resented every occupied moment, wanting solitude, wanting peace so that she could think, could review what had happened and decide what should happen in future. She was unable to concentrate, and even when, at lunch-time, she had a few minutes to devote to her personal life, she found that coherent thought was difficult and slipped off into day-dreaming, into remembering the strength and vitality of Charles's love for her.

At the end of her day's work, she had dinner at a quiet restaurant alone, and afterwards walked through the summer evening homewards. She had arrived at a cross-roads. That she knew, but she did not know which was the right way to take. She had always maintained that no man should come between her and her work, but if the love between herself and Charles was to be admitted, to be allowed to develop, it must make a great change in their lives. Would she be wise to give Charles power over herself? Could he be trusted to allow her her work undisturbed?

She had been indoors a minute or two when he arrived.

"Going out?" he asked her.

"No. Coming in."

"Good." He went close to her, took off her hat, took her face between his hands, and kissed her. Then kissed her again. "Ah," he said. "All day I tried to convince myself that this would happen."

"Were you in doubt?"

"Yes. So much waiting for you, Alex, hasn't added to my confidence. Oh, Alex, you're a nice thing. Come here. . . . There, isn't that good? Isn't that where you belong?"

Alex laughed.

"I don't know. I've been so stupid all day. Bemused. I can't think properly."

"Why do every action of your life only after prolonged thinking? Why not feel instead? How does this feel?"

"Heavenly, Charles, heavenly."

"It's going to be heavenly for us two, my dear. Why, upon my word, I believe it was worth waiting so long. It's worth so much more to me now."

It was a long time before Alex extricated herself gently from his embrace. She took off her jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. She went to the window and opened it. Then she said, almost shyly:

"I would like some coffee - will you have some?"

"Yes," said Charles, "if you must be so mundane."

Alex smiled. Charles, watching her, thought she was happy at last.

"I'm afraid my world is a mundane one," she said. "I'm not used to spiritual heights - I'm a little lost on them.

She brought the coffee into the living-room. When they had drunk half of the first cup, Charles changed the cups and drank from Alex's.

"How foolish you are," she said.

"If that's foolish, we're going to do a lot of foolish things. And a lot of amusing things. And interesting things. We're going to discover a new world, Alex, now that we're together."

She was silent, so that he looked at her thoughtfully.

"We are together, aren't we?" he asked.

"I don't know. Being together is such a terrific change for me. Such an important step to take, because I've always stayed alone, and only had to think for myself. It's such a plunge, Charles."

"Well, plunge, darling. Take a glorious header. You don't know what your life is lacking. It's too cold, too detached and self-possessed. Together, we can make it flower."

She was silent, looking down into her coffee-cup.

"What is it?" he asked her. "Out with it. Let's face all the problems and dispose of them."

"I always said," Alex said very slowly, thoughtfully, "that I wouldn't marry, that marriage wasn't for me, that no man should come between me and my work."

"Well," said Charles, "that's an easy one to dispose of. Nobody has said anything about marriage, and I'm the last person to interfere with your work. I assure you that I should always respect it and its demands upon you."

The silence this time was a different one. It was no longer merely thoughtful. It was suddenly charged with suspense. Alex sat perfectly still, and her eyes were still downcast as she looked into her coffee-cup. Her lashes lay thick and heavy over her eyes, and Charles could not see them, yet he knew that he had made a mistake. And as he watched her, a dark flush crept over her face, up to the roots of her hair, and very slowly died away again. Still she did not move, did not speak. The silence lengthened, and Charles felt her going farther and farther away from him while it lasted. It must be broken, but he could not find the right words. What was going on behind that motionless, beautiful face? He said softly:

"Alex."

She looked up then, and he saw that her real self was hidden. She smiled at him.

"More coffee, Charles? No? And I've made such a lot. Well, I shall have to drink it myself."

"Alex," he said, pleading.

She poured herself some more coffee and drank it. He knew that, at this moment, her first concern was to hide the hurt he had given her. He admired the fortitude that upheld her. He longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, and knew that was the wrong approach.

She put down her cup and went to the window. Charles followed her, standing behind her shoulder.

"What is it now, Alex? Tell me what you're thinking."

"You won't like it, Charles."

"Tell me."

"I was thinking how near I came to forgetting my resolves. How stupid I was to think of joining my life to somebody else's, of sinking myself into another person. Because, of course, I can't."

"You can, Alex, and you will because we love each other."

"Love! Love! I've seen a lot of things going on under the name of love. Some of them I'd prefer not to have in my life. Love is selfish and demanding. You want something from me now, and so you say you love me."

"I say more. I say you love me."

"I can do without love," said Alex. "Love makes a mess of people's lives."

"You're bitter."

"Yes."

"You weren't like this earlier - or last night."

"No. I came near forgetting to be sensible."

He took her into his arms, and she closed her eyes and summoned her strength. Not to repulse him. She knew that was useless. But to be motionless and unstirred in his arms. At last he let her go.

"You can be hard, Alex."

"But not so hard as you, Charles."

"Let's be honest with each other. You thought I wanted to marry you, Alex."

"Yesterday and to-day, yes."

"But if you look at it sensibly, you'll see that that would defeat all your own ends. That way, you would lose your individuality and your work would suffer. That way, we would be tied together, perhaps long after we wanted to be. This way, we have our freedom. You as well as I. You are free to do as you wish, just as I am. For a woman like yourself, with a career to consider, and boundless opportunities, this is the way to enjoy life."

"You may be right," said Alex.

Her manner indicated that she did not wish to discuss the matter further. Charles had come up against a determination to match his own. He took her shoulders and turned her round to face him.

"Alex," he said, "let's find a way together."

"No," she said. "I don't want to find a way. I would like to be alone."

"But this needs discussing now."

"I don't wish to discuss it."

He flung out his hands in a gesture of impatience and despair.

"Will you please go now?" asked Alex.

"May I see you to-morrow?"

"I shall be very busy to-morrow."

"I leave for the States on Friday."

"Then it looks as if I must say good-bye to you now. I hope you will have a successful trip."

He paused, wondering how to make contact with her again.

"Alex, I can't go with this all wrong between us."

"We're simply back where we have been for so long."

"No. Something has happened to our understanding."

"I understand you, Charles."

"And I haven't understood you?"

"No," she cried, suddenly stung, "you haven't understood me. In the most important things, you haven't understood me."

"Alex!"

"Good-bye, Charles."

It was final. There was nothing to be gained by staying now. He held out his hand, and, after a moment, she gave him hers with obvious reluctance. He looked into her eyes and saw only a determined coldness. So he went away and left her alone.

Alex walked about the room, once more caged, imprisoned, trapped in frustration and despair. She was cast down into a pit of misery and black unhappiness. She paced the room, pushing the knuckles of one hand into the palm of the other, trying to control the wave of desolation, striving for calmness.

I've always held my head high, she thought. I've never given him the slightest reason to think that I would be his mistress. We've been the best of friends, and he should have understood me by now - he should have known that it was marriage or nothing. Why didn't he? He thought we were together - he was taking it for granted - he thought it would be good enough for me. Why, why, why? Am I no better than my wretched family?... But I have been different - my whole life has been different. I have worked and studied and held my head high, and he had absolutely no right to think I would live with him. Oh, Charles, why didn't you ask me to marry you? Why didn't you?

But he didn't, Alex.

Now he is going to America. For four weeks, perhaps five, I shan't have to see him again. I wish I need never see him again. Only yesterday, I thought he was my release, thought he would lead me to wider worlds. Would I have married him then? Yes, I would. In spite of all the things I have always said, I would have married him. I believe he would have understood about my work. ... It was heaven to be in his arms: a very brief glimpse of heaven, and then a speedy throwing out into outer darkness. But I will not desert my principles. I will be proud and I will work and work and I'll be self-sufficient. But Charles, if you had only understood!

CHAPTER V

Douglas went to meet Alex at the station and brought her back to the farmhouse to a radiant Cicely, who met her with the usual warm welcome.

"Alex, I'm so glad to see you, and how lovely you look! And just look at me, will you? Slim again."

Cicely twirled before Alex, slim and trim in a yellow dress, and Alex smiled in response to such obvious delight.

"I want to see my goddaughter," she said, "before I do anything else. Where is she?"

"Sleeping in her pram in the garden. Will you really be godmother? Of course we were going to ask you - we have already named her for you. She is Jane Alexandra."

They went to inspect the sleeping baby, and returned to the house for tea. Douglas had his quickly and excused himself, knowing that the two young women liked to chat together, and wanting to get back to the farm. Cicely said:

"Terence is coming over to-morrow. He invited himself as soon as he knew you were coming - you don't mind?"

"No," said Alex, "it will be nice."

Cicely looked at her friend for a few moments thoughtfully before she said:

"What's the matter, Alex?"

"Nothing is the matter," she said, with a bright smile. A too-bright smile, thought Cicely, who had lived with her long enough to recognize most of her moods and expressions.

"Nothing on your mind?" she asked.

"Oh, always thousands of things on my mind," replied Alex.

"You look tired and worn. I wish you could stay with us for more than a week-end, and get really rested."

"I'm not tired or worn," said Alex, "and work is the one thing that is really good for me."

"But not all work, darling. Doesn't Charles keep an eye on you any more, and take you away from it sometimes?"

"Charles is in America," said Alex.

"Then I shall drop a hint to Terence that he must. You looked so well when you came back from Italy, glowing and on top of the world, and now you look as if you could do with another holiday."

Alex realised that Cicely was genuinely concerned about her. I shall have to disguise my feelings better than this, she thought. She smiled across the tea-table at her friend.

"I suppose everybody comes up against difficult times occasionally," she said. "I just seem to have hit a bad patch - nothing goes right. I find myself getting irritable, I even snap at the girls, which you know is unusual with me. Just for the time being, the savour has gone out of everything. Fortunately, Miss Lawson knows me well enough to put up with me and act as a buffer between me and the girls. Do you know, Cicely, she has really turned out to be a trump! She even exerts a little mild authority over the junior fitters nowadays."

Cicely recognized this as an attempt to change the conversation. She said:.

"Well, if you don't want to talk about it, don't. But it isn't financial difficulties?"

"No, that's all right. It's I who am off balance."

"And you haven't got Charles to restore the balance, as he so often has for you in the past."

"No, I haven't got Charles," said Alex, and passed her cap for more tea. But Cicely had known her for so long, for most of her life, and she had many times cheered her out of despondency, encouraged her in moods of self-doubt; and at once she recognised the slight dryness in Alex's voice, the firm shutting of a door on thoughts that could trouble her. So Charles has become a problem, has he, thought Cicely, and wondered in what way.

No, I haven't got Charles, thought Alex. And that is the whole trouble with me. I haven't got Charles.

She felt again the ache at her heart and the lump in her throat that were becoming only too familiar. It was a constant battle nowadays against tears and depression. If only he had never touched her! If only they had gone on steadily in the old relationship! But perhaps it was always a dangerous one, she thought. Perhaps it always needed just one spark to set it alight. Since that night when they had acknowledged their love for each other, she had been unable to forget him - or to forget it. It was one perfect evening; one short time of bliss before her disillusionment, and she could not forget the Charles of that evening. Her peace and tranquillity were shattered, and for the first time in her life it was an effort for her to work.

Cicely did her best to help, while aware that she could really do nothing. Terence did a good deal more, when he arrived the next day, simply by being his friendly, attentive self and by not seeing that anything was wrong. Coolly masterful, he took possession of Alex as soon as he arrived, and marched her off for a long walk while she protested that she wanted to help Cicely cook lunch.

"You know," he said, "that you'll hinder rather than help in the kitchen."

"I resent that," she said. "Don't I look after myself?"

"No. You eat in restaurants and make yourself a most unsatisfactory breakfast, and can only cook coffee. Cicely told me you often used to forget to eat unless she cooked for you. Isn't that true, Cicely?"

"Quite true. Take her off for a good walk."

He asked her questions about her new flat, and the decorations she was planning for it. Much of the gilt had gone off that particular gingerbread for her lately, but his interest in it began to revive her own, and she found herself telling him of colour schemes, of plans for alterations, of good pieces of furniture she was finding for it.

"I want to redecorate the drawing-room at the farm," said Terence. "You must give me your advice."

"I'd love to - I love having a finger in other people's pies. That kind of pie, at least."

"I continue to hope, of course, that you'll be the one to hold sway there, so the decorations must be to your taste."

"You shouldn't go on hoping, you know, Terence."

"That's something you are powerless to stop," he said.

"But you will only be disappointed."

"Are you so sure?" he asked. "So sure that you will never want to marry me?"

"How can I be sure?" she cried. "I only know I don't want to marry anybody now."

He was aware then of a certain strain in her. He said reassuringly:

"My dear, don't worry about it. I'm not going to pester you. I know you don't want to get married now; and I won't keep bringing the subject up. Just let me go on seeing you, that's all I ask."

"Oh, Terence, you are such a nice person," she said.

"Good - that's at least one step in the right direction," he said, smiling down at her.

After lunch, when Alex had gone to her room for something, Cicely said to Terence:

"It struck me this week-end that Alex was rather despondent. Not her usual confident self."

Terence thought about it for a moment.

"Yes, I believe you're right," he said.

"I think she needs a little bolstering up right now."

"Alex! She never gives the impression of needing help from outside."

"But she does need it sometimes all the same - like all the rest of us. I know how she feels about her business, but there are times when all the little problems get her down."

"I don't suppose that I could advise her about those."

"But you could cheer her up, Terence."

Terence looked at Cicely questioningly.

"Are you, in fact, asking me to cheer her up?"

"Yes, I'm sure you would do it so satisfactorily."

It was an assignment that he could undertake wholeheartedly. One night each week he went to town to meet her, and she found herself looking forward to his" visits. Each Sunday, in spite of a growing pile of invitations from other sources, she went to Cicely's farm, and Terence would join them there. There was a serenity about this place and a congeniality that were balm to Alex in her present state, and she soaked up a good deal of this atmosphere, and almost persuaded herself that she would be able to forget Charles's recent behaviour before too long. She knew that it would be necessary to meet him in the way of business, but they would go back to their old status. (There is no going back, said a small voice in her mind, but she ignored its insistence.)

She moved into her new home, and felt that she was making a fresh start in more ways than one. It was so much grander than anything she had had before that she did not at first feel at home in it; but after she had given her housewarming party to Cicely and Douglas, Cicely's parents and Terence, and the rooms had been filled with their talk and laughter, she began to feel a friendliness for it.

Charles was still in the States. He had not written to her, but flowers arrived regularly for her on his order to the florist. Alex tried to be severe with herself and keep him out of her mind, but the fact remained that she missed him, and at each knock on her door, each ring of the telephone, her mind jumped to him and had to be dragged back to reality. She missed the companionship of their evenings together, missed telling him about the events of her day, the people she had met, and receiving his sometimes caustic comment on them. Would it be possible to go back to those evenings of relaxed comradeship, or had they gone for ever?

This was something that could be not decided until his return, and, at times, she found herself impatient for it. In spite of Terence and Terence's comforting effect on her, she found herself more and more occupied with thoughts of Charles, angry that he had not written, listening for the telephone bell during her evenings at home. For he should be returning soon, if he had not already returned.

One evening, a rather cold evening already tinged with autumn, she was occupied with work which she had brought home to do. She had had a long working-bench fitted at one end of her living-room, and this was now scattered with papers and drawings. Her paints "were out, too, and her brushes stood ready in a jar. She was comfortably dressed in a scarlet shirt and black velvet slacks, and her dark hair was rumpled. Concentration on her work had made her eyes brilliant. For once, she was absorbed and had temporarily forgotten Charles, and then there came the knock on her door which was unmistakably his. Strangely, she was too absorbed and too weary, too, to be pleased. She opened the door and he stood there smiling at her.

"Alex, it's good to see you. How are you?"

"Hallo, Charles," she said. "Come in."

He stepped into the small hall, closed the door behind him, tossed his hat aside, and turned back to her.

"So you are installed," he said. "And you like it here?"

"Very much." She led him into the living-room. "You look very well, Charles; did you have a good trip?"

He was looking about him at the living-room, seeing what she had done with it. Then he looked back at her and studied her for a few moments.

"A cold and formal greeting," he observed. "You don't look very well, Alex. You're thinner. What have you been doing to wear yourself out?"

"I'm quite well," she said, "and I don't think I'm any thinner."

"Business all right? Good. No worries? Then I expect you've been missing me." He did not wait for a reply to that, but walked to the work-bench. "Is this what you were busy on when I arrived?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Very attractive," he said, turning the designs over. "Very good. You are such a talented girl, Alex.... I hope you don't work every evening."

"No, of course not."

"But probably more than is good for you. Have you had dinner?"

"No. I was going to make some coffee."

"Alex! I'm surprised at you - that you have so little sense. You can't work all day and most of the evening without food. No wonder you are thinner. I'll take you out to dinner."

"No, thank you, I can't be bothered to change."

"Then come as you are," he said.

"My dear Charles! I should never so far forget myself as to come out to dinner in slacks with you."

He looked at her thoughtfully, recognising an edge of bitterness in her tone.

"Then we'll have it at my flat," he said. "I'll use your telephone to order it, and it will be there as soon as we are."

He took over the management of the evening calmly and naturally. He ordered the food he knew she liked, and drove her to his flat. He plied her with food and tempted her with wine. He did not expect her to talk, but was amusing, entertaining, telling her of his trip through the United States.

Alex felt her resentment and bitterness draining away. The excellent dinner had done her good - she had not realised how hungry she was. The easy companionship was comfortable and reassuring. When Charles took her home again, shaking her hand at parting, promising to see her soon, making no attempt at any sort of intimacy, she thought that things could be as they had always been. He had been charming, tactful and sympathetic. He had, at one stroke, put them back on the old footing. Now, they could go on in the old way.

This optimistic conclusion, however, soon proved to be wrong. Outwardly, there might be some justification for it, for the evening engagements with Charles went on as they had always done, his advice was always available to her, their long telephone conversations were as frequent as before. His flowers decorated her flat, together they listened to music in his, they were often at the theatre together. Charles kept to the rules, remembering the promise he had made Alex in the early days of their acquaintance: that, as long as she wished it, theirs should be a purely business relationship.

It was Alex herself who discovered that, with all this outward similarity between the past and the present, there was a fundamental difference. And that difference was in herself.

Charles was correct and irreproachable. As the days went by, it was this correctness that exasperated her. He had restored the old state of affairs between them, and the old state of affairs was not enough for her now. She had briefly glimpsed a different state, and the memory of it made the old seem unsatisfying. She could not go back.

She told herself she must go back. There was no going forward in Charles's way. Yet Charles had obviously no intention of going forward in hers. He did not intend to marry. Then, if there could be no going forward, she must force herself to go back.

She had not reckoned with the weakness of human flesh. Without Charles, she was frustrated and lonely. With him was tormented. During the day she looked forward only to seeing him, but when she saw him, her need for contact with him was so strong, so urgent that it was unbearable. Her life seemed to be full of this one thing: love for Charles, desire for Charles, even obsession with him.

The obsession grew until it affected her working, her eating, and her sleeping. She continually took herself to task. No man should come between her and her job. Girls no longer pined away for love of a man. She would get over this thing. Yet, when she did not hear from him for several days, she grew desperate with anxiety. Had he met with an accident? Had he found a woman who attracted him and was less difficult than herself? Had he at last tired of her prolonged efforts to keep him at arm's length?

When he did come, Alex was expecting Cicely to come later. For Cicely was at a theatre with an old office friend and would spend the night with Alex before returning to the farm next morning. Alex knew that they would probably talk far into the night, so she had lit a fire against the chill of the autumn evening and had drawn the settee up before it. When Charles arrived, she was annoyed, after her anxiety, to find him so matter-of-fact, so casual, so unperturbed. He had made a business trip to Paris and had brought her back some expensive perfume. He was mildly surprised that she should have been anxious and told her that he was flattered.

The coffee-tray was standing on a low table by the settee.

"Do you live on coffee?" Charles wanted to know.

"Almost," she told him. "It's freshly made. Will you have some?"

"Thank you." He waited until she was seated in the corner of the settee and then sat beside her. She gave him some coffee, took some herself, and they sat looking into the fire.

She was aware of his lightest movement, of his breathing, even of his stillness. It seemed that all her strength had drained away from her. She was weak with her longing for him.

This won't do, she told herself. Get a grip on yourself, Alex. She rose from her seat.

"I am doing the costumes for a new musical show," she told Charles, "which comes on about Christmas-time. Would you like to see the sketches?"

"Very much," he said, and walked with her to her workbench. She brought out her designs, and Charles's shoulder touched hers as he leaned over to look at them. He did not even notice the touch, but Alex caught her breath and trembled, and moved away quickly to find something else. There was a lot to see, a lot to discuss about the new show, and it served to keep her mind away from her own longing, but at last the subject was exhausted, at last they were once more silent on the settee before the glowing fire.

"Well," said Charles at last, "time for me to be off."

"Oh, don't go yet," said Alex.

"But you look tired."

"No, I'm not. Stay a little longer."

"What's the matter, Alex? Depressed?"

"A little, perhaps."

"You've been a bit low all the evening," he commented.

"Let's have a drink," she said, and rose to bring him one.

"What's depressing you, Alex?" he asked.

"I'm not really depressed. Don't encourage me to be moody, Charles."

So they talked a little longer, and he realised that, far from being helpful to her, he was causing her dejection to grow. But he would not help her now. She had made the rules, he thought, and if they were to be broken, she could break them herself. So he sat and talked pleasantly of this and that until Alex's nerves were raw.

At last he said again that it was time for him to go. She rose with him.

"Well, if you must, you must," she said. "You don't want to be alone," he said.

"No, Charles."

"This is a new departure for you, Alex."

"I know."

"You aren't nervous of anything?"

"You know I'm not, Oh, Charles!"

He looked at her intently, and her dark eyes looked steadily back at him, filled with pain, filled with longing.

"Stay with me, Charles," she whispered.

"My dear, you're not yourself," he said.

"I was never more myself." And again she said pleadingly: "Charles."

"What is it?"

"You know what it is. Don't you?"

"Yes," he said, "I know."

"Well?"

"To-morrow, Alex, you will be grateful that I gave you a chance to back out."

"No. To-morrow will be no better than to-day, or yesterday, or all the other yesterdays."

He drew a long breath.

"You can't do without me, Alex."

"No, I can't do without you."

Still he gave her her opportunity for withdrawal.

"Quite sure?" he asked her.

"Quite sure," she replied.

"Come here," he said.

She went into his arms. With relief that was incredible, with longing that amazed her, with passion that could shake them to their depths. They kissed, and kissed again.

"Oh, darling," said Alex, lost to the whole world.

"You won't regret this, Alex," he whispered to her. "I shall make you so happy. You've never really been happy - but you will be with me."

She did not answer. She looked at him with eyes that were filled with love for him. He had touched the hidden spring of her beauty - she was lovely and quite radiant. She put her arms round his neck and pulled his head down to hers.

Into the peaceful silence, cutting across their rapturous mood, came the shrill sounding of the door-bell. Alex stiffened in Charles's arms, and Charles looked into her face, startled.

"What the deuce can that be?" he asked, and he saw her face change, saw her stricken look, as recollection came back to her.

"Cicely," she said, horrified.

"Cicely?"

"Yes. She's coming to spend the night here!"

"Alex!"

Alex shook her head in dismay.

"I - had - completely - forgotten," she said, and he saw that it was true; that she had been carried away by the force of her emotion and forgotten everything else. Disappointment flooded into them. Charles released her, and flung out his arms in a gesture of despair.

"What am I to do?" asked Alex, still not quite able to get a grip on herself.

"You'd better let her in," said Charles grimly.

Alex turned to the door. Then she turned back to Charles swiftly, flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. Only then did she go through the small hall and open the door to Cicely. Charles heard the murmured greetings, and then a bright voice saying:

"Were you asleep, Alex? Did I disturb you?"

"No, I wasn't asleep," replied Alex, and then they came into the room together. "Charles is here. You've never met…"

Cicely glanced at her quickly, immediately aware of something strange, and then back to Charles, smiling with pleasure.

"No, but I'm very happy to meet you now - I've heard so much about you."

Charles made a little polite conversation, giving Alex time to recover herself. Cicely vouchsafed that she had been to the theatre, so they could talk about the play and the actors; and Charles saw that Alex outwardly became her old self.

"Oh, coffee! Good!" said Cicely, seeing the tray by the settee.

"That was hours ago," said Alex. "I'll make some more."

"Let me make it," offered Cicely.

"Certainly not. That's about the only thing in the kitchen I'm good at," said Alex.

"Well, I'll get off," put in Charles, "and leave you to argue about the coffee. It's getting late." He glanced at his watch, and was surprised to discover that it was not yet very late.

"I'll come and see you out," said Alex. "You could start the coffee if you will, Cicely."

"Certainly - I think I know where to find everything." She said good night to Charles and made her way into the diminutive kitchen, wondering why it was necessary for Charles to hurry away the moment she arrived; wondering why Alex had taken so long to open the door and was obviously put out when she did so; wondering just what had happened to make the atmosphere so electric when she came in.

Charles closed the living-room door when he and Alex went into the hall, and switched off the light there. Alex went into his arms, and they kissed passionately.

"Alex, you crazy, crazy girl," said Charles. "Of all the evenings we've had together, to choose this one."

"I didn't choose it," she said. "Out of the blue, it chose me.

Oh, Charles, I am so sorry."

"The way things seem to conspire against me," he whispered into her hair, "I begin to believe I shall never have you.''

"Damn, damn, damn," she said into his shoulder.

He held her close to him.

"Did it mean so much to you?" he wanted to know.

"Yes, yes, yes," she said, beginning to realise that he was going away from her again with all her longing unassuaged.

"There is always to-morrow, darling," he said.

"Yes," on a sigh, "there is always to-morrow, I suppose."

When will Cicely go?"

"In the morning, I think. She has to get back to the baby. She will almost certainly go before lunch."

"Then I'll come round in the early afternoon, Alex."

"I have to meet the theatre people, about the costumes," she said. "Perhaps I can put them off..."

"Oh, no," said Charles. "See your people. I shall survive until the evening."

"But will I?" asked Alex, holding herself close to him.

"You'd better," he said. "I refuse to be disappointed again," and bent his head to kiss her again.

At last she drew away.

"I must go back," she said. "Good night, darling Charles."

He went away, and Alex stood in the darkness composing herself to meet Cicely. She went into the living-room just as Cicely came in from the kitchen. They smiled at each other.

"Coffee's ready, but you seem to be out of sugar," said Cicely, not unaware of the dreams in Alex's eyes, the rapt expression, nor of the fact that she was still bemused with love.

"There's sugar in the little blue tin," said Alex.

The sugar found, they sat before the fire with their coffee just where Alex and Charles had sat earlier in the evening. As she watched the fire dying down, Alex thought it matched the fires in herself, which were also dying down, so that the evening, after so much emotion, was taking a flat flavour, was filled with anti-climax.

"I'm very sorry, Alex," said Cicely, "if I barged in at a most inappropriate moment."

Alex could hot bring herself to say that the moment was not inappropriate. She smiled a little ruefully and said:

"Oh, that's all right, Cicely. I suppose I lost track of the time."

"I hope it wasn't something terribly important. Will you be able to pick up where you left off?"

Alex wondered if Cicely thought they had been engaged on business. Pick up where we left off? she wondered. Can people so easily pick up just where they leave off?

"Perhaps," said Alex. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course," went on Cicely conversationally, "I've seen pictures of your Charles in magazines and papers, so I did know more or less what to expect. But it's strange how different people are when you meet them in the flesh."

"And how was Charles different?" asked Alex.

"Much grimmer than I thought he would be. A much stronger personality than he appears in print..."

"He isn't at all grim," said Alex.

"Then you must have been fighting," said Cicely lightly.

Cicely was feeling her way very carefully, so much in the dark about this part of Alex's private life that she was afraid of stumbling into unknown traps. She had guessed before that Charles was a problem, and she realised this evening that it was a dangerous and explosive problem. When she arrived at the flat Alex had been all to pieces. Cicely had been quite aware of Charles's efforts to spread polite conversation over a difficult pause, and to give Alex time to recover herself. It was not like Alex to go to pieces. It was not like Alex to be easy prey to her emotions. What could be upsetting her so?

The most obvious solution that occurred to Cicely was that Charles wanted to marry Alex, and that Alex would not marry him because of her absorbing interest in her work. For Cicely had only too often heard Alex declare that she had no time yet for men on a permanent basis. But that did not quite fit in with Alex's despair. She might be worried in that case, and preoccupied - but surely not so despairing.

Could it be that Alex was cherishing a hopeless love for Charles? Was she hiding an unrequited passion behind her cool and detached exterior? Well, there was nothing hidden about the electric tension and the emotion-filled atmosphere of the living-room when Cicely had stepped into it. There was, of course, a third possible solution.

Alex broke the silence to enquire about Douglas and the small Jane Alexandra.

"They're both fine," said Cicely. "This is the first time I've left the baby. I wouldn't have done, only Peggy is off to Canada and wanted to see me before she goes, and couldn't really spare the time to come and see me. Besides, it was fun to be coming up here."

"And how is Peggy?" asked Alex. Not that she wanted to know, but it kept the conversational ball rolling.

"Thrilled of course; a wedding, and a job for her husband in Canada - all sorts of unknown adventures ahead. I believe all my friends are married now - all those glamour girls turned into respectable young marrieds like me. Except you, Alex."

"Except me," said Alex dryly.

"And that isn't for lack of opportunity. I'm sure Terence is head over heels in love, and would marry you tomorrow if you said the word. And what about Charles?"

"Charles?" Alex looked at Cicely and laughed. "Charles doesn't want to marry me," she said. "Charles wouldn't marry anybody. I think the first thing I ever heard about him, from Madame, was that he was a confirmed bachelor; and it's true. Women, oh, yes; beautiful, talented, charming women. But not a wife."

"That's fine," said Cicely, thinking so that was how the wind blew, and knowing that she was hurting Alex, "because it leaves Terence a clear field, and I'm sure he's much nicer than Charles. And you don't exclude marriage from your plans for ever, do you, Alex?"

"I don't know," said Alex. "I just don't know. At the moment, I think there is too much talk of love and marriage - it's not the whole of life..."

"But it's a pretty big bit of it," interrupted Cicely. . "And I'm busy, with plenty of new work to think about, and plenty of friends - more than I've time for - so I can leave marriage a little longer."

"Don't leave it too long. I can thoroughly recommend it. It's a grand thing for a woman, Alex."

She left it there. She would not intrude if Alex preferred to keep her problems to herself. She could not bring herself to say outright: Don't make a mess of your life, darling.

She carried the coffee-cups into the kitchen to wash them, and said she was tired and would like to go to bed. Alex said she would tidy up her papers and drawings before she came, but when Cicely had gone into the bedroom she did not move to the work-bench. She sat for a long time before the almost-dead fire, lost in thought.

CHAPTER VI

Next morning Charles spent with his private secretary, a keen and zealous young man, who, having been trained to work at Charles's pace, now saw that he kept to it, so that it was necessary (but much more difficult than usual) for Charles to concentrate on his work. He lunched with a business associate, and then went on to a meeting of the committee of a large charitable organisation, of which he was a vice-president.

This was his first real opportunity to clear his mind of what seemed unimportant trifles, and to think of Alex; Alex as she had been last night, an Alex who flung herself into his arms and gave him passion for passion. The Chairman droned on and on, minutes were read, resolutions were put and seconded, voted on and carried, but Charles did his part perfunctorily, his mind elsewhere.

A wonderful glow of anticipation was colouring his day. At last, his long-suffering patience with Alex was to be rewarded. Alex, Alex. He remembered the day he had first seen her, the tall, lovely girl standing in Madame's showroom turning over materials with her beautiful hands. Cool and poised and detached she had been, and he had at once wanted to break into that detachment, to make her aware of him. But, in spite of all her interest in him, in spite of the growing friendship between them, he had never really broken into her detachment, her self- sufficiency, until fairly recently. He had never waited so long on anybody's pleasure.

The waiting had not been tedious, however, because he had soon realised that she had far more to offer than he had at first thought of claiming. She had intelligence and enthusiasm and ideas, so that, without being able to make love to her, he had still been happy to be with her, intrigued, interested, pleased. After her first wariness with him, and when her natural reserve had worn off, she talked to him with zest of her ideas and plans. He remembered how he had given but little of his mind to what she said, and much more to the way in which she said it - her eyes brilliant, her words eager, all her ardour poured into this work she loved. He would watch her lips forming the words she spoke and want to touch them with his own, watch the rapid, descriptive gestures of her hands, and want to catch them into his, and hold them still. He had realised, with a keen pleasure, that, although she had had escorts for dining and dancing and the theatre, she had allowed nobody to make love to her.

Now, at last, they would find love together. He took a deep breath, surprised at the turmoil within him, at the depth of feeling she had evoked in him.

That evening, when he thought she would be home, he called at her flat, but there was no answer to his ring. She was not home yet. He would wait in his car at the entrance for her to come along. He would see her the moment she turned the corner, before she saw him, and would watch her elegantly walking towards him. She would look happy, too. And they would come up the stairs again, and into the flat together....

He waited for a long time, impatience mounting in him. Then he left the car and went to a telephone box to ring her office to see if she was there. There was no reply, everybody had gone home. Then the theatre people were keeping her, he presumed. Once those discussions started, there was no knowing when they would stop, but surely Alex, on this night of all nights, would not allow them to keep her so long. Wryly, he thought of the many occasions on which he had kept people waiting, and resigned himself to waiting a little longer.

Then he remembered the name of one of the men she was to meet, and once more was off to the telephone to try to find her. But Alex had left hours ago, this man told him, apparently to go home.

Charles felt a sharp stab of anxiety. Surely no accident had befallen her? Last night had been an almost unbearable disappointment - surely a malicious twist of fate would not bring an even greater one? He waited in growing anxiety, and then went back to his own flat. Alex could not get in touch with him while he sat about in his car, waiting. She had probably already telephoned him at home.

There was no message there, however, and she did not telephone during the evening. He had an Assistant Commissioner of Police among his friends, and telephoned him, and some time later received the information that nobody remotely resembling Miss Paul had been involved in an accident that evening.

His disappointment, coming at the end of that day of anticipation, was one of the bitterest things he had had to bear. Is this a sort of revenge on her part? he wondered, and knew almost immediately that it was not. Hadn't she been nearly beside herself last night with longing for him? There had been no mistaking that. He could only wait in wretched impatience to find out what had happened.

The following morning told him all too plainly, in a letter written in Alex's dashing handwriting.

"Dear Charles," he read,

"This is the end. This is good-bye, really good-bye. To what depths of madness would you bring me? I can no longer be collected when I am with you, hardly even sane, so I mustn't be with you in future. When we must talk business, we can do so in my office, and except for business I don't want to see you again.

"You won't understand this, I am sure. You will have no sympathy with my struggles. For it has been the worst struggle of my life to come to this decision. But my mind is quite made up. I will not desert my principles and the way of life I have chosen, and I would not choose to run the risk of living these last dreadful weeks through again.

"I have had some wonderful times with you, Charles. In different circumstances we could have had even more wonderful ones, but that is only a mirage.

"So good-bye, and please don't try to see me. It will only prolong the struggle and end in bitterness.

"Alex"

So that's it, thought Charles, reading the letter once more before folding it and returning it to its envelope. So that's it. Was it Cicely who got at her last evening? Or simply that the cold light of dawn put the whole thing in a different light for her? She can't, of course, get away with it. She loves me, she will not be able to stand out.

He telephoned her repeatedly at her flat, invariably without reply. She must be there sometimes, he thought, and rang at unlikely times - when she should be breakfasting, or when she might be going to bed. She could not always ignore the telephone's ringing when it might be something important to her business - he must get her in the end. When he failed to do so, he rang her office, but the receptionist gave him always the same reply. Miss Paul was engaged, or she was not available, or she was out. When he refused to give his name, he was no more fortunate, for the receptionist knew his voice, and was acting upon instructions. So, grimly, Charles went round to see her.

He walked through the entrance hall with a good morning for the porter and an air of one who would not be denied. Straight up the stairs to Alex's office, and with a somewhat peremptory tap on her door, straight in.

Alex was deep in conversation with two men. She looked up, surprised, as her door burst open; and saw Charles. A Charles who looked so determined that her heart failed her.

He nodded to the men, whom he did not know.

"When is it convenient for me to see you?" he asked Alex.

"At the moment you can see I'm busy," she said coldly.

"Very well, I'll wait," he said, and went out to station himself in an armchair on the wide landing, where he could see her door. When it opened, she came out with the two men, smiling and talking, and would have gone down the stairs with them, but that Charles rose and came towards her looking so grim that she changed her mind. She shook hands with them both there, and turned back into her room with Charles's hand on her elbow.

"You are unpardonably rude," she said, when he had closed the door behind them."

"I'm tired of trying to get hold of you," he said. "Where have you been?"

"Where I felt reasonably certain of my privacy," she said. "I asked you not to try to see me."

"You must have known I should take no notice of that. Your letter was hardly sufficient explanation of what was, you must admit, somewhat astounding behaviour."

"I said, in .that letter, that you wouldn't understand, but surely it's plain enough. I also said in the letter that I will not desert my principles, and that is still true."

"But you couldn't change overnight!"

"I did change overnight - that's obvious."

There was a tap at the door. A beautiful girl appeared in the doorway.

"Miss D'Elboux is here, Miss Paul."

"Oh." Alex reflected. "When is her appointment?"

"It was two or three minutes ago."

"Ask her if she will be so good as to wait five minutes, and then show her in."

The girl went away, and Alex turned to Charles.

"You haven't chosen a good time, Charles - I have a very busy morning, Will you excuse me?"

"Not until you arrange a time to see me, so that we can talk. You might as well fix a time, Alex, because I shall give you no peace until you do."

"Then it might as well be soon, so that I can count upon a little peace."

"Dinner this evening?"

"Very well."

"At my flat, at eight-thirty?"

"Not at your flat. Outside somewhere."

He smiled sardonically at her.

"Not quite sure of your courage? or determination? Very well, Alex, in a restaurant. But that is a promise?"

"Yes," she said, "it's a promise."

He arranged a time and a place and went away, and Alex tried to concentrate upon the trousseau of Miss D'Elboux. She had had several days, since she sent Charles that letter, to strengthen her resolve, and she was determined that nothing he could say would shake her.

She had suffered a shock that evening when Cicely arrived from the theatre, and it was Alex herself who had administered the shock. She had sat before the dead ashes of the fire for a long .time after Charles had gone and Cicely was in bed; shocked and surprised at her own behaviour. It had, quite obviously, come to a stage when she could not rely on her judgment when she was with Charles; that judgment was clouded by her love. She would, that evening, have thrown in her lot with Charles's, would have lowered the proud standard she had flown for so long; and would not have realized, perhaps, in the satisfying of her love and desires, the bitterness of her defeat. That would have come later.

She had thought of Cicely. Cicely was very much alive to atmospheres. She would not have missed the particular one pervading the flat that evening. Alex thought she had recognised the whole problem - her careful conversation had indicated it. Her recommendation of marriage, her reminder that Terence was at hand to make it possible, her questions about Charles, all made the same plea to Alex. She had not said to Alex, "Don't make a mess of your life, darling," but Alex was as much aware of her feeling as if the words had been spoken aloud.

She thought further of Cicely - her marriage and her small daughter, and the high example she set in everything. Kind and thoughtful and tactful: so understanding of other people's problems that she would even understand Alex's, would even accept a situation between Alex and Charles that she would never accept for herself. And that was it. Alex knew that, from somewhere, she was going to find the strength to turn Charles down.

What sort of life would she lead if she did not? A strange, equivocal life. The secrecies, the evasions, the planning that would be necessary must surely take some of the gilt off the gingerbread. And how long would it be before it became known? Even if she continued to live in this flat, and Charles in his, some suspicious mind would discover it, and some scandal- loving tongue spread it. She had heard plenty of such scandal - in her world it was impossible to avoid it altogether. She would not have it applied to herself.

So she sent her letter to Charles. So she fortified herself for the struggle that she knew, knowing Charles, was ahead. And now she felt strong enough to grapple with him.

She looked beautiful that evening in her black evening dress. The coat that went with it was lined with scarlet, but that was the only dramatic note, and when she took it off at dinner, the simplicity of the dress accentuated her beauty. Alex was always chic rather than dressed with prettiness, and Charles appreciated this. She was striking: her dark hair was very dark, her brown eyes brilliant, her lashes long and thick, the pale olive of her complexion flawless.

"You grow more beautiful all the time," he told her.

"Thank you," she said, almost, he thought, tossing his compliment away before his eyes. But it was true. He grew accustomed so quickly to the beauty of the women he had loved, but not to Alex's. She changed all the time - maturing perhaps.

Charles ordered the food and the wine, and then turned back to Alex. She had settled herself back comfortably in her chair, but he leaned forward, his arms on the edge of the table, to speak to her.

"Now," he said, "let's confront the ogre and dispose of him."

"In other words?" asked Alex.

"Give me the explanation that was lacking in your letter, and I will show you what nonsense it is."

"Must we already?" she asked. "I would like to relax."

"Have you had a very busy day?"

"Very," she said; but her main idea was to shorten the time in which she must argue with him.

"Business still increases?"

"All the time. I begin to believe, at last, that it's something more than luck. I begin to believe that people really do come to me for what I can give them. Do you remember my saying long ago, Charles, that I could give people a kind of beauty and they would come to me for it? I think that is what is happening."

"Of course it is, you foolish girl. Why deprecate your talents? Why not see that your success is precisely what your work merits? I remember only too well when you said that to me - it was when you asked me to finance you."

"It seems so long ago," She was thoughtful. "I must have seemed so ingenuous to you."

"I thought you were a little crazy, with an attractive, enthusiastic sort of craziness."

"You must have thought, too, that you might lose your money. But I don't think you will."

"I am sure I shall not And how did I seem to you in those days?"

"Very forbidding! and very wicked. As, of course, you are."

They both smiled, and Alex changed the conversation, because she realised that that could lead back to controversy.

At last, however, he would be put off no longer.

"I'm not here just to spend a pleasant evening with you, Alex. I'm here to clear up the difficulty between us."

She looked at him without speaking.

"Tell me this one thing, Alex. Do you love me?"

Her first instinct was to evade, and go on evading. Then she changed her mind and her tactics.

"Yes," she said.

A light leaped up in his eyes. If they had not been in a restaurant, thought Alex, that admission might have been too dangerous to risk.

"And I love you. More than I have ever loved anyone, Alex."

She smiled an unmirthful smile.

"That's not quite the compliment it sounds," she said. "I can say that I have never loved anyone before."

"Then how can you possibly deny that love?"

"How can you possibly make its fulfilment impossible?"

"I do not. Its fulfilment is only a matter of one word from you."

"That is," said Alex, "if it is to be done in your way. But that's not my way. That way would be, perhaps, to deny it and kill it in the end. It's all so simple really, Charles. I don't know why we have to go on and on about it."

"It's simple," he said. "Didn't it seem simple the other evening? Just to let yourself go, to fall into my arms. You said yourself that you could not do without me."

"And now I find that I can. It's no good, Charles. It doesn't matter how long you talk, how long you try to persuade me. I was shocked at myself when I had time to think - as I should be shocked at myself if I fell in with your plans." She was silent for a while, as her coffee was put before her. Then she looked up at Charles again. "I have never really told you about my background, have I, Charles? and you have never been curious about it. But if you did know it, you wouldn't be so surprised at my passionate resolve to live the kind of life I can be proud of, and not to fall below the standards I have set for myself. Perhaps it's terribly easy for some people. Perhaps they can say: This thing is wrong and I won't have anything to do with it. But it wasn't easy for me, and you, my dear, have never tried to make it easy. I have had a long struggle against you; against your charm, and your easy manner with the world, and your congenial ideas and interesting conversation. You represent something I hate. But there it is."

He realised that this was a completely different Alex from the girl of that evening, the girl who had clung desperately to him, wondering if she could survive without him, for one more day. She had found a strength from somewhere to surmount those desires.

"So you will deny your love," he said, "and grow more cold and detached and efficient every day?"

"Not necessarily," she said.

"But you will, if you push your love down and repress it. Consider what our life together could be, so full of warmth and colour and richness. I could give you so much, Alex, and I don't mean material things. All your powers would be enhanced through my love - your ideas, your inspiration..."

"You could give me something else," she said, and watched him carefully.

"What is that?" he asked.

"You could give me marriage," she said quietly.

He looked at her intently, and for a long time there was silence between them. He was very thoughtful. At last he said, with a new tone in his voice:

"Would you give up your work to marry me, Alex?"

That did surprise her. Her eyes widened, and she was immobile for a moment. She did not see the trap.

"Oh, but Charles, I thought that was one thing that you would always understand. You said you would. You said you would never come between it and me, that you would always understand its demands on me."

"All the same," he said, "would you? Honestly, Alex, would you?"

"I couldn't," she said. "How could I? Just when success is coming to me? Just when I begin to feel free of all the initial worries, and to reap some of the rewards? It wouldn't be fair to expect such a thing of anybody."

"In other words, you wouldn't do it."

"Why do you ask this?" asked Alex.

"It's important to me to know," he said. "Would you?"

"No," she said, reluctantly, "I don't think I could."

"You see," he; said, "your life is dear to you, and you will not change it: in spite of your love. My life is dear to me, too, and I will not change it: in spite of my love. Am I being any more selfish than you, Alex? Am I holding on to what I treasure in life, any more than you? In your case, it's your work. In mine, it's my independence. You love me, but would not give up your work for me. I love you, but will not give up my independence for you. Am I more to be blamed than you are?"

"What's the use of blaming anybody?" cried Alex.

"Quite," said Charles dryly, "but don't try to make me an ogre."

"All right," she said, once more quiet. "But it doesn't change the essential thing. My letter still stands. And you must accept it, and not bother me in future."

"And that is quite final?" asked Charles.

"Yes," said Alex, "that is final."

"Very well, I accept it. You shall have your business footing, Alex, and nothing else."

Nothing else! The words created a desolation inside her, which showed for a moment in her eyes. She will never be able to keep it up, thought Charles, she will come back to me.

"That," said Alex, "brings us to something else, Charles. The business footing. You - don't want to withdraw your support?"

"Whatever do you take me for?" he said angrily, stung by the thought that such a thing had even occurred to her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I only thought I ought to make sure. I didn't, of course, think for a moment that you would."

Their dinner finished, the coffee drunk, there seemed to be nothing more to wait for.

"I'll take you home," said Charles.

"No, I'd rather take a taxi, thank you," said Alex.

They went out into the dark street. A fresh autumn wind was cutting through it and whipping pieces of paper off the pavement.

"Soon it will be winter," said Alex.

"Alex."

"Yes, Charles?"

"This is good-bye, then?"

"Yes, this is good-bye."

"But when you want my advice, you will not hesitate to ask for it?"

"No, I won't hesitate."

"It will be necessary to meet occasionally over matters of business."

"In my office," said Alex.

"How would you look upon an occasional luncheon date?" he asked.

"As the thin edge of the wedge, I'm afraid," replied Alex.

"I see. Well then, good-bye, Alex."

He held out his hand to hers. She put hers into it.

"Good-bye, Charles."

"You know where to find me if you want me. If you change your mind you know where I shall be."

Alex took her hand away.

"Perhaps with my successor," she said. "I should be afraid to intrude. Has it never occurred to you, Charles, that a woman doesn't care to see herself as one incident in a long line of amours? That she might be too proud to join that line? That she might even see ahead to a day when she was no longer loved and wanted? Has it never occurred to you that women really like to be secure?"

"You, Alex, have not been frightened to take a risk. You have been excited by risk."

"By some kinds of risk, yes, but not this kind. I want security, too. When my business is firmly established, I want some of the things all women want. Marriage, perhaps; not always to live alone. Children."

They were still standing on the pavement. Alex's dramatic coat blown open by the wind to show its scarlet lining. She looked chic, expensive, elegant. He said:

"Children! You, Alex! Surely this is a new departure?"

"All my friends are married now," she said. "Do you think that I would ever be content to go through my life missing what is said to be a woman's greatest experience? What all of those friends have? I may be a business-woman, but a woman - and having children is a woman's first job."

"You don't want to miss a thing, do you, Alex?"

She was silent for a moment, her eyes on his.

"It seems to me," she said, in a sad voice, "that I'm going to miss a great deal."

A taxi was cruising along the roadway. Many had passed them as they stood there talking, but this one Alex hailed, and it drew into the kerb.

Charles opened the door for her, and she got in. He stood and watched the taxi drive away. Alex sank back on the seat, with a vast sadness enveloping her. She felt she could drown in the sorrow that mournfully surged round her. Here was something dead that might have been strongly alive. Here was something unfulfilled that might have been lasting and fruitful and beautiful. Tears stinging her eyes began to slide down her cheeks.

When the taxi drew up before the block of flats, Alex got out, absorbed by her sorrow, and began to walk away. The taxi- driver called after her, and she turned back to him. He saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"You haven't paid, madam," he told her.

"Oh," said Alex. She began to fumble with the catch of her bag, unable to see for tears. "How much is it?" she asked him.

He told her, and she gave him a ten-shilling note, and once more turned away.

"Your change, madam," he said, but she waved her hand in an oddly despairing gesture and went on. The man looked after her, curious. Beautiful like that, he thought, and dressed like a duchess, and life has given her a knock-out. Idly, as he drove on, he wondered what it was. A quarrel with a lover, or a husband in an accident, or a baby ill? Could be anything, life was a funny business, all sorts of things going on all the time. Ah, well....

Alex went upstairs in the lift, thankful that it was empty, and into the living-room of her apartment. She threw the beautiful coat on to a chair, and sank down in the settee, her head thrown back against the back of it.

Well, I did it, she thought. Finally. That's the end. I didn't waver once. Oh, Charles, Charles, Charles...

She put her head into her hands and wept. Wept for loneliness, for desire disappointed, for love denied.

CHAPTER VII

Alex spent Christmas of that year with Cicely and Douglas at the farm, a part of the nicest family party she had ever joined; for Mr. and Mrs. Barnes came from the village, Douglas's parents from their new house on the farm, and Terence arrived each day when the essential work had been done at his own farm, leaving the evening work to one of his men.

Cicely had spent a great deal of time and thought on the preparations: decorating the house, making centre-pieces for the dining-table - all red candles and gold-painted pine cones and sprigs of fir - wrapping presents for everybody, and making enough delicacies for an army.

Alex sank into this home-like atmosphere with delight. She had had other invitations for Christmas, for, since her break with Charles, she had had time to cultivate other friendships, but she was glad she had chosen to come here. She knew that Douglas's parents liked her, but everybody else in this house loved her - Mrs. and Airs. Barnes, who had been so good to her all through her life, almost looking on her as another daughter; Cicely, and Terence. It was wonderfully reassuring. It crowded out regrets.

Mrs. Barnes, particularly, was glad to see her again. Watching Alex throughout the evening of Christmas Eve, meeting her afresh on Christmas morning, she felt a glow of pleasure to see how beautiful she had become. Mrs. Barnes thought back to the child Alex had been, so pale and thin and moody, all arms and legs, enormous dark eyes, and a rough thatch of dark hair that had never known a brush until Mrs. Barnes took it in hand: so reserved, so frightened and temperamental that it had taken months of careful, unobtrusive treatment to draw her out of herself. She had always been talented, but nobody had discovered or encouraged that talent until she had become a constant visitor to Cicely; she had always had the making of great beauty, but it might easily have been ruined. Now it had flowered, that beauty. She was assured and confident, elegant and chic. Mrs. Barnes felt proud of the part that she and her husband had been able to play in Alex's development.

Yet was everything right in Alex's world, after all? When one watched her in repose, there was a sadness, a melancholy about her. She did not look happy. Well, thought Mrs. Barnes, she was never a particularly happy person: not like Cicely. She was not content, she was always driven by ambition, by a desire to prove that she was as good as, and better than, most people. She seemed to be growing out of that, though; to be finding herself at last. Well, concluded Mrs. Barnes, success in business is all very well, but she needs something warmer than that. She needs to be loved, and to love.

It was obvious to everybody in the house that Alex was loved. Terence made no effort to hid his devotion to her. They all hoped that marriage would come of it and gave them plenty of opportunities to be together, but the arrival of Douglas's niece and nephews put an end to these opportunities, for the three children loved Terence and followed him everywhere. He was invaluable in keeping them amused, but when, on the afternoon of Christmas Day, he went with Douglas to the farm buildings to get as quickly as possible through the necessary farm chores, Alex took charge of them, so that the older people could rest, and so that Cicely and the children's mother could talk together while they prepared the tea, without the distraction of the children.

They went into the little morning room, where a bright fire was burning and where they would be out of the way. Alex played Chinese Chequers with them, and then a rather wild game called Bombardo, and then, seeing the little girl tired and inclined to become fretful, she read them stories from one of the new Christmas books.

The door opened and Cicely's head appeared round it.

"Come along, everybody. Tea," she said, and disappeared again.

"Tea!" said the boys, delighted. "Come on!"

"You can't possibly have any room for tea," said Alex, "after the Christmas dinner you ate."

"Well, we jolly well have," said Michael, making for the door. Douglas junior followed him. Susan waited for Alex, but Alex stayed where she was in her armchair.

"You run along with the boys, Susie. I'll come in a minute."

The door shut with a bang behind the little girl, and Alex was left to herself. The fire had settled down to a red glow, and the December afternoon was already nearly dark. Alex could hear the chatter and laughter from the dining-room, and, for the moment, felt reluctant to join in.

For the first time since early in the morning, she was alone, and at once the thoughts that had been crowded out all day rushed into her mind, and she realised that she had almost wanted a moment's solitariness to think of Charles. Yesterday a gift had come from him for Christmas, a little jade horse most beautifully carved. She guessed that it was almost priceless, but she loved it already for its beauty, and she had brought it to the farm with her because she could not bear to leave it behind. It had brought Charles very much into her mind. What was he doing now? With whom was he spending his Christmas? It was fairly safe to presume that it would not be a family party like this one. Fairly safe, too, to presume that attractive feminine company would be included in his plans.

He always had a reputation where women were concerned, thought Alex. Why did I expect him to change for me? The first thing Madame said to me about him was that he would be no good to me; and the next that he had this reputation. But was it such a bad one? Did he ever treat anybody unfairly? He certainly never led me to suppose that he meant to marry me. If we are such fools as to fall in love with him, well...

She missed him. She missed the evenings spent in his company, dining in his flat, listening to music, talking; dining out in restaurants, going to concerts and plays. She still did these things, with other people; but it was not the Same. These others had not Charles's sure touch, Charles's way of making everything so enjoyable, so interesting.

She missed him now, this moment, missed his confident, physical presence. To remember being in his arms was to ache ' with longing for him. To close her eyes and to remember his kiss was to torment herself with desire for the unattainable.

Suddenly, somebody was in the room with her. The door had opened softly, and a man's long strides had brought Terence swiftly beside her. He was leaning down, his. arm about her shoulders in the winter twilight and firelight.

"What's this, Alex? All alone in the gloom?" His voice was quiet and deep. "Like a little Cinderella."

"Oh, Terence," she said, on a long sigh, her longing for the unattainable still there in her voice. His arm tightened round her shoulder,- and she turned into his arms almost wearily. They held her closely; secure and reassuring. Her cheek was against his shoulder, and he saw that her eyes were closed, the thick, dark lashes lying on her cheek.

"They sent me in to bring you in to tea," he said softly into her hair. "Why are you sad, Alex?"

For a few moments there was no reply. Alex was trying to adjust herself from the thoughts of Charles to the physical contact with Terence.

"So stupid," she said at last. "I was feeling lonely - with Cicely here, and the children and all of you. So stupid."

Terence noticed the order in which she had placed them, but he did not comment on it. He gathered her to him more closely.

"You never need to feel lonely," he said. "You always have me. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she said.

"I'm always here, whenever you want me. Just waiting for you. Only too happy to cheer the lonely moments."

"I know," she said quietly.

He rose to his feet and pulled her gently up out of her chair into his arms. She put her arms round his neck and drew herself close to him. As he bent his head to kiss her, he saw in the faint firelight that her eyes were still closed, the lashes dad; smudges against her cheeks. Their kiss, that started gently, became ardent and passionate, and when, at last, he would have released her, she would not be released, but tightened her arms about his neck.

"Don't let me go," she whispered.

"Darling," he said, delighted, not wanting to let her go.

Later, the coals fell together in the grate with a little noise that startled them. The room darkened perceptibly. Terence said:

"I was sent to bring you in to tea."

"They'll have to send somebody to bring you in!"

"Don't you want tea?"

"Yes, I would love a cup of tea," she said, not moving.

"You aren't sad now," he said softly.

"No," she admitted.

"Alex!"

"Yes?"

"Alex, my dear, you're not a child - and you know as well as I do that..."

At that point he was interrupted. The door opened to admit a shaft of bright light from the hall, and Michael stood in the doorway, saying:

"Aren't you coming, Uncle Terence! We're going to cut the Christmas cake. Hurry up!"

Terence laughed.

"Yes, we're coming," he said. "Come along, Alex, you shall have that cup of tea."

"I want to know," said Alex, "what it is that I know as well as you do."

"Later," he said. "I must talk to you later."

They went into the dining-room, where family tea round the big table was almost finished. Cicely looked at Alex with a speculative eye.

"I would have sent some tea in for you," she said, "but I didn't think you'd want to miss the cutting of the cake."

"No," said Terence. "We wouldn't miss that." He seated himself between Michael and Mrs. Barnes, and tried to catch Alex's eye across the table, but she would not look at him. She took her tea from Cicely, and began to talk charmingly to Douglas's mother, but behind the polite talk she was reproaching herself.

You can't do that, Alex. You can't be in one man's arms and think of another. It just isn't decent. You can't close your eyes to shut him out, and then find peace in his kiss by thinking he is somebody else. Terence is too nice for that. He is too much a personality in his own right to be used in that way. You can't cheat. Either take him for himself or don't take him at all.

It was difficult, however, to decide not to take him at all, for she had been lonely, and after his coming she was less lonely; she had been sad and he had comforted her, his lovemaking had consoled her.

Their opportunity to talk did not come until everybody else had gone to bed. Terence had driven the children and their parents home immediately after supper, but Alex was helping Mr. and Mrs. Barnes to wash dishes, and would not be lured away; but when all the older people had retired, and Cicely and Douglas, Terence and Alex had gossiped themselves into a pleasant coma, Cicely said:

"Well, my small Jane Alexandra is going to wake me unpleasantly early in the morning, so I think I'll go to bed; but you, Alex, and Terence needn't conform to our country ways, if you'd like to stay and talk by the fireside."

"Terence has to be up just as uncomfortably early," Alex pointed out, "if he is going to drive twenty miles to milk his cows."

"I'd rather that," said Terence, "than tear myself away in the afternoon to do it, and the cowman prefers it this way, too. Besides, a short night never disturbs me."

So Cicely took Douglas off to bed and left the drawing-room to Alex and Terence. Terence pushed the settee a little close to the fire, put on another log, and seated himself beside Alex with a luxurious sigh of content.

"Aren't you tired?" he asked Alex. "This has been a long day, and families in the concentrated state are a bit exhausting."

"Only pleasantly tired," she said.

"If you would be a little less aloof, away in that corner, you could rest against me," he suggested, and stretched an inviting hand towards her. She moved closer to him and nestled contentedly against his shoulder, his arm about her.

"I like families," she said, "especially such a friendly one as this. I like to be chaffed by my dear old Barney again" (for she had always called Cicely's father her dear Barney), "and to be told by Cicely's mother what I'm to do. I like the kind of hubbub that goes on. After all, I live alone nearly all the time."

"Yes," he said. "And that isn't good for you."

"No?"

"No. And it brings me to something I was going to say to you earlier today."

"Ah, yes," said Alex. "Something I know as well as you do. What is it?"

"It's all connected with this living alone," he said. "It isn't good for you, and something ought to be done about it."

Alex was silent.

"I suppose you think another proposal of marriage is on the way," said "Terence, but it isn't. I know already what you feel about that. You've told me you don't want to be married yet, and I respect that, because, much as I want you to marry me, I realise that all this business you've built up means a lot to you. And why shouldn't it? Not everybody could do it. Not everybody has your talent, your flair. Why should you have to loosen your grip, to take hold of other things? Later on, you may want to: and when you want to marry, I want to be at hand for your choice to light on. No, I'm not asking you to marry me at the moment, Alex, but you know as well as I do -"

"Ah, here it comes," said Alex, smiling at him.

"That man doesn't live by bread alone."

"By which you mean?"

"That, just because you don't want to marry yet, why should you do without love altogether? It isn't necessary, Alex. I'm here, and I love you. You are lonely, and my love would do you good. I know that. There are times when you need to be loved, when nothing else can give you satisfaction, and these are the times when you must turn to me."

"I'm not quite sure that I know what you mean," said Alex, and suddenly there was a little prayer in her heart that Terence did not mean what his words could so easily be taken to mean.

"Don't misunderstand me," he said gently. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that we should be lovers. I'll wait for that until you say you'll marry me. I'm only suggesting that we could give each other a lot of happiness in the meantime."

Alex took his hand between both of hers and lifted it to rest her cheek upon it.

"I don't know why I don't adore you," she said. "You're quite the nicest man it has been my good fortune to come across."

"Don't make me out too noble," said Terence. "It's a sprat to catch a mackerel - you must see that."

"No, I don't see it. I think you're a darling."

He lifted her easily to lie across him, and took her into his arms, and when he kissed her Alex did not close her eyes.

The next day, Terence took her to the meet of the Boxing Day Hunt, and they followed for some time in his car, returning to Cicely's house for a late lunch. It was a cold day, and Alex had the beaver collar of her tweed coat turned up round her face, and wore a tiny beaver hat.

"You look distractingly beautiful," Terence told her, "framed in fur." They were driving along a narrow country lane on their homeward way, by leafless hedges and under leafless trees, and suddenly he drew in to the side and stopped the car.

"I brought you a present from my home this morning," he told her. "I think I'll give it to you now before we get to Cicely's."

"You shouldn't bring me presents," she protested, as Terence brought the box from his pocket and handed it to her.

She saw at once that it was a jeweller's box, and her heart sank. She did not wish to accept expensive jewellery from anybody - not even Terence.

"Open it," he said, observing her hesitation.

She opened it, to find an old-fashioned necklace of garnets in a rather heavy setting reposing on a bed of faded satin. She exclaimed with pleasure.

"It was my mother's," he said, "and her mother's before that. And now I want you to have it."

"Oh, no," protested Alex. "It's something that you ought to save for your wife."

"Perhaps it will come to the same thing," said Terence.

"But perhaps not, darling."

"In any case, I want you to have it."

"Oh, it's beautiful," said Alex. "And I love the heavy setting. And the colour of the stones. I can see just the dress I would wear with it, the exact colour of the garnets and a little old-fashioned in cut. With draping just here, so, caught up by a rose. And you would come to London specially to take me out when I wore it. But I really can't accept it, Terence, if it was your mother's."

"Please take it, Alex, to give me pleasure."

She smiled at him, hesitated a little longer, and then closed the box.

"I will," she said. "And I take it as a great compliment."

"I'm in the adoring state," he told her, "perhaps the fatuously adoring state, where I want to load you with gifts. My mother left me all her jewellery: not so much of it, and all old-fashioned, but on the day you marry me I shall give it all to you. That isn't an inducement. I don't want to bribe you, but I feel I want to give you the earth."

"Oh, Terence, why couldn't you have fallen in love with a nice, straightforward girl who would fall into your arms and marry you straightaway and make you happy?"

"Because that isn't the sort of girl I would want. I want the brilliant, dashing, and talented Alex Paul - although I do wonder at myself for having the temerity to fall in love with her."

"And that," said Alex unhappily, "is a dreadful thing to say. Any woman would be proud to have you love her. I'm proud - and crazy, too, not to be able to love you in return."

"Well, don't let it upset you," said Terence comfortably, "you will, you will."

Alex did not reply. She held her box between her hands, vainly wishing that one could love to order; wondering if it were possible that, one day, Charles would have faded in her memory, and she would be able to love Terence in the way he wanted.

It was certainly comforting to have his support in the weeks of winter that followed. They saw each other frequently, without Terence neglecting his farm, or Alex neglecting her work. Inevitably, their intimacy slowly ripened, until they were entirely at their ease with each other.

Then the morning post brought Alex a letter from Charles. She recognised his handwriting on the envelope before she opened it, and at once consternation seized her, and her heart began an uneven thumping. She could not open it for a while, but sat at her breakfast tray with the letter in her hands, wondering what it might contain. Then, slowly, she slit the envelope and took out the letter.

"Dear Alex," it ran,

"I am sending you a Maharanee. She is reputed to be worth her weight in diamonds, and you may safely show her all your most beautiful and extravagant things. I have told her how wonderful you are and have given you a great build-up, so I do hope you will meet on one of your brilliant, enthusiastic and charming days and not on one of your silent and sulky ones.

"I miss you, Alex. Could we not have dinner together one of these evenings, to catch up on each other's news and progress? There is nothing I should like better. Please write me that you are willing.

"Yours,

Charles."

Alex sat very still, her breakfast coffee forgotten, looking thoughtfully down at the letter, in her mind a picture of Charles writing it. She had often seen him in his flat sitting down to dash off a note to somebody - had he dashed this one off in the same way? Or had he pondered long over it? telling her that he expected her to charm his Maharanee, in short that she must behave herself, not quite trusting her not to be cold; telling her in three brief words that he missed her. He missed her. I wonder, thought Alex, if he misses me one-twentieth as much as I miss him.

She did not answer the letter for some time. She met the Maharanee first, was charmed -by her, was inspired by her dark, Indian beauty into creating some of her loveliest designs, and was given an order that was almost overwhelming in its lavishness.

Then she wrote to Charles.

"Dear Charles,

"Thank you for the Maharanee. I fell in love with her at first sight, and she liked everything that I had to show her - including me, apparently, because I have an invitation to her several residences in Bucks, on the Riviera, and in India. By which you will understand that I managed to behave myself, and your anxiety was quite unfounded.

"She gave me a stupendous order. We are very busy, and if things continue to go well, I shall be able to lower the debt again this year. And I think I shall again have to increase my staff. Like all employers (doesn't that sound grand and self-important? but it isn't meant that way), my difficulty is in finding the right people. Lawson (whom you have always despised) is a great prop and stay to me, but she has her limitations, of course, and I really want somebody of a different calibre, more like myself, who can design and execute, and interview clients and so on.

"About dinner, Charles. Thank you for the invitation, but I'm sorry, no. I don't think it would do. In any case, I am working through most of my evenings just now.

"Yours,

Alex."

Charles was as thoughtful on receiving that letter as Alex had been on receiving his. He was in no doubt as to how she had written it. She had taken a long time to achieve just that mixture of friendliness and coolness. She did not mean to shut him out of her confidence entirely - she would write of the business, of the beautiful Maharanee, but when it came to personalities, she was as determined as ever, adamant.

He was not deceived by her plea of working late. He had seen Alex with Terence leaving a theatre only the week before. He had observed their easy friendliness, their naturalness with each other, and discovered that he resented it. He resented the fact that Alex could find what she wanted in another man - and this was new for Charles, who, when he had finished a love affair, did not mind what happened to the woman concerned. But when he had not had a love affair with Alex - perhaps that caused the difference in his feeling now. She had stood out against him. Yet even in that, she was not unique. There had been others who had not succumbed to his charms, but it had not been important.

Alex had been important. In many ways. Theirs had been a special relationship. He had been able to help her; he had been a guide, mentor, adviser to her; and she had turned to him gladly for his help in her business affairs. This made a special tie between them, made her seem to belong to him in an intimate fashion that had nothing to do with love.

Other women had made him their chief interest. He had never been Alex's chief interest. Her work had been that, and, because he was essential to her starting for herself, she had cultivated him. Charles paused there. Had she cultivated him? Hadn't he been arrested by her the first time he saw her - hadn't it been he who had invited her to lunch with him? She had simply taken her opportunity when fate presented it to her.

He thought back to that Alex. A tall, lovely girl turning pieces of material over with beautiful hands; a reserved, quiet girl who could flash into sudden brilliant life when he touched upon a subject near to her heart, a girl who did not speak a great deal, but who could, when her enthusiasms were aroused, startle him with a torrent of swift, colourful words.

He had written truly when he had written that he missed her. He missed all that - the companionship. What else he had missed, he had only a dim conception of; remembering Alex in his arms, nearly beside herself with love.

Suddenly, he tore the letter across and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket. How dared she write him such a cold and fobbing-off letter? Alex had not finished with him yet. This time, most unusually for him, he was not content to let a woman go her own way; to part friends, to kiss and ride away. A streak of ruthlessness in him, almost cruelty, hardened. He wanted to subdue her pride, to master her obstinacy, to impose his will on her.

Yet he knew that it was useless to try to get in touch with her through the usual channels. She would simply refuse to see him. He must look out for another opportunity; and a week or so later one was presented to him.

He was dining in a restaurant with a young actress who was doing a season of Shakespeare and being rather intense about it, when he was addressed by a middle-aged woman who was his second cousin. The waiter brought a chair for heir, and she sat with them for a few minutes.

"I mustn't stop, Charles. I'm with Bernard and his fiancée. But just to catch up on all your news. I thought you were in Bermuda."

"That was at Christmas-time," he said. "You're looking wonderful, Florence."

"Oh, well, I'm a little slimmer, but most of it is that dressmaker you sent me to. She makes me so comfortable, and yet smarter than I ever used to be. I always go to her now."

"Alex Paul," said Charles, liking simply to say her name aloud.

"Yes. I think I shall get her to do my dress for the twins' ball early in April."

"A ball for the twins!" exclaimed Charles. "It's not possible - they're hardly out of their cradle."

"Don't be silly, Charles. They will be eighteen in April - they are coming out this season - if girls can be said to come out any more. You must come to the ball."

"In town?"

"No, down at Foxwood - so much more fun with the conservatories, and lights on the terraces. You will come, won't you?"

"Certainly I will. You must get Alex to do the twins' dresses, too."

"Oh, of course, I forget that she is a protégée of yours. But is she as good with debs as with older people?"

"My dear Florence, even better - after all, she is young herself. She's doing the most fabulous things for a dear friend of mine, a Maharanee - perhaps, after, all she would be too busy."

"I'll send the twins along to see her - quite soon."

"And then do something for me, will you?"

"Of course, Charles, whatever you wish, if I can."

"Ask Alex to the ball."

"Alex? Isn't that a bit unusual, Charles?"

"Not a bit - I would like her to be there."

The woman hesitated.

"Don't imagine," added Charles, "that you will be conferring a favour on her. And certainly don't tell her that I will be there, or she won't come."

"How intriguing," said Florence. "I suppose it's no good asking what's behind it all?"

"No good at all," smiled Charles.

"All right, I will do as you say. Now, tell me, did you come across John Hayling in Bermuda? He was there this winter. I want to ask your advice about him - he seems to be interested in Jennifer."

"Don't tell me the twins are even at a marriageable age," protested Charles.

"Oh, nothing as far as that yet," and the conversation revolved about the twins and family affairs until Charles's cousin remembered the people she was supposed to be dining with and went away.

The young actress was inclined to be petulant about this Alex Paul in whom Charles was so obviously interested, but discovering that this had no effect on Charles whatsoever, she abandoned that pose and decided to be amusing instead. And Charles sat opposite her with a pleased smile on his lips, which was very encouraging for his young companion, and she would have been desolated to know that he was not even listening to her, and that all his thoughts were revolving round Alex, and the surprise that Alex was going to get when the night of the ball arrived.

CHAPTER VIII

Alex was at work in her office when the receptionist telephoned .that Miss Virginia Cray had arrived, and while she waited for the girl to be shown upstairs, Alex went over her recent dealings with her. These included two letters from Miss Cray, and two calls at the business premises when she had not been successful in seeing Alex. The first letter had introduced Miss Cray, had set forth concisely and clearly Miss Cray's aims in life, her ambitions, her capabilities, and her desire to work with Miss Paul, with whom she felt she could gain the best and most useful experience. The second letter, in reply to a brief note from Alex that she would keep her in mind, implored Miss Paul to see her and some of her work, and reiterated that Miss Cray would rather work with Miss Paul than with anybody else in London.

In the two years that Alex had been running her own business, and in the several preceding years when she had been with Madame, she had realised that ideal staff members were rarely forthcoming. The really good people were already in really good jobs, and were treasured and kept there. Of the others, there were some who could be trained, but it took time and patience to train them, but she still kept alive a hope that, one day, she would find the very person she wanted to be her second-in-command: somebody whose ideas would march with her own, with good taste, enough authority to cope with the workroom staff, and enough savoir faire to be able to talk to the clients with confidence and ease. It was not yet a matter of urgency to find this person, but she must be found before it would be possible for Alex to relax, to take occasional holidays from work - in short, to think of a marriage to which she could contribute her proper share.

She did not think that Miss Virginia Cray would be this person. She was very young. Twenty-three. Twenty-three to Alex's twenty-seven. Alex thought she could hardly have had much experience. Even so, she might be a possible future asset. Nothing would be lost by granting her an interview.

So Alex sat in her office and waited for Virginia Cray to come in.

When she did so, she came swiftly and eagerly, a smile on her lips and her eyes alight with pleasure, straight across to Alex's desk with her hand outstretched to shake hands, saying:

"I am so glad, Miss Paul, that you consented to see me. You can't imagine how devoutly I hoped that you would."

This did not conform at all with Alex's idea of how the interview should go, and, having shaken hands with the girl, she asked her politely to sit down. This Miss Cray did, putting her portfolio down beside her chair, sitting upright and alert as if she had perched only for a moment, and would fly off again on the smallest provocation. She fixed her bright eyes on Alex, and admiration came into them quite unmistakably.

"Now," said Alex, "the only thing that I know about you is that you want to come and work here. Why? And what can you do? And why this firm more than any other?"

The girl smiled.

"I can answer the last question first. I want to work in your firm because I admire tremendously everything you do. The designs of your clothes are exactly the sort of thing I design myself - there seems to be a distinct affinity between them. And I want to learn about the dressmaking business, and you have got to the top so young that I thought you would have sympathy with a young designer. And I'm not too bad, I think, but you would soon discover what I can do for yourself. I'm willing to work for a very small salary at first, while I am learning thing?, because I live at home with my parents, and finance isn't the important thing."

She stopped, as if she had said everything necessary, and Alex smiled, because, suddenly, in this girl, she saw a faint reflection of herself. This girl was infinitely more confident than Alex had ever been; she had an ebullient temperament that opened closed doors for her, whereas Alex had always been withdrawn and reserved; but there was something in her eagerness, her enthusiasm, that reminded Alex of herself a few years ago. She began to talk to Virginia Cray in a friendly fashion, discovering that she had been to an Art School, that she had always been intent on designing clothes, and that she regarded work as being a good thing in itself. She would do anything, she said: "But I'm really not very good at sewing," she added. "As long as I don't have to sew."

They went through her portfolio together. Yes, thought Alex, she is good, I must have her. She might be a little unstable, that remains to be seen, but she might turn out quite well.

"I will give you a trial," she said, and they went on to arrange all the details of Virginia's employment, while Alex went on studying her. She goes to meet the world half-way, she thought; perhaps a little more than half-way. Perhaps this will really work.

"Shall I come to-morrow?" asked Virginia, when all the details were settled.

"Yes, if that suits you. You can spend a fortnight in the lower workroom seeing everything that is done there, then a fortnight in the upper workroom, and perhaps a month in the showroom. You will have a desk with my other designers in the studio - that can be your headquarters; and anything you design in that time, bring to me and I will consider it."

Virginia went off delighted with her success, and Alex watched her go. Bright grey eyes, a ready smile, a style that showed she could wear clothes as well as design them, a gamine hair-cut that lent her an air of sauciness, and an apparent willingness to work.

Well, thought Alex, we shall see.

In the weeks that followed, weeks that carried her from winter into early spring, Alex watched Virginia's progress carefully, and what she saw pleased her, and the longer she knew her, the better she liked her. It was true that she would do anything, and she was a voracious learner. She went round with the girl who matched the silks and ribbons; she ran errands, learned to pack in the packing department, helped to dress models, typed when called upon to do so in the office, entertained clients with coffee and conversation if they had to wait, and designed dresses and hats and accessories all over the place. She could arrange the flowers with the skill of a professional, and she had the same air of engaging friendliness for everybody, from the youngest girl in the workroom (who picked up the pins as Alex had done so long ago) to Alex herself.

Sitting with Terence in the cosiness of her sitting-room one evening, with the settee drawn up before the fire as they liked to have it, and the inevitable coffee-tray on the small table within reach, Alex said:

"This new girl of mine really seems to be a gift from heaven. I hope it continues to work - it almost seems too good to be true."

"You've had new girls before Alex. What's special about this one?"

"She seems to be able to do a bit of everything. She reminds me of myself when young."

"Well, that makes her special indeed, old lady," said Terence, laughing.

Alex laughed too.

"I don't think I was ever quite so young as Virginia," she said. "And you may laugh, Terence, but I'm twenty-seven, rising twenty-eight. It's a ghastly thought."

"Yes, it's high time you were married," he agreed.

. "Sometimes," she said slowly, "I think so myself."

He turned to her quickly, his eyes alight with hope.

"Are you saying yes to me at last?" he asked.

"Oh, no," she said. "At least, not definitely, Terence. What I said, I really meant - that sometimes I think it's time I married, but only sometimes. Sometimes I can see my youth slipping away, and I have a horrid moment of panic that I might be left on the shelf...."

"Not while I live," interrupted Terence firmly.

"And I ask myself why I should worry, when I have so much to absorb me already, but the truth is that I do want to be married - I don't think I should always be enough for myself."

"And when you think of marriage, do you think of me?"

"Well, you, darling, are the only person wanting to marry me."

"And I want it more than anything on earth. Shall we do it, Alex?"

She smiled at him gently.

"There's so much against it, Terence."

"Not a thing that I can see."

"The biggest thing of all, that I'm not in love with you - though you do grow on me all the time."

"And would continue to do so, I hope."

"I love these evenings when you come up to see me. There was a time, when Cicely and I were living together, when I didn't know what it was to be lonely. If she was out, and I had evenings to myself, it didn't matter: I was always busy, absorbed, contented with myself - just as she was if I was not there. Sometimes it's still like that. I come home, eating at a restaurant on my way here, and then spend the entire evening at my work-bench, thoroughly happy and amazed to find how time has flown past. But sometimes it's a lonely place - I don't want to work, or go out, or do anything much: and then I wish you were here. Your being here irons everything out, makes it smooth. Like this evening - I am serene and contented - like a cat."

"Good," said Terence, "but you're changing the subject. We get along so well - in everything, I know you like me, are fond of me, and I adore you; the physical side of marriage would present no problems, we are already so drawn to each other. I see everything for it and nothing against it."

"Don't you see my work as something against it?" asked Alex.

"No."

"But it wouldn't make for ease, Terence. You do know that I don't want to give it up?"

"Yes, and I understand that."

"Then just imagine what it would mean. I would be up here in town all the week, and you would be in the country on your farm. You would have a week-end wife."

"You couldn't travel back and forth?"

She looked at him thoughtfully before answering:

"No. No, Terence, I don't think so. For one thing, my times are never regular, and I should hate to have to stop doing things to catch trains. For another, I believe it would be a way to lose inspiration. I like the country, but London is my inspiration; London and other big cities. All that to-and-froing on trains would smudge me, blur me. I need what happens in London at night for my background."

Terence ceded the point at once.

"Then that's all right," he said. "I'll have a week-end wife."

"You make me seem terribly selfish," she said.

"Not at all - at times, I think I'm the selfish one to try and take you away from what you have so painstakingly built up and what has wholly absorbed you for so long. I should look forward all the working week to Friday evening, to having you on Saturday and Sundays."

"It just wouldn't be fair to you, it isn't enough. Who would look after you?"

"Who looks after me now? I have a very nice housekeeper, and I should continue to have her."

"It wouldn't be a marriage at all," said Alex, unhappily. "Terence darling, far the best thing would be for you to forget all about me, and find a wife who loves the country, who would be with you the whole time and care for you, and give you a proper marriage."

"Do you want me to forget all about you?" he asked.

"No, no, but that's only my selfishness."

"Stop harping on this imaginary selfishness. And have you not yet grasped the fact that you, just as you are, are more to me than all other women? That I'd rather have you on Saturdays and Sundays than somebody else with me every minute? It is because you are what you are that I love you - why should I try to change you?"

"But it wouldn't work. How could it? Two people with such diverse interests? You, Terence, absorbed in country things, and I in town things; your cows and sheep and crops mean as much to me as my designs and models and frills and furbelows mean to you. Your kind of people so different from my kind..."

"Whose kind is Cicely?" he wanted to know.

She paused, looking at him.

"That's a red herring," she said. "Neither of us is married to Cicely."

"But she shows us that there is plenty of contact between these two kinds of life. Besides, doesn't it strike you that our varying interests might add just the thing to marriage to give it life? We should bring each other new viewpoints, new ideas..."

"We might only get tired of a lack of complete understanding. It could be just the thing to drive us apart."

"You're determined to be pessimistic," Terence said impatiently.

"Only anxious not to make a mistake, for your sake," she said, looking so worried that he took her into his arms to console her, and for a long time there was no more speech between them.

"You see," he said at last, "how well we fit together, how well we suit each other."

"Yes," she sighed.

"Then say you will marry me."

She was silent.

"Say it, Alex," he pleaded.

She extricated herself from his embrace, and sat up to look at him.

"Terence darling, if I loved you, I would yes at once, and then do my best to make it work. But something holds me back."

"Don't let it. Once you have given yourself, once you have broken down that barrier, you will see that all will be well."

"But I can't do it."

"All right," he said comfortingly. "Don't worry about it. It's going to work out. Come back into my arms - without prejudice - and relax. What got us into all this, anyway?"

"I think it was talking about Virginia - comparing her youth with my advanced old age."

"Ah, yes. Well, I'm glad you have Virginia, Alex."

"Shall I tell you why I am so glad about it? Because I hope that, in time, she may be able to take over for me for short periods. If I got married, it would be convenient to be able to stay away sometimes. If I got married, I should want to have a child, and it would be so much better to know that somebody could carry on for me."

Terence's arms tightened about her.

"That was one thing I didn't quite have the courage to tackle," he said. "I thought it might scare you off, but I should have known better."

"Yes, you should have," said Alex.

"That makes you just about perfect for me," he said. "Oh, everything is going to be all right for us, Alex. I feel sure of it You take your time, darling. I can wait."

After that, they were still more contented and at peace with each other. Alex saw her new friends during the week. She dined out, went to concerts and plays, and worked very hard. But at week-ends she went into the country. Not always on Friday evening. Sometimes not until Saturday afternoon, but always in time to be at Terence's farm for Saturday dinner. They spent Sunday together, sometimes driving over to see Cicely, often keeping the day entirely to themselves.

Alex began to think that marriage to Terence might be a great success. She would have hesitated longer if any man but he had been concerned, thinking the differences between them too great to be reconciled: town versus country, which could be a great and galling difference in some cases; farming versus the haute couture (and how should anyone reconcile those two things?). Yet Terence had such a great fund of tolerance and patience that it might work. Once or twice, as she walked about the attractive farmhouse, she found herself thinking: When we are married, I will do so-and-so: instead of If we are married, I will do this.

She was, therefore, all the more delighted to find that Virginia seemed to be fulfilling the promise of her first weeks. She learned quickly, and was never afraid to ask about things she did not understand, and she had a frank, friendly, and interested approach, both to clients and the staff, that made her popular with them. Sometimes Alex took her out to lunch, in order to have more time to talk with her, and to find out more about her private life and opinions.

That she had an enormous admiration for Alex had been obvious to everybody from the beginning.

"You're your own best advertisement," she said, a little shyly, to Alex one day when they lunched together. "You're always so elegant. Please tell me if you ever see anything in my appearance that isn't good, will you?"

"You'll do," said Alex dryly, rather embarrassed by such obvious admiration. "Did you ever want to do anything else than design clothes?"

"Well, yes, I did think in my early teens that I was destined to paint the world's greatest pictures. I soon got over that. And then I knew that I was going to design something, and it soon turned out to be clothes."

"Have you an ambition to run your own business?" asked Alex.

"No, I don't think so. As long as I'm in the thick of it, that's all that matters. I can see as much without having to worry. As long as I can work in your business, I'll be happy."

That pleased Alex. She did not want to train Virginia thoroughly, only to have her take all her learning and experience elsewhere. She herself had done that, and Madame had obviously resented it; but then Madame had never done anything for Alex's sake, it had always been for her own. She had never given Alex a rise until it seemed she might lose her: had fought her every inch of the way on her rise to the top. Alex had every intention of helping and encouraging Virginia.

They were in Alex's office one evening when the rest of the staff had gone. Virginia had submitted some designs to Alex, and Alex was going through them, making a suggestion here, a criticism there; asking Virginia why she had used this combination of colour, or that combination of materials. When she suddenly caught sight of the little French clock on her desk, she said:

"Good heavens, I had no idea it was so late. You must go home, Virginia."

"It doesn't matter a bit. It doesn't take me long to get home. Do go on, Miss Paul, if you have the time."

When Alex had been through them all and returned them to Virginia, the latter said:

"One thing I have meant to ask you several times. You seem to have quite a lot of middle-aged women among your clientele: more than I should have expected, since you are so good with debutantes. Why is it?"

Alex thought for a moment.

"Because, I suppose," she said slowly, "I have always fitted fashion to the woman, rather than the woman to fashion. Which means a woman must be comfortable first, yet still in the mode. Debutantes present very few problems - their bodies are young and usually a nice shape, and their young hair and eyes and skin help them to get away with anything. Artistry and skill may go into their clothes; but the real artistry and skill have to go in making a woman look her unexpected best when her figure is no longer so good, and when attention must be called away from her defects. The top couturiers, all of whom are men, by the way, think that women will never be as good as men in this line, because, in the last event, their clothes are all designed for themselves. I try to make that not true. I try, wherever I can, to know not only a woman's physical self and the state of her bank balance, but as much about her character and personality as I can. Then I feel I can dress her as she should be dressed."

"Thank you," said Virginia, who was watching her with shining eyes. "I can learn masses of stuff simply by listening to you. I had heard you were a marvellous person before I came to you: that was partly why I pestered you with letters, but I didn't expect to find you so helpful and accessible."

"And who," asked Alex, "had been giving you information about me?"

She was smiling as she spoke, imagining it must be one of her newer friends."

"It was Mr. Viddell," said Virginia casually. "I got the impression that he was a very old friend of yours, but perhaps I was mistaken."

Alex sat completely still, the smile gone from her face, staring at Virginia as if she could not have heard aright.

"Mr. Viddell?" she managed to query at last.

"Yes," replied Virginia, surprised. "Charles Viddell. You do know him, don't you?"

Alex saw Virginia's surprise, and took a hold of herself.

"Yes," she said, more calmly. "I know him, but of course I hadn't connected you with him."

"He is a friend of my father's," said Virginia. "They sit cm a couple of committees together. One runs a big children's home: my father does most of the work, and Charles supplies most of the money."

"And Mr. Viddell sent you to me?" asked Alex.

"He didn't exactly send me to you. In fact, at first he just laughed at my efforts at designing. He's been coming to us off and on for years, sometimes for dinner, sometimes for lunch. I, of course, always adored him, but in the early days he hardly seemed to notice me. It's only recently, perhaps because I've grown up in several ways, that he has shown more interest. And then he realised that I really wasn't such a bad designer. And then he told me about you."

"And what did he tell you about me?" asked Alex, smiling with apparent ease and idle curiosity, but with a wild turmoil taking hold of her behind the mask.

"Everything that was nice," said Virginia, smiling too. "So complimentary, in fact, that I was quite jealous. Certainly enough to make me madly interested in you; and I found out all I could from Charles and other sources about you and your business. It was strange that Charles never mentioned you before - I had no idea he knew you - but then he doesn't talk much about his private life, ever."

"No," agreed Alex, remembering that he talked little about himself, and that when he did, it was more of what he thought than what he had been doing; more of Alex herself than of any other friends he might have. All the time Alex had known him, all the time they had been sharing evenings, listening to music together, dining out, he had known this other girl. There were many evenings and most week-ends when Alex had not seen him. She had known always that he escorted other women, too, some of whom he had known for years. It was strange to think that this girl, this ardent, vivacious, friendly, and attractive girl was one of them. An unendurable stab of burning jealousy shot through Alex, so painful that she shrank away from it, and Virginia said suddenly, concerned:

"Is something the matter, Miss Paul?"

"No, it's all right," said Alex, trying to smile. "What were you saying?"

"I was only saying that it was strange Charles hadn't mentioned you. I suppose it was my persistence about wanting to be a designer that reminded him of you; and once he did connect us, he talked about you an awful lot. He said - but no, perhaps you wouldn't like that."

"What was it?" asked Alex.

"Well, I hope you won't mind, but he said that I was a little like you. It's nonsense, of course, because you're so beautiful, and I'm not. You're cool and elegant and controlled and I'm told I'm quite haywire...."

"I expect he meant in our burning enthusiasms," said Alex.

Virginia looked doubtful at that, as if she herself might have burning enthusiasms but that she could hardly credit Alex with them, and Alex knew what she was thinking. She smiled ruefully.

"You may not believe it," she said, "but when I first knew Mr. Viddell, I was a mass of enthusiasm and zeal. The poor man was probably so bored."

"Oh, Charles is never bored," said Virginia, and Alex realised that this was quite true. "We find him, gay and so interesting and amusing. In fact..."

"Yes?"

"No, it doesn't matter," said Virginia.

Alex let it go. She thought she knew again what it was that Virginia would have said. Virginia was obviously crazy about Charles.

"Now you really must go home," said Alex. "Your parents will wonder what has happened to you. And if you are not hungry, I certainly am. So run along, Virginia."

"Yes, of course. Thank you for giving so much time to these things of mine. Good night, Miss Paul."

"Good night," said Alex, and watched Virginia go out of her office.

Then she sat quite still where she was, and allowed the mask of gentle, tolerant interest to fall from her, allowed the turmoil that she had been severely repressing to bubble about her. She was aware of a heaviness that weighed down upon her, of a restricting ache about her heart. She sighed a long sigh, but it gave her no relief. She was jealous, achingly, miserably jealous.

What had Virginia said? "I, of course, always adored him." "It's only recently, because I have grown up in several ways, that he has shown interest in me." "He said that I was a little like you."

Yes, Alex could see where Virginia was like herself as she had been when she first met Charles. Both young and full of dreams and plans and ambitions. Both fired with enthusiasm. Both in a position where Charles could help them. And recently he had shown more interest in Virginia - recently: since, in fact, he had not been seeing Alex.

Virginia lived with her parents, so that it would not be so easy for him to visit her at her home; but then Charles had his own apartment, that comfortable, beautifully furnished apartment, she knew so well, where he could entertain. Did he and Virginia have intimate dinners together there, as he and Alex had done? Did he choose music for her that would induce in her just the mood he wanted? Did he find in Virginia somebody with no aversion to his love-making, somebody without Alex's principles, somebody who would gladly give him all that Alex had withheld? She tormented herself with these thoughts.

After a long time, she roused herself and rose from her desk. She gathered together the things she wanted to take home, looked in the mirror to put on her scrap of a hat, but did not really see herself, locked her desk and went about locking up for the night, and let herself out into the street. A taxi cruising by slowed up at sight of her, and she got in automatically, giving the name of the restaurant, small, quiet, and secluded, where she usually bad her dinner when she was alone. She hardly knew how she had got to her own flat when at last she found herself there, for she had been so absorbed in her thoughts.

"What does it matter to you?" she asked herself at last, walking about her own sitting-room. She opened the window, put a match to the fire, carried her hat and gloves into her bedroom, and put some coffee on the stove. "Haven't you already finished with Charles? What does it matter to you what he does, whom he sees?" She changed her formal clothes for a house-coat of cherry red velvet and went to look at the coffee. When it was ready she carried it to her work-bench, and began to study the drawings there. She had been busy designing a set for a new play, but it could not interest her now. Although she looked at it, she was not thinking of it. "Haven't you already practically decided to throw in your lot with Terence? You know that a life for you and Charles together is just not possible. Then why should you be upset like this?"

Yet she was upset. She could not bear the thought that Charles was having a love affair with Virginia. She had hoped she was beginning to forget him, but now she knew that her love for him was as strong as ever in her heart.

CHAPTER IX

Alex lifted the telephone receiver, to be informed by her receptionist that Mrs. Swatheling was on the line.

"Put her through," said Alex, and was promptly assailed by a high and authoritative voice:

"Miss Paul? My dear Miss Paul, the dresses have arrived, and we are all enchanted by them. The twins insisted that I should ring you up at once and tell you so."

"I'm so glad you like them," replied Alex.

"Like them? If you could see the twins' rapture, you would realise what an understatement that is. Of course, they tried them on at once. And I am very glad that you have accepted our invitation and will be with us on the important night."

"It was kind of you to ask me."

"Well, the twins wanted you to see the dresses being worn, anyway."

"You must be very busy with all the arrangements."

"Oh, completely at my wits' end, I assure you. Thank goodness I haven't any more daughters to come out - especially after such scatterbrains as these two."

When Alex had rung off she sat for a few moments lost in thought. Although she was receiving more and more invitations with each passing week, she had not expected to be invited to this coming-out ball, nor, on first receiving the invitation, had she intended to go. It was Miss Lawson who had prompted the decision. Looking at the dresses with Alex before they were packed for despatch - such dream dresses, bouffant, gay, exquisitely embroidered, and sparkling with rhinestones - she had said:

"I'd love to be there and see the girls in these dresses. Talk about fairy princesses!" And Alex had decided that she would go. It was sure to be, after all, a colourful occasion; there would be other dresses to see, made by other couturiers. Always on the look-out for ideas and suggestions, sometimes from the most unlikely sources, Alex thought that it would be worth her while to go.

For herself, she designed a white dress, simple and slim. She would wear no jewellery except one very chunky gold bracelet.

"It's wonderful," breathed Virginia. "So chic! I think you'll make everybody else feel shockingly over-dressed."

"That wasn't my intention," smiled Alex.

"You should have saved it for your collection."

"I can design others for the collection."

"Yes, of course. I hope I shall always be as prolific with ideas as you are."

"I expect you will be. It becomes a habit."

"What, getting good ideas? I can't really believe that - I should think it's far easier to become sterile."

"No," said Alex. "You get into the habit of looking in all sorts of odd places for ideas - I've had quite good ideas for embroidery from Adam fireplaces. A single glittering chandelier can bring before you visions of the kind of dresses that should go with it: a peasant in Brittany or Tuscany can give you ideas for hats or sports things. It's just a matter of keeping your eyes open."

"And being able to see with them what you do," said Virginia.

"Yes, that too," agreed Alex.

Before the night of the ball, Mrs. Swatheling telephoned to a young man of her acquaintance, to ask him to bring Alex with him when he drove down for the ball.

"Oh, no," protested the young man. "You've thought up some awful female for me - I know you. Somebody that nobody else wanted to bring."

"Not at all. She will be spending the night here, or I quite expect you'd be clamouring to drive her back as well."

"Really a stunner?"

"Really a stunner, Hugh, though I deplore the slang."

"Well, give me her address and I'll bring her with me."

So on the appointed night, the young man called for Alex and was invited into the flat. She was ready for him, and he mentally agreed with Mrs. Swatheling that she was a stunner.

"You'd like a drink," suggested Alex, "before we go?"

"Thank you."

"And I don't know if you've eaten lately, but I know what these affairs are. I'm usually very hungry before supper-time, so I made some sandwiches."

"Good idea," said Hugh, and sat down to enjoy his snack with Alex, and to improve the shining hour by getting acquainted with her. She was beautiful and exquisitely gowned, but it was not long before Hugh decided that she was a little too cold for his taste. Charming, yes, but remaining detached. He liked a little fun and frivolity, so that he was glad to find, when at last they reached the Swathelings' house in the country, that Alex knew a good many of the people there, and he could go in search of the debutantes, who were more in his line.

Before that, however, as they approached the house along the drive, they saw that it was ablaze with lights; and that the trees of the drive had been hung with coloured Chinese lanterns.

"I say, the Swathelings have gone to town, haven't they?" said Hugh, and it was true that they had spared no expense on this coming-out ball. The whole affair had been extravagantly handled, and it seemed to Alex that the world and his wife were present. She was interested in the colourful scene, in the dresses of the women (trying to identify them with the great names in haute couture). She was standing for the moment alone when she suddenly caught sight of her own reflection. She had not realised that it was a mirror between the two tall columns, and for a quick second did not realise it was herself she was looking at, so that, briefly, she got an impression of herself as a stranger; and what she saw surprised her. For she looked so aloof, so unapproachable in her detachment that it was a shock to her. Alex, she reproached herself mentally, and made a quick grimace at that unfriendly-looking reflection of herself. Was that really how the world saw her? She smiled a little and saw the immediate improvement.

"That's better," said a voice behind her, and she turned to see a very big and burly man watching her; a man with a shock of grey hair and bushy grey eyebrows, and under the eyebrows a pair of keen grey eyes. His leonine head and powerful shoulders would have marked him out in any crowd. "Why are you making faces at yourself?"

"Because I didn't like myself very much," said Alex, smiling. "But I assure you, I'm not crazy."

"I wonder why you don't like yourself? I should have thought a young woman looking as you do would be very pleased with herself."

Alex shook her head and did not go into explanations.

"Let me introduce myself," he said. "I am Dudley Hood. And you?"

"Alex Paul. Your name seems familiar - I probably ought to know you."

"No," he said. "There's no reason why a young and beautiful woman should have heard of me. I'm not at all good at this dancing business - will you risk it with me?"

Alex danced with him, and then allowed him to bring her a drink, and they sat together on a couch, talking and watching the dancing.

"Doesn't it strike you as a great hullabaloo to bring two young women out into the social world?" he asked.

"I suppose it is," she admitted, "but it gives a lot of people enjoyment; it makes the twins tremendously important for one night, and it gives a lot of work to people who need it - it's good for trade, in other words."

"I shouldn't have expected you to bother about that."

She smiled. He signalled to a waiter, who brought them champagne. Raising her glass to him, she said:

"But then I'm one of the people who benefit. I designed and made the dresses - for the twins and their mother. Incidentally, I also see a few others of mine here."

"And the one you are wearing?"

"Yes."

"You are a dressmaker?"

"Well, yes. That's rather a humdrum word for it, I think. I am a designer, and I run a couture business."

"I stand reproved. Then your name ought to have been familiar to me?'

"There's no reason," she said, copying his words, "why a distinguished professional gentleman should have heard of me."

He laughed. A nice, pleasant, booming laugh, the kind that caused other people to smile in sympathy.

"Then I must be in the company of a young woman with cleverness, perspicacity, and determination. When I saw you standing there in your white dress I thought you were probably a useless member of society - you are beautiful enough to be. Now I see that a lot must be added to your beauty. Charm, too."

Alex laughed at him.

"When you spoke to me, I was thinking how cold and unfriendly and unapproachable I looked - but I'm not really like that."

"I can see that. Either myself or the champagne has brought out all your warmth. You are nicer now. You should smile a great deal - I like it."

"I think the champagne must have brought something up in you," she said. "You're full of flattery."

"I never flatter. I don't notice young women; but I noticed you. You aren't married, I see."

"No."

"Nor am I. Perhaps we have both been too busy with our work."

"Perhaps," agreed Alex.

"How do you think a marriage would work out between an elderly professor and a young dressmaker - I'm sorry I don't know a better word for what you do, a less humdrum word."

Alex looked at him, smiling. She had been immediately drawn to this man.

"You are such a dear," she said, "that I can easily imagine such a marriage working very well. But I do think you've been drinking too much champagne."

"Yes, perhaps I should steady it with some food. Shall we attack the buffet in force?"

They went into the dining-room, where two long buffets were arranged with the most varied, colourful, and extravagant displays of food.

"How beautiful," said Alex, watching a waiter pile things on to a plate for her .

"It won't look beautiful in a short time, madam," he said, beginning to fill a plate for Dudley Hood.

A waiter approached them, about to go out of the dining- room with another large tray carrying glasses of champagne. Dudley Hood said:

"Let's have some more champagne, Alex Paul," and the waiter stopped at once for them to take two glasses. Alex turned round to help herself, and there, behind her, at the side of the waiter, stood Charles.

"Well, Alex?" he said, smiling.

"Charles," she said, and looked for a moment as if she had seen a ghost.

"Champagne," murmured the waiter.

"Yes, champagne," said Charles, and took two glasses, holding one out to Alex.

"I haven't a free hand," she said.

"Let's come over here," suggested Charles, and they moved to a small table where they could put their things, but they remained standing.

"Do you know Mr. Hood?" asked Alex, trying to recover from her surprise.

"Yes, Dudley and I are old friends." Relieved of the food and champagne, the two men shook hands. "I haven't seen you since Geneva, Dudley," said Charles. "You haven't blown the world up yet."

"Nor intend to," boomed Dudley. He lifted his glass to Alex, and the three of them drank together.

"I begin to realise who you are," Alex said to Dudley. "Terribly important. Science and atoms and things."

The two men laughed at her, but thought no less of her for her ignorance. Charles studied her, and she felt her colour rise under his scrutiny. He saw her vivacious and sparkling - perhaps it was the champagne, perhaps Dudley's flattery, but the cold, aloof girl of the earlier evening had disappeared, and a warm, smiling, infinitely desirable girl had taken her place.

The two men started to talk, and Alex, her pulse and breathing only now returning to normal, decided that discretion would be the better part of valour, and that she would leave them to their talk and make her escape. But Charles realised her intention, and as she put her plate and glass down on the table, his hand closed firmly over her wrist.

"Don't go, Alex," he said. "I want to talk to you."

"But you two can talk better without me."

"On the contrary, we shall talk much better for your being here. She will be our inspiration, Dudley."

"She has already inspired me to new heights this evening," said the older man.

"Very foolish new heights," said Alex.

"What, you call a proposal of marriage foolish?" he asked.

"It wasn't a proposal. Or if it was, it was a very ambiguous one," said Alex, "and entirely due to the champagne."

"The only thing due to the champagne was the courage I screwed up," he said.

"What is all this?" enquired Charles, who had been listening with an air of amused surprise.

"Mr. Hood is joking," said Alex.

"You monopolise the lion of the evening," said Charles, "and then scorn him. But then I couldn't have approved of such a marriage, anyway."

Dudley looked from Charles to Alex and back again. He realised that there was a tension between these two people.

"Don't tell me," he said to Alex, "that you're going to make an honest man of Charles at last."

"Charles! Would it be possible to make an honest man of him?"

They both recognised the undercurrent in her voice, but Dudley chose to take it lightly.

"No, perhaps not - he is the inveterate bachelor."

"As inveterate a bachelor as you are yourself, Dudley," said Charles. "But you talk of marriage in your cups, and I do not."

Alex tried again to release her wrist from Charles's grasp. Charles looked at her, a long, inscrutable look which she could not interpret, and said to Dudley:

"Do you mind if I take Alex off to dance?"

"Not at all. I'm just getting the edge off my appetite. When you're tired of him, Alex, come back to me."

Then they were on the dancing-floor and she was in Charles's arms again. After such a long, long time she was in his arms, and all the old love and longing were back again, but there was assuagement for the longing in the strength of his arms, and relief to admit the love to herself. Just this once, she thought to herself. Just this once. I must have something to live on, something to keep me from dying of starvation.

When the music ended, Charles said:

"Come and talk to me, Alex. I want to know how you're getting on."

She made no resistance, so he led her out of the room, across the hall, and into a smaller, unoccupied room.

"Where are we going?" she asked, as they walked across the hall.

"We shall be undisturbed here," said Charles. "Nobody will come here."

"You know the house very well," commented Alex.

"Mrs. Swatheling is my second cousin," he said.

"Oh! So you're not surprised to see me here?"

"No."

"Trickery," she said.

Charles shrugged his shoulders. Alex walked to the door, and before he could stop her, was once more in the hall. He followed her.

"Alex, don't be silly."

She went on. Suddenly, he was beside her, his hand through her arm, piloting her very firmly towards the garden. She resisted, but it was useless.

"Call for help," Charles taunted, but she did not call for help, and so found herself in the garden with him, where some other couples walked the paths, lit by the Chinese lanterns and fairy-lights. Charles walked her on, past the conservatory, where people stood and talked and laughed, into the shrubbery, which was unlit, and very dark after the lights everywhere else.

Already Alex's anger at the knowledge that he had carefully planned this meeting was evaporating. She knew that it stood no chance against her desire to be with him. And when he took her into his arms with an unexpected gentleness, she was quite disarmed.

"Oh, Charles," she said softly, and gave herself up to this unexpected and blissful peace; a peace that washed away all her restlessness, all her discontent. She sighed a long sigh that carried away with it the last of her resolve, and met Charles's kiss with the warmth and ardour that he alone had the power to bring to life in her; and this fanned his passion for her, so that they swayed together in an ecstasy of love.

"Alex, what a long time it's been," he said at last.

"Years and years," she said, for it seemed to her like that.

"You've missed me," he said.

"And perhaps you've missed me, Charles."

"Of course I have - all the time."

They kissed again, and then began to walk the narrow path through the shrubbery, Charles's arm about Alex. They came to the end, where the trees and shrubs gave way to a field that had once been parkland, and there was a strong oak seat. They went and sat on it, Alex going at once into Charles's arms. Just this once, she reassured her conscience, just this once. This once to feel free of envy and frustration; this once to have her longing and desire satisfied; this once to feel the coldness in herself thawing in the warmth of their love. So they sat together, satisfied with each other, oblivious of the ball.

"The moon is rising," said Alex, at last.

"Mmmm," murmured Charles, his lips against her hair.

"We should go back, perhaps the party is breaking up."

"Are you staying here?"

"Yes. I would have preferred to go back, because I know a lot of the morning will be wasted before I can get away; but without my own transport it seemed easier this way." . "Why don't you buy a car?"

"I don't like driving. In town I can use taxis all the time."

"I thought I would give you a beautiful car once," he said. "Wouldn't you have driven it?"

"How do I know? I wouldn't have taken it."

"You would, if you had followed the rest of my plans for you. I wanted to give it to you, and a mink coat, and diamonds - anything you wanted."

"But you picked on the wrong girl."

"Yes," said Charles.

Yes, he thought, I know that by now. He had thought at first that conquest would not be too difficult. When he realised just how difficult it was going to be, he had also realised that the victory would be worth considerably more to him. Now he knew that he was never going to gain that particular victory. Alex had a strength which he had never guessed at. Even now, holding her in his arms, the warmth of her kisses still delighting him, he knew that that strength was still there. He no longer deluded himself that this yielding would last until to-morrow. To-morrow she would have recovered her resolution. He was silent and thoughtful for so long that Alex had to remind him again that it was time for them to go back.

"Time enough," said Charles, looking at his watch. "It will go on for hours yet."

"But I have appointments tomorrow, and I would like to get a little sleep."

"We'll go back at the bacon-and-egg stage," he promised. "Tell me all that's been happening to you."

"You know about the business. I keep you informed."

"Yes, I'm pleased with your progress."

"Good," said Alex dryly.

"But about your private life? What is happening there?"

"All that usually happens; it doesn't vary much. Work most of the time. Did you see the Hector Burn show? The sets were mine."

"Yes. They were most attractive. How do you get on with my Maharanee?"

"She's lovely, and quite delightful. She sent me a sari, most lavishly embroidered with gold. Perfectly lovely. I almost wore it at a first night; but I didn't want to be in all the papers."

"You would have looked most beautiful."

"Thank you."

"And the farming Adonis?" asked Charles.

"Is still farming, and still an Adonis."

"And still in favour?"

"Very much so."

"Which means?" asked Charles.

"That he is very much in favour, just what it says."

"Are you going to marry him?"

"I think so," said Alex.

There was a long silence then. A long and complex silence. At last:

"Feeling as you do about me?" asked Charles.

"Yes," said Alex soberly, "feeling as I do about you."

"You will marry him without love, in fact."

"No, not without love."

"Without this kind of love," said Charles. "Is it worth it?"

"Yes, it is," said Alex, quietly, but firmly.

"And when will this wedding be?" asked Charles.

"I don't know. It isn't decided. Whenever I wish."

"I see." After another pause, Charles went on:

"And how is marriage going to be reconciled with your career?"

"It will be," said Alex.

"Everything is decided? You will carry on with your work?"

"Of course."

"How will that fit in with the farm?"

"That's our job," said Alex. "We're adult - we can both look at things sensibly."

"Not too sensibly, I hope. A little nonsense is a desirable thing."

"Quite," said Alex dryly. "I don't think we shall need your advice, Charles, about our marriage. I hardly think it's a subject on which you are qualified to advise."

"Will it take place before the summer?" asked Charles.

"I don't think so. Why?"

"I was hoping you would come to Florence, as you did last year, but earlier, so that it wouldn't be so hot. After all, your business has now reached the stage where you don't have to be there to nurse it all the time."

"No, and I have Virginia, who is a great help." There was a brief, pregnant pause, and Alex said: "Ah."

"Ah," repeated Charles.

"Virginia," said Alex.' 'You sent her to me."

"Virginia," he repeated. "I did not send her to you."

"But you told her about me."

"Yes, I thought she could be an immeasurable help to you. Wasn't I right?"

"Perhaps. I find her a little naive, but otherwise very good indeed."

"She is only naive to you, because she has a case of hero- worship. Unusual in her, I might say."

"You know her very well," said Alex.

"Very well indeed," said Charles, meaning to taunt Alex, but not knowing how much he hurt her, how fierce and unrelenting was her jealousy.

Alex rose to her feet, determined to go back to the house; and they walked once again through the shrubbery, past the conservatory, where people were still sitting out, under the Chinese lanterns, and back into the room where the dancing was still showing no signs of coming to an end. Mrs. Swatheling met them.

"Charles, I wondered where on earth you were. I wanted you a little while ago, I've forgotten now what for. Miss Paul, are you enjoying yourself?"

"Immensely, thank you."

"Good, good." She would have gone on, but Charles stopped her.

"Florence, Miss Paul wants to get back to town to-night, because she has important appointments to-morrow. So, as I am going, I'll drive her back."

Alex was about to protest, but Mrs. Swatheling said at once:

"Oh, are you sure you must go, my dear? Well, it will help me out because at least three more people are staying than I had planned for; and we have already booked all the available rooms in the village, so we certainly can use your room. But only, my dear, if you are quite sure."

Alex could only say that she was quite sure, feeling angry with Charles again.

"How dare you interfere with my plans?" she asked him when Mrs. Swatheling had gone.

"But you said you would prefer to go back to-night. I thought I was helping you. If you go and pads your things, we'll go whenever you wish."

They drove back to London through the peaceful, early summer night, and the moon was now much higher in the sky and almost full, so that a pale silver light was shed over the countryside. In its peace, the bickering mood that had overtaken them was dispelled.

"Come closer," said Charles.

Alex did so. He put an arm round her, driving at less than his normal speed along the deserted roads, and at last they came to Alex's home. Charles went up the stairs with her to her door.

"It will soon be dawn," said Alex.

"Yes," said Charles, "but you can get some sleep if you go straight to bed."

He stopped at the door.

"Kiss me good night," he said, and she went into his arms smiling, and kissed him passionately, holding herself close to him. His arms tightened fiercely about her.

"Won't you come in?" she asked softly.

"No," Charles said.

"Not for a drink, some coffee?"

"No. Go to bed. You're tired and you have work to do tomorrow."

She did not try to persuade him. He kissed her once more and let her go.

"Good-bye, Alex," he said.

"Good-bye, Charles."

She opened the door, and he waited until she had gone inside and then returned to his car. Alex went into the sitting-room and realised that she was very tired, but she did not think that Charles had left her out of consideration for her tiredness. For the first time, he had not wanted her, and the thought brought her an unendurable bitterness. She had asked him to come in, and he had not wanted to. He had said good-bye to her and not good night. At last, he had given up thoughts of her, and she could only remind herself that now he had Virginia: Virginia, whom he admitted to knowing very well indeed.

Then why should he bother to get you invited to the ball? she asked herself. Surely not for the pleasure of stirring up your feelings for him and then rejecting them? Did he, even then, hope for a reconciliation which was thwarted by her assertion that she was going to marry Terence? Alex did not know which of these things was true. She only knew that the one way to preserve herself from Charles's advances was to put herself safely and for ever out of his reach.

CHAPTER X

The footpath over the water meadows led to a narrow bridge across the stream, and then along the woodland ride to the largest mass of bluebells that Alex had ever seen. The deep, wonderful blue stretched as far as the eye could see, until it became a haze under the delicate green of chestnut and birch just coming into leaf.

"I think we'll stop here," said Cicely, as they reached the giant beech-tree which had been uprooted by storm the year before. "It makes a convenient table for a picnic tea."

The children at once put down the things they had been prevailed upon to carry, and raced off through the bluebells. Jane Alexandra was taken from her carry-seat, and put on a rug with some toys, and Cicely and Alex seated themselves upon the more comfortable branches of the beech-tree.

"They won't want tea just yet," said Cicely. "Tell me all the news, Alex."

"There isn't a great deal," said Alex. "Nothing startling, at least."

"How is the Virginia girl coming along?"

"Quite satisfactorily. I find her more useful every day. She is certainly a hard worker."

"She sounds rather like you. I imagine Madame must have found you much the same as you find Virginia. I'd like to meet her - would you like to bring her down some time?"

"Frankly, no," said Alex.

Cicely looked at her with a question in her eyes.

"I don't think I want to mix my business and private lives too much," said Alex. "One thing may surprise you - it was Charles who sent her to me."

"Charles? Yes, that does surprise me. How did he get to know her?"

"He has, apparently, known her very well for a very long time. I know that Virginia adores him; what he feels is never obvious."

"Well, well," said Cicely because she was at a loss for any other words; and because she had never known precisely what Charles and Alex had meant to each other. She knew that whereas once they had seen each other frequently, they now never met. She knew that Alex had gone through a period of great unhappiness, and that now she seemed to have recovered from it. She decided that the subject of Charles was better not broached.

"I suppose that makes no difference to her usefulness to you," she said, and Alex was surprised to realise that it made a great deal of difference. She knew that, now, every time she looked at Virginia she thought of Charles, and the thought hurt her. It was one more pointer to Alex's obvious line of action: she must put herself safely out of the reach of all these painful thoughts; immerse herself in somebody else, in a safe, secure marriage.

"I hope," she said, "that Virginia will become more and more useful. My aim, as you know, is to be able to leave her in charge for brief periods. That won't be yet, of course."

One of the children ran back to give a bunch of bluebells to the baby, who immediately began to pull them to pieces. Cicely kept an eye on her to see that none of them found its way into her mouth, and began to unpack the picnic tea.

"It's utterly heavenly here," said Alex, letting her eyes rest on the carpet of blue that stretched away into the distance. "I hope that Terence has a carpet of bluebells somewhere that I shall be able to look out on every spring."

"Do I detect a special significance in that remark?" asked Cicely.

"You do, Cicely. I've decided to marry him."

"Oh, Alex, I am so glad! It's what I've hoped for for ages, of course, and I do hope you will both be as happy as Douglas and I are. When is it going to be?"

"I haven't an idea. Terence himself doesn't know about it yet. In fact, if he has changed his mind about me I shall be making a fool of myself."

"But you know he'll never change his mind. Oh, this is marvellous news. And we shall be quite near neighbours - well, twenty miles is nothing on these quiet country roads. But you'll go on working, of course."

"Yes, and you see if Virginia makes herself really useful, it means I shall be able to take odd days off to be with Terence at the farm - and every week-end of course. I think he gets the worst of the bargain, poor Terence, but he doesn't think so."

"I think you'll both be lucky. That lovely farmhouse, Alex, and its beautiful kitchen! I wish I had one like it, not that you'll be able to be in the kitchen much, but perhaps that's a good thing, from Terence's point of view, anyway, seeing that you never could cook; and no man can live on coffee indefinitely. You'll keep on your flat, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"How nice for you to come down every week-end to such a lovely place: and no chance of getting bored with the country either. Oh, Alex, do have your wedding here. I'd love to arrange it for you, and you know Mother would adore to help me."

Alex laughed.

"Too early," she said, "for that kind of talk. I have to be accepted yet!"

She swooped on Jane Alexandra, who was beginning to explore rather too far afield, and restored her to her rug. Cicely called to the children, who came running through the bluebells, falling into them, laughing and panting, and arriving at the beech-tree, eager for their tea. Alex, watching the calm, efficient way in which Cicely managed them all, thought they were Cicely's family almost as much as their own parents', for practically all their spare time was spent at the farm. Dealing out sandwiches and scones, Alex gave a thought to the future, and decided she would like to have two children: a girl who would, perhaps, share her mother's tastes, and a boy to follow in Terence's footsteps. Though, she thought with slight amusement, what would happen would be a boy who longed to be a dress designer and a strapping, animal-loving daughter.

After a wonderful picnic, and a welcome share of the pure, clear air, they trudged their way homeward, the children a little tired; down the uneven ride, Jane Alexandra swinging in her little seat between Cicely and Alex, over the narrow bridge, where the boys always stopped to look for the fish, and straggling out on the footpath over the meadows. Then they saw Douglas and Terence climbing the stile to come and meet them.

The boys at once found new energy to run towards them. Alex watched them approaching, two good-looking, tall men, very much in their right element here in the open air. From a long way off, Terence looked only at Alex, seeing her slim and beautiful and contented; holding the bar of Jane's carry-seat with one hand, carrying picnic gear with the other, and Susan stumbling along beside her, chattering endlessly. He adjusted the picture slightly to see her walking thus over his own farm accompanied by her own children, and he wished he knew what magic formula to use to make this happen.

The two groups met.

"You can have this one," said Cicely to Douglas, handing over Jane Alexandra complete with her seat.

"And Susan can ride on my shoulders," said Terence.

"No, me," shouted Michael.

"No, Susan is the youngest. And I'll take that basket, Alex."

"Are you going to take us home in your car, Uncle Terence?" asked Susan.

"Yes, very soon."

"Oh, stay and have supper with us," said Cicely.

"Another time, Cicely. Miss Hall is cooking us a wonderful meal, and she wouldn't forgive us if we didn't go back to enjoy it."

Good, thought Alex, we shall have a long, lovely evening by the fire, and everything will be arranged; and before I go back to town we will be engaged to be married, and I shall be safe. Safe for always. And what Charles does and how he plans his life and his loves won't be any concern of mine. And I shall really concentrate on making this marriage a big success: I shall give Terence all that I possibly can, and he shall get out of his marriage all that he ought to get.

Except your love, said a small voice in her mind.

But he knows that, she protested to herself, and wants me all the same. And I'm so very fond of him that I'm sure it will be a success.

They dropped the children in the village, and reluctantly stopped for a drink with their parents before going on.

"At last," said Terence, when they were in the car again; "at last I have you to myself."

She smiled at him and slipped a hand into his arm as he drove. At once he turned his head to smile back warmly at her. How handsome he is, she thought: much handsomer than Charles; and was immediately angry with herself for even thinking about Charles. She wanted to reach the stage where he simply did not come into her mind, where she could stop using him as a yardstick against which every other man must be measured. Especially Terence. Terence, who was nicer in every way than Charles, if one thought of them systematically point for point. Charles must go, she decided. Lock, stock, and barrel. She must not marry one man with thoughts of another breaking into that marriage.

They came to the farm, and Alex waited while Terence put the car away. They walked arm in arm into the hall just as Miss Hall, the housekeeper, entered it from the other end.

"Good evening, Miss Hall," said Alex, smiling warmly at her.

"Good evening, Miss Paul, good evening, Mr. Whitemore; I'm so glad you got here in good time - I have a good dinner just ready for you."

"Will you give me ten minutes?" asked Alex. "Just to get out of this suit into a comfortable dress?"

"Ten minutes, no more," said Terence, carrying her bag up the stairs for her.

Her room had a south window and a west. The setting sun sent its rays into the room, gilding everything with a golden light. It was a pleasant, low-ceilinged room, with old furniture and gay chintzes and a soft carpet for her feet - it was, above all else, a homely room, a place for comfort and rest. Alex washed, and changed her suit for a full jersey dress in a soft: shade of tangerine; a dress with long sleeves and capacious pockets exactly right for a fireside evening in a country farmhouse. She went downstairs and into the sitting-room, where Terence had a glass of sherry waiting for her.

Already, she thought, they were falling into a routine She would come downstairs to find the sherry and Terence waiting, and after a few minutes they would go together into the little dining-room, where the oak gateleg table was laid ready for them, and almost before they were seated, Miss Hall would bring in the soup, assuring them that she had kept it hot until the very last moment.

Miss Hall was fifty. She had, until two years ago, kept house for an invalid father and a brother; but when the father had died, the brother had married, and Miss Hall had been forced to look for a job. As housekeeping was the one thing she knew inside out, she had applied to Terence in answer to his advertisement, and found him considerably easier to look after than a hard-to-please invalid and a brother in whom familiarity had long ago bred indifference. She cooked and did the housework, and found time to look after a flower-garden too, for she was, as she often said herself, "passionately fond" of flowers. There were always flowers round the house. Stuck into vases rather than arranged in them, but so beautiful in themselves that Alex tried not to see that, tried not to rearrange them too obviously. Miss Hall was very comfortable where she was. She had a washing-machine here, a thing she had never had before; and a vacuum cleaner and polisher, and a kitchen that many a wife would have envied her. Her room, bedroom and sitting- room combined, was as attractive and well furnished as any in the house.

She had thought for some time that Miss Paul might well be the future mistress of the house. At first, the idea had caused her panic, but this had soon disappeared. Miss Paul was. unlikely to give up her work; and even if she did, she was not the kind to want to take over the housekeeping. She was, in fact, so pleasant to Miss Hall that it even dawned on that lady that Alex wanted to keep her, would find it most convenient. So there was no reason to be frightened, and Miss Hall was as pleasant as Alex, and continued to cook all her favourite dishes for her.

Alex and Terence took their coffee into the sitting-room. It was almost dark now. Terence drew the curtains over the windows, pushed the little coffee-table closer to Alex, and settled himself beside her in the settee with a contented grunt. Alex smiled. They might almost be married already, she thought.

"When do you have to go back?" he asked her.

"I've only just got here," she reminded him, sipping her coffee.

"Monday morning?" he asked, because he liked to keep her as long as possible.

"Yes, I think so," she said, knowing that he liked to have Sunday complete: to have dinner with her and another such evening as this, and not to have to drive her to the station to send her off to London.

"Good. Now what news?"

"Nothing startling. Tell me yours first."

"Well, I have some new calves - which you shall see in the morning, every one most obligingly a heifer calf. The new barn is coming on apace. Otherwise, there's nothing. I had dinner on Wednesday with Lord Helsfield, who is a J.P. and chairman of the county council, and who chided me on not taking a more prominent part in local affairs. So watch out, Alex, I'll be sitting on the bench before you know where you are."

"Darling, I'm sure you will. I think you'd be awfully good running local affairs."

"You don't think anything of the sort, you minx." He smiled at her, and she smiled lazily back. "This is a wonderful colour," he said, touching the stuff of her dress. "You're like a flame."

"I don't feel like one," she said. "I find it cold down here, after my snug, small flat."

Terence got up to put more logs on the fire, although the early summer evening was not really cold.

"Marry me," he said, "and I'll put new radiators all over the house."

"All right," Alex replied. "You go ahead with the radiators."

Terence laughed as he dropped down beside her again.

"I wish you meant it," he said.

"I do," said Alex quietly.

He turned his head to look at her, suddenly serious.

"Say that again," he said. "Did I hear aright?"

"I think so. I will many you - if you'll put radiators all over the house."

"Seriously, Alex..."

"Seriously, darling," she interrupted him, "I will marry you. Radiators or not, I want to marry you."

He took a long breath, still looking rather incredulous.

"I came down this week-end with the firm intention of telling you so," she said.

He took her into his arms.

"I still hardly believe I'm hearing what I seem to be hearing," he said. "But if it's true, well, this is wonderful, Alex. Oh, Alex..."

They kissed, long and seriously, and then with rising passion. The logs Terence had put on the fire burst into flames, and their light flickered over them, deepening the colour of Alex's dress, darkening the shadow of her lashes so that her eyes seemed darker than ever.

They drew slowly apart. Alex leaned away from him a short distance and rested against the corner of the settee.

"So we are engaged to be married?" asked Terence, his hand lifted to smooth a strand of her hair, and then resting lightly against her smooth cheek.

"Yes."

"And when shall we have the wedding?"

"Whenever you wish, Terence."

"As soon as I wish?"

"Yes, darling, as soon as you wish."

"This summer?"

She nodded, her eyes shining.

"Well," said Terence, "this is quite a knock-out blow. If you find me stupid, it's because I'm adjusting all my ideas. What made you change your mind?"

"Change my mind?"

"You were so insistent that you didn't want to be married yet."

"Oh, darling, you'll have to put it down to the variable nature of women."

"But you're not variable, Alex, not in that way at least. Why did you change?"

She realised that she was not going to get away with it as easily as she had hoped. So she looked serious as she replied:

"Well... I think, really, Terence, I want all the security and the safety that a marriage with you would mean. And you know I don't mean financial security. That doesn't worry me at all. The business is going very well, and even if it didn't, I know that I could always work for some of my present rivals. So that I am certainly not marrying you for financial security. But I do think that, living with you, I would be secure - we would both be secure perhaps, from the loneliness of the world. And even that isn't quite right. It's more than that."

"Perhaps it's even love," suggested Terence.

"Oh, I do wish it were," said Alex, and the way she said it showed him plainly that it was not. "I do feel a cheat, Terence, because I don't love you in the way you love me. But you know that, and if you want me even so..."

"Which I do," he interpolated.

"Then I really want to marry you, and maybe in time I will love you as I feel I ought."

He looked at her seriously and quietly for a time, and she looked back at him, wondering what was occupying his mind.

"You're quite sure about this, Alex?"

"Yes, quite sure."

"Then we'll be married this summer."

"But you are quite sure, too?" she asked.

"I? Do you doubt it?"

"Only it seems to me you could do so much better for yourself."

He smiled disbelievingly at that.

"Nobody would agree with you," he pointed out.

"Nobody else knows the truth about us."

"Which is?"

"Oh, this business of only being with you half of the time, less than half the time; and not being madly in love with you as I ought to be. Because there must be a lot of nice women who would give up their whole lives to you, and to making marriage something wonderful..."

Terence took her into his arms with sudden strength and passion.

"Now, for the last time," he said, "don't let me hear any more of such nonsense. There may be a thousand such women around, and I don't want one of them. All I want is this particular woman that I have in my arms."

Alex gave herself up to their insistence. She had placated her conscience. She had, once more, shown Terence the truth: that she could not love him with the love he wanted, yet his one wish was to marry her in spite of that. She would, she resolved, make a resounding success of this marriage. She would put the past behind her (she meant that she would put Charles behind her, but this time she did not let his name come into her mind), and concentrate wholeheartedly on the present and the future.

It was late when they went to bed, yet neither of them went at once to sleep, and neither of them indulged in the happy day-dreams that might have been expected, although both were delighted at the turn of events. Alex, lying in bed, with the windows open to the fresh night air, paused in the act of turning out her light, to look round her pleasant room again. It will seem strange, she thought, to live here. Not to be a guest, but to come home here. This won't be my room then. I suppose Terence and I will have his big room that looks out over the hills. And that, for a moment, gave her pause. To give herself up so entirely, to share so much of her life, that had always been simply her own, with a man- this was a big step. With some, it would be a surrendering of personality....

Well, she thought, isn't that the whole idea of marriage - to give and to take? Alex, you've got to give; you've got to do it naturally and gladly and spontaneously. You can't take all that Terence has to give, and give so generously, and try to keep yourself withdrawn.

If it had been Charles, she thought, and could not keep back the thought this time. If it had been Charles, I would have poured everything out and held nothing back – I couldn't have helped myself. But that's life. The one man in the world who would be absolutely right for me, and he has no intention of marrying any woman. The one man who understands me, who knows me exactly as I am, but only wants me if he can get me easily - not if he has to pay a price.

I love him, but I cannot marry him; and so I will make myself forget; I will make this marriage a success; if I put all my resolution into it, I know that I can do it.

Terence was also awake in his room. He stood at the window, smoking a last cigarette, and he was thoughtful. He could not help wondering why Alex had changed her mind so suddenly about marriage. She had been saying for so long that she did not want it yet, that something held her back from marriage, that it was not fair to marry him without the love a wife should feel for her husband. He had felt the barrier between them as if it had been a tangible barrier, and had known himself powerless to remove it. What had suddenly removed it then? he wondered. It was not, he felt sure, simply that she wanted security from loneliness. She might want that, but not now, immediately, while she was still young, busy, surrounded by friends; it was not enough for this sudden change.

He knew that Alex was far from being an open book to him. He knew as much about her private life as she chose to tell him. Was it possible that something had happened, in the last week or so, to change her, to make marriage seem a very desirable thing? Was it possible that in himself she saw a bulwark against something, or somebody, else?

Why should I worry? he asked himself. I've got what I wanted, and now I have it, I shall keep it. If there was something extraneous, I should be glad of it. And remembering Alex in his arms, he was glad of it. This was going to work out, he thought, pitching his cigarette out of the window, and throwing his dressing-gown over a chair.

Yet next day, he could not resist trying to find out if any one happening had recently occurred to account for this change of mind.

It was a wonderful Sunday, a clear day of early summer, when snow-white cumulus cloud rose up across a blue sky, and a slight breeze kept the young green foliage trembling. Terence was out on the farm while Alex slept off the accumulation of a week's tiredness, and woke to find Miss Hall standing beside her bed with a breakfast-tray. They met later in the garden, and set off for a walk round the farm, and through the woods, stopping often in secluded places to kiss with delight. Alex, having burned her boats, was content and happy. She felt a great relief in having taken definite action.

"Your bluebells," she said to Terence, "are lovely, but not nearly as good as Cicely's."

"They'll develop," said Terence comfortably. "Tell me, Alex, what stones do you want in your engagement ring?"

Alex thought for a few moments.

"Why not show me the jewellery that was your mother's?"

she suggested. "Perhaps there would be a ring there."

"No," Terence replied. "This one has to be just you and me - something personal to us two. Diamonds?"

"An emerald," said Alex. "I've always wanted an emerald. I have almost no jewellery."

"A sign of a well-spent youth perhaps?" asked Terence, smiling.

"A sign of a most virtuous youth," agreed Alex, remembering that Charles had wanted to give her diamonds and mink and other luxurious presents.

"I'll come up to town one day in the week, and we'll go and buy it," he said.

They came out of the wood at last, and began to stroll back for lunch, arm in arm, across the meadows.

"You didn't tell me what you have been doing with yourself lately," Terence reminded her as they walked.

"The usual things, for the most part. I took Virginia to that big charity dress show - you probably saw it in the papers afterwards."

"I did. I would never have noticed such news in the old days. Now, because it concerns you, I'm quite au fait."

"I wanted to show her how these things are run, and I wanted, too, to find out which things she would pick out as being specially good. I was quite pleased with her. Also, my own things received a fair share of applause."

"And the ball for the Swatheling girls?"

"That seemed to be a great success. They, and their dresses, were much admired. It was a great crush, though."

"Who was there? Did you meet anybody interesting?"

"Why do you ask?" Alex wanted to know, suddenly aware that Terence seemed to be following a set line of questioning.

"Because," he said, "I want to know all about you - all the things that you do when I'm not there; the kind of people you meet, how you spend your time. I want to be able to picture you all the time. I want you to let me into your life - and to let you into mine, though I'm afraid there will be little to interest you in my bucolic affairs."

"You underestimate yourself, darling." But Alex had already decided that there was no need whatever to tell him about Charles, to unsettle him, or give him the slightest grounds for worry or unhappiness. So she said:

"About the ball. There were all the usual debutantes and their escorts and some of their families. A few stage people - the beautiful Bianca looking specially lovely in a creation from Alex Paul, who incidentally was responsible for the dresses of the sparkling twins, and herself appeared in a glamorous white..."

"All right," said Terence. "I know all about that. You can skip that bit."

Alex laughed.

"Well, I did meet one interesting person - although, to me, I'm afraid he talked nonsense, probably thinking that anything else would be above my head. That was Dudley Hood. Does the name convey anything to you?"

"Of course," said Terence. "The atomic scientist. But what, was he doing at such an affair?"

"He is godfather to the twins, it appears. I thought him a dear; big, burly; bushy eyebrows and a shock of hair. He even wanted to know my opinion on a marriage between what he called an elderly professor and a young dressmaker."

"Did he indeed?" said Terence. "I hope you salt him firmly about his business?"

"I told him I thought it would work very well."

"Then why didn't you try it, my love?"

"Because he had looked on the champagne when it was sparkling, I think; and in any case, I wanted somebody younger and handsomer, and so I flew to you. And let's talk about us, because we are much more interesting..."

So they talked about themselves, and Terence came to the conclusion that there was nothing special that had driven her into his arms: and indeed, she seemed so happy all that day that he was soon feeling the same security, the same certainty of the future, as Alex.

CHAPTER XI

Charles had had dinner alone in his flat, and now, the window open to the freshness of the summer evening, he stood looking out over the. trees of the park. Coffee was on a low table behind him, his cigar was fragrant and satisfying. It was an evening like dozens of others in his life, an evening when he had no engagement, no obligation to go out, and could settle down in these restful surroundings to study papers or to read a book. Yet, unlike such evenings in the past, this one did not bring with it the usual relaxation.

He realised that the perfect content he had hitherto found in his life no longer existed. What had always been enough for him before unaccountably failed him now. Looking purposefully for the reason, he came back, again and again, to Alex.

He had once said to her, very early in their acquaintance, "It's strange, Alex, how our wants in this life go on changing." He had thought of what Alex might want from life, and it was true that her ideas in that particular respect, of which his remark had been the outcome, had changed. But his had changed too. He had never thought it possible that he would change the pattern of his life, but now he wanted to change it.

It had taken him some time to realise it. After Alex, he had turned to various young women of his acquaintance, escorting them to dances or theatres, dining with them, receiving from them varying degrees of favours, but not one had aroused in him any interest that could survive. After Alex, they were dull. Sooner or later, he knew, he would meet others who were not dull; but as the time went on, he began to realise that, after Alex, nobody was going to satisfy him.

He loved her. He had loved her for a long time, but then he had loved before. He had often laughed at the idea that a person loved once; but now he knew that there was one love that was greater than all the others. There was one that really mattered, one only important enough to make all his plans for life insignificant.

He had said to Alex, on the night when he was sure of her surrender to him, and when Cicely's arrival had so cruelly separated them: "You can't do without me, Alex." Now he realised that Alex could do without him. She had painfully built up a strength that could resist him. She had adhered (not always without a bitter struggle) to her principles, and now it was he who could not do without Alex.

The old days were gone, without a hope of return. They were dead, and he did not wish them back again. The idea of spending his life with one woman was no longer repellent, the idea of giving up his independence and his comfortable bachelor existence no longer alarming.

In short, he wanted now what most other men wanted: a wife, a house in which to live with her, and a family.

He had been surprised when Alex first mentioned children. She had stood there on the pavement with him, slim and elegant, the wind whipping open her black coat with its scarlet lining, and had looked quite remote from children and any form of domesticity. Yet her words came back to him time after time, until, now, he knew that if ever Alex had a child it must be his, too. And that meant marriage. And made marriage a strangely desirable state.

So, he thought. What now? Am I to go, cap in hand, humbly to her and tell her that she was right? And he knew that this was what he must do. He had no guarantee that he would meet with success. In the time that he had taken to realise how necessary she was to him, she might have grown away from him. No, he thought, remembering how one touch from him was usually enough to bring her yearningly into his arms, no, she won't have grown away from me. And if she will have me (and God knows why she should after the way I have treated her: her pride may revolt against me, but yet her love will be greater than her pride); and if she will have me, then we'll be married at once and I'll take her off to Florence, and we'll have the villa to ourselves.

He still stood at the window, although darkness hid the trees of the park from view, and thought of Alex and the villa looking down to Florence over the olive groves, and the long hours they would share there, undisturbed by the world.

At the very time that Charles stood lost in thought of Alex, Alex was writing a letter to him, addressing it in her bold, dashing hand, and walking through the quiet, deserted street to catch the last post with it.

The letter was the outcome of two or three conversations she had had with Terence, the last of them only the evening before. Alex had gone into all her own business affairs with Terence.

"It strikes me,'' Terence had said, looking through her books, "that I shall be able to learn a thing or two from you, Alex."

"Nonsense," she said. "Don't flatter me."

"I really do admire the way you've conducted your affairs."

"I've had help and advice, remember, and I had that great initial advantage, capital."

"Yes. A big sum, Alex."

"I know, but it comes down a bit every year."

"Weren't you afraid to borrow so much money?"

She smiled, thinking back to herself in those early days.

"I'm afraid it was a case of ignorance being bliss. I didn't really appreciate what a big sum it was. It amazes me that Charles had so much confidence in me; though I think he quite expected to lose the money, or a good deal of it."

"And now, Alex?"

"Now, Terence, I want, if it is at all possible, to pay Charles back: to owe you the money instead."

Terence was thoughtful.

"But perhaps," said Alex quickly, "it isn't convenient; or perhaps you haven't quite enough faith in me."

He took her chin in his hand and drew her face closer to kiss her lips.

"Don't be silly. But I haven't so much money easily available. I'm not a Charles, Alex; though, on the other hand, I'm not a poor man. You know how it is with farmers, the money is all in cattle, or crops, or something of the kind. But I can raise it."

"Without any hardship, Terence? Because, darling, I would so much sooner be indebted to you than Charles."

"I'd prefer that too. I can get a mortgage on the house. Don't worry, Alex, I'll see to it."

It will be for the best, thought Alex. Then I will never need to meet him at all - not even in connection with business. There was a feeling of sadness about so irrevocable a parting.

"It strikes me," said Terence, when he read through some of the correspondence with Charles, "that he's been extraordinarily generous. Why should he be?"

"He thought I would be a good investment."

"Nothing else?"

"I told you before, Terence. Nothing else. I made a bargain with him, before I accepted his help, that it was to be on an entirely business-like footing."

"And he agreed to the bargain?"

"Yes, I think he was intrigued by my honesty."

"And he kept to it - it didn't change?"

"No, it didn't change."

"Never?"

"What's worrying you, Terence? It never changed. Once, just once, I thought it might, but nothing came of it." He looked quickly at her and thought it was pain he saw in her eyes. She saw his quick look and smiled slightly. "It was only one time - it came and went, and. that was the end of it."

"What came and went?" he asked quickly. "Just that one time?"

"Nothing at all tangible," she reassured him. "Just that I thought we were coming closer, and then found we were farther apart than ever. And now I rarely see him."

"Well," said Terence, "we'll transfer this debt, and then you will always know you only have me to reckon with."

"That's what I want," she said.

Talking of Charles had brought him much into her mind. Going over all the old correspondence and papers and books had brought back very clearly to her all those early days of panic and struggle and uncertainty; when Charles had been her prop and stay. So that when she sat down to write her letter to him she was in a gentle mood, a kind and grateful mood, and thanked him very warmly for all his help in those early days and since. Then she said she was in a position to settle the debt, which he would be very pleased to hear, and insisted that she would always be most grateful to him. It took her the whole evening, and when it was finished she was still not wholly pleased with it. She dropped it into the box, wishing almost at once that she could have it back to alter one or two sentences, and walked slowly back to her flat.

She felt sure that Charles would not like to receive that letter, would not wish her to be completely independent of him. He must also realise that she had borrowed from somebody else to make the repayment possible. And what, wondered Alex, would he make of that?

What Charles made of it was the simple truth. He had seen Alex's writing on the envelope with a quick surge of interest. He looked at the postmark before he opened it, and realised that she had posted it when he had been thinking most forcefully of her. With a quick hope that some alchemy was at work to keep them in contact with each other, he slit open the envelope and took out the letter: to discover that, instead of a closer contact, Alex was now about to sever all ties.

At once he knew that she could not repay the debt by herself. She had met somebody to whom she preferred to be indebted. Perhaps it was the farming Adonis, perhaps somebody else. In either case, it was a serious step on Alex's part, not one lightly undertaken, and one that must have a meaning. Good God, am I too late? Has she married somebody else? The questions alarmed him. Something must be done without delay.

This was Saturday. Sometimes she worked on Saturday, sometimes not. He telephoned her office, but she was not expected there. He called her flat, without reply. She had once given him Cicely's telephone number, and he looked it up and rang her at the farm. It was quite possible that she had gone to other friends for a week-end, but just as possible that she would be with Cicely.

A man's voice answered, presumably belonging to Cicely's husband.

"Miss Paul?" he asked. "No, she's not here yet. We expect her to lunch. Can I give her a message?"

"No, I'll ring her again later, after lunch."

"Who shall I say called?"

"Thank you, I'll ring again later," said Charles, deliberately not hearing, having no intention of giving his name. He would not telephone again - he would drive down to the farm and see her. She was still Miss Paul, blessedly not married; she was expected there. Perhaps to-day would see everything put right between them.

He could not go at once, because he had a luncheon appointment, but as soon as he could make his escape, he was driving out of London to the country, impatient with all the other drivers who had the same idea on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. And at last he came to the farm, left the car at the gate of the house, and walked through a pretty garden to knock at the front door.

It was opened to him by Cicely, who recognised him at once, and gave him a warm smile.

"Good afternoon, Mr: Viddell," she said. "How very unexpected. Won't you come in?"

"Thank you." He went into a cool, flagged hall and followed her into a pleasant sitting-room into which the afternoon sun was streaming.

"Was it you who telephoned Alex this morning?" asked Cicely. "She was wondering who it could be."

"Yes," said Charles. "She has arrived, then?"

"Yes, she was here to lunch. But she is out in the woods now with Terence and the children. Not all my children," she added. "Niece and nephews, too. But I expect they'll all be back for tea very soon."

They chatted amiably together, but Cicely was wondering what this visit portended, and Charles knew that she was suspicious of his intentions. After a while, she said:

"Please excuse me while I bake the scones. They're ready to go in the oven, and will be hot for tea. You will stay and have tea with us, won't you?"

"I should be delighted," Charles said, giving her a smile. Cicely went away to the kitchen, thinking: Yes, very charming, Charles, but don't, you come here making any trouble just when Alex is so nicely settled.

A little later, she went back into the sitting-room.

"All ready," she said. "And they're coming back across the field."

Charles had already seen them. He stood looking out of the window, unseen himself, at Alex and Terence and several children. Terence was carrying the smallest child on his shoulder. Alex had two children by the hand, a girl and a boy, while an older boy brought up the rear, swiping at odd weeds with a stick. Alex's two escorts were obviously keeping up an amusing running commentary, for all of them were laughing. It was a happy, contented group that came towards the farmhouse over the meadow.

When they were almost home the two children started to run, pulling Alex with them. They burst into the hall by the back door, laughing and panting.

"I can't rim," gasped Alex, "in these shoes."

"You should wear sensible shoes," said a man's deep voice.

"These are sensible shoes," said Alex.

"Not sensible enough," said a boy's voice, and then they all came into the sitting-room, the child on the man's shoulder struggling to get down, Alex putting up a hand to straighten her hair.

Then she saw Charles. She stopped, her hand still half- raised, obviously startled. Terence, who had just put down Jane Alexandra, looked at Alex. Cicely, ignoring her small daughter's perilous run across the room to her, looked at her too. They saw all her colour vanish, leaving her unnaturally pale.

"Hallo, Alex," said Charles, on whom this reaction had certainly not been lost.

"Hallo, Charles," she replied, still unable to move.

Cicely came to the rescue.

"Do you know Mr. Whitemore, Mr. Viddell?" she asked, about to introduce the two men.

"We have met," said Terence briefly. "Good afternoon," nodding to Charles. But he did not shake hands. He was not pleased to see Charles there.

Fortunately, there was plenty of noise from the children, plenty of distraction. Getting them off to wash their hands for tea, rescuing Jane Alexandra from their trampling feet, Cicely gave Alex time to recover herself.

"Mr. Viddell is staying for tea with us," she said. "It's dining-room tea, Mr. Viddell -. all children and noise, I'm afraid. Will you come when you're ready?"

"We're ready now," said Alex, and they all went into the dining-room and sat round the big table.

"I had your letter this morning," Charles said to Alex. "Perhaps, after tea, I can have a talk with you?"

She smiled, but did not answer. Terence should be there too, she determined.

Once or twice, during that tea-time, Terence's eye was on Alex rather thoughtfully. She was not herself. She was still a little pale. She had come back from their woodland walk with colour in her olive cheeks, but now the olive had a strange whiteness over it. Why should Charles's arrival affect her thus?

After tea the three children were sent off to their home in the village, and Cicely bore off the baby to get her ready for bed. Douglas came home, but after a few minutes' talk was off again to the farm buildings.

"Perhaps now you can spare me a few minutes," Charles suggested to Alex. He had not expected to find Terence here. Terence was an unwanted complication.

"Certainly," she said. "We can talk right here."

"I would like to talk to you alone," he said.

"There is nothing you can't say to me in front of Terence," said Alex.

"This includes business," said Charles.

"Terence knows all my business," said Alex.

Terence said:

"If Mr. Viddell has something private to say to you, Alex, I can come back later on."

"No," she said quickly, urgently. "Don't go, Terence. Please stay here. Mr. Viddell can have nothing private to say to me."

She was so vehement that Terence looked at her in surprise.

"I have something private to say to you," said Charles.

"Then I don't want to hear it," said Alex.

"Are you frightened?" asked Charles.

She looked at him with anger. Terence looked at both of them. There was tension between them which was rapidly mounting. There was a directness in their speech to each other which indicated that they knew each other very well, very intimately .

"I'm not frightened of anything you can say to me," she said distinctly. There was a hostility in her manner to Charles which puzzled Terence.

"My dear," he said, "don't you think, after your long association with Mr. Viddell, he has the right to discuss your letter with you?"

"Not without you," she said firmly.

He looked into her eyes, and she looked back with pleading in hers. He shook his head slightly.

"If you want me," he said, "I shall be with Douglas, probably at the dairy."

"I do want you," she said.

"What's the matter with you, Alex?" he asked quietly. "Are you frightened to be left alone with Mr. Viddell for a few minutes?"

She wanted to cry out to him: Yes, yes, I am frightened: for heaven's sake, don't go away and leave me now. But how could she say that to him, and so reveal what Charles meant to her? So she shook her head.

"No, of course not," she said. Resignation was in her voice and something of despair. Terence leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

"I won't be long," he promised her.

When he had gone, neither Alex nor Charles spoke for a while. Then he said:

"That was rather a curious display, Alex."

She did not reply.

"Quite encouraging from my point of view," Charles went on, "but I should hardly think Mr. Whitemore found it so."

"Why did you come here?" asked Alex. "Because of my letter?"

"Only incidentally on account of the letter. I wanted to find you because I had something very important to say to you: the letter showed me that it might be advisable to hurry."

Alex did not speak. She was standing near the window, where Charles had stood and watched her returning with Terence, and was looking towards the farm buildings.

"Don't you want to know what it is?" asked Charles.

"If you came here with the intention of telling me, you had better tell me; and then there will be nothing to keep you here, Charles."

He walked towards the window and stood near her.

"Why so bitterly unfriendly, Alex?"

"Oh, Charles, don't be so stupid!" she cried. "You know exactly what the situation is between us, don't pretend not to. Say what you have to say, please, and leave me in peace."

"Shall we be undisturbed? I don't want to be interrupted by your friend charging back to protect you."

"You'll have to risk that," said Alex.

"You wouldn't meet me, by arrangement, in town?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Then it must be now," said Charles. But he did not begin. Alex realised, with great surprise, that he was having difficulty in beginning. She turned to look at him.

"Well?" she asked.

"Give me your hand to hold," he said.

She shook her head. She said slowly:

"Don't tell me, Charles, that you're at a loss for words."

"These don't come easily," he said. "These, Alex, are words that I never used before."

She looked at him intently, caught by a deep seriousness in his manner.

"Are you quite sure that you want to use them now?" she asked.

"Quite sure. Surer than I have ever been of anything. Alex, ever since you left me, since you stopped seeing me, I have missed you every day. I've loved you more every day. And I want you to marry me so that we can be together every day of our lives. Will you marry me, Alex?"

"Because you can't get me any other way?" asked Alex.

"No. I'm no longer interested in just that kind of possession, Alex."

Her smile was bitter.

"In fact, if I offered myself to you on the old terms, you wouldn't want me?"

"It wouldn't be enough," he said seriously.

She laughed, a short, mirthless laugh.

"You're beginning to catch up with me at last, Charles."

"You have every right to be bitter," he said. "But if you still love me, Alex, we haven't lost too much time. I admit that yours was the right viewpoint, that yours were the right ideas for building a good life. Now I want us, you and I, Alex, to build a life together."

"But I, Charles, am not interested."

He took her hands in his. She tried to withdraw them, but he held them firmly.

"Can you deny that you love me?" he asked.

She trembled a little and hoped he would not notice it.

"Charles," she said, "why do you imagine that things stand still until you want them to move? Do you think you can put me down, and that I'll stay put until you want to pick me up again? You have come round so slowly to the idea of marriage, taking for granted that I must still be in love, that now you're too late."

His eyes looked intently into hers. Then he looked down at her ringless left hand.

"You're not married," he said.

"No."

"Nor engaged to be?"

"Yes, I am.

"You wear no ring."

"Only because it has gone to be made smaller. It kept slipping from my finger. I'm going to marry Terence."

"Not loving him."

"I do love him. You're too late, Charles."

She expected fireworks. She expected anger and protest. When he took her in his arms, she was not surprised. She braced herself to meet his attack, but he did not attack. He wrapped his arms about her with surprising gentleness, and his voice, saying softly above her hair: No, no, no, was not a protest as much as a plea.

"Please let me go, Charles."

"Alex, when two people love as we do, it's sheer folly to keep apart."

"You did your best to keep us apart, Charles. Nothing else, nobody else. Only you kept us apart."

"Don't let that past mistake spoil our lives, Alex."

"It's too late," she said. "Too late."

He was silent, recognizing in her once more that quality of strength to do what she thought was right. He held her closely in his arms, his cheek against her; hair, knowing that this woman was the only one for him. Knowing it, as she had already said several times, too late.

However, in Alex, too, the old alchemy was at work. She felt all the old rapture, all the ineffable peace that always came to her in Charles's arms. Once more, those fatal words came into her mind: Just this once, just this once. And she recognised them for the trap they were. She must never allow this, never, never more. A lump came into her throat, and tears into her eyes.

"Oh, God," she said, wrenching herself away from Charles, and pacing the length of the room to be as far away from him as possible, "what stupidity this is, all this..."

"I agree. It can so easily be put right."

"Do you find it so easy to ruin people's lives? Would you lightly let Terence down? As once you let me down? It's no good, Charles, there are such things as loyalties. I'm going to marry Terence. And soon."

He was quiet and serious.

"It's madness, Alex. You can't be happy."

"Of course I can be happy, and I can make him happy, too."

"At least, think it over."

"Why? Would it be less cruel to let him down to-morrow than to-day? My mind is made up, Charles."

There was a long silence between them. At last Alex broke it.

"There's really no point in your staying longer, Charles, is there?"

"I suppose not," said Charles soberly. It occurred to Alex that Charles might be feeling now as she had felt on that long-ago day when she realised that he was offering her a worthless thing instead of marriage. Her instinct was to comfort him, but she fought it down. She blinked away the tears that kept coming into her eyes.

"About the loan," said Charles. "There's no reason why that should not stand - if it would be more convenient to Whitemore. There is no reason to transfer it, unless you are desperately anxious to do so. I shall not worry you."

"I know, Charles, you've always been so kind; but I would rather owe it to Terence, thank you."

"Very well, we will arrange it. Then that seems to be that."

He went towards the door, and Alex wait to accompany him.

"Will you make my good-byes for me to the others?" asked Charles.

"Yes," said Alex.

"Then good-bye, Alex."

"Good-bye," she said gently.

They looked at each other. There were a thousand things to say to each other, yet nothing now to be said. Regrets, promises, hopes, longings - it was no good talking of them now. Yet how could they part like this? As, once before, they had come together on a mutual impulse, without intention, so they came together now, close in each other's arms, and kissed each other with a deep seriousness that was almost a dedication. And when they drew apart, Alex turned from him hastily and went out of the room into the hall, going towards the front door with unseeing eyes. Charles followed her. They went out to where his car was waiting, and neither of them saw Terence.

Terence had just come in by the back door from the farm buildings, slowly, wondering if they had had long enough for their private talk. The Alex who came so hastily from the room, hurrying towards the front door, seemed almost a stranger to him, her expression so intense, her face so transformed by deep emotion.

She had left the front door open. Terence could see them framed in the doorway as they stood by the car. Charles got in, and looked back at Alex. She lifted her hand in a farewell gesture that was almost one of despair, and he drove away.

Alex stood , quite still where he had left her, and Terence stood still in the hall watching her.

At last she moved. She turned to come back into the house. She sighed a long sigh, and there was a droop about her lovely face and her elegant, upright figure that was completely strange to Terence. As she approached the door, she straightened her shoulders: as she stepped into the hall, he saw that the droop had disappeared. He walked forward to meet her.

"Viddell gone?" he asked in surprise.

"Yes," said Alex, "he's gone. He asked me to say his goodbyes for him."

She smiled up at him: not quite the usual bright, frank smile but a good effort. He might have been deceived by it, if he had not seen what went before it. Now he knew that there were depths of emotion buried under it, depths with which he had nothing to do, of whose existence he had not dreamed.

"And everything is settled?" he asked.

"Yes, darling, everything is settled," Alex replied. "He's going to arrange about the money."

"I wasn't thinking only of the money," said Terence.

"Well, everything is settled," said Alex. "I shall really have no need to see anything of Charles in the future."

"Why are you so anxious not to? Hasn't he always been very good to you?"

"Yes. But - oh, well, his world isn't our world, Terence. I haven't been seeing him, anyway, for a long time. Now let's come and find the others, darling, and we can say Charles's good-byes and ours at the same time. We ought to be going home, or we shall spoil Miss Hall's dinner for us."

She used the word "home" deliberately, and Terence knew that she did. She was identifying herself with him as completely as possible. They said their good-byes, and went to find Terence's car, to drive to their farm. Cicely saw nothing wrong with Alex's manner. As the car drove off, she saw Alex slip her hand into Terence's arm, saw Terence turn his head to smile down at Alex, and saw Alex smile back.

"Thank goodness," thought Cicely, "for that. I was so afraid that Charles had come down to make trouble."

CHAPTER XII

Terence and Alex had a very happy evening together. After dinner, and coffee in the drawing-room, they strolled over the farm, arm in arm, discussing their future: when they would have the wedding, where they would go for their honeymoon, the various decorations they would carry out in the house. As far as Terence could see, and he was more than usually observant, there was no flaw in Alex's content, but he realised that, during the whole of their relationship, there was one point that he had consistently overlooked, and now it could be overlooked no longer. For his own satisfaction, as well as for the happiness of them both, it must be brought into the open now.

He would not spoil that evening with it. This should be a perfect evening. He waited until the next afternoon before he broached the subject on his mind, when he and Alex were on one of the highest points of the farm, with the weald spread out before them to low blue hills in the distance. And then he did not beat about the bush.

"Alex," he said, "I want to talk to you about Charles."

She looked at him in surprise and with a certain amount of wariness.

"Charles?" she repeated. "Oh, I don't want to talk about Charles."

"But I do. Alex, I think you haven't been quite honest with me. You have always said there was nothing between you."

"There was nothing between us," she said. "In the sense you always meant."

"It seemed to me yesterday that there was a great deal between you," said Terence.

Alex looked at him thoughtfully.

"It's difficult to explain," she said.

"Couldn't you try?"

"It's always been a difficult relationship," she said. "Always fraught with danger. I told you that I thought, once, that something might come of it. Nothing ever did. There were always possibilities - a sort of advance and retire. One of those unhappy things when time and place and mood never coincided: one blew hot when the other blew cold; a star-crossed thing." She was silent for a while, and then went on: "It's a good thing it's all over, Terence. Believe me."

"I don't believe you," he said.

She looked at him, startled.

"But you must," she said.

"I seem to have had a consistently blind spot," he said. "When you said, so frequently, that you were fond of me, but that you didn't love me in the way I loved you, I thought that I would teach you to love like that. I should, of course, have realised that you didn't love me because you were probably in love with somebody else. Another man might have caught on to that immediately. Strangely - perhaps because you are rather a remote person, often self-sufficient, sometimes rather detached, I didn't catch on. Yesterday, I realised that there is another Alex, one that I don't know, who is capable of being in love, desperately in love, in just the way I want her to be in love - but not with me."

"Shall I say you are mistaken?" she asked.

"It wouldn't be true."

She was silent.

"In fact," said Terence, "you're in love with Charles Viddell, aren't you?"

"I wish I could say no," said Alex.

"But you can't."

"No."

Terence looked away from her.

"I'm so sorry, Terence. I will honestly not let it make any difference."

"Alex. Alex."

"I promise you I'll make you happy, Terence."

"You couldn't do it, my dear, with the best will in the world. And what makes you think I want a wife who is in love with another man?"

"Oh, dear," whispered Alex.

"What went wrong," asked Terence, "between you two?"

"Nothing ever went right," said Alex.

"Why?"

"We never saw eye to eye about things."

"What things? Tell me, Alex."

"Marriage," she said. "He wanted me without it."

"Is he in love with you, Alex?"

"Yes."

"And still wants you without marriage?"

"No."

"You mean he doesn't want you? or wants marriage?"

"He wants to marry me, but I won't marry him."

"Because of me."

"Because he shall not have everything he wants," she cried. "Why should he? Why should he go around making unhappiness by his own selfishness, and then get what he wants by changing his tactics? It won't hurt Charles to understand what other people can suffer."

"Yet isn't it a fact," asked Terence, "that you want to give him everything he wants now?"

"No," she cried. "I'm going to marry you."

"I release you from your promise, Alex."

"Oh, no, Terence, I can't let you do that!"

"You can't stop my doing it. I don't want a wife, dear Alex, who loves another man. And don't imagine I'm nobly giving you up to him - what you two do is your own concern. It isn't good enough for us, Alex, this arrangement; it certainly isn't what I want."

"If only," she cried, "Charles hadn't come down yesterday, you would never have known anything about this. We would have been married, and happy together."

"You think so? When I failed to get the love I wanted? And Charles did come."

Alex sighed.

"Terence, I still want to go through with it."

"But I don't."

"How unlucky that you ever met me!"

"Perhaps, in some ways, yes."

"If you didn't love me so much, I would say that this is the best thing that could happen. You deserve a wife who will be more than a week-end wife; you deserve to be wholly and deeply loved; you deserve somebody much nicer than I am. But you'll think that I'm only trying to make my conscience comfortable."

"No, my dear, you don't need to be conscience-stricken. I pestered you into saying you would marry me; though I was surprised at your capitulation when it came. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. Don't look so tragic, Alex."

She continued to look tragic, so he took her back to the farmhouse for tea, tucking her arm into his, trying to cheer her up, as if she were more in need of consolation than he was. I always thought he was the nicest man in the world, thought Alex. If I needed proof, this is it.

She left for London that evening and returned to her waiting flat. It seemed to be a sanctuary after two days of upheaval, but she knew that it could also be a well of loneliness at times. Now, it was enough for her to relax in its quietness, to prepare herself for the week of work ahead of her, and to let the turmoil inside her quieten down.

She was still faced with the problem of the loan. In the new circumstances she could not let Charles go ahead with the altered arrangement. She must get in touch with him, and ask if he would be willing to continue his loan. It was a foregone conclusion that he would be willing, but she must ask him to do so.

She telephoned him at his flat.

"Charles, I wanted to talk to you. Would it be convenient for you to call on me here?"

"What," said Charles, "have we not parted for ever?"

His tone was mocking, and she took heart. She understood him in a mocking mood.

"Well, I would like to speak to you - we can part for ever afterwards - if you like."

"Then why not come to me? I can give you a good dinner. You will only give me coffee, your staple diet."

"Thank you, I'd like to."

"Take a taxi then, and I'll order dinner now."

She wore a long-sleeved but low-cut dinner dress and took a great deal of care with her make-up. "Very beautiful," commented Charles, when he let her into the flat. "The waiter has just arrived with dinner, and is busy in the kitchen. Come and have a sherry."

All through dinner he was impersonal. He told Alex of the trips he had taken, of his activities, and drew her on to talk about her business and her immediate plans for it. Not until the waiter had gone away again, and they had the flat to themselves, did he mention the purpose of her visit.

"I thought," he said lightly, "that, after Saturday, we were destined not to see each other again. And here you are already. You haven't been in this flat for a long time, Alex."

"Yes, it's a long time," she agreed, looking round at the well- remembered, well-loved place.

"And why are you here now?"

"It's about the loan, Charles."

"Ah. What about the loan?"

"Would you be willing to continue it, please?"

"You know I would. I told you so on Saturday."

"Then I came to ask you if you will."

"Certainly."

"Oh," said Alex. "Thank you."

Charles waited.

"Is that all?" he asked at last.

"Yes."

"You could surely have asked me that on the telephone."

"I thought it would seem a little ungracious - to be taking you for granted."

"I see. ... I suppose you want me to ask why you have changed your mind?"

"Please yourself," said Alex crossly.

"Well, why have you changed your mind? Does it mean that you might, just possibly, like to see me now and again?"

"It might."

"Or does it mean that Whitemore can't raise the money? Or doesn't think you are a good investment?"

"It doesn't mean either of those things," said Alex.

"I see," said Charles.

He took a cigar from a box on the side table, and looked for the lighter.

"I can easily stop the alteration," he said to Alex. "The loan will continue as before."

"Thank you, Charles."

"And now I'll take you home," he said.

"Already?" she asked, surprised.

"Why not? Did you come here to make a social call? Or a business one? Haven't you realised yet that we are not altogether wise when we are together?"

She went to his side and took the cigar out of his hand.

"Don't let's go yet, Charles," she said. "Come and sit down and talk to me."

He looked at her speculatively, and went and sat down beside her.

"What are you up to, Alex?" he asked.

"I like it here," she said. "It reminds me of the old days. And I don't want to go back to my flat."

"I warn you," he said, with a rough edge to his voice, "that I'm not in a mood to be frivolous."

"Nor am I, Charles."

There was silence, which Alex did nothing to break. It was Charles who found it oppressive.

"If we stay here," he said at last, "I shall make love to you. , Come along. Home."

He rose to his feet, but Alex did not move. He looked down at her.

"One would almost think," he said dryly, "that you wanted me to make love to you."

She did not answer, and suddenly he was beside her again, and had caught her into his arms and was kissing her passionately, again and again.

"You can't go on like this, Alex, always wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You have to make up your mind one way or the other."

"I know," she said. "Darling, darling."

"Which is it to be?"

"Hold me, Charles. Tighter, and closer. Oh, Charles, it's been such a long time."

"Alex, we belong together. You must see it. I know I was a long time seeing it ...."

She kissed him, and it was a long time before he said:

"Alex, darling, be sensible."

"No," said Alex, "I don't want to be sensible."

He took her arms from round his neck, and pushed he gently away from him.

"Listen," he said. "Either you marry me, or I'll never see you or touch you again . Which is it to be?"

"I will marry you," she said. "Now you can kiss me and touch me again."

"In a minute," he threatened, "I'll shake you."

"Darling, I said I will marry you. I mean it. I'll marry you to-morrow if you like. Let's be married as soon as we can, so that I can stay here with you, so that you never have to take me back to that flat again.... Terence won't have me."

"What?"

"He doesn't want a wife who doesn't love him. He says that as soon as he saw us together he knew we loved each other."

Charles took a long breath.

"So at last," he said, "I have got some sense out of you. This is true?"

"Yes, it's true."

"Well, it's better luck than I deserve."

"I agree," said Alex seriously.

"I owe you a thousand apologies, Alex...."

"Which I am willing to forgo," she said.

"And I will make you so happy - God, we shall share such ecstasies - that you will forgive me for the pain."

"That's already done," she said.

He took her into his arms again.

Later, they began to plan.

"We can be married by special licence," said Charles, "later this week."

Alex agreed.

"For the time being, we will live here, but we shall have to look for a house in town. And perhaps you will like to change things in the house in the country. We'll go to Florence for our honeymoon, Alex, to the villa...."

"Oh yes, " said Alex. "That will be heavenly. Charles, must we be bothered by all these houses? This flat will be wonderful,"

"You don't have to be bothered. You can go on with your work, and staff tan run the houses as they do already."

"Oh, dear, I'd forgotten how wealthy you are. Are you a millionaire, Charles?"

"Not quite. As good as," he said calmly. "I'll make you a wedding present of your debt to me."

"You will not," cried Alex. "I shall work and pay it off."

"All right," said Charles. "I'll settle for a mink coat and a diamond necklace."

"How annoying," said Alex, "that it doesn't matter to you. I almost wish you were a poor man, Charles, and had only love to give me."

"When I had only love to give you," he said, "you would have nothing to do with me. I have often given my worldly goods, Alex - that's easy. You wanted something much more dear to me, and surely it's a proof of my love that I gave it to you. I gave you my independence - which once meant such a lot to me."

"And doesn't now?" asked Alex.

"You meant more," he said seriously. "That we are going to be married is further proof."

She said, thoughtfully:

"Now that Virginia is proving to be so useful to me, I shall be able . . ." Then she broke off. "Oh, Virginia," she said. "Virginia and you, Charles."

"What about Virginia and me?"

"I was in despair about that - so jealous that it destroyed my sleep at night...."

Charles flung back his head and laughed.

"About Virginia and me? What nonsense!"

"Was it nonsense? She told me she had always adored you, but what did you feel about her?"

"She said she adored me? Only as she might adore a fond uncle, my dear Alex. I've known her since she was so high. Her father is my friend, and I've seen Virginia growing up, and I'm fond of her. But to suggest that there should be anything more than fondness between that baby and myself..."

"She's not so much younger than I am," said Alex.

"She's centuries younger, darling, in all sorts of ways. But she is talented and she has personality, and I thought she would be a great help to you. Didn't you write to me that you wanted to find somebody like her? I tactfully prompted her towards you because I wanted you to have more freedom, more time away from your work. And that, my dear, was before I decided to marry you myself.''

"Did you think of me so much, after we had separated?"

"Of course - all the time. You gave me no peace. There's no doubt about it, Alex, you are the one woman in the world for me."

"You took your time finding it out," she said, but she said it happily, contentedly, because the past could not affect her present happiness.

Much later, Charles said that he would take her home.

"Soon," he said, "it will be no longer necessary. I can only bear to let you go at all, because I know we are really together at last."

The words struck with familiarity on their ears, and their memories. At the biggest of their crises in the past, they had believed themselves together at last. Charles looked down at Alex for reassurance. "We are together now, aren't we, after all this time?"

"Yes," said Alex. "A lot has happened to us, Charles, to keep us apart, but I really think we can be sure of each other now - after all this time."