BUT NOT FOR ME

Mary Burchell

Ariane was, quite frankly, making a marriage of convenience with Frank

Muldane—but he was very nice and she thought, for her family’s sake, that
she could manage to go through with it.

But that was before she fell in love with his dark, disapproving elder
brother, Harvey.
 CHAPTER I

The girl running along the passage towards Ariane was undeniably lovely,
slim and vivid and lightly built, looking ethereal in a long white dress.

Ariane stopped suddenly. Dark blue eyes smiled back at her, the corners
of a very red mouth lifted in amusement. Then suddenly she laughed softly
and put her hand against the looking-glass.

It was hard to believe that the charming creature in front of her was really
herself.

“It’s the dress, of course,” she murmured, turning sideways to get some
view of the back. “Anyone would look nice in it. And Mother was quite
right about that ribbon in my hair. It’s a bit childish, but very becoming in a
Gainsborough way.”

She picked up the skirt of her dress in both hands, and, treading a little
more carefully, went downstairs to the lower hall.

“Mother!”
 Pushing open a door at the end of the hall, she came into a pleasant, sunlit
room, where long windows looked out on to a large and not very tidy
garden.

“Look. Do you like it?”

Mrs. Dobson turned from her writing-desk with that worried, far-away
look which meant she had been struggling—quite ineffectually—with the
monthly accounts. But her face brightened when she saw her daughter.

“My dear, that’s charming. Come here by the window and let me see you
properly.”

Ariane obediently came nearer, and, just for a moment, she too cast a
worried look at the pile of account books.

But her mother was stooping to shake out a fold of the dress, and making
her turn round slowly so that she could view the whole effect.

“Yes. Your hair is sweet with the curls on your neck like that.” Mrs.
Dobson nodded her approval. “It’s a great test, Ariane. That hairdressing
looks incredibly common on the wrong type of person.”

“Yes, Mother,” Ariane said rather meekly, because, although she didn’t set
very much store by Mother’s rigid standards, she was by nature docile and
willing to accept the scale of values laid down for her.
 “It’s just right for a dance like Lady Ventnor’s. I’m glad, dear, that you
have such an excellent carriage and hold your head so well.” Ariane
straightened up a trifle guiltily. “That’s better. I don’t think many girls there
will make a better appearance than you.”

Ariane felt very faintly uncomfortable. When that worried note crept into
Mother’s tone and she voiced these Victorian sentiments, it always
suggested a desperate—though, of course, perfectly ladylike—competition.
For what?

Ariane glanced at her slim, ringless hands, and then said hastily:

“Shall I call Julie to see the dress? She’ll be terribly thrilled.”

For a moment her mother didn’t answer, which was most unlike her. Then
Ariane saw that she was aimlessly flicking over the leaves of those horrible
account books, and that a slightly too-bright colour had come into her thin
cheeks.

“Mother, is—is anything wrong?”

Somehow, as she asked the question, Ariane knew that she was very much
afraid of the answer.

“No, dear—no. Not exactly.” Her mother sat down again with an odd
little air of weariness. “But don’t call Julie just now. There is something I
think I ought to say to you.”

“Yes?”

Ariane too sat down in the big chair opposite, and gazed at her mother
with eyes that were wider and more apprehensive than she knew.

Mrs. Dobson didn’t seem to find it very easy to begin, but after a moment
she said:

“I don’t want you to worry your head too much about it, darling, but of
course, the business hasn’t been doing at all well lately. Not at all well.”
She sighed. “It’s a shame to tell you a few hours before this dance, when
you’re going to enjoy yourself so much, but—Well, Ariane, it just may be
that in a way you can help.”

“I, Mother?”

Ariane looked astonished. All the more so because her mother’s air of
nervous distaste showed that she didn’t like at all what she was making
herself say.

“Yes. You see, my dear, the truth is that unless something quite
unexpected happens, the—the factory will have to close its doors and—and
your father go into bankruptcy.”
 Ariane was speechless. She had vaguely feared something disastrous, but
this—!

Dobson’s have to close its doors! Why, it was unthinkable. Dobson’s had
been making laces and embroidered muslins and linens for close on two
hundred and fifty years. They were the aristocrats of the lace trade.

Dobson’s close its doors! It was like saying that Westminster Abbey or
Oxford University would close its doors. And Ariane knew, perhaps more
than anyone else, what a crushing blow it would be to her father’s pride
and happiness.

“Is—is that quite certain?” she got out at last, though she knew, of course,
that Mother would never have said it unless she had been sure.

“Yes, I’m afraid so. It’s the competition of these cheap mass-production
goods.” Mother’s voice shook a little with contempt and unhappiness.
“People like—Muldane’s.”

There was dead silence. Ariane knew the full significance of that. If
Dobson’s was the most distinguished firm in the lace trade, Muldane’s was
the most prosperous.

You might affect to despise Muldane’s, but you could not help wondering
at it, and fearing it too.
 Ariane twisted her fingers together nervously.

“Can’t—anything be done?” she said rather helplessly. And she glanced

round the pleasant, shabby, yet invincibly elegant room as though, for the
first time, she saw something frightening there.

Her mother didn’t answer that directly.

“Ariane, I haven’t told you before, but the Muldanes have come here to
live—”

“Here?”

“Yes. Oh, quite the other side of the town. That’s why we have seen
nothing of them. They’ve taken Moorbank, I’m told. And—well, I’m
terribly afraid it can mean only one thing. They intend to start an
opposition factory in the very town we have always considered our own.”

“But how mean! How—how disgusting!” Ariane was quite pale.

“No, it’s just good business, Ariane—as business is conducted

nowadays.” Ariane was too much distressed to question her mother’s belief
in the high-souled business methods of the past.

“What—will Daddy do—exactly?” She knew she was not being specially
helpful, but she felt queerly numb and stupid.
 Her mother got up suddenly, as though she didn’t like facing her daughter
any longer, and went over to one of the windows.

Again, she didn’t answer Ariane’s query directly. She said instead:

“Judging by their usual methods, I think Muldane’s are sure to try to—to
buy up Dobson’s. And of course, they will expect to do it for next to
nothing.”

“Mother, we couldn’t! Sell Dobson’s at a bargain price to people like

Muldane’s? Surely we’d much better go into bankruptcy, or whatever it is,
right away.” Ariane’s colour flamed up and her eyes sparkled. “At least it’s
—it’s like dying decently instead of surrendering.”

Her mother smiled faintly.

“My dear, I know that sounds very well, and I would have argued that
way at one time. But, you see, Ariane, there would be nothing left. We
might just manage to pay our creditors—I’m not even sure about that—but
we should have nothing left.”

“We’d manage. I’ll get a job. Most girls of my age earn good salaries.
Was that what you meant about my helping? Of course—”

But her mother shook her head.

 “No, no, my dear. What do you suppose you could do, suddenly
shouldering all the responsibility of a family? Your father—your father
would never do much once Dobson’s was gone.”

No, Ariane knew that was true. Her charming, scholarly, rather ineffectual
father would have no chance in a modern business world.

“And then there’s Julie, with the most expensive part of her education just
coming on.”

Yes, of course, there was Julie too. Dear, twelve-year-old Julie, who ought
to have every chance.

For a moment there was that heavy silence again. Then, almost timidly,
Ariane said:

“Are you—are you trying to tell me, Mother, that we’re probably going to
have to—crawl to Muldane’s for whatever terms they like to give us?”

She was sorry, the next moment, to have put it so clumsily, because,
suddenly her mother sank down in a chair again and covered her face with
her hands.

“Don’t! Mother darling, I’m so sorry.” Ariane’s arms were round her at
once, and she was urging affectionate, illogical, comfort. “Don’t, Mother. It
will be all right. I’m sure it will. Something will happen. I’ll think of
something. And afterwards we’ll say, ‘Fancy our getting in a panic like that
about nothing.’ You’ll see, it will be all right.”

“It’s your father I’m thinking about,” came in a sad, muffled voice. “I
don’t know what the humiliation will do to him. It’s not so bad for you and
Julie. You’re young. And I don’t mind for myself. I think I’ve grown used
to being humiliated in the last year. Trying to keep up appearances on
nothing because we’re afraid of our credit going. Pretending everything is
all right, while this great house eats up the little money we have left. But
with your father it’s different. He—he never quite faces realities until
they’re ready to crush him.”

Ariane felt cold to her very heart.

She ought to have known. She ought to have made herself realize more
clearly what had been happening. Her mother should not have had to
shoulder this miserable burden alone. It was true what she said about
Daddy, of course. One couldn’t blame him, somehow, any more than one
could blame a nice child. But it meant that someone else had to solve all
the problems.

Mother—with all her queer little old-world limitations about what one
could do and what one couldn’t do—was much closer to realities than
Daddy. She hated and detested having to readjust her life to standards she
secretly despised, but, having recognized the inevitable, she made a
magnificent effort to come into line.
 Nervously Ariane stroked her mother’s hair.

“Perhaps it—it won’t come to that.” She was nothing like so confident
now. And then: “What did you mean about my possibly helping? You know
I’d do anything.”

There was another of those difficult pauses. Then her mother raised her
head, and looked away from her.

“It’s so terrible putting it into words. I suppose the very fact that I can do
it shows that I’ve—I’ve sunk quite low—”

“Mother, don’t be silly!” Ariane hugged her earnestly, but she could not
feel much response.

“Ariane, the Muldanes have got three sons, you know.” Mother was
hurrying a little now. “The eldest is a quite, quite impossible person. Your
father met him once at a conference and he behaved atrociously. The
second one is married. But the youngest is—is quite a nice boy, I hear.
Dick Ventnor was at college with him, and—”

“You mean he’s going to be at the Ventnors’ dance tonight?” her daughter
interrupted sharply.

“Well—yes. And—you see, Ariane, if he is really nice, and—and you

should happen to like each other—”
 “Mother! What are you thinking of?” Ariane had gone rather pale.

But her mother’s courage had come in one desperate rush, and she had to
say the whole thing at once.

“I’m thinking, my dear, that if old Mr. Muldane were—related to us by

marriage, he wouldn’t try to ruin your father. He would compromise—
enter into some partnership—even help to back—”

“You’re looking rather far ahead, aren’t you?” Ariane’s voice was almost
cold.

“I’ve got to look far ahead, child. Don’t you see it’s the only bit of the
future I can dare to look at?”

“I’m sorry.” Ariane kissed her in quick remorse. “I do understand—at

least, I’m trying to understand. But it’s all so strange and—and sudden.”

“I know, my dear. It sounds terrible, whichever way one puts it. But
remember, Ariane, I’m not urging you to do anything. It may be—it may be
that this young man is quite impossible too. Only I thought, you know—if
you should happen to like each other—”

Her mother stopped, evidently aware of the fact that she was simply
repeating herself. Ariane was acutely, pityingly conscious of it too. It meant
that Mother must have rehearsed this miserable little scene to herself many
times before she could get up the courage to say what she had.

Ariane stood there absently patting her mother’s shoulder, in some sort of
attempt at comfort. It was easy to blame her, to say that it was a dreadful
and mercenary thing even to put such an idea into her daughter’s head. But
there was the other side of it too.

Mother had more than one daughter to think of. There was Julie, there
was Daddy, there was everything to do with their pleasant, unexacting,
kindly family life. No wonder poor Mother sought desperately for some
means of retaining it.

With a tremendous effort, Ariane spoke in a calm, almost matter-of-fact

tone.

“Really, darling, you mustn’t reproach yourself about making the

suggestion. I know these things don’t sound too good actually put into
words, but the idea is—is sound. I mean”—her voice shook for a moment
—“he may be awfully nice and—”

“Ariane”—her mother held her convulsively close—“you understand it

depends entirely on whether you like—”

“Mother, of course—”
 They were both talking rather hurriedly, both pitching their voices a trifle
too high in a nervous endeavour to reassure each other.

“And it also depends on whether he likes me.” Ariane laughed again,

although there was nothing specially amusing in what they were saying.

Her mother looked at her with a wistful smile. “I think he would be hard
to please if he didn’t like you in that,” was all she said.

“Oh—” Ariane smoothed her hands nervously over the soft folds of her
dress. She had really forgotten all her pleasure in the frock, but she would
have to pretend some measure of enthusiasm. “Yes, it certainly is the—the
prettiest dress I ever had.”

“I think so too. I should go along and show Julie now, if I were you. And
—don’t worry too much about what we’ve been saying, dear.”

“No, I won’t,” Ariane promised brightly, as though it were quite easy to

forget the fact that the future of the family probably depended on her
efforts to intrigue a man she had never seen and would probably detest.

She went rather slowly out of the room in search of Julie. Somehow, it
seemed stupid, after all, to want to show the dress to anyone.

But Julie thought otherwise.

 She was in the library when her sister found her, curled up in one corner
of the handsome but slightly shabby settee, and she let out a long whistle
which her mother would have deprecated.

“Ariane Dobson, you look like a model.”

“Think so? It’s nice, isn’t it?” Ariane smiled affectionately at her.

“Oh, I wish I were twenty!” wailed Julie, “so that I could wear marvellous
dresses to the floor and go out to dances and things.”

“Well, you will, all in good time,” Ariane began in the reassuring tone of
an elder sister. Then her voice trailed off halfheartedly, because she was
suddenly remembering how little there would be for Julie at twenty unless
—well, unless something quite unexpected happened, as Mother put it.

But Julie didn’t seem to notice.

“Of course, I shan’t choose white,” she said. “It’s lovely for you with your
blue eyes and that fair hair. But I shall have frightfully slinky black or
scarlet or something.” And Julie sighed ecstatically at this vision of herself
in the future.

“And long ear-rings, of course,” added Ariane sympathetically, because

she was never mean enough to laugh at her sister’s desire to look like what
she referred to vaguely as “a European adventuress.” Julie’s ambition to
present this glamorous picture never wavered even before the fact that, at
present, she looked like nothing but a nice little English schoolgirl, with
bright grey eyes, bright brown hair, and a nose that was indefensibly snub.

“Yes—long ear-rings,” she agreed. “I wonder if there’ll be anyone quite

new at your dance tonight, Ariane.”

“There—might be.” Ariane couldn’t infuse much enthusiasm into that.

“Just imagine if there were someone who looked like a Russian prince in
disguise, or an Austrian arch-duke or something like that.”

“It’s most unlikely,” Ariane felt bound to point out.

“I know. But one never knows, does one? Anything can happen.”

“I suppose so.” Ariane laughed and felt suddenly cheered by her young
sister’s optimism. Julie was right. Anything could happen. And it didn’t
seem possible that everything was as terrible and strange as it had been ten
minutes ago. The pleasant, uneventful happy life which had been hers for
twenty years couldn’t be shattered. Something must happen to restore it to
its delightful normality.

This brighter mood persisted, in spite of the queer little shivers of

misgiving which attacked her from time to time during the next few hours.
And by the time the big grey Daimler drew up outside the door, ready to
take her and her parents to Ventnor Lodge, Ariane had almost convinced
herself that the evening was to be a carefree one after all.

Lady Ventnor’s affairs were always of the slightly ceremonious type. Mrs.
Dobson approved of them wholeheartedly, and, to tell the truth, there were
very few among the younger set in the district who didn’t ardently covet an
invitation.

The ballroom at Ventnor Lodge, with the open fireplace at either end, had
a wonderful floor and lent itself admirably to the most picturesque type of
decoration. And if Lady Ventnor presided with kindly but rigid ceremony
over the rooms where the elders played bridge, the tone of the ballroom
was set by her two children, Dick and Caroline—neither of whom could be
described as in the least rigid or ceremonious.

Caroline Ventnor was Ariane’s own special friend. And, as she sat with
her parents in the cosy intimacy of the big car, Ariane gazed out at the first
snowflakes of the season and thought:

“Anyway, everything will seem much more ordinary and safe when I have
Caroline to talk to.”

She smiled at the thought, and at that her father leant forward and patted
her arm.

“Going to enjoy yourself, Ariane?”

 “Oh yes, Daddy.” Ariane turned her head to smile brilliantly at him. And
then, all at once, a lump came into her throat, because suddenly it seemed
that her father was no longer a refuge and an infallible parent. He had
become a dear but very heavy responsibility.

It was a disturbing thought, and it was enough to keep her very serious
during the rest of the short drive.

There were already a good many people there, and Ariane found herself
the centre of greetings and requests for dances at once. It was difficult to
see if any stranger were there yet, and as Ariane danced away with one of
the comfortably familiar young men she had known all her life, she could
not suppress the cowardly hope that perhaps the crisis might be postponed
by the non-appearance of the Muldane person.

“In any case,” she reminded herself rather sharply, “he mayn’t take the
slightest bit of notice of you.”

But the unhappy fact was that it would be her business to see that he did.
And there was something so sordid and scheming in that, something so
utterly different from any thought that had ever been hers, that Ariane hated
herself for a moment.

It was about an hour later that she slipped upstairs to see that the famous
white dress and the picturesque hair-dressing were both still looking as
they should. And after a very reassuring glimpse of herself in the mirror,
she was on her way down again, when, half-way down the stairs, she
stopped abruptly.

In the hall below—almost immediately beneath her as she leaned slightly

over the banisters—were Dick Ventnor and, unmistakably, The Muldane.

Strangers were too much of a novelty in their rather restricted set for there
to be any doubt about it, although the description given to her mother of
“quite a nice boy” was entirely wrong, she decided at a glance. To begin
with, he was certainly not a boy, and, equally certainly, “nice” was not the
adjective for him.

Good-looking he decidedly was, in a dark, uncompromising, rather

haughty way. More than usually tall, very erect, and with his head set on
his broad shoulders in a way that suggested an almost unconscious
arrogance.

There was a very slight, dry smile about his too-firm mouth as he listened
to the protest that Dick was making.

“You can’t want to spend the whole evening glued to a bridge table.
Besides, you’re upsetting all the old biddies by outclassing them at the first
hand. Come along and dance.”

“I don’t much care for dancing.” His voice was deep and as
uncompromising as his looks, but somehow extraordinarily pleasant.
 “But you simply must come and meet some of the others. We’ve got some
darned pretty girls in this town, you know.” Dick, who fell in love with a
different one every week, was obviously very much in earnest.

“Thanks. But the girls in a cliquey town like this are always the same.”

“Are they?” thought Ariane indignantly. “Are they, indeed? I hope Dick
puts you in your place.”

But unfortunately Dick was young enough to fall into the trap of asking
the leading question:

“What do you mean by that exactly?”

“Oh, trotted out by anxious mammas to find a husband just a shade more
quickly than all the other girls. One yellow-haired little darling, got up to
look like the Dying Swan, was arriving about the same time as I was. I
know the kind a mile away.”

Until that moment Ariane had really been trying to reserve judgment
coolly, but at this outrageous description of herself, fury suddenly blotted
out any thoughts of policy.

She leaned from the banisters and addressed the two below.
 “And it may interest you to know,” she remarked sweetly, “that another
type clearly recognizable a mile away is the pompous, conceited ass.”

Both men glanced up quickly, and for a moment she saw amusement
struggle with annoyance in the dark eyes which looked back at her. Then,
before either of them could say a word, Ariane swept down the rest of the
stairs, across the hall and into the ballroom, her cheeks scarlet and her head
held high.

Well, that was that!

She had never been quite so rude to anyone in her life before, yet, in some
inexplicable way, she had half enjoyed it.

But there was another side to it too, of course, she remembered the next
moment. Any hopes poor darling Mother had cherished about the
significance of this evening were utterly and irretrievably ruined.

It couldn’t be helped. Anyone would have done the same, Ariane assured
herself. But, as a matter of fact, reaction was beginning to set in, and she
could not disguise from herself that there were undoubtedly other, and
more dignified, ways in which she might have dealt with the situation.

Instead of helping towards a better understanding with the Muldanes, she

had most definitely made the position worse.
 “Enjoying yourself, darling?” Her mother paused for a moment beside
her, to smile at her affectionately. But behind that smile, Ariane saw quite
clearly now, there was an anxious shadow that never entirely left her eyes.

“Yes—very much, thank you, Mother,” Ariane said hastily.

But that was not at all true, for the sense of guilty remorse which
overwhelmed her was very heavy. If only she could have put the clock
back and reconstructed that scene on different lines! But it was too late
now.

It was difficult, after that, to make carefree conversation with her partners,
and only by a real effort of will did she continue to look happy and
untroubled.

“I’ll be quite glad when it’s over,” Ariane thought. And at that moment
Lady Ventnor came up to her and said:

“Come over and be introduced to Mr. Muldane, my dear. He would like to

meet you.”

If it had been humanly possible to say a flat “no” to anything suggested

by Lady Ventnor, Ariane would have said it then. But it was not at all
possible. All she could do was to follow the erect figure of her hostess in
wordless horror, quite unable to raise her eyes from the ground.
 “Mr. Frank Muldane, Ariane. Mr. Muldane, this is Miss Dobson.”

The stereotyped words sounded almost sinister to Ariane at that moment,

but it was no good shirking the issue any longer. With slightly heightened
colour, she raised her eyes—to find a complete stranger bowing in front of
her.

The first astonishment and relief were so overpowering that Ariane almost
staggered.

The disagreeable creature in the hall was not Frank Muldane then! On the
contrary, this unassuming, nice-looking young man was. It was like a social
miracle. She had been dramatically presented with a second chance.

Ariane tried to collect her thoughts.

He was saying something about her dancing this dance with him. In rather
a subdued little voice, she agreed. He put his arm round her, they slid into
the stream of dancers, and they had gone at least half-way round the room
before she had collected her thoughts sufficiently to look at him again.

Frank Muldane too was dark—but very differently so. There was nothing
of the slightly gloomy, dark-toned arrogance of the man in the hall. His
smooth black hair and unexpectedly long-lashed grey eyes, his clear-cut
features and strong, admirably even teeth, all went to make a picture that
was reassuring rather than overwhelming. And Ariane drew a deeper sigh
of relief than she realized.

“Well?”

She became aware of the fact that he was looking down at her with an
expression of amused admiration.

“I beg your pardon.” Ariane coloured slightly.

“Do I pass the inspection satisfactorily?” he wanted to know, a little

teasingly.

Ariane’s flush deepened.

“I’m terribly sorry. I was staring rather, wasn’t I? You must please forgive
me. I’m not usually so bad-mannered.”

“It wasn’t bad manners,” Frank Muldane assured her with a smile. “It was
an effort to size up an awkward situation, I think.”

Ariane was slightly taken aback.

“I wonder what you mean by that, exactly?”

“Well, I suppose your father’s daughter and my father’s son couldn’t

expect to be entirely at ease on a first meeting,” he said, with a frankness
that was engaging.

Ariane considered that.

“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted.

“Only I hope—”

“Yes, so do I.”

She laughed a little at the interruption.

“What do you hope?” she wanted to know.

“The same as you.”

“You’re fencing,” Ariane accused him. “Anyway, I was only going to say
that I hoped the—the constraint wouldn’t last.”

“And I was hoping the same thing,” he assured her shamelessly. “Except
that I went further, and hoped it wouldn’t interrupt a very delightful
friendship.”

“You can’t interrupt something until it has begun,” Ariane pointed out
gravely.
 “That’s a direct challenge,” he told her. “But I accept it. The friendship
has begun.”

“Oh, but—”

“Do you want to dance any more?” he interrupted firmly. “Or shall we go
somewhere where we can talk, and I can convince you that we are friends
already?”

“As you like,” Ariane said with a laugh, and together they crossed the hall
from the crowded ballroom to one of the smaller rooms beyond.

“Look, won’t you sit down here, and I’ll get you something to drink.” He
arranged some cushions for her in the corner of a deep settee, and seemed
very genuinely concerned about her comfort.

“Thank you. That’s nice.”

She smiled at him with sudden warmth. Not so much because he was
Frank Muldane, but because the man she had seen with Dick Ventnor was
not.

“I won’t be three minutes,” he promised.

And, indeed, he was very little more. But, even so, Ariane had time to
lean back, close her eyes, and savour the delicious relief of the moment.
The wretched incident with the man who didn’t matter had really only
served to make her introduction to Frank Muldane a relief instead of an
ordeal.

Perhaps it was just as well that it had happened!

“Here you are.” He was back again beside her. “I hope you like queer
mixtures, because I just grabbed one of everything in sight, flanked it with
two glasses of champagne, and brought the lot along.”

Ariane sat up with a smile as he brought over a small table, set down his
oddly assorted selection of food, and then seated himself opposite her, to
look at her with a good deal of satisfaction.

“It looks interesting, anyway,” she said, surveying the meal.

“It is,” he assured her. “Everything is interesting tonight.”

“Meaning—”She looked very faintly aloof for a moment.

“Meaning exactly what I say.” He smiled at her with such open

admiration that it slightly confused her. Perhaps that was what made her
speak more dryly than she should have.

“I believe your family is noted for its speedy methods, Mr. Muldane.”
 “And yours for its elegance and beauty, Miss Dobson. I recognize both in
you tonight, and you mustn’t be cross with me for doing so.”

He spoke so gently that she was disarmed at once.

“I’m sorry—” She looked up quickly and flushed. “I was being-catty, I

think.”

“Were you?” he said. “I thought you were sweet.”

She didn’t know quite what to say to that, because the boyish, bantering
note had gone out of his voice, and to have him say such a thing with that
serious sweetness on half an hour’s acquaintance was somehow very
sobering.

It was extraordinary, she thought, but, almost of itself, the conversation

was moving along the lines she had shamefacedly laid down as “good
policy” when she had thought over poor Mother’s unhappy suggestion.

“You’re very serious. Don’t you like me to speak so frankly?” He was

looking at her with that very disarming smile again.

“I—” Ariane stopped.

“I know. I’m really being rather impossible,” he suggested. “We have that
reputation as a family too, you know. Besides the bit about the speed of our
methods, I mean.” And he coloured a little, although he laughed.

“Oh no,” Ariane began. Then she remembered just how Mother really
regarded them. How, indeed, she herself had regarded them until now.

“I think perhaps that ‘impossible’ is a silly word to apply to anyone,” she

said slowly. “I must prefer my little sister’s outlook. She’s always saying
that anything is possible, and I suppose, on that assumption, that anyone is
possible too.”

They both laughed and he said:

“Is your sister really little?”

“Well—twelve.”

“How jolly for you.”

“Do you think so?” Ariane smiled. “So do I. Julie’s a pet and very
amusing.”

“We haven’t any girls in our family, you know,” he told her. “Just three
boys. It’s very dull.”

“Is it? I suppose some people would say ‘just two girls’ was very dull
too,” Ariane said thoughtfully.
 “Oh no, that’s different.” Frank spoke so positively that Ariane laughed
and didn’t dispute the point.

“I like him,” she thought. And the feeling had nothing to do with the
desirability—almost the necessity—of liking him. It was spontaneous and
absolutely sincere.

“But you didn’t tell me why you were looking so serious,” he reminded
her at that moment.

“Oh—must I?” Ariane smiled slightly then.

“No, of course not, but I hope you will, all the same.”

And suddenly she longed for a little wholesome frankness, for an escape
from this most unfamiliar feeling of hedging and deceit.

“Well then, I will tell you.” She coloured slightly. “I knew you were
coming tonight, and all about the difficulty of—of my being Daddy’s
daughter and your being your father’s son, as you put it. And I thought—I
thought it might be good policy if I made it my business to get on with you,
instead of prolonging a business feud.”

Ariane hesitated. She was not sure that this garbled version of the truth
made her feel any less conscience-stricken after all. But his “Yes?” was
very gentle and encouraging.
 And then she drew a deep sigh. “Then you turned out to be so nice that I
found myself getting on with you, anyway, and I was wishing I hadn’t had
that mean idea first about doing it because it was good policy.”

“My dear, how sweetly generous and frank of you!” he exclaimed. And
she saw that he was quite deeply moved.

“Anyway, I’m glad I’ve told you,” Ariane said with a quick sigh. And the
sigh was just a little because the really important part of the scheming, of
course, could never be confessed. In fact, even then she had to force herself
to remember it, and to say as casually as possible:

“Won’t you come and meet my mother now? She is here tonight and I
should like you to know her.”

It was extraordinary how his expression changed from a carefree smile to

a quick look of restraint and withdrawal. But, oddly enough, it touched her
much more than it annoyed her, and she rather wanted to pat his arm
reassuringly when he said a little sulkily:

“I don’t expect she would want to meet me.”

“Certainly she would.” Ariane spoke with determination. “She always

likes to know my friends.”
 “I say, that’s charming of you.” The slight sulkiness gave way to sudden
amusement. “Then I have proved my case about our friendship, haven’t I?”

“Oh Ariane looked slightly taken aback. Then she laughed and held out
her hand. “I think I must concede you that.”

He took her hand with sudden seriousness.

“Thank you. I’ll value it, you know. And now let’s go and find your
mother.”

As they went out of the room, Ariane thought, with a little unwonted
grimness:

“It’s quite true, of course. Mother will be very glad to meet him—in the
circumstances.”

Not that anything in Mrs. Dobson’s manner gave the faintest hint that this
introduction was pathetically significant to her. Frank Muldane was
apparently just one of Ariane’s nice young men friends, and, as such, was
entitled to Mrs. Dobson’s courteous approval.

And Frank’s engaging eagerness to please and his deferential manner

were, Ariane could see, making a genuinely good impression on her
mother. She ought to have felt pleased and relieved that things were
starting so well, of course. But she felt nothing of the sort. Instead, she was
telling herself bitterly:

“I’m a cheap little sham. A scheming, husband-hunting little fraud. Oh,

how I hate myself.”

She turned away with a sudden lump in her throat.

And as she did so, she met the cool gaze of the man who had been talking
to Dick in the hall. His stare of amused, scornful interest was like a blow in
the face. She knew, as though he had said it aloud, that he was thinking:

“So that’s the poor fish who is being led up for mamma’s inspection.”

And it was true!

That was the humiliating, searing thought. It was true.

“Is something the matter?” Frank bent his head to smile at her a little
anxiously. “You’re looking almost grim.”

She wished she could have answered lightly and banteringly, but she
couldn’t. Instead, she said:

“Do you see that tall, dark man who has just come in with Dick Ventnor?
—the one standing by the door.”
 “Yes. What about him?” Frank looked puzzled and slightly amused.

“Well, that’s why I’m looking grim,” Ariane said with a most unusual
little spurt of temper. “He’s the most ill-mannered, conceited, insufferable
person you can possibly imagine.”

“Is that so?” A smile of roguish amusement flickered over Frank’s face.
“Well, there have certainly been times when I’ve thought him all of that.”

“Why, do you know him?” Ariane was appalled.

“Certainly I know him,” Frank told her. “Your ill-mannered, conceited,

insufferable person happens to be my elder brother, Harvey.”
 CHAPTER II

“Your—brother!”

“Well, yes.” Frank evidently found the whole thing rather more amusing
than anything else.

“What has he been doing? I really must apologize for him if he’s annoyed
you. I know he can be foul when he’s in a temper.”

He hadn’t been in a temper, exactly, but Frank’s choice of adjective was

the right one, Ariane thought. Then she remembered, of course, that she
couldn’t possibly, possibly explain what it was that had annoyed her.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she said hastily, in spite of the amused curiosity in
Frank’s eyes.

“Please—” he began.

“No, no.”

And at that moment Harvey Muldane spoke beside them.

“Shall I wait in the car for you, Frank, or will you be very much longer?”
 The tone was cold and absolutely impersonal.

Frank turned.

“I’m just coming. Here, let me introduce you two. Or rather”—he paused
inquiringly—“I think perhaps you’ve met already.”

Harvey bowed slightly and glanced past Ariane.

“We have not been introduced.”

“No?” Frank looked a little puzzled, then grinned disrespectfully at his

elder brother.

“Well, Miss Dobson seems to have you well taped up all the same. What
have you been doing, I’d like to know? She’s gathered the impression that
you’re the outer edge.”

Just for a moment Harvey Muldane’s eyes flickered over Ariane with a
coldness that was almost menacing.

“I am in no doubt of Miss Dobson’s opinion of me,” he said dryly.

“Incidentally, I believe she is quite aware of my opinion of her.”

And without another word, he turned on his heel.

 The tone was so incredibly rude and abrupt that Ariane gasped, and the
furious colour surged into Frank’s face.

“Damn it! I’ll make him apologize for that.” He took a quick step after his
brother, but Ariane caught him back almost imploringly.

“No—please, please don’t say any more.”

“But I’m not going to have him speak to you like that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said almost wildly.

“But it does. What in heaven’s name must you think of us?”

Well, she didn’t think much of them as a family, of course, only this boy
happened to be perilously useful. She must hang on to that fact. She must
—however shaken and furious she felt.

“Please just let it go this time. Please—Frank.”

She knew that would probably have its effect.

It did.

“Oh—Ariane! I think you’re the sweetest and most generous of girls. And
I’ll make that poisonous brother of mine go on his knees to you one day.”
 Ariane’s imagination stopped short at the idea of Harvey Muldane on his
knees to anybody, but she refrained from pointing out the improbability of
the honour falling to her in any case.

Besides, there was Mother beckoning to her from across the hall, and,
with a relief almost beyond endurance, she saw that release was at hand. As
briefly as possible she said her goodbyes, and escaped at last to the
sanctuary of the car and her parents’ company.

It was her father who spoke first, and there was an unusual note of
displeasure in his voice.

“Ariane, were those the Muldanes to whom you were chatting in that
friendly way?”

Ariane nearly choked.

Chatting in a friendly way to Harvey Muldane! Really, Daddy was

ridiculously unobservant.

“Well—” she began.

“My dear, I don’t often criticize your choice of friends,” her father
interrupted. “But the Muldanes are not exactly a tactful choice for you to
make, to say the least of it. And that eldest Muldane is certainly not the sort
of man I should wish you to have for a friend in any circumstances.”
 Well, she was wholeheartedly with Daddy there!

“You needn’t worry about that, Daddy. I can’t stand Harvey Muldane at
any price,” Ariane said fervently. “But the youngest one—Frank—is really
very nice.”

“An exceptionally nice boy,” Mother broke in calmly, with only the
faintest hint of nervousness apparent in her tone. “Ariane brought him to
speak to me, John, and I was agreeably impressed.”

“Well, he’s a Muldane, you know. He’s a Muldane.” Her husband was
evidently anything but pleased at the situation.

“Yes, yes, I know.” Mother’s composure was magnificent. “But nowadays

these things don’t matter quite so much. I don’t think we ought to hedge
Ariane round with artificial restrictions.”

Her husband was silent, perhaps with astonishment. And Ariane felt that
horrid sense of shame again. For no one knew better than she how Mother
must be doing violence to her real feelings in saying that. In Mother’s real
view, people like the Muldanes should remain for ever outside the pale.

“But necessity is a strange and terrifying thing,” thought Ariane. And it

was at that moment she realized suddenly that she had grown up.
 When they reached home her parents both kissed her good night very
tenderly—Daddy with his momentary displeasure forgotten.

“Good night, darling,” her mother said. “Go straight to bed and sleep
well.” And then in a whisper: “And don’t worry about anything.”

“Don’t you worry, either,” whispered Ariane in return as she hugged her
warmly. “Everything will be all right—you’ll see.”

And she ran upstairs with her heart a little lighter, because at least it was
something to realize that the shadow had lifted slightly from Mother’s face.

The next morning was brilliantly frosty, and although Ariane slept late,
the air was still as fresh and keen when she came down as though the sun
had only just risen.

“Isn’t it glorious?” Julie was standing at the window, looking out into the
snowy garden. “I think perhaps Christmas holidays are the best, even when
Christmas itself is over.”

“Um. I love winter things, too,” Ariane agreed reflectively. “Wood fires,
and toast for tea, and skating on the lake, and New Year resolutions, and
long country walks in the snow.”

“Yes, yes. Eat your breakfast quickly, Ariane, and let’s go out. It’s much
too nice to be in.”
 “All right. Where is Mother?”

“Oh, she didn’t get up. She doesn’t feel well—”

“Doesn’t feel well?” interrupted Ariane sharply. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing much, she said.” Julie spoke with the unintentional callousness
of youth. “She’ll be all right tomorrow.”

But Ariane was not satisfied, and before she would sit down to her
breakfast, she ran upstairs to her mother’s room.

“It’s nothing, dear, nothing at all,” she was assured. “Just I feel very tired,
and Dr. Evans said it was silly to overtax my heart if I felt like that. So I’ll
just stay in bed today.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Ariane kissed her fondly and appeared to accept the
explanation. But she knew it was not the whole truth.

Not to overtax her heart. No, nor overstrain her nerves, nor worry herself
to death about problems that had no solution. So easy for the doctor to tell
her that.

“Even I told her glibly not to worry last night,” Ariane thought. “But I
didn’t tell her why, because I was ashamed. I just left her guessing
instead.”
 “Mother, dear—” She stopped helplessly for a moment. The relationship
between herself and her mother had always been a very sensitive and
affectionate one. They didn’t only love each other. They respected each
other.

Now it was different. If they spoke of what really in their hearts they
became just a couple of scheming women. A husband-hunting mother and
daughter. It was no wonder they shrank from it.

But she couldn’t refuse her mother what reassurance there was to offer.
Not when she lay there looking so anxious and wan and a little as though
her age were beginning to tell.

“I didn’t say so last night, but—Frank Muldane and I got on very well. He
—he’s quite as nice as we hoped. And—well, of course, it’s frightfully
early to think of anything yet—”

“Of course, of course, my dear.”

“But if I lay my cards well—” Horrible, horrible expression. Ariane didn’t

finish the sentence, but perhaps there was no need to. Instead, she simply
kissed her mother again and ran downstairs.

She found Caroline had just come over to see if anyone felt energetic
enough for a walk.
 “Did you enjoy last night?”

Caroline affectionately linked her arm in Ariane’s as they finally left the
house, Julie trotting behind them.

“Very much.” Ariane smiled conscientiously. “Except that I didn’t think

much of Harvey Muldane.”

“No?” Caroline looked reflective. “He’s disgustingly good-looking.”

“I don’t think looks entitle a man to be rude and insufferable to

everyone,” Ariane said a little sharply.

“No, of course not. But he was quite agreeable, the one dance I had with
him. And I suppose anyone who has Marta Roma for a girl-friend is a bit
apt to be sniffy about other females.”

“Marta Roma!” Ariane stared at her friend in amazement. “Really? I

didn’t know. I can’t imagine Harvey Muldane hitting it off with an actress,
somehow. Are they engaged, or something?”

“Well, they’re something,” Caroline replied succinctly.

“Caroline! But how do you know?”

 “Apparently the other brother—Frank, you know—said something about
it to Dick. In strictest confidence, of course,” Caroline added without a
trace of a blush. “It seems Harvey Muldane did have some idea of making
her marry him. He must be a bit of an innocent, in spite of those lofty airs,”
she interjected thoughtfully.

“Why?”

“Well, would you mistake Marta Roma for the marrying sort, even from
photographs?”

“No—no, most certainly I shouldn’t,” Ariane felt bound to admit.

“Besides, there are enough stories, aren’t there?”

“There are.” Caroline’s tone was eloquent.

“Well, what happened, Caroline?”

“Nothing. I think it’s a question of ‘what is about to happen’?” Caroline

explained. “I imagine she has set him right with regard to the marriage
question, but is too much interested to let him go. It looks as though a
spectacular affair is looming—which I gather will precipitate a volcanic
outburst in the Muldane family.”

“You mean they’d be terribly shocked?”

 “Oh, my dear, the old man’s ghastly strict and upright. Hard in business
and pretty intolerant in everything else, you know. He’s rather the old-
fashioned, cut-you-off-with-a-shilling type, according to Dick.”

Ariane considered that rather soberly.

“In fact, Harvey Muldane is riding for a fall?” she said at last.

“I suppose so. But if you don’t like him, why worry?”

“Oh, I’m not worrying!” Ariane assured her. “I was just—thinking.”

“About what?”

“Lots of things,” said Ariane, and rather hastily changed the subject. After
all, it was with Frank Muldane, not Harvey, that she must concern herself.

“Though how I wish it needn’t be either,” she thought with a sigh.

And at that moment a rakish, plum-coloured sports car drew sharply into
the kerb, a few yards ahead, and out climbed Frank.

He greeted them with obvious pleasure, and Ariane introduced Julie.

“So you’re Julie?” he said with his nicest smile. “I was hearing all about
you last night.”
 “Were you?” Julie was flattered. “What did you hear?”

“Enough to make me wish you were my sister,” he told her with a gallant
bow.

And Ariane, smiling sympathetically at Julie’s gratification, thought: “He

really is a dear.”

“Won’t you all come and have coffee with me?” Frank asked. “It’s cold
enough in all conscience.”

They all four went into the small and cosy coffee bar where it was the
custom of most of the smart set of the town to foregather at certain times of
the day, and tear each others’ reputations to pieces in perfect comfort.

Frank, however, was evidently not the reputation-tearing type, and nor,
certainly, was Ariane. Even Caroline, who had a weakness for scandal, in
its more spicy form, was willing to forgo the pleasures of it for the
moment, in the happy knowledge that her coat was the cynosure of every
envious eye.

It was Julie who, in all innocence, dropped the brick.

Putting her elbows on the table, she regarded Frank with great satisfaction
and said:
 “Is it your brother who knows Marta Roma?”

“Well—yes, he does know her,” Frank said with admirable calm. “I’ve
met her myself, come to that. Why?”

“You’ve met her?” His stock bounded up a hundred per cent in Julie’s
eyes, quite obviously. “What is she really like, and could you possibly get
me her autograph, do you think?”

“She’s almost exactly like her photographs,” Frank told her. “And yes, I
dare say I could get her autograph for you if you want it very much.”

“Oh, I am glad we met you,” Julie said.

“I suppose she’s a very interesting person?” That was Ariane, trying to

appear completely innocent and unknowing, in order to put him more at
ease.

“Well—yes. If you like the exotic, that is.” Frank’s eyes rested rather
artlessly on Ariane for a moment, and one gathered that the exotic was not
his own personal weakness.

“What is she?” Caroline wanted to know. “Italian—Austrian?”

“Half Italian and half Viennese, I believe. I don’t know her really well.
You’ll have to ask my brother. He knows her better,” Frank said coolly.
 That was really very clever of him, Ariane thought, because it was
impossible to imagine anybody—with the possible exception of Julie—
asking Harvey Muldane anything so personal. At the same time, it implied
that, willing though he might be, he really couldn’t supply any more
information.

And, sure enough, the subject died a natural death after that.

“I like Mr. Muldane,” remarked Julie firmly, when they had parted from
him later, and were on their way home.

“Yes, so do I,” Caroline agreed. “He’s rather smitten with you, Ariane,
isn’t he?”

“Is he?”

“Well, didn’t you notice it, darling, or is it time I bought you a pair of nice
large horn-rimmed specs?”

“He’d probably stop being smitten then,” Julie pointed out seriously, and
Caroline and Ariane both laughed.

But the remark, however bantering, stayed with Ariane. And she
wondered if she ought to feel indecently jubilant or just depressed.
 That afternoon she found she could settle to nothing. In the ordinary way,
there were a dozen things perfectly capable of engaging her attention
happily for hours. But today she didn’t want to do any of these.

And finally she went out by herself, walking fast towards the hills outside
the town, where a light powdering of snow still remained, although, down
in the valley, it had all thawed by now.

By half-past three she had climbed quite high, and it seemed almost as
though she were alone on top of the world. Sounds came from very far
away in the still, frosty air, but just then she could hear nothing at all,
except the “cheep, cheep” of an excessively saucy robin who hopped from
branch to branch.

And then, far away in the distance, she heard the even beat of a horse’s
hoofs. Someone was riding down the winding road that led from the
summit of the hill to Norchester itself in the valley.

Rather risky, that steep descent, with the ground as unyielding as iron. It
must be a good rider, or a rash one, Ariane thought absently, as she climbed
over the rough ground more slowly, making her own way back towards the
road. The light would be failing in half an hour now, and it was time she
was on her way home.

She reached the bank above the road just as the horse and its rider came
into sight round one of the bends.
 The horse was a magnificent chestnut. The rider was Harvey Muldane.

It was impossible not to see her as she stood a few feet above the road.
And indeed, she could tell from the quick lift of his head that he had caught
sight of her at once.

Well, there was nothing for it. She must greet him as coldly as she could.
It was only a matter of a few embarrassing seconds, for certainly he would
not stop.

As he reached her she summoned a chilly little smile to her lips, prepared
to give the faintest inclination of her head.

But she need not have bothered. He looked up at her, through her, and
beyond her. And, without the slightest sign of recognition, he rode on.

Ariane felt exactly as though she had been struck.

It was not that she cared in the least whether or not he greeted her. It was
not that one expected more than the minimum of manners from him.

But the deliberate insult of that blank look was something quite outside
the rather gentle conventionality of Ariane’s experience. And, as she
climbed down the short slope to the sunken road, she remembered that this
was not the first time he had left her trembling and astounded in her
defencelessness.
 Much more slowly, and with all the spring gone from her step, Ariane
started back down the lane. And all the time she was trying to drag her
agitated thoughts from the memory of that cool glance flickering over her
without a glimmer of recognition.

But it was by no means easy, and he was still the only thing in her
thoughts when she came upon him again—almost stumbled over him, in
fact.

For this time he lay sprawled in her path, and he was terrifyingly still.
There was no sign of his horse, and, from the dust on his clothes, Ariane
was horribly afraid he had been dragged some way. One arm was twisted
under him, and just where the thick, dark hair tumbled over his forehead,
there was a long streak of blood.

With a horrified exclamation, Ariane bent over him. Her first thought was
to get him out of the middle of the road, for if a car came round that corner
as unexpectedly as she herself had—

Putting her hands under his arms, she exerted all her strength to drag him
to the side of the road. Until that moment, she had never realized what a
big man he was—nor what a dead weight a completely unconscious person
could be. Her rather slight strength seemed just nothing at that moment.

And then, at her second attempt, there was a convulsive movement from
him, a quick upward flick of those sullen eyelids and a furious:
 “Damn it, you fool, mind my shoulder! It’s broken.”

Very frightened, Ariane abandoned her attempt to drag him, and sat down
in the road beside him, with her arms still round him.

He stared at her for a moment before a faint, grim smile flickered over his
face.

“Good God, it’s you again,” he muttered. “There’s really no getting rid of
you.”

Then abruptly his teeth clamped down on his lower lip, the whiteness of
his face became almost grey, and, with a peculiar little gesture of angry
helplessness, he drooped his head against her and lapsed into
unconsciousness.

Wordlessly, Ariane gazed down at him, and sudden tears forced their way
into her eyes. Not because he had been rude to her again. Not even because
the situation was beyond her management, but because of the wordless
appeal of that tumbled head against her breast. An appeal that he would
have died rather than make if he had been fully conscious.

Evening was closing in now. Already down here in the lane it was
darkening rapidly, and still she had not decided what to do.
 She could not move him. That she had already established, especially
since his broken shoulder prevented her from taking full hold of him. Yet
she dared not leave him and go for help. Only an occasional car came this
way, but she would have to go dangerously far to fetch help, and anything
might happen while she was away.

It was bitterly cold, and the pressure of his dead weight on her arms was
beginning to numb them. But she could not put him down. Only if she held
him in this way could she protect him at all from the biting cold, and from
the thin icy rain which was beginning to fall. She fumbled with the
fastening of her coat and managed to open it. Then she drew the coat round
him as well as herself, and holding him close, in a proximity that was
frightening yet strangely moving, she did her best to keep some warmth in
his still, silent figure.

She was so terribly cold, and her eyelids felt indescribably heavy. Only
the growing pain in her cramped arms held her to consciousness, and she
thought that now she could not have moved them, even if someone had
taken this terrible weight away.

Time had long ago ceased to exist, and she had no idea how long she had
been crouching there in the dark, when the sound of an approaching car
pierced her failing consciousness.

And then there was a grinding of brakes, the sound of a car-door flung
back. The next moment someone was bending over her and she realized
that it was Frank.

“Great heavens, Father! It’s Ariane,” he exclaimed, and she dimly took in
that there was another man there. A very big man, whose figure mercifully
blotted out a good deal of the glare of the headlights. A deep, abrupt voice
like Harvey’s said:

“What! Dobson’s girl?”

She didn’t hear what Frank replied. She only knew that the weight of that
inert figure in her arms had been taken from her. She tried to move then,
but began to cry quietly instead because of the pain in her cramped arms
and legs.

And then Frank was back beside her, lifting her bodily from the ground,
and carrying her very tenderly towards the big car.

“We’ll take her home with us,” the big man said. “It’s nearest, and we
can’t let her mother see her like that.”

Ariane wanted to say that—no, they must take her to her own home, that
she couldn’t possibly cope with the whole dreadful family of Muldanes just
then.

But the words refused to come. Even a movement of protest was

impossible. She was dimly aware of the blessed warmth of the car as Frank
lifted her in. And then even that seemed unimportant in the deep, deep
space through which she was falling.
 CHAPTER III

When Ariane returned to consciousness she was in bed in an entirely

strange room.

Firelight was flickering pleasantly over dark, polished furniture, and the
whole scene was so different from the big, bright, chintz-curtained room at
home that at first she was vaguely frightened.

At the back of her mind was a confused impression of anxiety and danger
very narrowly escaped, and when someone near her moved slightly she
started violently.

But there was nothing alarming about the other occupant of the room,
after all. Just a quiet, grey-haired woman who sat knitting in the firelight.

Gradually memory became clearer. Ariane recalled, with a shiver, that

strange and terrifying vigil in the dark, when she thought she must die of
cramp and cold, and yet her tired mind held on to the one fact that she
could not abandon Harvey Muldane.

His name brought her a step further on the road of memory. Of course,
she must be in the Muldanes’ house now. That was the only explanation.
 And this, she supposed, must be Mrs. Muldane, Harvey’s mother. Then
she reminded herself that to her it was rather more important that it was
Frank’s mother.

Ariane sighed a little. She was fully conscious now, and all the old
troubles were there again.

At the sigh, the woman glanced up and, seeing that Ariane’s eyes were
open, she came over at once.

“Are you feeling better now?” She smiled quite kindly.

“Yes, thank you.” Ariane was surprised at the feebleness of her own
voice. And then, because she could not help it: “Are you Mrs. Muldane?”

“Oh no. There isn’t a Mrs. Muldane, you know. She died years ago. I’m
Mrs. Jarvis, the housekeeper.”

“So Harvey hasn’t got a mother,” Ariane thought. And this time she didn’t
even remember to add that nor, of course, had Frank.

“I think—I must—go home,” die said in a troubled little voice. But Mrs.
Jarvis was quite firm about that.

“No, no, there’s no question of that. The doctor says you are to be kept
warm and quiet, and that you must sleep as much as possible.”
 “But Mother—” Ariane looked distressed.

“We telephoned to your home, of course,” Mrs. Jarvis said. “I think Mrs.
Dobson will be coming over as soon as possible, but she’s not very well
herself, is she?”

“No, that’s true. She oughtn’t to bother,” muttered Ariane. She moved her
head restlessly, another confused train of thought starting. “What about Mr.
Muldane? Is he all right?”

“Well”—the housekeeper hesitated, “I don’t think there’s any immediate

danger. He has a broken arm and a nasty head injury, as well as a good deal
of bad bruising from being dragged.”

Ariane privately thought that sounded enough to keep even Harvey

Muldane quiet for a bit.

And then she lapsed again into something like a stupor, until the anxious
voice of her mother roused her.

“Oh, Mother!” she exclaimed, and immediately burst into tears.

Mrs. Dobson petted and soothed her, and asked questions of Mrs. Jarvis,
in a tone of dignified severity which suggested that full blame lay with the
Muldane family.
 “It wasn’t their fault, dear,” Ariane whispered. “It was really mine. But I
couldn’t leave him.”

“No, no, I see that,” her mother agreed soothingly. “Especially as he is a

friend of yours. ”

“Harvey Muldane isn’t a friend, exactly,” Ariane felt bound to protest in a

whisper still.

“Harvey Muldane? I didn’t understand.” Her mother looked bewildered.

“I thought it was the other one—Frank.”

“Oh no.”

Mrs. Dobson’s expression was extremely complicated.

“You mean you made yourself ill for—Well, really, Ariane dear—He was
so terribly rude to your father once.”

“And to your daughter too, lots of times,” Ariane murmured with a rueful
smile.

“Really?”

It was evident that only the presence of Mrs. Jarvis restrained further
questions. But in any case, Ariane felt glad she had no need to answer
them, and after a while she fell into a much more natural sleep.

Rather to her surprise, it took her nearly a week to get over the shock and
exposure, and during all that time she was most carefully and kindly
looked after in the Muldanes’ house.

The first day she was up in her room, Frank—rather awed and terribly
concerned about her—was allowed to come and see her. It was only then
that Ariane realized what a heroine she was supposed to be.

“To think of your staying there all that time,” he said earnestly. “Risking
your life to protect that ungrateful hound from the cold and rain.”

Ariane felt bound to point out that this was an overstatement of the case.

“I wasn’t in any immediate danger,” she said mildly.

“You might have died of pneumonia.”

“But I didn’t,” Ariane reminded him soothingly.

“No, but you might have. And what should I have done then?”

“Sent a handsome wreath, I hope.”

“Don’t joke about it, Ariane dear. It might have been so terribly serious.”
 “But since it wasn’t, how about forgetting it?” she suggested.

“You don’t expect us to forget a thing like that,” Frank said. “I can assure
you, my father is terribly impressed and—”

“And your brother?” Ariane could not resist, and she cocked a rather
quizzical eyebrow at him.

He flushed unexpectedly.

“Oh, Harvey! Harvey makes me sick.”

“By which I suppose you mean he’s very much annoyed at my interfering
at all? Why didn’t I leave him to die in decent solitude, so to speak?”

Frank laughed vexedly.

“Something like that.”

“What did he say?” Ariane asked with irresistible curiosity.

“Well, scarcely anything, to tell you the truth,” Frank confessed. “I

explained about how we’d found you, you know, and what a wonderful girl
we thought you, and so on—”

“Yes?”
 “And he just said, ‘Oh, for God’s sake get out!’ ”

Ariane began to laugh, partly at the disgust on Frank’s face. “Really,

Ariane—” he too smiled a little then. “You’re the most sweet-tempered and
forgiving person I know. Most girls would be livid at such ingratitude.”

“Oh, rubbish,” Ariane assured him. “And anyway, I don’t expect he is

ungrateful, exactly. I believe I’m beginning to understand your brother a
tiny bit,” she added thoughtfully.

“He always was the difficult one, you know,” he volunteered. “Was he?”

“Um-hm. Rows with Father, and wanting to do weird things that neither
Maurice nor I ever thought of doing.”

“Maurice is your other brother?”

“Yes. He comes between Harvey and me. He’s married, you know.”

Ariane was silent for a moment.

“What sort of weird things do you mean?”

“Oh, well Frank seemed a bit vague. “Well, running around after this
actress, for one thing. I—I suppose you’ve heard about it, from what Julie
said.”
 “Yes, I’ve heard about it. But—” Ariane hesitated because it seemed
funny to be defending Harvey. “But lots of men think themselves in love
with Marta Roma.”

“But he has some idea of marrying her, Ariane. It’s so—so

unsophisticated in a man like Harvey. The Marta Romas really aren’t the
kind who are invited home to meet the family and asked to name the day. I
think Father would go straight up in smoke if he knew.”

“Harvey wouldn’t really bring her down here, would he?”

Frank shrugged.

“I shouldn’t be surprised.”

There was silence. Then:

“I think it’s rather sweet of him,” Ariane said obstinately.

“I don’t. I think it just shows a lack of common gumption.” Frank was

uncompromising. “And if you ask me, I should think the person who is
most amused is Marta Roma herself.”

“Oh,”—Ariane frowned quickly—“oh, Frank, it’s rather dreadful. I think

Harvey is the kind to be terribly hurt if anyone laughed at his real
feelings.”
 “Well, he shouldn’t make such a fool of himself, should he?”

“But perhaps he—can’t help it.”

That view didn’t seem to appeal to Frank.

“He should never have got so far. He ought to have known the type at
once. I mean—well, have you seen her?”

Ariane shook her head.

“Only photographs.”

“Oh.” Frank frowned in an effort to describe her. “Well, she’s a most

strange creature, of course. The kind that is born to have men yammering
inanely at her from the side boxes. No one would dream of asking how she
came by her pearls because any fool would know. And you’d no more think
of making her a proposal of marriage than of asking her to take the chair at
a church conference. No one would.”

“Except Harvey,” said Ariane thoughtfully.

“Exactly. Except Harvey. That’s what I mean when I say he does things
no one else would dream of doing.”

“He’s a bit of an idealist, in fact?”

 “Well, no,” Frank said. “He’s a bit of a fool, candidly speaking. And it’s
quite incongruous in anyone of Harvey’s type.”

“On anyone so hard, you mean?”

“Yes. And so ill-mannered and conceited and insufferable,” grinned

Frank, in sudden reminder of her own description.

Ariane flushed. “I’m sorry. I was really in a temper when I said that. I
take it back.”

“I shouldn’t, if I were you,” Frank laughed. “He’ll probably only hasten

to give you further proof of it.”

Ariane was silent, remembering then, with some astonishment at her own
change of front, that, far from having done anything to warrant her
withdrawing the charge, he had merely added further proof.

When Frank had finally taken himself off, she went back to bed, to lie
there in a state of not unpleasant lassitude, wondering about Harvey and
the legendary Marta Roma.

It was no concern of hers, of course, but—Well, one could not help

wondering.
 Two days later, the doctor pronounced her well enough to be taken home.
But, before she left, she was honoured with another visitor in the shape of
the head of the house of Muldane.

That was exactly how he seemed to Ariane when he entered in answer to

her “Come in.”

He was tremendously tall, even more overpowering than his eldest son,
and with “hard business man” written all over him. To Ariane, however, he
made a considerable effort to be gracious. He was obviously slightly ill at
ease with his business rival’s daughter, but at the same time, duty and
decency demanded some expression of thanks, and an expression of thanks
she should have.

It came in the form of a short speech, rather as though he were addressing

a board meeting.

“Miss Dobson, I can’t let you leave my house without telling you,”—he
cleared his throat slightly—“without expressing to you my gratitude for
your having possibly saved my son’s life—certainly for having saved him
from a much more serious illness. You showed extraordinary courage and
—well, I should like to thank you.”

Impulsively she held out her hand.

 “Thank you very much for saying that, Mr. Muldane. And please don’t
make too much of what I did. It was simply that I felt I couldn’t leave Har
—him until help came. And so I just stayed.”

Mr. Muldane took her hand slowly, crushing it in a grasp that made her
want to cry out, and said:

“It was very brave, all the same. And—my son would like to see you
before you go.”

“Yes, of course.” Ariane looked perfectly calm, although her heart really
gave an odd little lurch.

So—Frank expressed his thanks and admiration with boyish emotion, Mr.
Muldane made her a formal speech, and now, it seemed, it was Harvey’s
turn.

Ariane could not seriously imagine Harvey saying “thank you” to her for
anything, and as she went into the room indicated by Mr. Muldane she was
conscious of clenching her hands with illogical nervousness.

There was a very curt “Come in” in answer to her knock, and Ariane
entered a large pleasant room, where the deep bay windows gave on to a
wonderful view of the hills beyond the town.
 She closed the door behind her and stood for a moment just inside the
room. He was lying slightly propped up in bed and somehow looked much
more actually ill than she had expected.

The tan stood out on his cheeks in an odd way that emphasized the pallor
underneath, the dark hair seemed slightly damp where it tumbled untidily
over his forehead, and the eyes that looked a little resentfully across at her
had a feverish brightness about them.

“Why, you have been ill,” she said rather gently and, coming over to the
bed, she stood looking down at him.

He didn’t answer that at once, but slowly held out his left hand to her. She
saw then that the other arm was in a sling.

“You don’t have to shake hands, you know,” she told him. “Especially if it
hurts as much as all that.”

To her surprise, he flushed deeply.

“I—understand I have to thank you for—saving my life,” he said stiffly.

“It isn’t compulsory,” Ariane assured him, “and, anyway, I didn’t save
your life.”
 “Pardon me, I have been assured of the fact by at least four people,” he
retorted dryly.

“You must have hated that.”

“I did.”

There was a silence. Then Ariane said in a voice that shook a little: “Was
that all you wanted to say?”

He looked slightly taken aback, perhaps because he was realizing just

how ungracious he was being.

“Well, I—just want to say thank you.”

“Very well. Now that horrid necessity is over, you needn’t think any more
about it. Good-bye.” And Ariane turned away quickly, because, quite
inexplicably, she suddenly felt near tears. She had reached the door before
he said rather urgently:

“Ariane—”

“What is it?” She didn’t turn round.

“Please come back here.”

 She said “No.” But at his repeated “Please,” she turned and came back
slowly, her head still bent, however, and her lashes down.

He put out his uninjured hand, and, catching one of hers, drew her down
almost impatiently on to the side of the bed.

“I’m sorry. I was terribly ungracious. I—Why, you’re crying.”

“I’m not.”

“But there are tears in your eyes.”

There was rather an appalled silence. Then he struggled into a sitting

position, wincing a little as he moved his arm.

“You mustn’t do that.” He sounded cross as well as worried. “You mustn’t

be so silly.”

“I’m sorry. I think—I’m still—rather weak.”

“Oh—” Amazingly, he put his left arm round her, a little awkwardly.
“And it’s because of what you did for me that you are so weak. I’m sorry,
child. I’m really sorry. It’s I who should be doing all the apologizing.”

“It’s all right.” Ariane fumbled for her handkerchief, but as she failed to
find it, he gravely offered her the corner of the sheet instead. She laughed a
little at that, and he looked relieved. “Ariane, I am grateful, you know.
Only—”

“Only you hate being made to say so,” she suggested, smiling faintly.

“Well, all right, I do. Though that’s a disgustingly unworthy admission to

make.”

“It’s understandable,” Ariane said slowly.

“Is it?” He too smiled grimly at that.

“Yes. I suppose the truth is that you hate being under an obligation to
anyone—”

“Quite right.”

“Still less do you like being under an obligation to a Dobson. And least of
all do you like being under an obligation to someone who has already
annoyed you.”

“Correct in every particular,” he assured her calmly.

“And since you have practically no manners at all,” finished Ariane

thoughtfully, “you’re quite unable to hide all that.”
 She waited for an indignant denial, or perhaps a sarcastic comment, but
neither came.

“Have I really no manners?” he said thoughtfully after a moment.

“Well—practically none.”

Ariane was even faintly amused at this unexpected attitude. Then one
glance at his dark, troubled face told her what he was thinking. All at once,
she wanted to smooth his tumbled hair and say: “But that wouldn’t worry
Marta Roma, you know.”

She couldn’t say that, of course. So she said impulsively instead:

“But you are rather nice, all the same.”

“Nice!” He gave a contemptuous laugh. “I’m not in the least nice. I think
‘nice men’ are revolting.” And he dropped back against the pillows again
with a sudden exhaustion that reminded her of his drooping against her in
unconsciousness.

There was a pause, and then she said a little nervously, “Well, I must go.”
She got up. “Are you quite comfortable like that?” She moved one of the
pillows gently.

“Yes, thank you,” he said a little irritably.

 “Then good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

It was lovely to be home again.

Frank drove her down in the big, slightly ostentatious car which was more
or less for family use, and, at Mrs. Dobson’s invitation, he stayed to tea.

He was evidently at considerable pains to please, and Ariane noticed that

her father as well as her mother, seemed very well impressed.

But somehow she was a little relieved when finally he went. Not that he
wasn’t a dear, she told herself guiltily. Not that he wasn’t most eagerly
attentive to her. But—well, perhaps it was good just to be home again,
away from all the Muldanes.

After this enforced connection with the Muldanes, it seemed only natural
that Frank should call in almost every day. Sometimes he brought formal
inquiries after Ariane’s health from his father, and, if actually asked, he
would report on Harvey’s progress. But never once did he bring any
inquiry or message from the invalid himself.

Very often Frank took both Ariane and Julie driving. He and Julie got on
famously together, but perhaps it was only human of him not to join in her
fervent lament that holidays were coming to an end and soon she would not
be able to accompany Ariane.

“Never mind, Julie,” he consoled her. “If your mother will let us, we’ll
drive you all the way to school at the beginning of term, and you needn’t
go by train at all.”

Julie, who attended a well-known (and very expensive) boarding-school

about seventy miles away, and only came home for occasional week-ends
during the term, was delighted at this suggestion.

“Oh yes, I’d like that. Wouldn’t it be funny if the other girls thought you
were my parents?” she added.

“On behalf of Ariane and myself, I protest against the implied libel on our
personal appearance,” Frank said firmly. “Do I—and, still less, does Ariane
—look like the parent of a bumptious, overgrown schoolchild?”

Julie giggled delightedly.

“No. Only it’s just the idea of your both coming, you know. Being classed
together, so to speak.”

“Being classed together.” Frank suddenly smiled brilliantly at Ariane.

“Very well, Julie, the rest is forgiven for the sake of that very nice last
phrase.”
 Ariane said nothing. But that didn’t prevent her thinking all the more, of
course.

And when, in the end, it was arranged that she and Frank should be
allowed to take Julie through to school by car, she had the oddest feeling of
apprehension. Something as though she had been shown a prison door a
long, long way off.

Deepest gloom had settled on Julie by the time they actually reached the
school. But the sight of one or two intimates who had already arrived
created a miraculous rise in spirits.

“There’s Susie Phillips! She’s got her hair off! My goodness, how
extraordinary she looks. And Jennifer Ralph. Good old Jenny! Hello,
hello!”

By the time Ariane had formally handed Julie over to authority, she had
scarcely more than time for a hasty kiss and the briefest of farewells.

“I think I feel more depressed than Julie now,” Ariane declared, when
they were once more on their way.

“Oh no, Ariane, you mustn’t feel depressed,” Frank told her. “Not today.”

“Why not today?”

 And then Ariane could have bitten her tongue.

Or was this what was meant by playing your cards well?

In any case, she couldn’t pretend even to herself that it was anything of a
surprise when Frank drew the car to the side of the road and stopped.

He was not nervous—only terribly in earnest—and as she looked at his

absorbed, boyish face, she thought:

“I ought to like him—I do like him. But oh, I don’t want to marry him.”

He didn’t attempt to put his arm round her or even to take her hand as he
said:

“Ariane dear, I don’t know how one makes a state proposal, and I don’t
care, but I think you must know that I love you and—Darling, will you
marry me, please?”

The last words came in a rush, which added an almost touching sincerity
to what he was saying.

She could not find her tongue to reply at once. She was thinking
passionately: “I will do my best by him. He’s such a good, decent boy that I
must make him happy. Why shouldn’t I learn to love him and be happy
too? I’m lucky that I haven’t got to marry some revolting man years older
than myself. That’s usually the way in these cases. I’m lucky, lucky, lucky.”

She went on repeating the meaningless word to herself, and then became
aware of the fact that he was watching her anxiously and waiting for her
answer.

Without any effort, she put her hand into his. It was a little cold, but why
should anyone notice that?

“I expect you know the answer,” she said in a low voice. “It’s ‘yes’, of
course.”

She didn’t feel so awful putting it that way as she would if she had had to
make lying protestations about loving him. It satisfied him, obviously. And
anyway, perhaps she would learn to love him. Perhaps—”

She was in his arms now, quite unresisting. She had supposed, the second
before it happened, that his touch would mean nothing to her at all.

But she was wrong. She was perfectly still, but not with the stillness of
indifference. It was the stillness of appalled self-revelation.

It was impossible to say why that single movement told her, but she knew
now what it was that had been struggling in the back of her mind, making
the whole situation seem ten times more tragic than appeared on the
surface.

It was not Frank’s arm she wanted round her—it was an indifferent arm
which had been carelessly round her only a few days ago. It was not
Frank’s mouth she wanted to feel on hers—but a mouth which had only
smiled at her in amused contempt.

It was not Frank Muldane she could ever learn to love.

It was Harvey who had already put a careless hand round her heart.
 CHAPTER IV

“Ariane, what is it? Why don’t you kiss me?”

She kissed him then.

She must do better than this. In spite of her fantastic discovery, she must
manage to play up, to conceal from Frank, and indeed from everyone else,
what she was really thinking.

“It’s all right, isn’t it? You are—happy about things?” Frank was looking
at her a little doubtfully now.

“Yes, of course.” She smiled at him. For the sake of everyone, she must
still smile and pretend that everything was all right.

“Then let’s drive straight to your place and tell your mother.”

Ariane felt trapped. Every word was dragging her further into the tangle.
But she had to go on.

“Yes, we’ll go and tell Mother. She’ll be awfully pleased.”

“And your father? Will he mind very much, do you think?”

 “No,” Ariane said mechanically. “No, Daddy won’t mind if he knows I’m
going to be happy. Besides, he listens a good deal to what Mother says, and
she likes you very much.”

Frank smiled contentedly.

“I’m so glad.”

“But what will your father say? Perhaps he won’t be too pleased.”

“Oh, he can be talked round,” Frank assured her airily. “And anyway,
you’re rather a favourite of his, you know. He may bark a bit at first, but he
said once that he thought you a darned pretty girl who had lots of common
sense. It’s his highest form of compliment.”

“Is it?” Ariane smiled faintly. “I’m very glad if he likes me.”

“He does.” Frank was positive. “There won’t be any trouble with Father.
The sticky one will be Harvey. And of course, it simply isn’t his business.”

“Of course not.” Ariane’s voice was quite expressionless. She hadn’t
wanted to have his name mentioned. It gave her a queer little shock simply
to hear the word and realize the madness she associated with it now.

But she would have to get used to that. And, anyway, hadn’t she some sort
of sense? Enough, surely, to remind her that whatever feelings Harvey had
were wrapped up in his strange, extravagant devotion to Marta Roma.

It was a long drive home again, but she managed to keep up an

appearance of happy interest in all the plans that Frank outlined.

Each aspect of the engagement had to be carefully considered and every

detail must appear to have its importance and its thrill.

By the time they reached home, Ariane felt physically exhausted. But
there was still one more scene of pretence to be gone through. Mother must
be told, and her surprised congratulations be offered and accepted.

At last, however, even that miserable farce was over, and Frank—the
happy and excited fiancé to the life—took his departure to inform his
family.

Ariane was glad that her own father had not been at home, and Mrs.
Dobson undertook to tell him the news and put it in its correct light.

“Don’t worry, Frank.” She had spoken with an admirable air of kindly
assurance. “He is too fond of Ariane to put anything in the way of her
happiness. I’ll speak to him first, and then you shall have a chat with him
yourself.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you how happy I am!”

 And indeed, Frank’s delight was so obvious that Ariane’s chilled heart
warmed a little, and she told herself again: “I must make him happy. He’s
such a dear boy. Surely he shouldn’t be difficult to learn to love.”

Perhaps the same idea was in her mother’s mind, because, when they
were at last alone together, she said a trifle nervously : “Ariane dear, what a
nice boy he is. I should think you—you could scarcely help being fond of
him.”

A little mechanically, Ariane assured her that—yes, of course, it was

impossible not to be fond of him. And then at last she escaped to her own
room. Absently, she wandered round, picking up the various things which
Julie had scattered about in the final frenzy of departure.

So it was done!

In a remarkably short space of time she had accomplished what they had
hoped. She was engaged to Frank Muldane and, to all intents and purposes,
the fortunes of Dobson’s—and therefore the happiness of her family—were
on a much more secure foundation.

She ought to be very happy about it. Everyone else was happy. Only
Harvey would be “sticky,” Frank had said.

And Harvey did not matter.

 During the next few days, Ariane felt absurdly like someone in a dream.
There was the elaborate pretence between herself and Mother that
everything was all right. There was the ridiculous task of convincing
Daddy that only by marrying Frank could she find happiness at all. And
there was the artificial scene in which she had to tell Caroline how happy
she was.

Julie’s letter in reply to the announcement of the engagement struck a

refreshing note.

“Dear Ariane,” she wrote, in rather square handwriting on fiercely blue

paper, “I am awfully glad about you and Frank. It’s really awfully nice. Do
you think you could make Mother let me have a week-end at home so as to
selebrate? It seems so unkind to you if I don’t selebrate at all. I told the
girls you were going to marry a million heir (I know Frank isn’t quite a
million heir, but near enough). They are awfully thrilled and we drank your
health in cocoa.

“Please do have your wedding right in the middle of a term, because it

will make a nice break. It would be such a waste to have it in the holidays.
Anyway, I’m awfully thrilled about it, and you can give Frank a kiss for
me. (I suppose you do kiss him now.) Lots of love.—Julie.

Ariane laughed over the letter, and somehow felt a little better.
 And then, that same afternoon, when—according to her faithful promise
—she was taking Julie’s puppy for a run, she came face to face with
Harvey.

He was obviously absorbed in his own thoughts, and had come right up to
her before he saw her. This time, however, there was no question of his
ignoring her.

“Good afternoon.” He raised his hat, without smiling, and she thought he
still looked rather pale and ill.

“Good afternoon. I’m glad to see you’re well enough to be out again.”
She was nervous, but she must manage not to show it. Before she could
think of anything else to say, however, he spoke again.

“Well, Ariane,”—he was smiling slightly now, but not very kindly—“so
the white dress did its work, after all.”

For a moment she didn’t realize his meaning. Then she saw and flushed
deeply.

“Exactly what do you mean?” she said coldly.

But he was more than equal to that form of snub.

 “I see that you understand,” he said almost carelessly. And there was an
awkward little silence.

She ought to have left it at that, of course, but she could not. On sudden
impulse she put her hand on his arm.

“Harvey, why must we spar like this? Since we are going to be relations,
can’t we be reasonably friendly?”

For a moment he stared down at her hand in silence.

Then—“I have no wish to be either related to you or friendly with you,”

he said slowly.

“But it’s not fair of you to speak like that!” Ariane’s lip quivered, but she
steadied it by clamping down her teeth fiercely on it. “Why should you
take it on yourself to resent Frank’s marrying me?”

He gave that haughty little frown of his, which she privately thought
rather absurd but somehow attractive.

“I don’t specially want to discuss the subject at all,” he told her coldly.
“But since you insist—I think any sort of alliance between your family and
ours would be a very uneasy one. And—pardon my frankness—it is we
who stand to lose from the business point of view, not Dobson’s.”
 Ariane was dumb for a moment through sheer dismay at his clear-
sightedness.

“But must we drag business matters into our personal affairs?” She spoke
quickly and nervously.

“Do you think it’s possible to leave them out?” he countered dryly. Then,
as she was silent: “In any case, will you answer me one question quite
truthfully?—Are you or are you not marrying Frank primarily for his
money?”

Quite unjustifiably, Ariane felt furious and insulted.

“I’ll answer that if you’ll answer me one question,” she retorted sharply.

“Well?” He looked surprised and a trifle amused.

“Do you really suppose Marta Roma is after anything but your money?”

The amusement was wiped from his face in one second, and his
expression of dark anger made Ariane step back.

“How dare you! What damned business is it of yours what there may be
between Marta Roma and me?”
 “No business whatever. That’s the point—” Ariane spoke curtly in her
turn. “No more than it’s your business what there may be between Frank
and me.”

She saw that the argument was not without effect, but he only said coldly:

“The cases are not parallel.”

They were not entirely, of course, and, in any case, Ariane was a little
startled to find that she had classed herself with a woman like Marta Roma.

“And who, may I ask, has been gossiping to you about Marta and me?”
Harvey went on suddenly.

“Oh—” Ariane was rather nonplussed. “Well, I heard more than once that
you—that you—” She stopped, finding, all at once, that her anger had
entirely melted. “Look here, I’m awfully sorry!” she exclaimed with
sudden frankness. “It wasn’t in the least my business, of course, and I’m
really rather ashamed of myself for saying anything so petty.”

He looked extremely astonished, particularly as she held out her hand

impulsively.

Rather slowly, he took the hand.

“You’re either a very clever girl, Ariane, or else a generous enemy.”

 “I’m not an enemy at all!” Ariane exclaimed in distress.

He smiled faintly.

“Do you really expect us to call ourselves friends?”

“I wish—we could.” She couldn’t quite help that silly little choke in the
middle of her sentence.

“A praiseworthy desire to live at peace with all your in-laws,” he

suggested faintly mockingly.

“Not even that—exactly,” Ariane said slowly, almost as though she were
speaking to herself.

“What, then?”

“It’s really that, in spite of everything, I like you, Harvey.” That came out
with miraculous calm. “And I just hate being at daggers drawn, I suppose.”

He gave a half-annoyed little laugh.

“You certainly have your own way of forcing one to sheath the dagger,”
he told her. “What is there left for me to say after such a disarming
speech?”

“You might say ‘Pax,’ ” Ariane suggested.

 She saw the annoyance slowly give place to a much gentler expression.

“Pax, Ariane—if only temporarily,” he said. “And now may I walk back
with you?”

“I thought you were going in the other direction.”

He frowned impatiently. “I was not actually going anywhere. I was just

walking.” Something in the way he said that struck her as terribly
dispirited.

She didn’t say anything, but, remembering how purposefully he had been
striding along, she thought that if he had not been going anywhere, he must
have been hurrying from something.

“Running away from his own thoughts, I suppose,” she told herself with a
sigh. “I know what that is like.”

“Hello, you two.” Ariane looked round to see Frank coming towards
them. “Nice to see you in friendly converse. I was just coming along to
your place, Ariane.”

“Were you? Then come now. And,”—she glanced a little doubtfully at the
other silent figure strolling along beside her—“perhaps Harvey will come
too.”
 “Thanks. I’m afraid I must be getting home.”

Ariane bit her lip. It had been so obvious before that he was in no sort of
hurry.

“By the way, Maurice and Sally are at home,” Frank offered carelessly.
“They arrived early this afternoon.”

“Hell,” was Harvey’s sole comment.

“Don’t you like your brother?” Ariane said involuntarily.

“I don’t care much about his wife.”

“Really, the human race seems in rather a bad way so far as you are
concerned. Don’t you like anybody?” Ariane asked amusedly.

She half expected him to resent her teasing, but perhaps it was something
new to him. At any rate, he looked a little startled for a moment. Then he
smiled, slowly and very attractively.

“I’m sorry. Was I being ridiculous?”

“Very. You usually are,” his brother told him. “As cheery as a Russian
drama, with all the loving-kindness of a Scrooge thrown in.”
 “Nonsense. Don’t listen to him,” Ariane said quickly, and she impulsively
took Harvey’s arm.

He glanced down at her, amused and rather sarcastic.

“What is it, Ariane? Afraid for my sensitive feelings?”

“N-no. Only Frank doesn’t really think that. And nor do I.”

“No,” Harvey agreed thoughtfully. “No. If I remember rightly, your

expressed opinion of me was that I was a pompous, conceited ass.”

“Quite right too. Very penetrating criticism at a first glance,” declared

Frank delightedly.

“Oh, Harvey,”—Ariane looked really distressed—“why will you dig that

up? I wish you would forget it.”

“I shouldn’t dream of it,” he assured her. “I enjoyed the occasion. It was

the one rousing moment in a dull evening.”

Ariane looked at him doubtfully, unable to decide if he meant that or not.

You mean you don’t bear any malice?”

“Not for that,” he told her carelessly. “In fact, I am charmed to find that
the elegant and aristocratic house of Dobson can be human enough to lose
its temper and be darned rude.”

“Look here, I won’t have you speaking to Ariane like that!” Frank was
suddenly indignant.

“She likes it,” Harvey said coolly.

“She does not. And in any case, instead of sneering at her, you might
remember that she was human enough and brave enough to save your life.”

“Oh, Frank, don’t!” Ariane’s voice trembled. “If you bring that up again
I’ll scream.”

“So shall I, probably,” remarked Harvey. “And if I had hysterics it would

be much more sensational than if you did.”

“Of all the damned ungrateful—”

“I’m not ungrateful.”

“Well, you have an exceptional way of showing your gratitude.”

“Oh, please, please don’t wrangle over me,” Ariane cried desperately. “It
makes me utterly miserable.”

“Nonsense. You like your role of little peacemaker,” Harvey told her
contemptuously. “It makes you feel gloriously superior to the common,
impossible Muldanes.”

“It doesn’t,” Ariane said, and unexpectedly burst into tears.

“Ariane!” exclaimed Frank in utter horror.

“Oh, lord!” observed Harvey with what Ariane took to be disgust.

Overwhelmed by shame and dismay, she stood there for a moment with
her hands pressed against her face.

And then, suddenly, somebody’s arms were round her. Her reason told her
it must be Frank. But her instinct said it was Harvey.

“Hush, you little idiot.” He was speaking to her quite softly. “You mustn’t
weep every time someone tells you the truth.”

“It—it’s not the truth.”

“Will you please leave Ariane alone.” That was Frank, perfectly furious
by now. “I don’t know why you should be hugging her.”

“Shut up,” Harvey said without looking up.

“Confound it! Is Ariane your fiancée or mine?”

“Yours, yours. I’m not disputing that. But it was I who hurt her and—”
 “I’m all right. Really I’m all right.” Ariane looked up quickly. “I don’t
know why I was such a perfect fool.”

“Because Harvey was an utter cad, I imagine.”

“I’m sorry, Ariane. I hate to agree with Frank, but I think perhaps he’s
right for once.”

“Never mind.” She wouldn’t look at him, but she spoke calmly now. “It
doesn’t matter.”

“I should say it did matter,” Frank declared. “I wouldn’t let him off as
easily as that if I were you. I’d make him grovel.”

“I don’t think he knows how to,” Ariane said with a faint smile.

“Quite right, and he doesn’t intend to learn,” Harvey said coolly. But he
took her hand and kissed it rather gently. “I’m sorry all the same, little
Ariane,” he told her in a whisper. “Forgive me for being—impossible.”

“It’s all right.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. Quite sure.” She drew a deep breath. “Will you come home with us,
after all?”
 He made a little grimace.

“Clever child,” he observed.

But he came.

Ariane knew her mother well enough to see that she was slightly put out
by Harvey’s presence, but, after the first shock, she behaved with
admirable calm. And to tell the truth, he made himself very charming to
Mrs. Dobson in an impersonal way.

“I really came round to say that now my sister-in-law is home and can
play hostess, we want to give a sort of engagement party,” Frank explained.

“How very nice,” Ariane said dutifully. But actually her heart sank a little
at the thought of everything becoming even more irrevocably fixed.

“Nothing very formal, you know.” One couldn’t imagine anything very
formal in connection with Frank in any case, of course. “Just the two
families and a few personal friends from both sides.”

Only Frank would contrive to speak so cheerfully about the two families
meeting in friendly intimacy, Ariane thought.

However, all she said was:

 “I should like Caroline and Dick Ventnor to come, if that’s all right.”

“Why, of course. You arc to ask anyone you want,” Frank assured her. “I
expect you’d better come up and discuss things with Sally.”

“How about Julie?”

That was Harvey, breaking quite a long silence.

“Oh well, Julie is at school, you know,” Mrs. Dobson explained.

“I know. But I gather she feels she has a distinct place in any celebration.”
Harvey smiled slightly.

Ariane was amused and somehow a little touched to hear Harvey, of all
people, voicing Julie’s claims.

“I shall never understand him, after all,” she thought.

Aloud she said:

“The school is a good way away, you know. And it would mean having
the party at the week-end if Julie came.”

“There’s no objection to that,” Frank said.

 “In any case, I don’t like to have Julie travel alone.” Mrs. Dobson was
very firm. “And I’m afraid no one will be free to fetch her.”

Both the Muldanes looked politely astonished. It was obvious that there
had never been any objection to their travelling unaccompanied at a much
earlier age than Julie’s.

“Well, that does rather settle it,” Frank had to admit. “We’ll make it up to
her in some way when she comes home later. We might—”

“Where is this school?” his brother interrupted coolly. “I’ll fetch Julie if
you will let me.”

“You!” exclaimed his brother with unflattering emphasis. “I can’t quite

see you as a guardian of the young, even for an hour or two.”

“It’s very kind of you,” began Mrs. Dobson, “but really, I don’t think—
that is—” It was perfectly obvious that her views were Frank’s, in a more
intensified form.

Ariane saw a slight colour come into Harvey’s thin cheeks, and a dark,
remote look, which she suddenly recognized as nervousness, made his face
very hard. Then, a second before he could speak, she got her words out.

“Would you really fetch Julie? Oh, Harvey, I wish you would I It
wouldn’t be at all the same thing without her. Mother, do give permission
for her to come. It’s an ideal arrangement if Harvey would be so very, very
kind.”

“Well—I don’t know—” Mrs. Dobson was still doubtful.

“I will take good care of her.” A very slightly sullen look had come into
Harvey’s eyes, and Ariane guessed that it went sorely against his natural
impulse to press the question. He would much rather have adopted a take-
it-or-leave-it attitude even towards Mrs. Dobson.

Then why was he bothering? She could only suppose it was his odd way
of showing his contrition for the earlier scene.

“Please, Mother.”

Mrs. Dobson looked slightly surprised at her elder daughter’s urgency, but
at least it had the effect of convincing her.

“Very well. It’s very kind of you to take the trouble,” she told Harvey
stiffly, although she was evidently not in agreement with Ariane about its
being “an ideal arrangement.”

Harvey just inclined his head coldly, and Ariane greatly feared that the
Dobsons sank back to their former extremely low place in his estimation.
 “It’s very little trouble, really,” he said formally. “I can easily arrange one
of my business visits to London at the end of that week, and can collect
Julie on the way back. But you’d better warn her that I’m not such
enlivening company as Frank,” he added dryly to Ariane.

“Oh, don’t worry. Julie can easily supply conversation for two,” Ariane
assured him with a smile.

When Ariane and her mother were once more alone, Mrs. Dobson glanced
at her daughter with a rather dissatisfied little frown.

“I don’t very much like the idea of Julie with that elder Muldane.”

“But, Mother, she’ll be perfectly all right.” Ariane felt more than a little
irritated by her mother’s attitude. “What objection can you have?”

“I don’t know, exactly.” Mrs. Dobson refused to be explicit. “But I don’t

like him at all. He’s nothing like Frank.”

“He is very nice in his own way,” Ariane retorted a trifle sharply, and not
altogether truthfully. “He’s not so obviously cheerful and good-tempered,
of course, but I don’t think we need condemn him for that.”

“He was very rude to your father once,” Mrs. Dobson reminded her
inexorably.
 “But surely we can forget that sometimes,” her daughter cried impatiently.
“Perhaps he was irritated or worried or had neuralgia or a thousand things.”

“Really, Ariane!” Mrs. Dobson’s tone was genuinely displeased. “It’s not
like you to make excuses for someone who is rude to your own parents.”

“Oh, I don’t mean it that way,” Ariane said in some distress. “But
somehow everyone seems anxious to think badly of Harvey, and—”

“Possibly that is his own fault,” her mother pointed out a little dryly.

“No, I don’t think it is. At least, not entirely,” added Ariane, remembering
one or two things that were not very easy to explain. “Anyway, anything
like—well, your obvious reluctance to trust Julie with him must hurt. He
was hurt, you know.”

“Nonsense, my dear. I think you credit him with altogether too sensitive
feelings,” Mrs. Dobson said firmly.

And, feeling suddenly unable to pursue the subject, Ariane relapsed into
silence.

A few days later, when she met Sally Muldane for the first time, it took
less than ten minutes to find that, if anything, she thought less of Harvey
than Mrs. Dobson did.
 “Are all these people better judges of character than I?” Ariane wondered.
“Or do I really know him just a little better than they do?”

Sally, for her part, was not the kind of person to think anyone knew better
than she on any topic at all.

Very fair, very pretty and very positive, she ruled the easygoing Maurice
with one hand. And, with the other, she made a not very successful attempt
to bring the other Muldanes into line.

Frank and his father tolerated her—the former with good-tempered

amusement and the latter with indifference. Harvey loathed her, and, as
usual, made no attempt whatever to hide the fact.

“He’s a very ridiculous person, don’t you think?” Sally observed to

Ariane. And then, without waiting for an expression of Ariane’s opinion:
“Most of the characteristics he displays ought to have been thrashed out of
him in his schooldays.”

Ariane ventured to say that he had good qualities too, but her statement
was swept aside by Sally’s positive—“You don’t know him as well as I do,
of course.” And then the subject was changed to a discussion of the
engagement party.

It seemed to Ariane, by the end, that she herself was to play quite a
secondary role compared with Sally. Although she felt a little annoyed, she
was anxious to keep the peace, and she felt it was not the most tactful way
of putting things when Harvey came in and inquired carelessly:

“Has Sally decided which people you can’t ask to your party yet?”

Sally, however, merely accorded him a look of intense dislike, which was
returned by a glance, crushing in its supreme indifference.

Ariane was very faintly amused by the look, and when, later in the week,
he went off on his business trip to London, she thought with real curiosity:
“I do wonder how he and Julie will get on.”

On the day of the party itself, she felt sufficiently nervous on her own
account not to worry about Julie—who was, in any case, admirably
equipped to look after herself.

It was difficult to say why this engagement party seemed to make

everything so entirely irrevocable. Perhaps it was the publicity of it.
Perhaps it was the fact that her father and Frank’s father would almost
certainly come to some sort of understanding then.

But as Ariane slowly dressed for the occasion, it seemed to her that the
last avenue of escape was closing. For some reason inexplicable to her
mother, she had firmly refused to wear white. So that when Julie finally
arrived, and came tearing up the stairs to their room, it was to find Ariane
fastening herself into a simply cut dress of soft blue, very much the colour
of her eyes.

Julie was evidently in a state of almost unbearable excitement. She

paused a moment in the doorway, however.

“Ariane, you look lovely! Can I hug you without spoiling everything?”

“Of course.” Ariane came across with a laugh, and kissed her. “What sort
of a journey did you have? And why the air of suppressed excitement? You
look as though you might rocket through the roof at any moment.”

“I could,” Julie declared positively. “That’s exactly what I feel like. Who
—do—you—think was in the car with me all the way from school?”

Ariane gave a puzzled little smile.

“Well, Harvey Muldane, I suppose.”

“Yes, of course he was there too, just to drive the car,” said the grateful
Julie. “But who else? Oh, you’ll never guess so I’ll have to tell you. Marta
Roma herself!”

“Marta Roma!” repeated Ariane with a stupefaction that obviously

gratified Julie beyond expression. “Marta Roma? But what on earth is she
doing here?”
 “Well, coming to the party, of course,” explained Julie with admirable
composure.
 CHAPTER V

“She’s coming to the party?” Ariane said, unable to do anything but repeat
what Julie said. “But she couldn’t. Harvey must be mad even to think of
asking her.”

“I think she asked herself,” observed Julie, beginning to peel off her
clothes with great rapidity. “She’s frightfully nice, Ariane. She says I’m
much funnier than most professional comedians. Do you think she means I
ought to go on the stage?”

“But what does he suppose people will say?” Ariane spoke her thoughts
aloud, ignoring Julie’s anxious query about her own future. “His father and
Sally and Frank and—well, everyone?”

“Do you think she thinks I ought to be an actress, Ariane? She ought to
know, oughtn’t she? And, if so, it’s a pity to waste all this time at school,
isn’t it?”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, Ariane! I can’t say it all again.” Julie stood there in her petticoat and
gazed at her sister with deep reproach. “It’s Marta Roma. She says I’m
much funnier than people on the stage. Do you think Mother will let me be
an actress?”

“No, I don’t,” Ariane said with decision. “You’d better run along quickly
and have your bath or you’ll be terribly late.”

Julie departed in the direction of the bathroom, mourning loudly about her
threatened career and the general lack of comprehension among parents,
while Ariane stood alone in the bedroom, sunk in thought.

Was it true, she wondered, that Marta Roma herself was responsible for
this extraordinary development? But why? She was not likely to care
anything about making an impression on Harvey’s family. That could
scarcely come into her scheme of things. Then the only other explanation
was that, for some reason, she was annoyed and wanted to humiliate him in
front of his own people.

“This is going to be a very difficult evening in more ways than one,”

thought Ariane with a sort of grim nervousness.

She herself was disinclined to say anything to her parents on the subject,
but Julie saw no reason for suppressing such sensational news.

The moment they were settled in the car, she burst out: “Mother, Harvey
Muldane brought Marta Roma back from London with him. She travelled
with me all the way back from school, and she says I ought to go on the
stage, and—”

“The actress, do you mean?” Mrs. Dobson’s tone was slightly reminiscent
of the days when dowagers frowned on Gaiety girls.

“Yes, of course. That’s how she knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That I ought to go on the stage. You see—”

“Nonsense, Julie.” Mrs. Dobson’s voice this time allowed of no argument.

“Don’t be a ridiculous child. You have your work cut out to keep your
place in class, without running away with fantastic notions like that.”

“Oh, Mother!” Julie’s voice rose to a wail. “I may be a genius, for all you
know. Daddy—” She turned to her other and more manageable parent. But
the result was disappointing.

“Sorry, Julie dear.” Her father smiled and passed his arm round her. “I’m
afraid decimals must come before dramatics at your age. But if you’re a
genius, you know, there’s plenty of time later. Geniuses always work to the
top.”
 “Some of them die in poverty and are only recognized after they’re dead,”
Julie said gloomily. “And no one can recognize a dead actress. It isn’t like
poets and people.”

“Never mind, pet. We’ll try to do something with you before you have
time to die in poverty,” promised her father soothingly.

“Ariane—” Mrs. Dobson spoke under cover of the other discussion, “is
that true? Has he really brought that woman here to your engagement
party?”

“I suppose so.”

“Really, it’s most insulting to us.” Mrs. Dobson’s colour rose.

“Oh, Mother, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it like that.” Ariane spoke in some
dismay, not having thought of this development, and knowing that her
mother was a little difficult to pacify if she thought the family dignity had
been affronted. “I believe she is a friend of his and she just happens to be
on the stage, and—”

“Stage I It isn’t her stage activities I object to,” Mrs. Dobson said dryly.
“Why, she is absolutely notorious.”

“I do hope Mr. Muldane has never even heard of her,” Ariane exclaimed
fervently.
 “Who?” Julie wanted to know, having caught that. “Marta Roma? He’s
bound to. Everybody has. She’s awfully famous. The other girls will die
with envy when I tell them.”

“Very well, Julie,” her mother said reprovingly. “You need not speak as
though she is a Florence Nightingale or some really great woman. She is
only a rather cheap actress, I believe.”

“She’s awfully famous, Mother,” cried Julie, who got over the difficulty
of a limited vocabulary by adding greater emphasis every time she repeated
a word. “And anyway, if you walked Florence Nightingale up one side of
the street and Marta Roma up the other, I bet nobody would look at
Florence Nightingale.”

“Julie, that isn’t the way to speak to me,” Mrs. Dobson said sharply.

But Ariane remarked peaceably:

“Well, I expect Florence Nightingale would have her starers too. For one
thing, she’d look like someone going to a fancy-dress dance.”

Julie found that rather funny, and while she was still chuckling about it
they arrived at the Muldanes’ big square house on the outskirts of the town.

In the hall both Frank and Sally met them, and Frank hastily drew Ariane
aside while Sally was greeting the others.
 “Ariane, I’m most frightfully sorry. You’ve heard how Harvey’s landed
Marta Roma on us, I suppose?”

“Yes. Is she staying here?”

“Here? Good God, no. I think Father would show her the door. No, she’s
staying at the Stag, of course, and, I suppose, got half the place set by the
ears already. But she’s coming here tonight. There was a frightful row, but
Harvey insisted and—”

“Aren’t we all being a little bit Victorian?” Ariane protested mildly. “I

thought these ‘bold, bad woman’ effects went out with antimacassars.”

“Yes, I know—in the ordinary way that’s true.” Frank gave a worried
little frown. “But she isn’t the sort of woman you ask—”well, anyone like
your mother to meet. And Father was so anxious—we all were—for
everything to be absolutely just so tonight, because—because—” Frank
stammered into silence and coloured unexpectedly.

“What, Frank?” Ariane was genuinely surprised, but she spoke with
instinctive gentleness.

“Oh well, we know you don’t exactly think much of us—”naturally he

stared at his shoes with great attention. “I expect we seem a bit jumped-up
in your eyes, whatever Harvey says.”
 Ariane wondered very much what Harvey had said, but aloud she merely
replied earnestly: “I don’t think of you as at all jumped-up, and please,
please don’t think of us as a set of patronizing snobs simply because we
happened to start making lace two hundred years before you did. It seems a
queer claim to superiority.”

Frank’s sudden smile told her just how relieved he was.

“Thank you, Ariane. You see, what we really felt was that we’d arranged
this party more or less in your honour, and then it looked as though Harvey
deliberately chose to turn up with what one might call his little bit of fluff.”

“I don’t imagine he thinks of her like that at all.” Ariane smiled more
gently than she knew. “I’m afraid the poor boy is trying to tell himself that
she is more or less his fiancée, and why shouldn’t he have her here, just as
you have me and Maurice has his wife?”

“Ariane, Harvey’s not a boy.” Frank laughed slightly.

“Oh yes, he is, where Marta Roma is concerned.”

“Well.” Frank looked considering. “Perhaps you’re right.” Then he kissed

her impulsively. “What a darling girl you are, and how conscientiously you
do try to understand us all. I wonder why?”
 “Because I’m fond of you all, Frank,” she said slowly, as though she had
only just discovered it herself. “Really fond of you—even your father. I
didn’t know at all that he felt like that—about pleasing us and making a
good impression, I mean. Please, please make him understand that it’s
perfectly all right about—everything, won’t you?”

“I will,” Frank promised with a smile. And then Sally came up to show
her upstairs.

“Will you just come down when you’re ready, Ariane? After all, you’re
sufficiently one of the family to make yourself at home now.”

“Thank you. I will,” Ariane assured her gravely.

She had already reached the top of the stairs, and her foot was on the
second step when Harvey’s voice said abruptly: “Ariane.”

She looked round, and saw that he was standing in a doorway regarding
her with sombre anxiety.

“Come here.” He made a little movement of his head towards the room
behind him and, forgiving the curtness of the summons because of the
urgency too, Ariane came slowly back and into the room.

It was quite a small place, fitted up as something between a study and an

office.
 “Well?” She turned to face him as he pushed the door to.

“I want you to do me a favour.”

As she noticed the dark reluctance with which he jerked that out, she felt
tempted to tell him he had an odd way of asking it. But instead, she said
quietly: “Yes, Harvey?”

He hesitated a moment, and then suddenly burst out:

“Ariane, will you please be decent to her? It’s going to be a damnable

business otherwise. Sally’s determined to be even more poisonous than
usual, and so are the others, I suppose. She’ll be horribly hurt, and not
understand a bit. And she’ll never want to come near the place again.”

“Why, Harvey—” Ariane didn’t know whether to be more amused or

touched at this appeal to regard Marta Roma as a sensitive plant and take
her under her care. Then, at the furious misery in Harvey’s face, she made
up her mind. He must have been desperate indeed to appeal to her.

“Of course I’ll be decent to her,” she promised gravely. “Julie tells me she
is very nice, and I’m most interested to meet her.”

At the way his face cleared she felt an odd little constriction of her throat.
He was so helpless, really.
 “Thank you.” He spoke just a little unsteadily. “You’ll like her, I know.”

Ariane made a tiny grimace.

“As one gold-digger to another, do you mean?” she asked. But somehow
there was no sting in her teasing.

“No.” He frowned, though not with his usual black annoyance. “She’s not
a gold-digger, Ariane. Really, she’s not.”

“Isn’t she?” Ariane felt it was scarcely the moment to thrash out the exact
character of Marta Roma, but one thing at least ought to be said. “All the
same, it wasn’t very wise of you to choose tonight, of all nights, to bring
her, was it?”

“You mean you’re really offended or insulted or some such foolery?”

“No,” Ariane said patiently. “I’m not so ridiculous as to make a personal

matter of it. I merely mean that it was a little tactless to make a delicate
introduction on an evening when the family were a bit keyed up, anyway.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he said impulsively:

“To tell the truth, I wouldn’t really have chosen tonight, myself. Only I
had sometimes asked her before, and she just suddenly took the fancy to
come away from London this week-end. It was between two productions
and I suppose she felt she’d like to get away. I couldn’t refuse, after having
always pressed her to come.”

“No,” Ariane agreed. “No, of course you couldn’t. Well, never mind now.
I expect we can carry things off all right.”

“We?” He coloured slightly and smiled. “Ariane, you are a good child.”

Ariane laughed.

“I hope I can keep your good opinion for half an hour at least,” she told
him lightly. But really her heart felt very warm at his unexpected praise.

They went downstairs then to join the others, and any awkwardness
which the moment might have held was a good deal minimized by the fact
that Ariane came over to the double family group evidently on the best of
terms with Harvey.

Her future father-in-law greeted her almost affectionately, but the

disgusted glare to which he treated his eldest son spoke volumes.

It was a few minutes before any of the other guests could be expected,
and Ariane found herself valiantly searching her mind for harmless topics
of conversation. She was really doing rather well when Julie suddenly
broke in with:
 “Hello, Harvey. Where’s Miss Roma? Isn’t she staying here?”

There was the kind of silence which all too often followed Julie’s
statements or questions. Then Harvey said with very cold composure:

“No, she isn’t actually staying here.”

“But she’s coming to the party, isn’t she?” Julie’s face fell ludicrously.

“Of course.”

Ariane wondered suddenly if that cold abruptness of his more often than
not hid nervousness.

“Wasn’t it nice of Harvey to arrange that we actually had a celebrity at the

engagement party?” she said calmly to Mr. Muldane. “It adds quite an
exciting touch, I think. We don’t often have a chance of meeting a big stage
star down here.”

Mr. Muldane’s interest in stage stars was obviously rather less than
nothing, and for a moment he seemed to find some difficulty in replying.

Julie helped him out, however.

“Yes, isn’t it thrilling? And you needn’t be a bit nervous of her,” she
added kindly. “Miss Roma’s just like—well, ourselves.”
 No one, however, seemed to have thought of Miss Roma as being just like
themselves, and the chilly quality of the silence said as much.

Then Mr. Muldane spoke, a trifle explosively.

“I assure you, I’m not at all likely to be nervous of the lady.”

“Julie,” said Julie’s mother with unhappy severity, “I think you’re doing
much more than your share of the talking.”

Ariane thought that Julie might with justice have considered that no one
else seemed inclined to do even their fair share. But fortunately the first of
the guests were announced at that moment.

Harvey withdrew almost immediately, and it was not until quite half an
hour later that he returned with the much discussed interloper.

Ariane had been making herself gracefully pleasant to Lady Ventnor when
suddenly Caroline pressed her arm and whispered:

“Look! I suppose that’s she.”

“If Julie greets her as a life-long friend it will be,” Ariane replied dryly,
and turned to look at the slim dark girl who had come in with Harvey.
 She was tall and indescribably graceful, with smooth black hair, parted
down the centre and drawn back in a knot on her neck. Her skin was that
even, pale gold which always suggests warm silk, and her enormous dark
eyes were fringed with lashes which, even at that distance, looked
impossibly long. She was wearing a black culotte suit, simply but perfectly
cut, with a deep collar of ivory.

From a distance, Ariane had thought: “She’s an absolute study in black

and white, ivory and gold.” But as she came nearer, she realized that, in
contrast, Marta Roma’s mouth was soft and scarlet and—yes, Ariane
supposed, “sensual” was the word.

But the red lips parted in a very cool, self-possessed smile as Harvey said:

“This is Julie’s sister, Ariane.”

“And the party is in honour of your engagement, I believe? You must

accept my very good wishes.”

She spoke slowly and her words were extremely clear, although the tone
itself was low, with a slight, attractive huskiness.

“It was very kind of you to come.” Ariane took her hand and welcomed
her with the same simplicity and warmth that she had used for all the other
guests. But she was not blind to Harvey’s air of relief, nor to the odd little
look which the actress gave her.
 The next few minutes were not easy, but Ariane struggled courageously to
bridge them. Sally seemed determined to let her hostess’s duties lapse at
this point, and so it was Ariane who took the celebrated visitor round and
introduced her to those least likely to be shocked by her.

That passed off with comparative success, and Ariane, drawing a deep
sigh, suddenly found that she was quite exhausted by the emotional strain
of the last hour.

It was a relief to go and dance with Frank, after a little while, and not
have to think about anything but his undemanding, easy conversation.

At least, she supposed she was not going to have to think of anything else.
But the moment her eyes rested on Harvey and Marta, who were dancing
together too, she knew that her thoughts would have no peace, either then
or for some while to come.

She remembered his saying to Dick Ventnor on that very first evening that
he was not fond of dancing. But, if he could have Marta Roma for his
partner, then evidently dancing meant something else to him.

It was almost impossible to believe that it was Harvey smiling in that

tender, amused way, bantering lightly with her, and yet watching her all the
time with that admiration which made his eyes so strangely gentle.
 So he could look like that! With a furious little pain, which she
recognized miserably as jealousy, Ariane realized that the cold, difficult,
impersonal Harvey could be a boyishly ardent lover—at any rate for the
indifferent, lovely creature in his arms.

“There’s passion and tenderness and tolerance and love there,” Ariane
thought wistfully. “But not for me—never for me. Why do I even watch it
and think of it? It’s all for Marta Roma—and she doesn’t care. I never
realized how little she cared until I saw her. And I haven’t even the right to
envy her.”

“Ariane—” Even Frank liked to have a few answers to his questions and
comments, it seemed, and she discovered, with a guilty little start, that he
was looking at her with half-vexed amusement. “Have you sent me to
Coventry or something?”

“No, of course not.” She laughed nervously. “I was just miles away, that’s
all. What were you saying?”

“Nothing very special, only I’d said it three times.” He grinned good-
temperedly. “And as I’d grown quite fond of the remark by then I had a
fancy to have it answered. I was merely saying what a nice couple the
Ventnors are. Caroline particularly is extraordinarily amusing.”

“Oh, she is,” Ariane agreed enthusiastically, more than willing to sing her
friend’s praises. “I’ve known her since we were quite little girls, and she’s
the best friend anyone could possibly have.”

“Um-hm. Now there’s a girl who contrives to be quite unconventionally

amusing and attractive without doing any of your Marta Roma stunts.”

“Well—yes. But Marta Roma has her attraction too, hasn’t she?” Ariane
felt conscientiously bound to say something nice for her after her promise
to Harvey, but it was difficult to put much heart into it.

“No,” Frank said with obvious sincerity, “I don’t find her attractive a bit.
And the more I look at her, the more I think poor old Harvey’s crazy.”

“But, all the same, don’t say so, will you, Frank, please?”

“What do you mean?” Frank smiled. “To whom mustn’t I say it? To
you?”

“No, of course not. You can say what you like to me.”

“Thanks, darling.”

“Only don’t say it to Harvey. If he has to start defending her he’ll end by
adoring her even more than he does already.”

“I dare say you’re right.” Frank laughed a little. “Anyway, I’ll be the soul
of tact.”
 Ariane smiled absently at him, because she felt he expected it, but
actually she was thinking: “It’s going to take much more than tact to get us
all out of this tangle.”

It was not until much later in the evening that she had a moment to speak
to Caroline again, and when she did, it seemed quite natural to say
smilingly: “You seem to be making something of an impression on Frank
tonight.”

“I do?” Caroline looked rather taken aback. “That’s a very generous

remark from a fiancée to another girl,” she added more lightly, “especially
at her engagement party.”

Ariane supposed it had been a little odd, but then, of course, she never
could think of Frank as her property at all. She hoped nervously that it had
not set the quick-witted Caroline thinking, and she changed the subject as
hastily as possible.

“What do you think of the guest of honour?”

“Is ‘honour’ quite the word?” Caroline asked dryly.

“Caroline, you mustn’t say these things,” Ariane laughed protestingly.

“What on earth would your mother say if she heard you?”
 “She probably wouldn’t understand, bless her,” declared Caroline. And at
that moment Harvey came up and drew Ariane aside.

“Ariane, do go and talk to Marta in the library, will you?” he whispered.

“I’ve just had a long-distance business call come through from London,
and I may be some time. She doesn’t want to come back in here and—well,
anyway, please do go, will you?”

Ariane went. There was nothing else to do. But the feeling of reluctance
was almost overwhelming, as she opened the library door and came in.

Marta looked up and smiled faintly.

“Have you come to talk to me? Harvey said you would, but I thought you
might be afraid of my contaminating your morals.”

“Oh Ariane wondered quite what to make of such frankness from almost a
stranger. “Well, no. I’m not quite so silly as that,” she said gravely at last.

“No?” Marta stared at her, those long, dark eyes of hers amused and just a
little scornful. Then she said impulsively: “Tell me, why do you bother to
put yourself out about me? You are the only one who tried to be normally
friendly. And yet in your heart you are just as shocked as all the others. You
don’t really imagine I have a place in this safe, conventional circle, yet you
behave as though I might become the third Muldane daughter-in-law at any
moment.”
 For a second Ariane didn’t answer, then suddenly she decided to match
frankness with frankness.

“And that, I gather, is the last thing you mean to become?” she said
slowly.

“What? Daughter-in-law to that fierce old patriarch? Thank you, but no.”

“Then why don’t you leave Harvey alone?”

It was terrible, really, to strip the conversation like this of all pretence of
decency, but Marta was quite unperturbed. She shrugged good-humouredly.

“So long as a man wishes to run after me—let him run. It is not my legs
nor my pocket that are hurt. Only his.” And she made a slight grimace that
was almost frightening in its shameless candour.

“But Harvey is too nice for that sort of thing, you know.” Ariane managed
to speak quite calmly, though, in reality, she was a good deal shaken by this
queer discussion. Did this woman always adopt such frankness after a
couple of hours’ acquaintance? she wondered.

Marta shook her head.

“You are making a false set of values for yourself out of your own
sentimentality,” she observed calmly. “For me a man is not nice or nasty.
He is good business or bad business. Harvey, poor darling, is attractive—
very. But he has the marriage complex badly. He is very rich—oh, quite
entrancingly rich—and so, just for once, I allowed myself to come and
inspect the family circle—see for myself what marriage to him would
mean.”

“And what would it mean?” Ariane could not conquer the slight
breathlessness of her tone.

“Boredom—and then disaster.” Marta made one of the slight but

comprehensive gestures for which she was famous.

“Then you mean,”—Ariane hesitated—“you mean you will leave him

alone in future?”

“Alone? No-o. That would be too unkind.” Ariane supposed people paid
quite a lot of money to watch that smile, but to her it was fast becoming
revolting. “Harvey does not, I think, wish to be left alone.”

“Of course not. You have him absolutely infatuated about you. We may as
well be frank.”

They had not, of course, been anything else right from the beginning,
Ariane remembered then.
 “Oh yes,” Marta agreed, “by all means let us be frank. In fact, let me
admit—quite frankly—that I find Harvey’s infatuation charming. And by
and by, when he has got over this strange idea of regarding me as a
possible wife, he will play another, less permanent role to perfection.”

Ariane felt the blood rush into her face.

“Isn’t that unpleasantly like a deliberate attempt to drag a man down?”

she said coldly.

“Entirely like,” Marta agreed with great composure.

“But—I don’t understand—” Ariane could not hide her bewildered

distress. “How can you—how can you square that sort of thing with your
conscience?”

Marta laughed slightly and pressed her smooth dark head back against the
cushion of her chair.

“My conscience? You cannot really suppose that I consult my conscience

over anything so rich and attractive as Harvey Muldane. No, no. I consult
my common sense. And my common sense tells me that—provided I do
certain things—I shall have a delightful and profitable affair with him.
Now do you see?”
 “No, I don’t! And I think it’s horrible, horrible that you should even speak
like that.”

Ariane shuddered, but Marta only looked at her with that good-natured
contempt which was somehow much more frightening than any real
unpleasantness.

“Well, it is of no consequence. Of course you can’t really understand.

How could you? We talk an entirely different language. But if I still puzzle
you, you have become much more understandable to me. You didn’t reply
to my first question at all, but you have no need to now, because I know the
answer.”

“What question?” Ariane looked at her with a puzzled dislike impossible

to hide.

“About your attitude to me this evening. I know now why you bothered to
be kind to me. Not for my own sake at all, but for Harvey’s.”

“Isn’t that rather natural?” Ariane said stiffly. “You are no friend of mine
and—and Harvey is.”

“Friend? Hm-hm.” There was an extremely amused note in Marta’s

lovely voice. “Is that what we call it? I think, my child, that the wrong
brother put that very handsome ring on your finger. It may be Frank to
whom you are engaged, but isn’t it perhaps Harvey who has your heart?
And that is why you are so anxious to appeal to my—conscience.”

For a moment Ariane could find no words at all. She stared at the ground
in utter confusion.

Then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke—quickly and breathlessly.

“And suppose I told you that you were right—that I did love Harvey
Muldane? Would that make any difference to your pursuit of him?”

There was no reply to that. Perhaps Marta was thinking it over.

And then, as the silence lengthened curiously, Ariane reluctantly raised

her eyes.

Marta was not worrying about replies. She was too much amused by the
simple fact that Harvey was standing just inside the doorway, grimly
surveying the scene.
 CHAPTER VI

For a second nobody moved. Then Harvey came forward into the room
and said very calmly:

“I’m sorry, to have been so long, but there were one or two things which
had to be settled, and I couldn’t get away sooner.”

“It doesn’t matter, Harvey.” That amused little undercurrent ran through
everything Marta said now. “It doesn’t matter in the least. We have been
able to amuse each other perfectly. Haven’t we, Ariane?”

“Yes.” Ariane’s voice nearly failed her altogether, but somehow she got
the word out. And once she had spoken, the rest came more easily. “But I
must go now. I promised Sally—You must excuse me—”

Afterwards she wondered just how obvious her confusion had been as she
made her escape from the room. And then—just what had Harvey heard?

Try as she would, she could not remember the exact words she had used.
Had she made an actual statement that she loved him, and then asked a
question on top of that? Surely she would never have been so crazy, even if
she had been certain they were alone?
 Then had she just put it as a query—Suppose, for the sake of argument,
she had been in love with him?

No, she could not believe it had taken quite such a harmless form as that.

Besides, Marta had accused her, in so many words, of loving Harvey.

And, whatever else she had done, she had not denied it.

By the time the party broke up, Ariane felt weary and sick and scared
beyond description. But she had to go on pretending that she had enjoyed
herself thoroughly, and that it had been a splendid party.

At last, however, even the good-byes were over, and she and a very sleepy
Julie were in the car with their parents once more, on the way home.

“A very successful evening, I think—in most ways,” commented Mrs.

Dobson.

“Yes, very,” Ariane agreed mechanically.

“They’re not quite as I expected,” her father said suddenly, as though he

had been slowly absorbing some idea all the evening, and now had arrived
at some conclusion.

“In what way?” His wife glanced at him a little anxiously. “Well, old
Muldane isn’t so aggressive as one might imagine. For some reason he
seems anxious to please us, although he must know that his fortunes are
rising while ours are—not.”

“Yes, I don t think any of us have quite realized their attitude before.”
Ariane spoke earnestly, forgetting for a moment her personal problem. “I
believe half of old Mr. Muldane’s rough-shod methods are due to an
uneasy sense of—well, inferiority. He knows he is a good business man
and he thinks he’s nothing else at all.”

“In which he is perfectly correct,” murmured her mother rather grimly.

“Oh, Mother Ariane smiled slightly. “It makes me a little unhappy and
ashamed really. Poor old man—he’s almost flattered that we—that I—”

“And so he should be, my dear,” her father said, kindly but firmly. “He is
a very fortunate man to be having you for a daughter-in-law, and certainly
not many men in his position could hope to ally themselves to a firm like
Dobson’s.”

Ariane said nothing. She knew her father had no idea he was being
patronizing and—yes, very slightly ridiculous. Did he really suppose it was
a privilege to be allowed to use one’s money to bolster up a dying firm,
simply because that firm happened to be called Dobson’s?

Apparently, from his contented, slightly gracious expression, he did. That

had been his attitude always, and Mother’s attitude too. In a lesser degree,
she supposed, it had once been her own view.

Suddenly she thought she saw just why Harvey despised and resented
them. And the discovery was not a pleasant one. “Anyway, I don’t think I
shall find the elder Muldane difficult to work with—” Daddy already spoke
as though Muldane’s had become a branch of Dobson’s. “The really
perfectly dreadful member of the family is that eldest son. What’s his
name?—Harvey.”

“I like Harvey,” came sleepily but determinedly from Julie’s corner. “He’s
dark and romantic, just like villains who repent in the end and turn out to
be much more exciting than the hero. When he marries Marta Roma I shall
ask if I can go to stay with them. I think they’d like it.”

“You’d better go to sleep again,” Ariane told her firmly. “You don’t know
what you’re talking about.”

“Is he proposing to marry the flashy young person he brought with him?”
Mr. Dobson asked distastefully. But neither his wife nor his eldest daughter
seemed able to enlighten him. And as Julie had definitely fallen asleep by
now, the query went unanswered.

Ariane thought she must surely lie awake that night, worrying desperately
over the many problems confronting her. But perhaps the very complexity
of her unhappiness confused her, and sleep came very quickly.
 The next morning she and Julie spent quietly and pleasantly together, for,
in spite of the difference in their ages, they were exceedingly good friends.
And, although the afternoon meant return to school for Julie, even that
grim circumstance took on a rosy hue by virtue of the fact that she had so
much sensational news to impart to her school friends.

Mrs. Dobson was anxious not to make Marta Roma into a forbidden
subject, and thereby add to her lustre, but she did say a little reprovingly
once:

“Remember, Julie, it was to celebrate your sister’s engagement that you

came home. Please don’t talk so much as though Miss Roma were the only
important part of the week-end.”

“Oh, I don’t mean it like that!” Julie cried cheerfully. “Ariane knows I
don’t. But an engagement’s only an engagement after all, isn’t it? I mean,
anyone can get engaged. Whereas Marta Roma is—well, somebody in the
newspapers and that sort of thing. You don’t mind, do you, Ariane dear?”

Ariane shook her head and laughed.

“Oh no. I see that I and Florence Nightingale must face decent obscurity
together when it comes to comparison with Marta Roma.”

Mrs. Dobson clicked her tongue impatiently, but Ariane only smiled and
said: “Never mind, Mother. It’s very natural.”
 And that was what it was, of course. Very, very natural that Harvey, too,
should scarcely even see her when the thought of Marta filled his mind.

All the same, it was hard to keep up that attitude of cheerful, detached
philosophy when, later, Harvey came to collect Julie once more, and she
knew quite well that, sitting there waiting for him, beside the driver’s seat,
was Marta.

However, the really important thing was to remain utterly calm and at
ease for the few minutes Harvey was in the house. Everything about her
must suggest that if he thought he had heard anything outrageous and
embarrassing last night he was entirely mistaken. Only by maintaining that
attitude could she keep the last rag of self-respect.

And somehow she managed to do it. Because when they were in the hall
and Julie was saying good-bye to her mother, he drew Ariane aside and
said quietly: “Thank you for your help this week-end. You’ve been a
perfect little sport.”

And he would not have said anything like that if he’d really heard
something last night, surely?

The days after Julie’s departure seemed to drag in an oddly monotonous

fashion.
 One missed anything so much in evidence as Julie always was, of course,
but it was not only that. Ariane found that the things which had always
interested her were unable to hold her attention ; that it was an actual
physical effort to make herself go about with Frank and pretend to enjoy
herself; that even the easy, undemanding relationship between herself and
Caroline seemed to have undergone some indefinable change, so that they
never seemed quite so close together as they had been nearly all their lives.

“Is it that Caroline thinks it necessary to change because I’m engaged, I

wonder?” thought Ariane worriedly. “Or is it that I myself am changing
because of this miserable strain?”

Of Harvey she saw nothing at all. His work seemed to keep him in town
most of the time, and during the short visits he made to Norchester she had
no occasion to meet him. It was impossible, of course, to let herself
suppose that that in itself accounted for the depression and restlessness. But
at least it did nothing to help it.

Once or twice she thought she even detected a slight discontent and
puzzlement in Frank’s manner. And then she used to wonder guiltily if she
were failing him and her family and everyone else.

It was not an easy period of Ariane’s life, and perhaps although nothing
was said, her mother realized that too. At any rate she watched her
daughter rather anxiously; and when an early spring began to furnish some
really warm days, she said: “You know, Ariane, I think it would be nice if
you and I had a couple of weeks in London. I was disappointed not to get
up there at all last year, and as it will really soon be time to think seriously
about your trousseau, it seems to me a good time for us to go.”

“Just as you like, Mother.” Ariane spoke listlessly, in spite of all her
efforts to the contrary.

It was stupid of her, of course, but the mention of her marriage, although
fixed at nothing more definite than “some time in the summer,” made her
feel terribly afraid.

Mrs. Dobson said nothing more at the time, but merely made her own
arrangements; and on a beautiful day in early April, she and Ariane left for
London, with the vaguely expressed intention of “seeing about Ariane’s
trousseau” as the sole object of their visit.

As the train rumbled its way through the green and hilly country which
surrounded Norchester, Ariane felt a weight slowly rolling away from her
heart. It seemed as though she were leaving so many problems behind.

True, it was only for a little while, and the very word “trousseau” seemed
to show how short the respite was. But somehow the thought that for two
whole weeks she would not have to keep up her elaborate pretence—to
Frank, to her father, to Caroline, to everyone—brought with it a comfort
beyond description.
 And perhaps most important of all was the fact that she was leaving the
scenes which reminded her perpetually of Harvey without ever satisfying
her longing to see him.

“It’s going to be a real test,” Ariane thought thankfully. “There’ll be

nothing at all in London to remind me of—of how things are. Perhaps I
shall even sleep better.” Because lately her nights had been very broken
and troubled.

It was early evening when they arrived and they drove straight to the
small but exclusive hotel where the Dobsons always stayed during their
rare visits to London.

“Very delightful,” commented Mrs. Dobson with a pleased sigh when she
realized that even the staff were almost entirely as she had always known
them. “I like places that don’t change.”

Ariane said nothing, but she smiled sympathetically. For her part, she
sometimes felt she would have been glad to see everything change. But if
Mother were happy and satisfied—that was all right.

It was pleasant, it was true, having no wishes but their own to consult.
And, after a theatre that evening and a really long and refreshing sleep that
night, Ariane began to feel ready to enjoy herself to the full.
 Shopping was not too obviously labelled “trousseau” at first, and any
visits they had to make were mostly to old friends of her mother. Quiet,
unexacting people who were a little apt to treat her as being only slightly
older than Julie.

On the third day, however, Ariane excused herself from accompanying

her mother on one of these calls, and found herself with the pleasurable
prospect of an entirely free afternoon in front of her.

It was brilliantly fine, with that soft, hopeful warmth which only comes
with the spring and early summer. And as Ariane walked slowly through St.
James’s Park, watching the children playing, and the ducks hustling each
other at the water’s edge, she felt happier than she had for many weeks.

She sat down presently to watch a group of very small children intent on
carrying all their toys from one side of the grass stretch to the other, for the
express purpose, it seemed, of carrying them back again.

Ariane was so amusedly absorbed that she had no attention for the few
passers-by, and not until a tall figure had passed her, paused, and then came
back again did she look up.

“Why, Ariane,” said Harvey Muldane, “I had no idea you were in

London.”
 It seemed, somehow, quite natural that he should be there. That, out of all
the millions of people in London, almost the only one she knew—and
certainly the only one who mattered—should meet her.

She gave him her hand and, after a moment, he sat down on the seat
beside her.

There was nothing about him to remind her of that last unfortunate
meeting—at least, the last meeting except for the few moments in the hall
when he had come to collect Julie. His manner was calm, easy and almost
friendly. And suddenly it seemed to Ariane that his coming was merely the
completion of her happiness in this lovely afternoon.

She explained that she and her mother were in London for a fortnight, and
he said quite sincerely:

“I hope I shall see something of you. If business doesn’t take me away

from town too soon I should like to take you out one evening, if I may.”

He spoke in the natural, sociable way she associated with most of her men
friends, but never before with Harvey.

She told him how much she would like to go out with him one evening,
and then he said abruptly:

“What are you doing now? Have you any time free?”
 “Yes. Mother went visiting, and I have the whole afternoon to myself.
That’s why I’m just idling it away quietly.”

He smiled.

“Then will you idle away some of it with me and let me take you to tea?”

“But weren’t you going somewhere when you saw me?”

“No.” Just that. No elaboration about what he did or did not do. And she
realized then how very, very little she knew of his life and thoughts.

“I should like to come,” she told him. And presently they got up and
strolled together past the suspension bridge and up towards the Mall.

Little was said until they had left the Park and found a quiet, exclusive
tea-room just off St. James’s Street. And even then, when he had given the
order, and took up the thread of conversation again, it was only to say quite
conventionally:

“And how do you like London?”

“Very much indeed.” She smiled at him and felt that she loved London at
that moment. “I like to watch the people and wonder about them to myself.
It’s oddly fascinating after living in a place where every second person you
meet has known you all your life.”
 “And is it really as bad as that at home?”

“Very nearly.”

“So strangers interest you—in imagination? It sounds to me a little as

though you are running away from realities.”

“Oh no, Harvey!” She was slightly startled by the suggestion which was
somewhere near the truth. “Take that woman over there, for instance,” she
said, hastily and at random. “Doesn’t she suggest something interesting—
as though there might be quite a story to her life?”

He shook his head with a little smile.

“You’re too fanciful for me, Ariane.” But, while she poured out tea, he
unobtrusively studied the beautiful, expensively dressed woman who was
sitting the other side of the room.

“Well?” Ariane smiled inquiringly as she handed him his tea.

“Nothing—except that she is rather like my mother.”

“Is she, Harvey!” Whenever she had thought about Mrs. Muldane, Ariane
had never visualized anyone like that. “Was your mother beautiful?”

“Oh yes. And elegant and charming and very correct too.”
 Ariane hesitated.

“Were you very—fond of her?”

“Very. But she didn’t care much about me,” he said without rancour.
“Apart from the fact that I was the eldest son, that is.”

“But she must have.” Ariane was indescribably shocked at the simple way
he said that.

“Oh no. I thought her very marvellous, but I was a clumsy, rather bad-
tempered child, I suppose, and I never seemed able to please her much. The
others came into line much more easily.”

“But perhaps you were bad-tempered because you were nervous.”

“That’s very charitable of you, Ariane.” He laughed a little, but rather as

though the way she said that touched him. “However, nothing is easier than
to put one’s faults down to being misunderstood, so I think we’ll just leave
it at the fact that I was not an attractive child and the others were.”

“Still, she shouldn’t have made any difference.”

“Oh, I don’t expect she did, consciously. But I suppose children always
know. Just as I always knew she slightly despised my father.”
 “Harvey!”

“Well, he was also much too much of a rough diamond for her.”

“Then why did she marry him?” Ariane asked indignantly. Harvey raised
his eyebrows rather quizzically.

“The same reason for which women always marry the Muldanes. Money.”

Ariane was silent, her cheeks suddenly scarlet. Then:

“Am I supposed to take that without protest?”

“It’s the truth, my child. Whether it’s a good reason or bad, it is the one
for which my mother married my father, for which Sally married Maurice,
and for which—forgive me—you find Frank attractive.”

“And isn’t that the reason for which Marta finds you attractive? You
wouldn’t answer that question before, but I think you owe me an answer
now.”

“Marta has refused to marry me—definitely and finally,” Harvey said

quietly. And, in that moment, Ariane thought she knew why it was that, if
he still looked indefinably sad, at least that perpetual air of strain was
lessened.
 “It’s because he has taken some decision,” she thought.

“Marta put her other horrible suggestion to him and he has refused. He’s
miserable about losing her, but he knows he is right, and I suppose he finds
some sort of consolation in that.”

“What is it, Ariane? Are you too deeply offended with me to say
anything?”

She glanced up quickly and found him smiling slightly in that cynical
way of his. This was much more the old Harvey, but somehow she couldn’t
mind even that so much after the extraordinary glimpse she had had of the
other side of him.

“No, I’m not offended,” she told him slowly. “I was only thinking hard.
I’m glad she refused you. You’re much too good for her.”

Up went his eyebrows again.

“Are you trying to make me feel a beast for what I said?”

“Oh no. That doesn’t really matter.” She realized then that that was the
truth. Then, glancing at her watch she added: “But I must go now. Mother
will be home and wondering where I am.”
 As they came out of the tea-place, he put his hand very lightly round her
arm.

“You know, Ariane, you once told me that ‘in spite of everything’ you
liked me. I’m inclined to echo that in my turn. In spite of everything, I
can’t help liking you ... And now may I call you a taxi?”

“Yes, please,” Ariane said, and that was all, because the illogical lump in
her throat kept her from saying any more.

He made no further reference to seeing her again, not even when he

handed her into the taxi and said good-bye. And Ariane, of course, could
say nothing either.

Only, all the way back to the hotel, one thought was running through her
head:

“Shall I see him again? Shall I see him again? It’s wicked of me, but I
can’t bear it if I don’t see him again.”

To her mother she only said the bare truth—that she had met Harvey
Muldane and that she had gone out to tea with him.

“Really, how extraordinary that he, of all people, should turn up!”
exclaimed Mrs. Dobson vexedly. “He’s one of the few people I genuinely
dislike.”
 “I think you’re prejudiced, Mother,” Ariane said. “There’s a great deal
about him which is very nice indeed. And—and he rather wants to please,
you know, even when he’s in his most difficult mood.”

“Nonsense, my dear. He has a most ungracious indifference about the

impression he makes on people. That is really what I dislike about him.
You look at him with much too kindly judgment. When you’ve had as
much experience as I have, you will realize that an occasional hour or two
of charming behaviour does not make up for general ungraciousness and
ill-nature.”

Ariane said nothing more. It was not really any good, she could see. But
she was remembering very vividly the oddly uncomplaining way he had
said: “I was a clumsy, rather bad-tempered child, I suppose, and I never
seemed able to please her much.”

And she remembered it many times during the London visit.

For the first few days, she found herself taut with anticipation every time
the post came or the telephone-bell rang. It seemed that the only important
thing in the world was that Harvey should write or telephone.

But no word came from him. And, after a while, she told herself that
business had called him away after all, and it was better that it should be
so.
 With quite a convincing appearance of pleasure, she accompanied her
mother on the various shopping and social expeditions which were
planned. It was kind of Mother to take so much trouble, and, in common
decency, she must play her part too. Besides, one had to do something, so
one might as well do what Mother wanted.

Day after day slipped past in this uneventful waiting for something which
never happened, and it was with almost a physical shock that Ariane
realized the end of the holiday had come without a word from Harvey.

It was ridiculous of her to attach so much importance to it, of course. All

he had said was that if business did not call him away he would like to take
her out. Well, business had called him away—and that was all there was to
it.

But even on the last morning of all, when she saw there was a letter for
her, she thought with frantic rapidity: “If that’s from Harvey, I must stay
somehow. I must make some excuse to stay even now.”

The letter, however, was from Frank—merely to say that if he could get
away, he would be at the station to meet her, but that if he were not there
she would know that business had kept him.

Curious. The same reason. And in one case it mattered all the world—in
the other not at all.
 Ariane was very quiet on the journey home, just as she had been on the
journey to London. But there was a different quality about the stillness.

Frank was not on the platform to meet them, but Caroline Ventnor was,
and Ariane felt overwhelmingly glad to see her.

“It seems much more than a fortnight, Caroline!” she exclaimed as she
hugged her friend. And perhaps Caroline felt that too, because she said:

“Walk down with me, Ariane. It’s so difficult to talk in the car, and it
doesn’t give us any time, anyway.”

“Very well. Wait a moment while I tell Mother.” Ariane ran after her
mother to the car. “Mother, you don’t mind if I walk down with Caroline
instead of coming with you, do you? It’s such a long time since I saw her,
and there’s so much to talk about.”

“Of course not, my dear. Go along and have your talk. Goodbye,
Caroline.” She waved her hand. “Come in and see us soon.”

Caroline promised she would, and when the car had driven away, Ariane
linked her arm in her friend’s, and they strolled down the almost country
road together. For a minute or two neither of them said anything. Then
Caroline spoke a little absently.

“Had a good time?”

 “Lovely, thanks. What’s been happening here? Anything?”

“Well—” Caroline paused.

“Oh, there must be heaps to tell me,” Ariane declared. “I haven’t seen a
soul from Norchester for two weeks. Except—” she brought it out quite
calmly—“except Harvey. I met him in London about two days after we
arrived. But I didn’t see him again after that.”

“Oh? He’s down here now,” Caroline said indifferently.

“Here! Is he? He didn’t say anything about coming.”

“No? She’s here too.”

“She? Who?”

“Well, the lady in the case. Marta Roma, of course.”

Ariane stopped dead.

“Are you sure? But—but how extraordinary.”

“Is it?” Caroline seemed curiously lacking in interest. “She’s been here
nearly a week, I believe. Staying at the Stag again and rather shocking Mrs.
Bellamy. Though how people who keep a country pub retain any powers of
being shocked I don’t know,” she added in parenthesis.
 “But what is she doing here?” Ariane had begun to walk on again now,
but her expression was worried and thoughtful.

“Having a quiet time before she goes to America, I suppose.”

“She’s going to America?”

“Yes. Leaving the day after tomorrow.”

“How do you know?”

Caroline laughed slightly.

“How does one know anything in Norchester? The same process by

which we all know everything about everybody almost before it’s
happened. I suppose some of her luggage has been sent straight from here
to London Airport. And somebody told somebody that somebody else
heard her booking a place on the early morning train. You know the sort of
thing.”

“So Marta Roma has been here a week—with Harvey.”

“We-ell. She’s staying decorously in one place and he in another, you

understand.”
 “Yes, yes, of course.” Ariane became sunk in thought and there was
silence again. Then:

“Ariane.”

“Yes?” Ariane looked up quickly, arrested by something in the way

Caroline said her name. “Yes?—what is it?”

“Just that I didn’t ask you to walk down with me so that we could discuss
Harvey and the Roma lady. It was something else entirely.”

“Is there something special you want to say?” Ariane was aware, with
sudden contrition for her own absorption, that Caroline seemed strangely
upset.

“Yes. But it’s horribly difficult—”

“But, my dear Ariane took her arm affectionately again, “surely there
can’t be anything difficult to say between us.”

“Yes, there is. It’s about Frank. And I’m not sure that you won’t hate me
when I’ve said it.” Caroline stared in front of her rather unhappily and
didn’t respond to the pressure on her arm.

“About Frank?” Ariane repeated in astonishment.

 “Yes. It isn’t really so sudden as it sounds. We’ve both been struggling
against it for several weeks, and he wants us to go on doing so. But I won’t.
It’s ridiculous to ruin three people’s lives for an idea—for it would mean
your life too, in the end.” Caroline hesitated, but as Ariane remained silent,
she went on doggedly. “He’ll be furious when he knows I’ve told you, but
the truth is, Ariane, that he—that we are the two who love each other. His
feelings have changed entirely, though he’ll never, never tell you so
himself.”
 CHAPTER VII

“Frank—and you!” Ariane repeated slowly. And then her voice failed her
because a terrible, overwhelming relief made her want to shriek with
hysterical laughter.

Frank and Caroline! Of course! It was the most natural thing in the world.
They had the same cheerful, imperturbable outlook, the same tastes. They
were bound to like each other. They were even very likely to love each
other.

Only she, with her ridiculous scheming, had come in between, had pushed
things out of their natural course. It had needed this to show her how
absurd, how utterly without sense or excuse her action had been.

She had nothing with which to hold Frank really—no genuine feeling,
however hard she tried. And with him only a disturbed sense of duty to his
engagement and a warm liking for herself were keeping him unhappily
faithful to his impetuous declaration.

“It’s always like this with a manufactured marriage,” she thought with
sudden, rather frightening insight. “Only usually the poor man doesn’t meet
the girl who really matters until it’s too late. But this time it’s not too late.
Oh, thank God, it’s not too late!”

She had no idea how long a silence she had left while these thoughts raced
through her head, until Caroline spoke with some difficulty.

“I’m sorry. I suppose it’s a frightful shock. Perhaps he was right, and I
ought not to have said anything. But—”

“Caroline!” Ariane flung her arms round her friend. “Of course you ought
to have said it. My dear, I’m so thankful—I mean—Oh, Caroline, you’ll
make him a splendid wife. Much better than I should. And of course we
ought to have seen it before. You’re simply made for each other.”

“But—” Caroline returned her kiss bewilderedly—“I don’t understand.

You seem almost happy.”

“I am happy. Don’t you see? I am happy. It’s the same with me. I don’t
love him, either. I think he’s a dear, but—”

“You’re pretending. You’re just saying this to make me feel less awful.”

“I’m not pretending. I ought to have seen what was happening. Poor dear
nice Frank, being so conscientious, and all the time there was nothing to be
conscientious about.”
 It was extraordinary how affectionate, how ridiculously sisterly she felt
towards him now that she no longer had to marry him. In a minute or two,
of course, she would have time to realize the seriousness of it all, to wonder
just where all the Dobsons stood now in relation to all the Muldanes. But at
present she could think only of the single, wonderful fact that she need not
marry Frank—she could not marry Frank—because her best friend loved
and him and he loved her.

“Then have you been making yourself miserable about the change in your
feelings too?” Caroline still looked very doubtful, and rather pale with the
strain of the scene. And all at once Ariane saw that she must give Caroline
something of the truth, if only for her peace of mind.

“Listen, Caroline dear,”—and this time there was an answering pressure

on her arm—“I can’t explain it all exactly, but with me it wasn’t so much a
change of feeling as that I was never more than—well, very much attached
to him. I thought that would be enough, that I could make him happy and
be—be very happy too. But I’ve been finding for some while that I was
wrong, and now you’ve cut the Gordian knot in the most extraordinary
way.”

“I see,” Caroline said slowly. “I think I see. But what I can’t understand is
how you, of all people, ever imagined you could marry anyone without
being terribly in love. You just couldn’t. You simply aren’t that kind.”
 “No,” Ariane admitted, almost as though she were speaking to herself.
“No, you’re quite right. I just couldn’t do it.”

And the thought followed quite naturally: “Then I suppose I shall not
marry at all now, for Harvey would never want me.” It was strange that she
could feel so sure about it. But there it was.

“You’re going to find it difficult to convince Frank that you’re speaking

the truth,” Caroline said. “I think I feel only half convinced myself, and
Frank is so conscience-stricken that he may not believe you at all.”

Ariane coloured slightly with quick shame and remorse.

“It isn’t Frank who should feel conscience-stricken.”

“You mean I should?”

“No! Of course not. I’m the only one who should be feeling small. And I
do.”

“I don’t understand your attitude.” Caroline shook her head. “But anyway,
let’s all stop abasing ourselves and think out the best and most
commonsense way of settling things.”

“Oh, Caroline, how nice to hear you talking just like your old self again.”
Ariane laughed a little. “I realize now that you’ve been different for quite a
while.”

“Worry and jealousy, I expect,” said Caroline with a grin. “Darling, I’m so
sorry. But you’re going to be awfully happy now. I’ll get Frank down this
evening and make him understand.”

Caroline squeezed her arm.

“And it isn’t going to make any difference between us?”

“Only to make us better friends than ever,” Ariane said.

“Not possible,” declared Caroline. And then: “By the way, nearly all our
set are coming tomorrow for the first tennis party of the season. Do you
think—that is—well, how do you feel about it?”

Ariane considered for a moment.

“I think the really sensible thing is for me and Frank both to come quite
calmly, as we should in the ordinary way. I’ll have explained before then,
you know, and—and broken things off. If people realize from the first that
we’re all quite amicable about it and no bones are broken, I don’t believe
they’ll have half so much to say as they would in the ordinary way.”

“Don’t you think so?” Caroline looked doubtful.

 “I’m sure of it. We needn’t make any announcements from the housetops,
of course, but they’ll realize that our engagement is over, and we’re just
friends. And then, by and by, when you and Frank fix things up and they
see there isn’t the slightest scrap of difference between you and me—
perhaps even Norchester will realize there’s not a great deal of gossip
about.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“I’m sure I’m right. Who is coming?”

“Oh, nearly everyone we know.”

“Did you ask—Harvey?” She despised herself, but even after all that she
and Caroline had been saying, that still seemed the most important thing.

“I did. And the girl-friend. Mother was a bit sniffy when she heard, but it
seemed a ridiculous omission to make. It isn’t as though they are having an
affair. At least, not so far as anyone knows. On the face of it, it’s merely a
case of her choosing to have a quiet week before her American tour in a
country town she already knows and likes.”

Ariane smiled very faintly.

“You couldn’t expect either your mother or my mother to look at it quite

like that.”
 “No, of course not. But trust Mrs. Bellamy to let all Norchester know if
there were anything to know. She keeps an eye on every inch of her
wretched inn.”

“I suppose so.” Ariane felt unspeakably depressed by the thought that

Harvey and Marta were with each other again, but she must not let Caroline
see that, or she would attribute it to a wrong motive. And so she had to pull
herself together somehow and make cheerful conversation until they parted.

When Ariane reached home she found two circumstances not calculated to
raise her spirits. One was that her father was not at all well, and the other—
a lesser evil but highly irritating—that Sally Muldane was there.

Sally and Ariane had less than nothing in common, and something about
Sally’s carping outlook made Ariane understand Harvey’s lurid comments
when his brother’s wife came to stay. Sally, fortunately or unfortunately,
rather liked Ariane, and was inclined to seek her company on the fairly
frequent occasions she was in Norchester.

“Hello, Ariane. I’ve just been telling your mother that I’m going to steal
you for most of the day tomorrow,” she announced as Ariane came down
from greeting her father.

“Are you?” Ariane said cautiously, wondering just how her broken
engagement was going to effect that.
 “Yes. The Ventnors are giving a tennis party tomorrow—I expect you
know, and I want you to come to lunch with us first, and then come on
home with us afterwards for the night.”

“Oh, but—” began Ariane. Sally, however, allowed no interruption when

she was announcing her intentions.

“We shall all be late home, because there’s to be dancing afterwards, so

you might just as well come with us. Your mother won’t want you coming
in very late, with your father ill in bed.”

“I assure you I never disturb anyone when I come in late,” Ariane

managed to put in coldly, because she very much resented Sally’s
management of her affairs.

“No, of course not, dear,” Mrs. Dobson said peaceably. “But, as a matter
of fact, it might be better so. It’s very nice of Sally to suggest it.”

“Why? Daddy’s not very ill, is he?” Ariane’s eyes widened.

“No. No, of course not.” Mrs. Dobson looked slightly worried. “Still, he’s
not at all well. I wish he had called me home sooner. But the best thing is to
keep him quite quiet and undisturbed now. It’s a good idea for you to accept
Sally’s kind invitation since you will be in late.”
 There seemed nothing else to say, and Ariane accepted as graciously as
she could. But she was really thinking—“How horribly awkward. I can’t
tell them I’m breaking off my engagement. I hate telling Mother, in any
case, when she’s so worried. Perhaps I’d better just have it out with Frank,
and then not have either of us say anything until tomorrow is over.”

“Oh, by the way,” Sally interrupted her thoughts, “Frank asked me to tell
you he’s terribly sorry he had to make a business trip today, and won’t be
back until tomorrow morning. But if you’re coming over to lunch, I dare
say he can manage to wait those few hours longer to see you.”

“I daresay,” Ariane said dryly. And, to herself, she thought: “Why is she so
anxious to have me?”

Only when Sally was going did the real reason come to light. “I’m
specially glad to have you come back with us as one of the family, Ariane.
Harvey has that dreadful woman staying down here again, and I’d like to
make the distinction very complete between our attitude towards you and
towards her.”

“How idiotic and unnecessary,” reflected Ariane. “And how exactly like
Sally.” But she had to suppress her real feelings now, for it was too late to
do anything.

The next morning, quite early, Frank rang up to say he would come down
for her in the car. With her senses now sharpened to observation, Ariane
wondered how on earth she had missed before the earnest, conscientious
note behind Frank’s inquiries and comments. It seemed to her so
pathetically obvious now that he was almost overreaching himself in his
desire to be as attentive as he should.

She wanted to say, “All right, Frank dear, the play is over. You can be as
natural as you like now.”

But instead she said: “Come a little early, Frank, and leave us time to
drive round a bit. I’ve something I want to say to you.”

“Yes, of course,” he promised, and she could tell from his tone that he was
very far from guessing what it was.

When Frank did arrive, she was a little surprised to find that she could
greet him without a shadow of embarrassment. She had never liked him
more than at this moment, when she was already regarding him almost as
Caroline’s fiancé, and she felt tempted to offer him her congratulations
almost before she had broken off the present engagement.

But one must go a little more tactfully than that.

So she allowed him to kiss her as usual, and, indeed, returned the kiss
with a good deal of feeling. Then, having said goodbye to her mother and
father, she watched Frank toss her case into the back of the car, and got in
beside him.
 “Anywhere special?” he inquired.

“No. Just somewhere quiet where we can pull up the car and talk for a few
minutes.”

He did give her an odd look at that, but without any comment, he drove
out of town and towards the open country. Then, when he had found an
unfrequented, leafy lane where the trees almost met overhead, he drew the
car to a standstill.

“Now? It’s not anything very serious, is it?” He looked at her with a slight
smile, but she noticed that, most uncharacteristically, his eyes were very
grave.

“Well, it’s about us.” She hesitated. It was all rather more difficult than
she had expected. She made another effort. “Frank, when you asked me to
marry you, you said you didn’t know how one made a state proposal. And I
—well, I haven’t the faintest idea how one breaks off an engagement
gracefully and kindly. Only—that’s what I’m trying to do.”

She saw his hands clench abruptly on the wheel.

“Ariane!” His voice was terribly troubled. “Is it—something I’ve done?”

“No, no, of course not. It’s nothing concrete at all. It’s just—”
 “I know. It’s just that I’ve failed you—made you feel the whole thing’s
flat and wrong, after all.” He looked very unhappy.

“It’s not. It’s absolutely nothing of the sort. Oh, I don’t know what you’re
going to think of me, but I’ve got to be frank about it. I was never—well,
never desperately in love with you. I liked you awfully. I do like you. Only
—I hate owning to being such a mercenary little wretch—only it was
important that you were such an excellent match, and—and things were in
rather a bad way at home.”

“Good lord!” He looked at her in genuine astonishment. “I never guessed

at anything like that.”

“Didn’t you?” She gave an unhappy little laugh. “Harvey guessed at

once.”

“Oh, Harvey!” Frank made an impatient movement. “Harvey’s a darned

cynic, and always thinks the worst he can of people.”

“No, that isn’t fair.” It was ridiculous, of course, to interrupt this scene
with a discussion on Harvey’s faults and virtues, but she couldn’t help it.
“In this case he was just clear-sighted.”

“Ariane,” Frank took her hand rather gently. “You are telling me the real
truth over this, aren’t you? You haven’t got some quixotic idea that I—well,
that I—”
 She looked very directly at him.

“My dear, it’s stupid of us to confuse the issue once again. I do know that
you and Caroline are in love with each other, but you must believe me
when I say that I’m nothing but delighted about it. I’m only sorry that I
held things up in the beginning by doing what I did.”

Frank went a little pale.

“How did you know?”

“Caroline had the courage to tell me yesterday. And perfectly right of her
too. Please don’t be hurt if I say the relief was enormous. I never liked you
better than now that I haven’t got to marry you, and I am only too thankful
that one of the three of us was brave enough to look facts in the face.”

“Is that the absolute truth?”

“The absolute truth, Frank. I couldn’t do it so convincingly, you know, if I

were secretly heartbroken.” She smiled at him with an irresistible little
flash of humour now that the worst part of the explanation was over.

He smiled slightly too. It was a tremendous relief to find that life was still
perhaps a light-hearted matter, but his first experience of a really serious
problem was too recent for him to shed it easily.
 “I feel an absolute hound, Ariane, all the same.”

“But why? It’s I who ought to be feeling so much ashamed. So, Frank,
don’t let yourself indulge in remorse, or I shall feel worse than ever,” she
added with a pleading little laugh.

He squeezed the hand he was holding very hard.

“Well, you may say you don’t know the standard way of breaking off an
engagement, but you certainly discovered the most painless way.” And he
gave her something of his old, infectious smile.

“It’s because we’re all three sincere friends really, and because we have a
little common sense between us,” Ariane said. “I can’t help knowing that
you and Caroline will be splendid together, and I can’t help being really
happy about it. It’s quite inevitable. It would have happened in the
beginning if I hadn’t stampeded you into—”

“Ariane!” Frank looked terribly shocked. “I will not have you talking as
though you were some dreadful designing female. You’re the most
generous girl under the sun, and Caroline thinks so too.”

“Very well.” Ariane smiled faintly. Perhaps it was not necessary to say
any more, nor to let Frank realize how very near she had been to becoming
the “designing female.”
 So Frank turned the car, and they drove down to the Muldanes’ house. She
explained, on the way, about the awkward little circumstance of Sally
inviting her to stay in the house that night, and Frank entirely agreed that
any family announcement should be postponed until the next day.

“Now we know comfortably where we are, one day doesn’t matter,”

Ariane said candidly.

“You are a funny girl.” Frank laughed slightly. Then he glanced at her a
trifle diffidently. “I suppose there isn’t anyone else with you, is there?”

“No,” Ariane told him quite calmly. “Oh no. There’s no one else.”

“But there will be, Ariane.” He smiled at her with affection. “You’ll have
a grand romance one of these days. You’re just the kind of girl for it. And
you’ll deserve it too.”

“Oh, thank you.” She managed to smile in return. But she wondered if, in
a way, she “deserved” the unhappiness of loving Harvey in this hopeless,
aching way.

Lunch at the Muldanes’ was not too easy a meal. In spite of the frank and
satisfactory way she and Frank had settled things, they were both a little
conscious of the fact that no one else at the table knew the new state of
affairs. And when Harvey came in, rather late, there was nothing in his face
to give Ariane any happy reassurance in his case.
 It seemed impossible that the others could be so entirely unaware—or
perhaps it was just uncaring—of that moody, almost. haunted expression of
his. To Ariane it was vaguely frightening.

He only greeted her quite curtly when he came in, and after that most of
his conversation—what there was of it—was for his father. And even that
was exclusively about business.

Ariane, who knew the various reactions of the family very well by now,
could see that the old man was in one of his profoundly irritated moods
with his eldest son. But Harvey, though he looked white and tired,
contrived to ignore any references that were not strictly relating to business.

Afterwards, Ariane said involuntarily to Sally: “How very tired and—

strung-up Harvey looks.”

Sally shrugged.

“It’s his own fault. Why can’t he settle down sensibly like Maurice and
Frank? It only infuriates his father when he goes chasing round after that—
well, I know what word I could use.”

“It’s very silly of him, of course,” Ariane admitted. “But I don’t think
even Mr. Muldane imagines it’s gone any further than a very regrettable
infatuation.”
 “It had better not, either,” Sally said dryly. “If there were an open scandal,
I think he’d almost put Harvey out of the business—brilliant though he is,”
she added reluctantly.

Ariane looked very troubled.

“It wouldn’t ever really come to that, would it?”

Sally shrugged again—a very favourite form of expression with her, since
it implied a lot without committing herself to anything.

“I don’t know. There was a terrible row last night, I believe. But I didn’t
hear what was said. Maurice and I always keep out of unpleasant scenes
like that,” she finished a little virtuously.

Ariane felt exceedingly dismayed. She remembered very clearly how

tranquil and almost happy he had been with her that one afternoon in
London, and she wished passionately that he could get away from this
atmosphere of “frightful rows” alternating with the unfortunate passion for
Marta.

“It’s a pity Mr. Muldane takes just that line,” she said at last. “I don’t
believe it works at all with Harvey. In spite of his hardness I think he’s a bit
highly-strung.”
 “Highly-strung! My dear Ariane!” Sally laughed incredulously. “Harvey
highly-strung? Why, he’s the most crudely insensitive creature possible.
You can’t know much about people who are genuinely highly-strung.”

Ariane was silent, partly from sheer irritation, partly because she greatly
feared that with the faintest encouragement Sally would embark on a
description of how highly-strung she herself was.

In any case, it had been a most ridiculous statement to make to anyone

like Sally. Much better keep such thoughts to herself.

Ariane had only a moment alone with Harvey before they left for the
Ventnors’, and that was actually in the car. She had come down ready first,
and he was seated in the driving seat of the big saloon car, smoking.

As she got in, he tossed away his cigarette and turned to speak to her with
quite a friendly expression.

“I was sorry not to see you again in London, Ariane. I found I couldn’t
make it.”

“No,” Ariane said. “That was all right. I guessed that business had
prevented your looking us up.”

She could always say quite calmly the sort of thing which Sally invested
with a certain amount of spite.
 But perhaps he found her sincerity harder to bear than Sally’s sarcasm,
because just for a moment his eyes fell.

“You don’t look very well to me, Harvey,” she said kindly. “Have you
been tiring yourself?”

“Oh no.” He made an impatient little gesture, and she thought again
unhappily how very different he looked from his appearance on the
afternoon when she had almost dared to hope he was breaking loose from
Marta’s chariot wheels. “I’ve been sleeping badly,” he confessed abruptly.

“Have you? I’m so sorry. It’s a rotten thing to suffer from. I had a bout of
it some while ago. But—” she hesitated a moment, and then added a trifle
diffidently one does get over it, Harvey.”

She didn’t dare to make any more definite reference to the state of affairs
than that. And even that displeased him a little.

“Does one?” he said curtly. And nothing more was said until the others
came out to join them.

“You might drop us first at the Ventnors’,” Sally said calmly. “And then
fetch your—friend afterwards.”

“Is that quite necessary?” Harvey’s colour rose.

 “Not necessary, but much more satisfactory,” Sally replied imperturbably.
“I have no intention of arriving with the lady, in any case.”

Harvey said no more, but he gave her a glance of such hate that Ariane
was frightened. And, curiously enough, the fear was for him, not for Sally.

They drove without further question to the Ventnors’ house, where

Caroline welcomed them with so much of her old, irrepressible gaiety that
Ariane thought afresh how glad she was that this, at least, showed signs of
a normally happy ending.

As the two girls went off together, arm-in-arm, Ariane found an

opportunity to whisper:

“All right! Explanations have been made and accepted, and there’s
nothing for you to worry about now.”

“Thank you, darling. I think that between us we’ve evolved a marvellous

technique for making and breaking engagements,” remarked Caroline. And
although Ariane laughed protestingly, she was delighted to realize that
Caroline’s flippancy was a sure indication of her return to carefree
happiness.

After that she felt a good deal happier too and more inclined to enjoy the
afternoon and evening. Most of her friends were there, and it was pleasant
seeing them again, even after so short an absence. And not until Harvey and
Marta appeared on the scene did she feel the inevitable shadow fall on her
spirits.

“In any case,” Ariane told herself with grim candour, “half of your gloom
is for the unworthy fact that she’s looking much lovelier than you ever
could.”

Which was true, of course. For Marta, in cream silk, with a great drooping
hat of scarlet, was enough to chill the heart of my rival.

At the end of a strenuous set, Ariane went over to speak to her. It was only
with an effort that she persuaded herself to do so, for embarrassment and
dislike were almost equally mingled in her feelings towards the actress. But
she knew that Harvey would notice if she omitted any greeting, and she
thought he had suffered enough hurt resentment for one afternoon.

“Ah—Frank’s little fiancée!” said Marta in a tone of malicious gentleness,

and she gave Ariane that lovely, lazy smile as she held out her hand.

Ariane took the hand with some appearance of cordiality.

“I hear that you are going to America tomorrow.” She made her voice
sound as natural as she could.

“Yes. Already, I begin to wonder if it is worth the homesickness I shall

feel,” Marta said, and her great dark eyes rested on Harvey for a moment in
a sort of unspoken appeal.

“Bitch!” thought Ariane suddenly, as she saw Harvey’s hand clench

convulsively. “She’s refusing to leave him alone even now. Oh, how I wish
she were gone!”

She was not quite sure why she felt so unreasonably frightened for him.
She only knew that until the Atlantic lay between them she would never
cease to worry about Marta’s influence on him.

“And perhaps not then,” thought Ariane with a sigh, as she wrenched back
her thoughts to the conversation in hand.

“How well you play,” Marta was saying with careless generosity. “I have
been watching you, and I find you the typical British sports girl.” The
words were harmless enough, but the tone would have destroyed any
possible interest in the typical British sports girl. “Don’t you think so?” she
appealed to the silent Harvey.

“Ariane plays very well,” he said with rather gloomy abstraction, and the
topic languished for lack of support.

“Do you—do you leave here tonight or tomorrow?” Ariane asked. She
didn’t really care which it was, but one had to do one’s best with this
difficult conversation.
 “Tomorrow. But very early. So it is tonight that I say goodbye to all my
friends.”

“I see. And—and you’re going for a good while, I suppose?”

“Must you take this ghoulish interest in the details of Marta’s departure?”

Ariane gasped incredulously. Even Harvey had never said anything quite
so rude and unreasonable, and the blow was entirely undeserved, in any
case.

Tilting up her chin with a defiance she was far from feeling, she looked
from one to the other.

“I think,” she said, in a voice that shook slightly, “I think there’s no point
in saying anything else. I hope you have an awfully good time in America,
Miss Roma. Good-bye.” And she turned and walked away rather quickly
towards the house.

She felt sick with anger and bewilderment, and a furious sense of
injustice. What did he mean—speaking to her like that? Did he suppose she
had wanted to make conversation with that woman? It was simply for his
sake. She wished she had never done it. She wished, come to that, she need
never see either of them again. She was not at all sure that she didn’t wish
herself dead, if Harvey could actually speak to her like that.
 With an unsteady hand she pushed open the door into the library. No one
would disturb her in there. She could sit there quietly and recover some
degree of calmness.

But she found that her thoughts refused to let her do that. She sprang up
again almost at once and walked restlessly up and down.

She was still doing that when Harvey entered the room and came up
behind her.

“Ariane, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses.”

“It’s not an excuse. It’s an apology. There is no excuse.”

“I’m glad you realize it.” She refused to turn and look at him.

“Won’t you turn round?”

“No. I don’t want to speak to you. You think you can do and say the most
unpardonable things to me—things that are quite unprovoked—and then
pass it all off with a careless ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

“It wasn’t careless. I meant it.”

 “And I suppose you meant the horrible thing you said to me just now. Or
was that just an innocent little bit of fun?”

“God, I can’t do more than apologize, can I?” He stopped suddenly,

realizing that his voice had risen unpardonably. “I’m sorry—for that too.
Won’t you understand? I hardly know what I’m saying. It’s this damned
sleeplessness.” He turned away suddenly and dropped into a chair, pressing
his hands over his eyes.

She turned then, too, and took a step towards him.

“Harvey!” It was scarcely more than a frightened whisper and he seemed

not to hear it. At any rate, he didn’t raise his head.

She came slowly over to his side, and nervously touched his tumbled dark
hair.

“Don’t, Harvey—I’m sorry. I’m sorry too.”

“You have no need to be.”

“Oh yes, I have. I ought to have understood.” She put her arm round him
a little timidly. “I do understand now—really.” She felt him stiffen at her
touch and almost draw away from her. Then suddenly he yielded to the
pressure of her arm, and, without a word, turned and buried his face against
her.
 CHAPTER VIII

Whatever Ariane had expected it was not this, and she was conscious of
an overwhelming sense of dismay.

That time before, when he had fainted—drooped against her in reluctant

unconsciousness—it had been sheer physical collapse which had conquered
him. That was understandable, even in Harvey. A weakness which he might
resent but could scarcely combat.

But this surrender, however momentary! It frightened her to think what an

agony of despair and unhappiness there must be behind it.

It was some seconds before she even found her voice, and then it was only
to say his name again. He replied by the very slightest movement against
her, and Ariane tightened her arm comfortingly.

“Listen to me.” She put her bright head down near his, rather as though
she were consoling a child. “It’s never as bad as this for long, you know.
After—after she’s gone and you can’t go on tormenting yourself, you’ll
find you are sleeping better. And then things won’t seem so black, and—
and by and by you’ll begin to feel happier. One does, Harvey. One has to.”
 She scarcely knew how she chose her words. There was no time to be very
logical, but perhaps the tone helped even more than the hastily assembled
sentences.

He looked up and pushed back his hair.

“I’m sorry to be such a fool,” he said curtly. Then, perhaps at the anxious
expression on her face, he smiled faintly and added, just as he had once
before: “You are a good child. Your resentment never lasts as long as it
should.” And leaning forward, he very lightly and gently touched her
serious mouth with his.

It was the merest touch. The sort of kiss that any brother-in-law might
give. Although, of course, he was not a brother-in-law now—not even a
future one, she reminded herself absurdly.

“I’m a beast, Ariane. I won’t ask you to say it’s all right, because—”

“It is all right,” she burst out. “You’re forgiven, if that’s what you want me
to say.”

“I suppose that was what I wanted,” he admitted slowly, and then frowned
as though he were surprised at the discovery himself. “Thank you. It’s more
than I deserve.”
 “Don’t.” She put out her hand and took his impulsively. “You don’t really
have to say these things. I understand. And anyway, you do so hate abasing
yourself, don’t you?”

“Loathe it,” he assured her, with that faint smile again. “But I suppose it’s
good for whatever soul I have.”

“Only very occasionally,” Ariane said soberly.

And at that he laughed and squeezed her fingers rather hard. “Come along.
We’d better go back to the others. It must be something like tea-time, and
they’ll wonder where we are.”

They went out of the room together, and as they crossed the hall, Ariane
noticed that Lady Ventnor was speaking agitatedly on the telephone.

“Yes, Mrs. Dobson,” she heard her say. “I’ll tell her as gently as possible.
Yes, of course. At once. I’m most dreadfully sorry. There’s so little one can
do, but, of course, if there is any thing—”

Ariane stopped dead.

“Harvey.” Her face had gone very white. “Harvey, it’s some sort of bad
news for me.”
 He didn’t say anything, but as Lady Ventnor came towards them, with a
pale and troubled face, he instinctively took Ariane’s arm.

“My dear—” Lady Ventnor was evidently extremely upset, “I’m so sorry.
I’m afraid there is rather bad news for you. Your mother wants you to go
home at once.”

“Is it Daddy? Is he worse?” Ariane’s voice was unusually sharp.

“I’m afraid so, Ariane.”

“Much worse?”

Lady Ventnor nodded. She seemed to have some difficulty in finding any
other words.

“He’s not—he’s not—”

“My dear, I hate to have to tell you. It’s dreadful, but—”

“You mean—Daddy—is dead.”

There was silence. A silence which answered much more eloquently than
words. And Ariane stood there with what colour there was slowly leaving
her face.

Then she caught her breath in a painful little gasp.

 “I must—go home. At once.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll order the car.” Lady Ventnor was only too eager to
agree.

“Let me drive you down. The car is just outside.” Harvey’s voice was
almost as curt as ever, but there was an unusual warmth in it.

“Thank you, Harvey.” She leant on his arm rather heavily for a moment,
but there was no sign of her composure giving way.

And then he remembered something they had both forgotten.

“Perhaps, though, you would rather Frank—?” He broke off inquiringly.

“Frank? No, not Frank because—” She stopped in her turn and passed her
hand over her eyes. “Wait a moment. There’s something else.”

Both Harvey and Lady Ventnor watched her in silence.

Then she took her hand down, and they saw that her expression was
peculiarly determined.

“Lady Ventnor, where are all the others? At tea?”

“Yes, dear. But there is nothing for you to worry about. I’ll break the
news. You mustn’t bother about anything.”
 “It’s not that I’m—bothering. Only there’s something I must say.”

She dropped Harvey’s arm and crossed the hall quite unfalteringly.

Puzzled and a little disturbed, Lady Ventnor—and then, more slowly,

Harvey—followed her into the big, crowded lounge, where groups of
people were standing or sitting about, drinking tea and discussing the
afternoon’s game.

At the first moment their entrance made no difference. And then perhaps
the whiteness of Ariane’s face, or something in her expression, arrested
attention, and a gradual silence came over the room.

“I’m awfully sorry to—to interrupt things,”—Ariane’s voice was low but
perfectly clear—“but I’ve had bad news and have to go home. My—my
father has just died suddenly, and—” Sympathetic exclamations broke out
at that, but she went straight on. “What I wanted to tell you was that before
this happened, Frank and I had mutually decided to break off our
engagement. We remain the very best of friends, but we made an honest
mistake about wanting to marry each other, and so we have done the only
commonsense thing and cancelled the engagement. If I hadn’t told you this
now, and the announcement had been made after the news of—of Daddy’s
death, Frank would have been in a horrid and quite undeserved position—
open to all sorts of unkind suggestions and hints. As it is, I—I feel you all
know the exact truth, and nothing more need be said.”
 She turned away quickly, but before she could reach the door, Frank
sprang forward and caught her arm.

“Ariane! My dear, how unspeakably generous to think of my feelings at

such a time. I’m more sorry than I can say about your father.”

“Thank you.” She smiled wanly.

“No,” he said, in a very much moved voice. “Thank you.” And then:
“May I take you home now?”

“It’s all right, Frank. Harvey is taking me.”

“Harvey!”

“Exactly—Harvey,” said his brother’s voice dryly. “Don’t keep her any
more now. She’s had enough.” And, quite calmly taking command of the
situation, he warded off the eager offers of sympathy which were obviously
such a strain on her, and led her out to the car.

In spite of her murmur of protest, he lifted her in, and, reaching for a rug,
put it round her.

“It’s quite warm, really,” she said absently.

“I know. But you’re very cold.”

 “Yes. How did you know?”

“One always is after a bad shock.”

She wondered a little how he knew that too, but was beyond saying
anything else. It seemed to her that she had said all the words she could
think of in that scene just now.

They drove in silence, Ariane trying to stave off the full realization of
what had happened, because she didn’t want to weep in front of Harvey.

It was strange, she thought dully—he had seen her cry more than once for
what must have seemed very little reason. Now, when real disaster had
overtaken her, she somehow succeeded in remaining calm. He must think
her rather a stupid, ill-balanced person, she supposed.

“Ariane.” He spoke her name quite quietly.

“Yes?” She turned her head to look at him, but his gaze was determinedly
fixed on a point far ahead down the road.

“How did you find the courage to do it?”

“What—do you mean? My speaking to them just now?”

“Yes. Why did you do it?”

 “Well—I had to.” She spoke slowly, because, somehow, with the terrible
knowledge of her father’s death weighing on her mind, it was very difficult
to translate her thoughts into words. “It would have been dreadfully
difficult for Frank if I hadn’t.”

“Not many people would have remembered that,” he said.

“Oh yes, I think they would.” She sighed a little. It didn’t seem very
important, anyway.

“Well then, they wouldn’t have acted on it. It couldn’t have been easy,
Ariane?” He was still looking straight ahead, and there was not much
expression in his voice.

“Why, no, it—wasn’t.” It warmed her heart very slightly that he should
know that.

“And only a sense of duty made you do it?”

She wondered if that were a statement at first. Then she realized that it
was a question.

“I suppose so. Yes.” She was vaguely grateful to him for talking like this.
It kept her thoughts from what had happened.

“Your sense of duty must be pretty strong.”

 “Oh—no, I don’t think so. I suppose—” She broke off, without finishing
the sentence.

“Yes, Ariane?”

She roused herself again.

“I suppose there are always a few times in your life when duty isn’t just an
old-fashioned word. It’s something very—real, and, if you’re worth
anything at all, you act on it.”

It was she who was looking thoughtfully ahead that time, so that she
didn’t see the half-startled glance he gave her.

He made no reply, however. And after that there was silence until they
reached the house. And even then he handed her out without a word.

“Will you come in?”

“No. I don’t think your mother would want to see me, of all people, just
now.” He spoke quite gently and entirely without rancour. “But I’ll wait out
here in the car in case I can be of any use. Just send out one of the servants
later on if there is anything you would like done.”

“You’re very kind.” His unusual consideration shook her composure more
than anything else had done, and her mouth trembled as she whispered,
“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Ariane. There’s no need to tell you to be brave, because you

always are.”

She shook her head dumbly and ran into the house. And as she went, she
wondered guiltily if it were callous of her to find that, even at this moment,
his praise had power to move her.

It was a sad and bewildered household to which Ariane returned. Mrs.

Dobson, completely prostrated by the shock, was scarcely able to grasp the
full meaning of what had happened, and it fell to her daughter to order and
arrange almost every detail of the sad business.

Afterwards, Ariane could scarcely believe that it was to Harvey she had
looked for support during the whole of that difficult evening. But in a way,
it was his quiet, almost stern air which helped her to retain her own
composure.

He and his car were at her disposal for every commission, however small.
And it was not until a strange and bewildering evening had emerged into a
strange and bewildering night that Ariane remembered these were Marta’s
last hours in England, and marvelled wearily at the way Harvey had spent
them.
 Not until several days later did Ariane speak to her mother about her
broken engagement. Even then, she was reluctant to do so, but to leave
matters longer would involve the risk of someone else mentioning it. And
so it had to be done.

To Julie she merely said that the engagement was over, but to her mother
she told the whole truth, feeling that only that would justify what she was
doing.

It was not quite so much of a shock as she had expected, perhaps because
one of the chief reasons for the engagement had now ceased to exist.

“I don’t see that you could have done anything else, my dear,” Mrs.
Dobson said with a sigh. “But, of course, it simply leaves us where we were
in the beginning. Except that—that there are only ourselves and Julie to
consider now.”

“Yes. We’ll have to see how things are when everything has been settled,
and I must get a job of some sort,” Ariane explained. “I’ve been trying to
think it all out—”

“There isn’t any need to be in such a hurry, Ariane. We must wait and see
what the exact position of Dobson’s is now, and the terms of your father’s
will.”
 Ariane said nothing. She felt that there was very little to be gained in
waiting to hear the details of their disaster before they made any plans. But
she saw that her mother shrank from having to make any more decisions
just then. Bewildered at what had befallen her, she clung determinedly, and
indeed a little querulously, to a set of circumstances which had really
already left her.

“Poor Mother,” thought Ariane. “She’s going to find the change even
more miserable than she thinks.”

Julie, for her part, took the announcement of the broken engagement
calmly.

“I say! That’s a pity, isn’t it? But we can still be friendly with the
Muldanes, can’t we?”

“Of course, Julie!” Ariane assured her. “Frank and I haven’t quarrelled in
the least.”

“All the same,” Mrs. Dobson interrupted quickly, “we shan’t see more of
them than we can help. But for your engagement, Ariane, they would never
have been the kind of people we should have dreamed of knowing well. We
shall just have to drop them as quickly and as quietly as dignity permits.
And, as far as I am concerned,” she added with a sigh, “I shall not be at all
sorry.”
 “But, Mother,”—Ariane was rather disturbed at this—“I don’t think there
will be any question of our dropping them. They’re altogether too much in
our set. Besides, it would look—”

“Of course, my dear, I’m not suggesting anything that would seem like
pique on your part.” Mrs. Dobson spoke rather more sharply than usual.
“But we can’t disguise the fact that they’re not our sort, and never would
be.”

Ariane drew in her breath to answer with some heat, but at that moment,
Julie, who had been gazing abstractedly out of the window, interrupted.

“Here’s the Muldane car coming up the drive,” she announced shrilly.
“And—yes, it’s old Mr. Muldane himself getting out, and Harvey. I wonder
what they want.”

Ariane wondered too. And she guessed, from the exclamation of nervous
distaste, that her mother probably felt the greatest apprehension of all.

There was almost complete silence when Mr. Muldane and Harvey
actually came in. Then Julie observed sociably:

“How d’you do? We were just talking about you, funnily enough.”

“Julie.” Mrs. Dobson’s way of pronouncing her name quelled further

eloquence.
 “Well, Mrs. Dobson,” Mr. Muldane firmly grasped the reluctant hand she
extended, “this is a very sad business. There’s not much one can say. But I
thought perhaps a talk on practical possibilities might help a lot more than
all these vague uncertainties. Frankness is always best.”

“It is very kind of you.” Mrs. Dobson’s tone implied something more like
the reverse. “I don’t know that there is much—”

“Oh yes, I’m afraid there is. You see—”

“Julie,” Mrs. Dobson turned to her younger daughter again, “you’d better
run along and find something else to do.”

“Oh, Mother I There’s nothing to do,” signed Julie.

Harvey, however, went over and held open the door. But he smiled at her
quite kindly as she made her exit at a funereal pace.

“Now—” Mr. Muldane cleared his throat and settled back in his chair with
a business-like air which, Ariane guessed, irritated her mother profoundly.
“Of course you know that Dobson’s was—well,” he made a deprecating
gesture, “in a pretty rocky condition.”

Mrs. Dobson coloured slightly and stiffened still more. She didn’t really
share Mr. Muldane’s belief that frankness was always best.
 “The firm had not been doing well,” she admitted coldly.

“No. No, exactly. But with the prospect of your girl marrying Frank, I’d
come to something of an understanding with Mr. Dobson before his death.
We were arranging to put a good deal of capital into the business, with the
idea that it should eventually belong to the young people.”

Mrs. Dobson’s face remained curiously impassive. Ariane knew that her
mother was disgustedly resenting expressions like “your girl” and “the
young people.” And she knew that Harvey knew it too. He didn’t offer to
help his father out, however, but just stared at the floor with unnecessary
attention.

“Now, of course, things are a great deal altered.” Even Mr. Muldane was
beginning to find that frankness had its pitfalls, and instead of leaning back
in his chair, he was sitting forward a trifle embarrassedly.

“Yes,” Mrs. Dobson said, slowly and distinctly. “In fact, the connection
between the two families and the two firms has really ceased to exist.”

“Well, I—shouldn’t like to—er—put it like that.” Mr. Muldane was

having some difficulty in putting it at all by now, but he made another
effort. “You see, I can’t help knowing that, as a paying proposition,
Dobson’s is finished. If I or any other firm take it over—buy it, subsidize it
—whatever you like to call it, there won’t be a great deal in it for your
family, Mrs. Dobson, when everything is settled up.”
 The silence now would have beaten a less stubborn man, but Mr. Muldane
ploughed on.

“Your husband and I didn’t always see eye to eye in the past,” he
explained unnecessarily, “but before the end I—well, I liked and respected
him. In a way, I feel some sort of responsibility about his family. I want you
to let me make myself responsible for the education of your younger girl,
Mrs. Dobson. She’s a bright kiddie, and deserves a good start. As for
Ariane, I don’t see why we shouldn’t find her a good place in the business.
I’m sorry she and my boy didn’t—”

“Mr. Muldane,” Mrs. Dobson stood up, thereby forcing them to do the
same, “if I am compelled to resort to charity For the education of Julie, or
to curry favour in order to find employment for Ariane, I shall apply to my
friends. I shall not, I earnestly hope, ever be in a position to have to make
you feel responsible for my family.”

“Oh, Mother—” Ariane was very white. “Mother, how can you? They
mean to be so kind. You must understand.”

She felt no sort of apology would ever wipe out the bewildered surprise
on Mr. Muldane’s face, or the pale, angry humiliation of Harvey.

“Ariane, my dear, you must let me deal with this.”

 “I think, Mrs. Dobson, that you have dealt with it.” Harvey spoke for the
first time, very quietly and coldly. “My father hasn’t perhaps put his
suggestion as well as he might—as gracefully as a Dobson would have put
it—but it was generously meant, and has been, less generously, refused. I
don’t think there is anything else any of us can say about it.”

“But—” began Mr. Muldane.

“It’s more than time we went,” Harvey said firmly. “I’m afraid Mrs.
Dobson finds our presence definitely distasteful.”

Ariane was in despair. She felt there must be something she could say, so
that they should not go away so utterly sore and humiliated, but her
mother’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“I agree that there is nothing else whatever to add. Good afternoon,” Mrs.
Dobson said.

The Muldanes both bowed slightly and, in absolute silence, went out of
the room.

“It’s impossible I You can’t let them go like that!” Ariane was very near
tears, as she started forward towards the closed door.

“Ariane, I insist that you should respect my wishes and authority in this,”
Mrs. Dobson said. “This—this impertinent offer was made to me. It is for
me to deal with it.”

“But it’s not impertinent! He was trying to be kind. He meant it when he

said he felt responsible. They don’t know why you’re so angry—at least,
the old man doesn’t. Oh, it’s like hitting a child for being clumsy.” And
Ariane almost wrung her hands because she suddenly remembered what
Harvey had said of himself and his mother: “I was a clumsy, bad-tempered
child, I think, and never seemed able to please her much.”

“My dear child, will you stop being hysterical about this.” Mrs. Dobson
sounded really angry for once. “You don’t seem to realize that—”

“Oh, I say, have they gone? Couldn’t they stay to tea?” Julie stood in the
doorway, disappointedly surveying the scene. “Ariane! What on earth is the
matter?”

No one seemed anxious to explain, however.

“Please stop being so absurd,” Mrs. Dobson said sharply. “All those two
really wanted was a chance to buy up Dobson’s cheaply, and make us feel
under an obligation at the same time. They thought because we were alone
now—”

“But why?” began Julie again with maddening obtuseness.

 Unable to bear any more, Ariane got up and went out of the room, leaving
her mother to the task of satisfying Julie.

Upstairs in her own room, she wandered about, aimless and unhappy. She
hated being at variance with her mother, but in this, Ariane was convinced,
considerable injustice had been done. And the injustice had fallen where
she would least have wished it.

A little while afterwards, Julie came in search of her.

“Goodness, Ariane! It isn’t much good sitting moping up here,” she said
practically. “Besides, it’s tea-time. Come along down.”

Ariane got up with a sigh from the chair in which she had been lying.

“I wish I could do something about it,” she said disconsolately.

“Was Mother frightfully upper-ten?” asked Julie comprehendingly.

“Frightfully,” Ariane sighed.

“Did they get angry, or just turn red and look silly?” Julie wanted to
know.”

“Harvey went very white,” Ariane said in a whisper.

“And the old man?”

 “He just looked utterly bewildered, Julie. He simply didn’t understand
what Mother was getting at.”

“Then you should have explained.”

“But I couldn’t. It would have been like letting Mother down, to argue
with her in front of them. And she’s had so much to put up with already,”
Ariane added sadly.

“Oh—” Julie sucked her under-lip thoughtfully and considered the

problem from another angle. “Well then, next time you see them—”

“There won’t be a next time, I’m afraid,” her sister interrupted. “They’ll
probably avoid us like the plague in future.”

But Julie was still unbeaten.

“Suppose I went down to see them and explained? They couldn’t refuse to
let me in.”

Ariane smiled faintly.

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t do, Julie Then she stopped abruptly. “But I
might go. There’s quite a good deal I could explain without being disloyal
to Mother. About her being overwrought and—and not understanding the
kindness of their intention, and so on. It’s quite true that Mr. Muldane
couldn’t actually refuse to see me. ... Julie, I’ll go! It’s hateful, but it’s the
only way.”

“Perhaps I ought to come too.” Julie still thirsted for an active role.

“No, dear, that wouldn’t do, I’m afraid. It’s the sort of thing that must be
done by one person.”

“We-ell, all right,” conceded Julie. “Though the idea was mine.”

Ariane generously admitted the fact, but still insisted that she must go
alone. And, with Julie almost completely appeased, they went down to tea
together.

There was a little comfort in Ariane’s heart at the thought that something
definite might be done. Although, along with that, was acute nervousness
for the prospect of the interview she must face.

Anyway, she must not think too much about that, or her courage would
fail altogether. And, during the first half of the evening, she forced herself
to think of other things.

Not until after dinner, when she had at last found an opportunity to slip
away, did she allow her thoughts to travel ahead of her to the big house
where the Muldanes lived.
 She tried to reassure herself with the reminder that Mr. Muldane had
always liked her, always been quite kind to her. But she felt that his liking
and kindness must have undergone a severe strain that afternoon.

By the time she reached the house, her heart was beating heavily, and her
breathing was quick and shallow. She rang the great polished bell and
waited.

The few moments before the door opened were horrible, but she managed
to say quite calmly then:

“Is Mr. Muldane in?”

“No, Miss Dobson, I’m sorry. He won’t be in until late.”

Ariane stared at the servant in dismay. Somehow she had never thought of
this. It had seemed to her that if only she could persuade herself to come
there and face the interview, the rest would follow automatically. Her
question had been the nearest form.

“Would you perhaps like to see Mr. Harvey? He’s the only one in, miss.”

See Harvey about this horrible business! No, that really was the last thing
on earth she was prepared to do. To explain and apologize to old Mr.
Muldane would have been unpleasant enough. But to spread out her thin,
pitiful explanations for Harvey’s supercilious judgment was more than she
could do.

“No. Oh no, thank you. It doesn’t matter,” she said hastily.

The servant looked a little doubtful. And then, at that moment, a door
opened and Harvey himself came out into the hall. The light shone full on
her, and he could scarcely fail to see her.

“What is it, Ariane?” He came forward unsmilingly, and his voice

sounded very cold and remote to her.

“Miss Dobson wanted to see Mr. Muldane,” explained the servant, since
Miss Dobson seemed quite unable to explain for herself.

“I see. I’m sorry, my father is out. Will you come in and let me settle
whatever it is?”

She wanted to say “No” again, but something in his tone forbade that.

In fascinated silence she followed him across the hall and into the big
panelled room which was Mr. Muldane’s office. She wished most fervently
that she had never come, that Mr. Muldane would return at once—that
anything in the world, in fact, would happen to stop this scene with Harvey.

But nothing did happen.

Instead, he shut the door, and leaning against it, surveyed her coolly.

“Well, Ariane, what does your family want with mine this time?”
 CHAPTER IX

Harvey’s way of putting it frightened her more than ever. She stood there
for a moment, wordless, fumbling rather pathetically with her gloves.

Then she dropped one, and he stooped to pick it up.

“Won’t you sit down, Ariane?”

She sat down. And then she felt she could not bear to have him tower over
her like that.

“You must sit down too,” she said with a little gasp.

Without a word, he seated himself on the side of the desk, swinging one
leg negligently.

“Well?”

She didn’t look at him.

“It’s—it’s about this afternoon,” she got out at last.

“Oh yes. What about this afternoon?”

 Ariane had supposed the words would come to her when the occasion
demanded it. But they did nothing of the sort. She could think of nothing,
nothing in which to clothe the explanation she wanted to make.

And then, perhaps because he could no longer bear the nervous twisting
of her fingers, he gently drew her gloves away and took her cold hands in
his.

“I’m not blaming you,” he said quietly, “for what happened this
afternoon.”

“Oh—” She stared at him for a moment, her eyes full of startled relief,
and then, without a word, she put her cheek down against his hand.

She was not crying, but something in the gesture made his eyes widen in
their turn.

“I—wouldn’t—have had you—hurt like that, for the world, you know,”
she said in a whisper.

“No, Ariane, I do realize that. You mustn’t distress yourself so much. I

daresay we’re not so sensitive as you think.”

“But anyone would have been hurt.”

 “We-ell,” he made a slight grimace, “it wasn’t very nice, I suppose. But
your mother has never liked us much, has she? And I’m afraid my father
was not the soul of tact.”

“It’s kind of you to say the excuses for me.” Ariane raised her head again.
“She is feeling the strain of the last few weeks very badly, of course, and—
and she had the idea that your father’s kindness was not at all disinterested.
Another time, when she was more herself, she might be very sorry for her
suspicions.”

“Not very sorry,” Harvey corrected with the faintest smile. “Slightly
sorry, shall we say? I feel that neither my father nor I could ever hope to be
a favourite of hers. If you had married Frank, she would have put up with
us gracefully. But now she rather welcomes the idea of not having to have
anything more to do with us. Isn’t that right?”

Ariane wished she could have denied that eagerly, but it was not possible.
She gave a shamefaced little glance at Harvey, and he laughed softly.

“Never mind, Ariane. It’s not a thing you or I could ever alter. Let’s leave
it at that, shall we?”

“But I don’t feel in the least that way. You know that, don’t you?” she said
earnestly. “I don’t want to be disloyal to Mother, but someone must
acknowledge Mr. Muldane’s kindness. I can’t have him think that not one
of us was touched that he should actually have thought of everything—
even Julie’s school fees.” Her voice broke suddenly, and she bit her lip.

“I’ll tell him,” Harvey said rather gently. “I’ll make him understand
somehow. It’s true that he did mean it very well, and was honestly worried
about you all. But I daresay his way of putting it jarred on your mother just
now—”

“Yes,” Ariane interrupted eagerly. “Yes, that was really all it was. If only
you could make him realize that.”

Harvey gave her an odd little glance.

“Am I to understand from this that, put in a more tactful way, the offer
might be accepted?”

“Oh—no.” Ariane looked considerably taken aback. “I don’t think Mother

would do that at all, Harvey. She feels very strongly about not—not—”

“Being under an obligation to us,” he suggested for her.

“Exactly.”

“I see.” He got up from the arm of her chair where he had been sitting for
the last few minutes, and walked thoughtfully up and down the room.
 Then at last he came to a stop again in front of her.

“Ariane, do you know very much of the actual state of affairs?”

He was frowning, she saw, and looked more than a little disturbed.

“I know the firm was doing badly. I don’t know quite how badly,” Ariane
admitted, “or what there will be left for Mother when the whole thing is
sold up. For I suppose it will come to that.”

“I’m afraid so.” Harvey spoke as though her last sentence had been a
question.

“Why do you ask?” she said with a nervous effort.

“Because, though I hate to be the one to have to tell you, I think perhaps
you ought to know the truth. There won’t be a penny, Ariane. That’s why
Father was trying to give Mrs. Dobson some sort of reassurance
beforehand. The firm had been running on the strength of your father’s
credit for some time, but of course, that has all come to an end now—”

“You mean there are heavy debts?”

She saw he had meant to keep that back, but it was impossible to deny it
when she actually asked.
 “That means that everything will have to go.” Ariane spoke half to
herself. “The house and the furniture—everything.”

He moved slightly.

“The creditors can’t touch anything that is actually your mother’s.”

“There can’t be much that is,” she said briefly. “And anyway, Mother
wouldn’t want to keep anything if there were still debts in Daddy’s name.”

There was a short silence, and then he said:

“Do you think you could bring her to reconsider my father’s offer? If she
felt more friendly towards him and would let the business go by private
sale, I think things could be settled without her realizing the true state of
affairs. But if she insists on a sale in the open market—” He paused. “It’s
going to be a terrible shock for her, Ariane.”

“Do you mean Ariane was suddenly rather white. “You can’t mean—that
you were prepared to buy Dobson’s at much more than its worth, so that
Mother should never know how bad things were?”

“Well Harvey looked very faintly nervous, “there isn’t only your mother
to think of. You see, there’s Julie, too. My father likes her. And there’s you.
He always feels that he owes you a good deal for saving my unworthy self
—” He stopped, perhaps because of the way she was looking at him.
 “The idea was yours, of course,” she said.

“Oh—” His dark eyes fell unexpectedly. “We’d worked it out together.”

She put her hand out and took his again.

“I’m so ashamed,” she said quietly. “I’m so terribly ashamed that I hardly
know what to say to you.”

“Don’t, my child,” he said gently. “There isn’t any need for you to say
these things. You’re making a great deal too much of it.”

“Oh no, it’s just—” Ariane’s voice failed her, and, bending her head still
further, she softly put her lips against the back of the hand she was holding.

“Heavens, Ariane! You mustn’t do that!” She was almost startled at the
tide of dark colour that swept into his face.

“Why not—if I feel like that?” Ariane smiled very faintly.

“Because—oh, because it’s all wrong,” he said agitatedly, and frowned as

though he were really angry with her.

She didn’t say anything in answer to that, and when the silence had
lengthened a little awkwardly, he said:

“Well, will you see what you can do with your mother?”
 “Yes. But there’s one thing I must know. You must tell me truthfully, even
if she never knows, just how much this business costs you and Mr.
Muldane.”

He made a quick movement of protest, but she stopped him.

“I absolutely insist on that. And I’ll manage to pay you back some day.”

“But you couldn’t, my dear,” he said with that curious gentleness in his
voice again. “It would be a very big sum for one girl working on her own.”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to know. And even if I never do manage to pay, I
want to remember always how deeply we are in your debt.”

“My father won’t like it,” he said, “and nor shall I.”

“I can’t help that. It’s the one condition which I impose,” Ariane said with
a smile, as she rose to go. “And I ask you to respect it.”

It was he who took her hand then and kissed it gravely.

“I can’t say anything but ‘yes,’ if you put it that way. We will respect the
condition—and you—together.”

Ariane laughed a little, but the tears were really rather near as she came
out with him into the hall once more.
 “May I run you home? The big car is out, but I have my own two-seater
here.”

“Oh no, thank you,” Ariane assured him hastily. “I think—I think it might
be more tactful if I just slipped in quietly, without any sound of a car.”

“I see. But won’t you let me drop you somewhere near your place?”

Ariane shook her head.

“I’d be rather glad of the walk, if you don’t mind.”

He understood at once.

“Very well, Ariane. Good night, and thank you very much for coming.”

“Good night, Harvey. And thank you for everything,” she said almost in a
whisper.

He stood there in the doorway, watching her as she went away, and even
when she turned and looked back from the end of the drive, she could still
see his big figure silhouetted darkly against the light of the hall.

When Ariane reached home it was later than she had thought, and she
wondered anxiously if there would be difficult questions. But she found
that her mother had gone to bed early because of a headache, so that any
possible inquiries would at least not be made until tomorrow.

The next morning, however, brought the problem before her as acutely as
ever. She would have to make her mother see things in a different light, and
make her see them quickly.

Mrs. Dobson herself gave her the opening by saying, after breakfast:

“Were you out yesterday evening, Ariane? I couldn’t find you when I
wanted to say good night.”

“Yes.” Ariane flushed very faintly. “I was out.” Then she added, quietly
but very firmly: “I went down to the Muldanes’ house.”

“To the Muldanes’ house?” Mrs. Dobson repeated. “But, my dear child,
what possible reason could you have for going there?” She looked
disturbed and annoyed.

Ariane got up nervously, pushing back her chair.

“Mother, I hope you won’t feel that I went too much behind your back,
but I couldn’t let things stay where they were. After all, the Muldanes are—
are my friends. They’ve been very kind to me—”
 “I’m sorry, my dear.” Mrs. Dobson’s tone was not at all promising. “But I
must interrupt you right at the beginning to set two mistakes right. The
Muldanes are certainly not friends of ours, and I cannot recall any special
evidence of kindness on their part. They were agreeable, naturally, since
they had accepted you as a future relation, but that was all.”

“Well, I don’t feel quite like that about them,” Ariane said, speaking
quietly, although she was actually controlling her feelings with difficulty.
“The point is, Mother, that—tactlessly or otherwise—Mr. Muldane made a
very generous offer, and, quite candidly, I don’t think it’s an offer we can
afford to refuse.”

“It has been refused,” her mother said unanswerably.

“Anyway, Mother, they are genuinely worried about things being—

difficult for us. I hope you won’t be annoyed, but I’ve given the impression
that the unfortunate scene yesterday was much more a misunderstanding
than anything else. And I’ve promised that you will think over what they
had to say again.”

Mrs. Dobson pushed back her chair in her turn and got up.

“You had no right to do anything of the sort, Ariane, and I’m exceedingly
annoyed with you. If I wish to take up a certain attitude towards the
Muldanes or anybody else, I expect to maintain it without interference
from you. I absolutely and finally refuse to have anything to do with this
business. And nor will I argue about it,” she added very firmly, as Ariane
tried to speak again.

It was no good. That really was the end, Ariane saw, and to attempt to
dispute the matter further would only harden her mother’s decision—if,
indeed, any hardening were possible.

With a little dispirited gesture, she acknowledged the argument closed,

and a moment or two later she went out of the room.

Pulling on a coat, Ariane went out of the house. It was not that she was
sulking, or even specially angry. But she felt nervously that she must be
alone in order to think things out yet again.

This time, she realized, she was genuinely frightened. Until now, she had
had some small reassurance to set against the alarming state of affairs
which Harvey had disclosed. Now she must face each disagreeable fact
without a shadow of security.

There would be literally nothing for her mother. In fact, even their home
possessions would have to be sold. And in place of the money which had
always been there—there would now be only the comparatively tiny
amount which Ariane herself might make.

Nearly all the morning Ariane walked and walked, going over the same
arguments and prospects a dozen times. And each time she came back to
the same unwelcome conclusion. They were going to have to face the sort
of poverty they had never dreamed of, and not one of the three had any
practical equipment for it.

Still, one must make a start somewhere, and mourning over the state of
things was not going to help at all. Unconsciously, Ariane squared her
shoulders. She was coming back in sight of the town again now, and that
reminded her that one more unpleasant duty lay ahead.

She would have to tell Harvey about the refusal of the offer, and she must
do it with as much tact and as little sign of self-pity as possible.

Ariane had only just come to this conclusion, and had not yet formed any
idea of how it was to be done, when she saw Harvey himself. He was
evidently taking the short cut across the fields to his home, and in a few
minutes his path would cross hers, some little way ahead of her.

It was not the ideal moment, since her thoughts were still chaotic, but it
was definitely not an opportunity to be missed, and Ariane started forward.

He was walking quickly, and she had to run to catch up with him.

“Harvey!” He turned at once at the sound of her voice, and came back
towards her.

“Why, hello, Ariane.”

 “Hello.” She was still a little breathless. “I—just saw you—in the
distance. I thought it was a good opportunity to speak to you, if you’re not
in too much of a hurry.”

“No, I’m not in a hurry at all.” He fell into step beside her.

It was not very easy to make a start, but something had to be done about
it, and so, after a moment, she said:

“It’s about—your father’s suggestion, you know.”

“Yes, I supposed it would be that.”

His calm steadied her, as it always did.

“I’m afraid it’s no good, Harvey. I can’t make her see it my—our way.”

“She absolutely refuses?”

“Yes, she absolutely refuses. And I’m certain she will never come to any
private arrangement about the sale or—or transfer of the firm, because—
well—”

“Because what, Ariane?” he asked as her voice trailed off into silence.

She flushed.
 “It sounds dreadful, I know, but I’m afraid she would read a very
unworthy motive into Mr. Muldane’s generous effort to—to keep things
indefinite.”

“I see. She prefers to think of us as swindlers rather than friends?” His

voice became faintly ironical for a moment, and Ariane looked very
unhappy.

“It’s ridiculous, of course,” she said with an effort, “but once anyone has
an idea like that, it’s possible to make everything else fit in as extra proof.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

There was silence between them for a few minutes. Then he said:

“Does she perhaps imagine that things will go on much as they have
before, simply because she can’t visualize anything else?”

“I don’t know.” Ariane sounded very troubled. “She talks of moving into
a smaller house and living simply and all that sort of thing, but not,
somehow, with any practical appreciation of what that means. I’m afraid
she is sure there will be some thing from the business, however small. She
doesn’t really imagine us all living on whatever I can make.”

He frowned.
 “And can you?”

Ariane rather nervously put back a strand of hair from her forehead.

“I’m trying to.”

“It’s ridiculous, Ariane!” he burst out almost angrily. “It can’t be done.
Not even with Julie pushed into a free school and you all in cheap
lodgings, and everything perfectly hellish. Your mother must realize that
it’s wrong to inflict that on all of you.”

Ariane shook her head.

“Nothing on earth would make her think of it as anything but right. And
there’s a good deal to be said for her point of view, you know.”

“There is not. Do you mean to say you think you ought to go and live like
that for some obscure principle?”

She smiled, faintly at his disgust.

“Well, it isn’t only principle, Harvey. It’s sheer necessity. There is no

other way.”

“No? Are you sure?”

 He stopped and faced her, his hands thrust into his pockets and pressed a
little nervously to his sides.

“Why, certainly. What other way could there be?” she asked surprisedly,
for it seemed to her that she had thought over every possible avenue of
escape. Harvey didn’t look at her. He stared at the ground.

“You could,” he said, “settle the whole problem one other way, by
marrying me.”

There was absolute silence, while Ariane felt as though her mind had
gone completely blank. Harvey, the summer morning, her pressing
problems, all seemed to slip away from her, and she was left floating in one
enormous void of astonishment.

Then a church clock struck the half-hour in the distance. She became
gradually aware again of the hundred sounds of field life around her. And
she became overwhelmingly aware of Harvey’s silent, almost frightening
presence.

“But do you realize what you are saying?”

It was a ridiculous thing to say to him, of course, and his dry, “Oh yes,”
seemed to say as much.

“There’s no possible reason, Harvey

 “Oh yes,” he said again. “There are plenty of reasons. Quite as good as
the reasons which prompted you to take Frank. Better, in fact,” he added
with an air of cool reflection. “For you are in a much greater fix now than
you were then.”

“Are you suggesting that I should marry you in cold blood, just to keep a
roof over our heads?”

“My dear Ariane, you’ll forgive me for saying so, but there was a time
when that sort of marriage didn’t seem utterly impossible to you.”

That was true, she knew, and bit her lip.

“Perhaps I’ve learnt wisdom since then,” she murmured, flushing. “And
anyway, I—you—”

“Yes?”

“Oh, it’s impossible! Even to put it into words—”

“Am I so utterly disagreeable to you?”

She didn’t reply.

“Because I refuse to believe it even if you say so. You went to

considerable pains to—rescue me, as you thought, from Marta. You would
scarcely have done that if you thought I was not bearable enough to be
worth—er—rescuing.”

“What do you mean?” She was suddenly extremely agitated, but Harvey
gave a grim, reminiscent little smile.

“Why, the time you had the superb effrontery to pretend to her that you
wanted me yourself. I overheard, you know—”

“Did you?” whispered Ariane.

“Yes. And although I was furious at your interference, I had to pay silent
tribute to the ingenuity of the idea. Only you would have thought of such a
form of attack, considering the terms on which we really were.”

Somehow Ariane managed a stiff smile, and hoped it was more

convincing than it felt.

“I suppose—it was—outrageous,” she said.

“You’re quite right. It was,” he assured her.

“But now you can speak of it without anger?”

“Almost,” he warned her, and Ariane smiled nervously again.

There was silence for a moment.

 “Well, Ariane?”

It was not like a man pressing for an answer to a proposal. But then it was
not very much like a proposal, really, she thought.

“What—about—Marta?” she got out at last, frightened to mention the

subject, yet knowing it could not go entirely unmentioned.

“Marta?” His voice was very cold and expressionless. “Oh, Marta had the
good fortune to marry a multi-millionaire in Chicago last week. I had a
cable from her this morning to say so.”
 CHAPTER X

“Marta—is married?” Ariane stared at him incredulously.

“Yes.” Harvey’s tone was curt.

“But it’s less than three weeks—”

“I know. I know. I suppose she met him as soon as she arrived.”

Ariane realized from the impatience of his interruption that his nerves
were raw. She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, on impulse, she put
her hand round his arm and made him walk on with her again.

“You know, Harvey, you’re just making the mistake that lots of nice men
make,” she told him. “You’re feeling very disillusioned and sore because
one woman has behaved badly, and you think you’ll prove to yourself that
you don’t care by rushing off and tying yourself up with someone else. But
it—”

“What is this supposed to be?” he inquired with a grim smile. “A dose of

sisterly advice?”

“It’s quite sound advice.”

 “Maybe. But it’s no answer to my question.”

“Which question?”

“Well, I did ask you to marry me, a short while ago,” he reminded her
dryly. “Perhaps the fact has escaped you.”

“Oh no! but—I was just explaining—” She broke off confusedly.

“Yes, I know. You were just explaining the complex subject of myself to
myself. But you really need not bother, Ariane. The whole situation is
much simpler than you suppose.”

“These things are never simple,” Ariane said with a sigh.

“No? Well, listen—I’m going to say something to you that I’ve never said
to anyone else, and I shall never say again.”

He was a little pale, she saw, and his jaw was set, but she let him go on
without interruption.

“I did love Marta. I do love her,” he admitted with angry, unhappy

reluctance. “The question of whether she’s worthy or not just doesn’t seem
to enter into it. She is romance and glamour and fascination to me and
always will be. I could never go through that heaven and hell for anyone
else again. And now that she’s—quite finally beyond my reach, I know that
something is dead in me that would never come to life again.”

He stopped for a moment, as though gathering his words for the rest of
this difficult explanation. Glancing at him, Ariane saw with pity, that his
forehead was slightly damp.

“You very nearly went with her, didn’t you, Harvey?” she said quietly,
and his arm stiffened a little under her hand.

“Yes.” That came out with difficulty too. “I very nearly sank as low as
that. Trailing at her heels like—”

“Well, never mind now.” Ariane’s voice was still quiet and very soothing.
“You didn’t, after all, so don’t think of it again.”

“Do you know why I didn’t go?” he said harshly.

Ariane looked surprised.

“I suppose your better judgment, good sense—whatever you like to call it

—prevailed in the end.”

He gave that grim little smile again.

“Not exactly. It was something that you said.”

 “Something I said!”

“Yes. When we were driving home after you’d told them all at the
Ventnors’ about your breaking your engagement. You said there were
always a few times when duty wasn’t just an old-fashioned word, but
something very real, and that if one was worth anything at all, one acted on
it.”

“Oh Ariane was taken aback and a good deal touched. “Yes, I remember. I
didn’t mean it for you though, Harvey. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, I know. That’s why it had such effect.”

“I’m very glad.” She bit her lip rather hard because she found it had an
absurd tendency to tremble. “And you don’t regret it, even now?”

“No,” he said slowly and rather disagreeably. “I suppose there is some

queer satisfaction in having done the right thing at last.”

“And is it in further pursuit of unpleasant duty that you are asking me to

marry you?” Ariane asked, with a smile she could not resist.

“Of course not.” He smiled slightly in his turn, and then suddenly became
exceedingly earnest. “It’s really just common sense, you know. We’re
neither of us out for high romance, or anything of that sort. For you it
would be, I hope, a not too disagreeable way out of a rotten hole, and for
me—”

“Yes?” Ariane said softly. “I’d very much like to know what you’re going
to get out of this business.”

“Why, quite a lot, Ariane.” He looked genuinely surprised at her

interruption. “A settled home of my own, the kind of peace and quiet there
never seems to be in our place, and—Why are you smiling?”

“Don’t you think this is a funny sort of proposal?”

“Yes, I do. We’re taking much too long about it. You know the advantages
and the disadvantages just as well as I. Will you marry me, Ariane?”

She didn’t actually say anything. She just put her hand into his as though
they were fixing a business deal.

“Is this ‘yes’?” he wanted to know.

Ariane nodded.

“Good.”

He didn’t attempt to kiss her or anything of that sort. He gripped the hand
he was holding, and then let it go.
 “I do wonder,” thought Ariane, “if any other couple ever shook hands on
deciding to marry?”

“And now,” said Harvey, “I’m afraid there’s going to be another rather
awkward interview with your mother. Shall I come to see her this
afternoon?”

“Oh no!” Ariane was horrified. “I’ll explain.”

“But I think you’ve had enough difficult explanations to do lately. I don’t

like the idea of your being put under still more strain.”

He said that almost carelessly, but the incredible strange sweetness of

having Harvey, of all people, assume personal responsibility towards her
brought a lump into her throat.

“It’s all right—you needn’t worry.” She spoke rather breathlessly. “I don’t
mind telling Mother at all.” Which was not strictly true, of course. “It
would be less of a shock from me. I mean—”

“I see.” That dry look of amusement was there again. “I take it I shall not
be anything like so welcome a son-in-law as Frank?”

Ariane didn’t answer. Not so much from embarrassment as from the

extraordinary feeling it gave her to hear him describe himself as anybody’s
son-in-law—her mother’s in particular.
 “Well, I shall have to do my best to earn her moderately good opinion.”

“Will you really—bother—to do that?” Ariane asked in some surprise.

“I imagine it would be an unhappy position for you if we remained at

loggerheads,” he pointed out gravely.

“Yes—I suppose it would,” she said slowly. And then, rather frankly, “But
would that worry you much?”

“My dear Ariane.” He laughed a little. “I’m afraid that sounds as though
you’re not expecting me to be a very considerate husband.”

And if the term “son-in-law” had given her an odd qualm, the word
“husband” left her speechless.

But fortunately her silence went unnoticed because, at that moment, they
reached the point at which Ariane had to turn off in order to reach her own
home.

“You’re sure you prefer to make your own explanations?” Harvey took
her hand again and looked down at her.

“Quite sure—really.”
 “But I shall have to see your mother some time, you know. Just as I
should have had to see your father if he had been alive. There are certain
things which—well, which a girl’s parents have a right to settle with the
man she is marrying.”

“Yes—I know.” It all seemed so strange and unreal suddenly that she was
more than half afraid. “I’ll find out and—and let you know when is best. I
must go now, Harvey. Good-bye.”

But he didn’t release her. He drew her back to his side again by the hand
he was still holding.

“You’re in a terrible hurry to be gone, my little fiancée,” he said, looking

down at her with not unkindly amusement. “When do I see you again?”

“Oh—I’m not sure. I’ll ring you up.”

“When? This evening?”

“Yes, if you like.” Queer—but of course Harvey had some sort of claim
on her time now, she supposed.

“Very well, this evening. And you might be thinking over what you feel to
be the shortest engagement necessary in the circumstances. I don’t think
we need have much delay, do you?”
 “No,” Ariane said. “No, I suppose we needn’t.”

And then she left him, with a rather hastily repeated “goodbye.”

Ariane ran nearly all the way home. She was not sure why. The fact that
she was slightly late for lunch seemed an inadequate reason for quite so
much haste. But as she sat down at the table she thought with quite
unconscious humour, “I’d better not say anything until later. It would be a
pity to spoil Mother’s lunch.”

Considering the rather strained terms on which they had parted, it said a
good deal for the usual friendliness of their relations that the little family
group showed no signs of constraint over the meal. And Julie’s chatter as
usual filled in any gaps. Once she came rather near an awkward subject,
when she exclaimed hopefully:

“I suppose as my school fees are paid up to the end of the summer term,
there’s no chance of my not going back on Monday?”

“No chance at all, Julie,” her mother assured her. “You would not have
been away anything like so long as it is if it were not for the Whitsun
break.”

“No, that’s true,” Julie sighed. “I suppose we’ll be settled in a new house
by the time I come home for the summer holidays,” she added, seizing on a
new topic of interest.
 Ariane wan very sorry to see her mother go pale at that, and she said
quickly: “Well, we’re not sure yet, Julie. We needn’t meet trouble half-
way.”

“I thought it would be rather nice,” Julie said innocently. “Change is

always exciting, isn’t it?”

“Some changes one would willingly do without,” Mrs. Dobson said with
a stifled sigh, and Julie looked faintly guilty.

“Poor Mother,” Ariane thought. “But if only she’ll resign herself to what
I’m doing now, there need not be much change for her, I suppose. She’ll
probably think me crazy, though, or very undutiful. Possibly born.”

Ariane waited until she and her mother had been left alone that afternoon
before she spoke of the new development. Then she came over and sat on
the rug at Mrs. Dobson’s feet, and leant her arm affectionately on her knee.

“Mother dear, you’re not cross with me any more, are you?”

It would have taken more hardness than there was in her mother to resist
the appeal of Ariane’s anxious smile.

“Of course not, child.” Mrs. Dobson patted her daughter’s fair head. “You
haven’t been worrying about it, have you? I daresay I was sharper than I
meant to be. But then I never felt so friendly towards the Muldanes as you
did. You mustn’t expect me to begin now.”

That was her opening, Ariane supposed nervously.

“Well, I wish—you would—try. Something quite unexpected has

happened.”

“What, Ariane?” Her mother looked disturbed. “Something to do with

them, do you mean?”

“Yes.” Ariane paused desperately, and then burst out: “Mother, I never
cared much for Frank, as you know. It was Harvey—right from the
beginning. And now I’m going to marry him.”

“My dear child!” Mrs. Dobson literally gasped. “My dear child, what are
you talking about? Marry Harvey Muldane? That impossible person?”

“Oh, he’s not impossible.” She was so tired of hearing that ridiculous
word in connection with him. “He’s very dear, really. If only you’d believe
me.”

“Ariane.” Her mother turned her sharply so that she could see her quite
clearly. “You’ve some idea about sacrificing yourself for Julie and me. I
won’t have it, my child. I won’t hear of it. I was very wrong ever to suggest
such an idea with Frank. But with Harvey—!”
 “No, no, that’s not true. It isn’t a sacrifice, not in any sense at all. You
mustn’t think so.”

“Are you actually asking me to believe that you love Harvey Muldane?”
Mrs. Dobson’s expression was eloquent comment on such madness.

“Yes,” Ariane said slowly, “I love him. I’ve loved him almost from the
beginning.” And as she said that, she was aware of a strange, inexplicable
satisfaction in putting the fact into words at last. She could never say it to
him. She supposed she would never have to say it to anyone again. But
there it was in the depths of her consciousness, a source of such secret joy
and secret pain that everything else seemed to pale beside it.

“I don’t understand,” poor Mrs. Dobson said with obvious truth. “I don’t
understand it in the least.”

“Well, don’t worry too much, dear.” Ariane pressed her head
affectionately against her mother’s knee. “Can’t you just believe that I’m
happy to be marrying him, and leave it at that?”

But Mrs. Dobson could not.

“And does he profess to love you?” she wanted to know.

For a second Ariane hesitated. But if she had sketched in one side of a
love-story, she must allow the other too. It would never do to let Mother
suppose that her loving daughter was marrying an indifferent Harvey
Muldane.

“Oh yes,” Ariane said steadily. “Oh yes, he loves me too, of course.”

“My dear child, I don’t want to sound a jarring note.” Her mother looked
extremely worried. “But what about Marta Roma?”

Ariane thought of his expression as he had spoken of his love for Marta—
that “heaven and hell” through which he would never pass again—and for
a moment her heart failed her. Then she dragged the last shreds of her
dignity and self-possession around her.

“Marta,” she said calmly, “was simply an infatuation with him. It died a
natural death when she went away.”

But to herself she was thinking: “He can look like that, speak like that,
feel like that—but not for me. Even while he is asking me to marry him, he
can tell me of his love for another woman.”

“It isn’t very reassuring, Ariane.” Mrs. Dobson’s anxious voice broke
across her reflections. “Men do make fools of themselves, of course, in just
that way, and then get over it, but I must say that nothing I know of Harvey
Muldane fits in with that idea.”
 “I know. I know,” Ariane agreed hastily. “It’s awfully difficult to realize
just how things have turned out, but there it is, Mother dear, and I hope—I
do hope—you won’t make yourself unhappy about it all, because I’m
terribly happy.”

Mrs. Dobson smoothed Ariane’s bright hair doubtfully.

“It isn’t any good my pretending I like your choice, my dear. But if he
really has won so much regard and affection from you, I’m willing to think
there must be something in him which I have overlooked.”

Ariane hugged her mother in silent gratitude. It really touched her very
much to see that the material advantages to Mrs. Dobson herself evidently
had no place in her thoughts. In fact, she said with great sincerity:

“You know, don’t you, Ariane, that it’s only my anxiety for your own
good that makes me seem difficult?”

“You’re not difficult,” Ariane declared indignantly. “I think you’re being

angelically broad-minded, considering how you always have felt about
Harvey.”

Mrs. Dobson smiled faintly.

“Is he really so lovable when one gets to know him?” she asked rather
sceptically. But at the look which came into her daughter’s eyes she felt
somehow a little guilty about even having said that.

Ariane’s was an open face, where the expressions followed each other in
quick and transparent succession. Mrs. Dobson had often seen happiness
there in all the varying shades, from baby pleasure in her childhood’s toys
to the amused tender affection with which she regarded Julie. But this
expression had never been there before.

“It comes only once to any woman’s face,” thought Mrs. Dobson, stifling
a sigh. “And to some it never comes at all. She’s not my little girl any
longer. She is a woman now. How odd that Harvey Muldane should have
been the one to take her away.”

Much later, Ariane telephoned to Harvey, and after dinner he came along
to see her mother.

She remembered then how strange it had seemed to her when Frank had
come to tell Daddy he wanted to marry her. It was a hundred times more
extraordinary to have Harvey coming to tell Mother the same thing.

Ariane came out quickly into the hall to meet him. There was something
that must be said before he saw her mother, and, taking his hand, she drew
him into the little room at the side of the hall which used to be her father’s
study.

“Harvey.”
 “Yes?” He stood there smiling slightly down at her, tall and almost
frighteningly handsome, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dinner-
jacket. She didn’t think he was at all nervous about the coming interview.
That smile only seemed to suggest that he was very much aware of her own
flushed cheeks and over-bright eyes.

“It’s just—that when I explained to Mother, I had to pretend—well, you

see, we can’t let her know exactly how things are.”

“Of course,” he agreed politely. “That was the whole point, I think.”

“Yes—oh yes, of course.” She wished she could manage these interviews
better. “I didn’t mean that part. It’s only that, of course, she asked rather
searching questions about whether we were—were fond of each other.”

“Naturally.” He looked quite grave now, but she somehow had the
impression that the amusement had really deepened. “You mean you
thought it wiser to give me my cue before I talked things over with her?”

“Yes—exactly. That was it.”

“I see. Well, what roles did you cast for us? Are we—are we dying with
love for each other, or are we commonsense but devoted? Am I suing for
something I hardly dare to expect, or well, what?”

Ariane laughed.
 “I suppose ‘commonsense but devoted’ will cover it best,” she said a little
embarrassedly. “I just told Mother that you—that you were in love with
me, and that I—I—”

“Yes? I’m really most eager to hear what your reactions are supposed to
be.”

“Well, I—I just said I was in love with you,” she admitted, colouring
slightly.

“Did you, Ariane?” He took her hand then and kissed it with
extraordinary gentleness. “Thank you, my child. You say that very nicely,
even if it isn’t true. Shall we go and find your mother now?”

Ariane nodded. She couldn’t really find any words to answer him, and the
convincing way he put his arm lightly round her waist as they went into the
lounge, where her mother was, did very little to restore her.

It was not, of course, the kind of interview that could be called enjoyable
from any point of view, but it seemed as though, having once decided to be
reasonable with each other, Mrs. Dobson and Harvey were both determined
to do the thing handsomely. And Ariane, observing their air of remote
cordiality during the rest of the evening, supposed that, in a married life as
strange as hers was likely to be, it was something to know that her mother
and her husband respected, if they could not like, each other.
 Julie, perhaps, extracted more complete satisfaction than anyone else
from the whole situation.

“Going to marry Ariane!” she exclaimed. “Are you really? I say, I am

glad. It’s just as I said, you know, Ariane,” she added to her sister.

“Is it?” Ariane replied cautiously, knowing that things just as Julie said
them were apt to be disquieting.

“Yes. You know—the sort of villain of the piece turning out to be the hero
after all, and—”

“Julie!” Mrs. Dobson interrupted sharply.

“Game here, you little wretch, and apologize for that,” Harvey said with
rather remarkable good humour. “What do you mean by calling your future
brother-in-law the villain of the piece?”

“Oh, not now!” Julie explained. “Now you’re the hero.”

“I see. I’ll endeavour to live up to the noble role,” Harvey assured her
gravely.

He didn’t stay very long after that. Perhaps because this first meeting was
something of a strain for all of them—with the inevitable exception of
Julie. She enjoyed everything, particularly the slightly ceremonious way
Harvey bent over Mrs. Dobson’s hand as he said good night.

“Just like someone going to dance a minuet,” Julie said with a sigh, as the
door closed behind her sister and Harvey. “So romantic, isn’t it, Mother?”

“I hadn’t thought so,” Mrs. Dobson said dryly.

Outside in the hall, Ariane was saying:

“Thank you, Harvey. You managed splendidly.”

“Kept my temper, you mean?” he countered with an unexpectedly

mischievous smile.

“Well, I—no, I mean you were most convincing.”

“Was I? Thanks. So were you. With practice we shall be really good at

this. Good night, Ariane.”

“Good night.”

She stood at the door for a moment, watching him get into his car. Then
he drove off, and she closed the door with a sigh.

He hadn’t kissed her. But then why on earth should he? There had been
no one in the hall who needed convincing, and the mere fact that she had
gone with him into the hall would indicate to her mother that a
satisfactorily tender good night had taken place.

Ariane hoped nervously that Julie wouldn’t ask point-blank if Harvey had
kissed her good night. It was the .sort of innocent inquiry which sprang all
too naturally to her lips.

When she came back into the room, however, Julie was too busily
occupied with the only fly in the ointment to make minor inquiries of that
sort.

“I suppose,” she observed, in the slightly hushed voice which, with her,
passed for tact, “I suppose he won’t be friendly with Marta Roma any more
now?”

“Well—no. Anyway, she’s in America, you know,” Ariane said a little

stiffly.

“Yes, I know. But she’s bound to come back from America some time,
and I’d always thought—Really, it’s rather a pity in a way.”

“Why, Julie?”

“Because when I am allowed to leave school and can go on the stage—”

 “You must get rid of these absurd notions, my dear child,” her mother
began firmly. But Ariane didn’t listen to the familiar argument that
followed. She was thinking, with an unhappy little quiver, of what Julie
had said of Marta.

She’s bound to come back from America some time.

It was quite true, of course. She would come back. And by then Ariane
must have managed to build some sort of barrier against her. But out of
what?—and on what foundations?

The next few weeks were not easy. Julie went back to school, and Ariane
and her mother had to face the difficult and melancholy period of
readjustment which always follows on the death of the head of a family. In
addition, there was the complication of settling the business affairs without
Mrs. Dobson knowing too much of the real state of things.

Over this, however, Mr. Muldane proved much more tactful than Ariane
had dared to hope. Warned—perhaps by his previous experience, or
perhaps by Harvey—he had as little direct contact with Mrs. Dobson as
possible, leaving most things to be arranged between his eldest son (whom
he trusted) and the melancholy but worthy acting manager of Dobson’s
(whom Mrs. Dobson trusted).

When he did have to meet Mrs. Dobson, he treated her with nervously
stiff courtesy, and at least avoided the pitfall of referring to “your girl” or
speaking cheerfully of “the young people.”

It was, in any case, Ariane reflected, a trifle difficult to think of anybody

as grim and authoritative as Harvey as “a young person.”

Gradually, matters began to straighten out. The big house was to be sold
later, and Mrs. Dobson and Julie installed in something much more
convenient.

“And I suppose,” Harvey said reflectively, when Ariane and he were

discussing things one evening, “it’s time we did some house-hunting on our
own account, Ariane.”

“I suppose so.”

Queer to think of herself and Harvey Muldane looking for the home
where they were to live together.

“Or would you prefer us to buy a piece of land and have a house built just
as you fancied it?”

“Wouldn’t that be very much more expensive, Harvey?”

He looked surprised.

“I suppose so. But we can afford it quite easily, if you would like it.”
 She thought it extraordinarily nice of him to say “we can afford it,” and
smiled slowly, without realizing that he was watching her with
considerable pleasure.

“Well, Ariane?” He smiled in his turn.

“I should like that very, very much indeed,” she said earnestly.

“Then it’s settled.” Harvey spoke as though it were a matter of buying an

umbrella. “There’s only one difficulty—”

“Yes?”

“We’ll have to find some place while the house is being built. It can’t be
done in a week or two, and—I think we ought to be married soon.”

She knew what he meant. Every day brought some embarrassing expense
which, as her husband, he could settle, but, as her fiancé, he found very
complicated to deal with.

“When—were you thinking of?”

“Have you any objection to the end of this month?” They were both rather
elaborately casual. “That gives us whatever time is needed for banns and so
on, and Julie will be home for the summer holidays. I take it she’d have a
fit if we were married without her assistance.”
 “I think so. In fact, yes, of course she would.” Ariane hesitated, but as he
seemed waiting for her to speak, she said: “Well, then, the end of this
month.”

He took some pains not to look at her as she said that, and she supposed
he was pitying her for having to be forced into an unwelcome marriage.

“And about the question of where we are to live temporarily?”

“Oh—” Ariane conscientiously considered that problem.

“I don’t want to get into Maurice’s habit of living half the time at home,”
he remarked, frowning.

“Oh no, of course not.” Ariane was horrified at the very thought of
working out their complicated problem under the eyes of people like Sally
or, to tell the truth, the much puzzled Frank. “You wouldn’t like—”

“Yes?”

“Mother will be here for a month or two longer while her place is being
got ready, and it would be rather nice for me—I mean—” she stopped, and
then went on again. “It’s such a big house, Harvey, and I haven’t liked the
idea of her being left alone here while Julie is away and I—and I—” She
didn’t seem able to get further than that, and the sentence hung there
unfinished.
 She wondered if he would resent the implication that her home was
pleasanter to live in than his. But apparently not, for he leant forward and
took her hand.

“Poor child, it’s a rotten position for you, isn’t it? All right, of course, stay
with your mother for a few months longer, if you like. I daresay she won’t
mind the little she’ll see of me, and we’ll manage somehow. It’s rather a
good way of”—he smiled grimly—“making a difficult start.”

That was not quite how Ariane had been looking at it, but she felt that to
set him right would involve her in far too dangerous explanations, so she
smiled, a little nervously, and said: “It seems as though it might be the best
way for all of us.”

He accepted this without comment, and she thought:

“It’s queer that Harvey has a reputation for being difficult and obstinate. I
don’t think many men would be willing to let me have everything so much
my own way.”

But then the odd thing was that, while he had fiercely resented her
engagement of convenience to Frank, he seemed rather sorry for her that
she was being forced into marrying himself. Perhaps this was his way of
making up to her for the supposed unpleasantness of it all.

“Well, Ariane?”
 “What?” She looked up quickly, to find him watching her. “Why the very
solemn air, gradually merging into a reassured smile?”

“Oh—nothing.” She got up embarrassedly and, to hide her confusion,

went over and began to poke the fire energetically.

A moment later he too got up and followed her. He stood there, quite
silent, and she wondered if he were still waiting for a reply to his question,
ignoring, in that odd way of his, any attempt at prevarication.

She straightened up, but refused to look at him.

“I was really—just—thinking how extraordinarily kind you are to me.”

“Kind?” He sounded surprised. “My dear girl, I assure you I have no

reputation whatever for kindness.”

“No, I know. And that’s another thine—You have a most stupid reputation
for being difficult and—and other horrid things. And you’re not at all.”

“Are you sure?” He laughed, but she knew he was touched and pleased.
“Perhaps when you’ve been married to me and know more about me,
you’ll want to take that back.”

“I know quite a lot of things about you now,” Ariane insisted. “Nice
things. And—oh, Harvey, you do know how grateful I am for all you’re
doing, don’t you?”

“It’s not so very much.” He frowned slightly.

“Oh, yes, it is. Sometimes I could die with shame to think how much
we’re taking, and sometimes—”

“Sometimes?”

“I wish I could say ‘thank you’ properly, Harvey, only—would you be

terribly surprised and horrified if I kissed you?” She couldn’t imagine why
she had said it, but there was no taking it back now, and she could only
pretend that it had been half-jokingly meant.

“Well—no.” He was smiling, she knew, although she would not look at
him. “No. I should probably be rather nervous but flattered.”

She glanced at him then and saw that, besides the teasing smile, there was
a slight, unusual flush. Then he bent his dark head, and their lips met.

Ariane could not have said whether it was a second or eternity before he
put her from him—abruptly, although his hands were quite gentle on her.

“You’re very sweet, Ariane,” he said. And then, very curtly, “I must go
now.”
 She didn’t try to detain him. She was not very sure that she even said
“good night.”

He went out of the room, and she heard him in the hall, speaking to one of
the servants. There was the sound of his footsteps across the hall, the
heavier sound of the front door closing, the purr of the car as it went down
the drive. And then—silence.
 CHAPTER XI

“I do hope you’re going to be very happy with Harvey, Ariane. He’s not
the easiest of people to get on with, is he?”

Sally, back once more in Norchester a day or two before the wedding,
leant back in her chair and surveyed her future sister-in-law with thinly
veiled curiosity.

“I don’t seem to have much difficulty about it,” Ariane said curtly—and
then knew immediately that the remark would have had much more effect
if she had said it sweetly. But Sally’s uncharitable curiosity always irritated
her, and most of all when it was directed against Harvey.

“Well, he’s always been considered the difficult one of the three. I used to
know them all even when we were children, you see, so of course I know a
great deal about them. Maurice and Frank were always nice boys, but even
his mother couldn’t make much of Harvey.”

“Perhaps she didn’t try very hard.”

“He was an ungracious child, you know,” Sally went on, full of her
superior amount of knowledge. “And to anyone as elegant and finished as
Mrs. Muldane, it was like having somebody positively uncouth for one’s
eldest son.”

“Oh, Sally, don’t be so idiotic!” Ariane’s temper suddenly got the better
of her. “What ridiculous words to use of a sensitive, inarticulate child who
was probably dying for a little approval. If she was really so stupid as to
think of him in those terms, no wonder she didn’t get the best out of him.”

“Really, Ariane! After all, I did know them and you didn’t,” Sally said
stiffly. “It’s only natural that I should have a little more insight into the
question. I thought it might help you—”

“All right, Sally.” Ariane was a little ashamed to have lost her temper, and
her sense of humour was reasserting itself once more. “But please just let
well alone. When I start giving you helpful advice about Maurice, you can
let rip about Harvey—and not before. After all, I am marrying Harvey, and
I’m certainly not going to commit the petty disloyalty of discussing him
with you.”

“Well, of course,” said Sally, “if you feel like that—”

“I do,” Ariane assured her. And that closed the subject.

Curiously enough, Mr. Muldane was almost more pleased than anyone.
 “I was really sorry, you know, when it looked as though we weren’t going
to have you in the family after all,” he told Ariane frankly. “And now I’m
very pleased that it should be Harvey. You’ll be good for him, very good
for him. And, to tell the truth, you’ve got more in him than in Frank.”

“Oh—have I?” Ariane was surprised as well as embarrassed. “But I

always thought—”

“What did you think?”

Ariane’s colour deepened.

“I’m afraid I always thought that you didn’t get on very well.”

“Well, we don’t—always. There isn’t room for two tempers like ours in
one family.” The old man smiled grimly. “But he’s the best of the three at
heart. The one with the real personality. Or perhaps,” he added reflectively
and a little ingenuously, “perhaps I feel like that because he’s the one who
is most like me.”

“I suppose he is like you,” Ariane said slowly. “I’m not quite sure why,
but he’s much more reminiscent of you than the other two.”

“Why, yes, of course he is, of course he is.” Mr. Muldane seemed to think
it was absurd that anyone should hesitate about it. “Harvey is my son, and
the other two are their mother’s sons.” He sighed slightly. “That’s why life
is so much easier for them,” he added unexpectedly.

“Was life so easy for her, then?”

“Well, I mean more that she—knew things, you know—fitted in,” he

explained a trifle vaguely. “Mrs. Dobson would have liked her,” he added
—rather artlessly, Ariane thought. “She never did the wrong thing.”

“Well, you and Harvey do lots of ‘right things’ that no one else would
ever dream of doing!” exclaimed Ariane warmly.

And, on sudden impulse, she flung her arms round the old man and
hugged him as Julie might have.

“There, there.” He pinched her cheek very hard but very affectionately.
“You’re a good child. Harvey’s a lucky fellow.” And he pushed her away
rather hastily, to show he was not really at all affected.

It amused and very much touched Ariane, this half-nervous determination

not to be caught out in any softer moments. And then she thought, with a
sigh in her turn, that that too had been inherited by Harvey. Or was he
genuinely averse to anything emotional, except where one woman was
concerned?
 Fortunately, everyone in Norchester had grown to associate him with a
slightly grim, undemonstrative coolness, so that no one seemed to expect
him to indulge in the usual romantic signs attaching to a man in love. And
Ariane, for her part, tried very hard to give the impression of a
commonsense though happy girl who refused to take too sentimental a
view of things.

She could only hope that, between them, they made a fairly convincing
picture that would satisfy the gossip and curiosity which invariably
surrounded the interesting topics of births, marriages and deaths in
Norchester.

On the evening before their wedding, she and Harvey walked over to
inspect the plot of ground where building of their new home had already
actually begun.

It was a lovely stretch of land on the outskirts of Norchester, with two or

three beautiful old trees which were to be incorporated in the garden later.

The house was to be built looking away from the town, across to the open
country beyond, and, as she stood there, watching the whole scene slowly
take on a mellow glow from the warm light of the late August evening,
Ariane thought what a beautiful home it was going to be.

Perhaps he was thinking the same thing, because, putting his hand lightly
round her arm in that characteristic way of his, he said: “I hope you’re
going to be happy here, Ariane.”

“Oh, I shall be! I’m sure I shall,” she declared earnestly.

“Because, although we can’t make the—well, the usual romantic plans

and promises that most couples do, I want you to feel—”he frowned, with
a certain degree of embarrassment and that unusual flush was there again
—“I want you to know that I’ll—do my best to make you happy. If I’m
frightfully difficult and—”

“Don’t, Harvey!”

He stopped and looked almost startled.

“I was only trying to explain—to reassure you,” he said with an odd little
touch of sulkiness that somehow caught at Ariane’s heart.

“But you don’t have to, you know.” She very gently patted the hand that
was on her arm. “I don’t need reassuring. I know that I shall be in good
hands—kind and understanding hands—when I’m married to you.”

He caught hold of her then and kissed her, with a sort of boyish fervour
and impetuosity—something quite different from the kiss they had
exchanged in the library at home.
 “I’ve often—been—anything but kind and understanding to you, Ariane,”
he said a little jerkily. “It’s generous of you to put it like that.”

Ariane smiled—a very sweet and reassuring smile, for perhaps, after all,
it was Harvey who needed the reassurance.

“I seem to remember coming to your house on one occasion, very scared

and nonplussed, and finding you remarkably kind and understanding.”

“Oh, that—” He dismissed it with an impatient movement of his hand,

but she saw that he looked most unusually pleased and happy.

“I wonder,” thought Ariane, “if Mrs. Muldane ever bothered to make him
look like that, or if she was altogether too busy being the charming woman
that Sally insists she was.”

And, for the very first time, she allowed herself to hope that, if nothing
interfered and she were allowed just a little time, Harvey’s happiness and
hers might, miraculously, become the same thing.

It was that tremulously happy thought which accompanied her to bed on

the last night before her wedding.

“Do wake up, Ariane I It’s really quite late, and it’s a marvellous
morning.”
 Ariane stirred sleepily, recalled to consciousness by the persistent chatter
of Julie.

“Very well. I’m awake really,” she murmured drowsily, and, rolling over,
buried her head comfortably in the pillow. “Go away, you little nuisance,
and commune silently with your own spirit or something.”

“I don’t know how to,” cried the literal Julie. “And anyway, how can you
go on dozing? It’s your wedding day!”

Ariane was perfectly still. Not that she was drowsing any longer. She was
startlingly wide awake. Today—in a very few hours—she was to marry
Harvey. The unknown man she had detested on sight at the Ventnors’ that
first night; the man who had lain helplessly in her arms all those long, cold
hours when she had found him thrown from his horse; the man who really
loved Marta Roma; the man who had kissed her last night and explained a
little clumsily that he would be good to her.

They were all Harvey—her Harvey—and today she was to marry him.

The wedding was to be quiet in view of the recent death of Mr. Dobson.
But Julie’s earnestly expressed opinion that “that isn’t any reason why we
shouldn’t look nice” had not been ignored, and as Ariane stood ready
before her mirror, she knew that Harvey’s bride was not unworthy of his
own remarkable good looks.
 The perfectly simple lines of her oyster-white dress, the delicate cloud of
her long tulle veil, the splash of colour made by the velvety crimson roses
which Harvey had sent—they all went to make a picture of Ariane at her
loveliest.

When Mrs. Dobson had seen the roses she had said:

“Hm, a little too dark to be bridal.” But Ariane liked their tender, sweet-
scented warmth.

“Anyway, you know what red roses mean, don’t you?” Julie said in a
hushed voice.

“No,” Ariane admitted. “What do they mean?”

Julie wagged her head impressively.

“ ‘I love you.’ ”

“Do they, really? How do you know?” her sister asked curiously,
suppressing her desire to laugh.

“I read it the other day—in a paper.”

“Oh, well, I don’t expect Harvey reads quite the same papers as you,”
Ariane said gravely.
 “No, I don’t expect he does.” Julie was willing to concede that. “But
anyway, he means that, even if he didn’t choose red roses on purpose.”

There was no answer.

“Doesn’t he, Ariane?”

“Why yes, of course,” Ariane said calmly, and gathered up the discussed
roses in her hands as her mother and Julie hurried off to get ready.

The short drive in the sunshine, the quick glimpse of interested faces as
she crossed from the car to the porch, the old rather dim church which she
had known all her life, the swelling sound of the organ that, in her
childhood, she had vaguely supposed came from heaven. None of them
seemed very real to Ariane on her wedding day.

The church was crowded for, however quiet the wedding might be, there
were a good many people who were interested to see Ariane married to the
eldest and richest of the Muldane brothers.

Many of them were her friends—looking at her with the kindly good-will
which she quite naturally aroused. Some of them were mere acquaintances,
drawn there by curiosity over a marriage which united two big business
rivals in rather unusual circumstances. A few were nothing more than the
idle gazers which any wedding attracts.
 But to Ariane they might all have been the same. Friends and strangers
had merged into one. They were simply the indistinguishable blur on either
side as she walked down the aisle to meet Harvey.

He was smiling very slightly as she came up to him, and his mouth had
that touch of grimness which probably meant a certain amount of
nervousness.

Ariane smiled at him, much more tenderly than she knew. She wanted to
make him feel everything was quite all right, but perhaps he saw from the
faint trembling of the dark red roses that Ariane was not entirely free from
nervousness herself.

The grimness relaxed, and the smile deepened.

“You look lovely,” he whispered. “I’m very proud of you.”

Ariane used to wonder afterwards if it were very wicked of her to find

that much the most important moment of all. But she couldn’t help it. He
might have meant it half teasingly—in fact, he probably did—but that
didn’t matter. The thrilling new relationship had been established by that
sentence.

Only one person now had the right to be proud of her, and that was her
husband—Harvey.
 It was over at last.

“Such a pretty wedding. Doesn’t she look sweet?” “Nothing ever lodes
nicer than a white wedding.” “He’s good-looking, too, isn’t he?” “Yes, but
they say he—”

Ariane was sharply aware of the snatches of remarks on every side as she
came back along the aisle, this time on Harvey’s arm. It was as though
everything were all the more clear-cut in contrast to the vagueness before.

She wished she could have heard the end of the last sentence—known
what it was that “they” said about Harvey. But at that moment they came
out into the sunshine once more, there was a little burst of cheering and
good wishes, a cloud of confetti—and then they were in the car once more,
driving rapidly homewards.

“All right?”

“Yes, thank you. Quite all right.”

“Did you find it much of a strain?”

“Well, no—not really, thank you.” It was a funny way, she thought, to be
speaking of one’s wedding. And then, conscientiously: “Did you?”

He shook his head.

 “Not after you arrived and steadied my pulse with a most reassuring
smile,” he told her teasingly.

“Oh—” She coloured slightly, and then glanced down at her bouquet.
“Thank you for the roses, Harvey. Did you choose them yourself?”

“Of course.”

“They’re beautiful. I like them much better than any conventional pinks
and whites.”

“Do you? I’m glad. I chose them because they’re like you.”

“Like me!” Ariane turned to look at him in surprise. “But there’s nothing
dark and colourful about me. I couldn’t be much fairer.”

“Oh, in looks, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s your disposition. Warm and—
deep and—I suppose ‘gracious’ is the word, although, of course, you’re
much too young to have that used of you.”

“Harvey!” She scarcely knew what to say in reply. “How—how very nice
of you.” She tried to make her voice as light and casual as possible, but
without much success. It was much the most personal thing he had ever
said to her, and it touched her deeply.
 Ariane was silent for the rest of the short drive, but her heart was really
telegraphing little messages to her mind: “It’s going to be all right ... He
isn’t hard and indifferent really. He likes me and trusts me ... It’s only a
matter of time ... After all, I’m here and Marta is not ... Men get over these
things—they do—they do—”

After that, everything seemed to move very quickly. So many

congratulations and good wishes, and kisses and handshakes. It was almost
no time before Caroline came over and whispered, “Isn’t it time you
slipped away to change?”

Ariane nodded.

“I won’t be very long, Harvey. If you’ll just have the car ready—We don’t
want to prolong the good-byes.”

“All right.”

Up in the bedroom, Ariane changed quickly to the soft blue suit with the
cuffs of smoke-grey fox.

“Funny how it always seems so sudden in the end, isn’t it?” Caroline said.
“That’s why people always howl at weddings. They’re a bit like funerals in
that way.”
 “Thanks for the happy observation.” Ariane pulled on the blue hat that
was the colour of her eyes.

“Well, as a future bride to a present one, I feel I can be frank,” Caroline

said unconcernedly. “I’m sure I shall feel about as happy as a corpse at the
exact moment I leave home. It’s the afterwards that makes up for it.”

“I suppose you’re right. Where’s Julie?”

“Of course I’m right, though most brides won’t admit it. Julie’s
downstairs, sampling champagne and giving her views on matrimony in
general.”

“Oh heavens! I hope someone will keep an eye on her. She says such a
lot, even without champagne.”

“That’s all right. Frank had her in hand. He’ll see she doesn’t have more
than three sips before he switches her off on to lemonade.”

“Thank goodness for Frank. She’ll be all right if he’s there.”

“Yes. The Muldanes aren’t a bad lot, after all, are they?” Caroline smiled
reflectively.

“No. I’m satisfied with my share of them.”

 “I, too. You’re really happy, Ariane, aren’t you?” Caroline kissed her
affectionately.

“Oh yes, more than happy.” Ariane returned the kiss. And as they went
downstairs, she thought it was perfectly true. She was happy. There was a
feeling of hope and security in her heart which had not been there for a
long, long time. Not, she supposed, since Harvey had come into her life,
bringing such perilous happiness and disturbing misery.

As she had intended, the good-byes were not prolonged. A very heartfelt
embrace for her mother, another for Julie, a few determinedly gay farewells
to her new in-laws, and she was running down the steps to the car.

Harvey was holding the door for her, and, as she got in, a telegraph boy
came pedalling furiously up the drive.

“Another telegram for you, Mr. Muldane. Just in time!” he panted

triumphantly. He had already brought several that morning and knew quite
well which Mr. Muldane was concerned.

“Thanks.” Harvey put it into his pocket, and got into the car. “More
congratulations. I didn’t know so many people took a kindly interest in us,”
he added a little ironically.

It was pleasant and extraordinarily soothing here in the car, Ariane

thought. She didn’t feel it was necessary to talk, and for an hour they drove
almost in silence.

Then at last Harvey spoke.

“Is it very unromantic for a bridegroom to feel disgustingly hungry, do

you suppose?”

“I don’t know. But I feel it’s very natural for a bride to be the same. Let’s
stop at the next likely looking place, shall we?”

“I see, Ariane, that we’re going to agree remarkably well.” He gave her a
friendly, amused look that warmed her heart. And a minute or two later he
drew up the car outside a hospitable-looking inn.

It was considerably after lunch-time, but if they didn’t mind waiting a

little, it seemed, a meal could easily be got ready.

They didn’t mind waiting. Time was really not very important. They
didn’t propose to get specially far that day on their way to the Cornish
coast.

Nobody else was in the pleasant, raftered room, and they sat down at a
table in the window to wait while their meal was prepared.

“Would you like a cigarette?” he asked.

 “No, thank you. I really scarcely ever smoke. But you have one if you
want it.”

He put his hand in his pocket, and drew out his cigarette-case and the
final telegram together.

“Oh, let’s see who else is wishing us well.” He slid his thumb under the
flap, with a slight smile.

She watched idly while he took out the flimsy sheet of paper. But, after
glancing at it, he just pushed it into his pocket again.

“Not congratulations, after all,” he said.

“Just business?” She was not really curious, but the question came quite
naturally.

“No.” There was a short pause. “It’s from Marta, as a matter of fact.”

“Marta!” It was as though a warning gong had sounded in her brain.

Something which gave her the same thrill of fear as a fire-alarm or an
ambulance-bell. “I didn’t know Marta knew we were being married.”

“She didn’t. It’s a cable from New York. She’s on her way home.”
 Ariane didn’t say anything. She stared hard at the table. He mustn’t think
she was surprised or curious. It was the kind of crisis in which she must
show her coolness and tact. She didn’t want him to feel she thought she had
a right to see that message from Marta.

Apparently, however, he did feel so, because, after a second or two, he

drew the crumpled telegram out of his pocket again.

“You can see it if you like. It means nothing at all now. And you’ve every
right to see it.” He jerked out the words doggedly, and she saw that the
sheet of paper was shaking very slightly as he spread it out in front of her.

She understood why. She was shaking a little too as she read the printed
words.

“On my way home, darling. Everything here a washout. Meet me

Heathrow Thursday, 4 pm. All my love.

Marta.”
 CHAPTER XII

Ariane didn’t raise her eyes for a moment.

“What are you going to do about it?” Her voice sounded extraordinarily
calm and matter-of-fact.

“Do? Nothing, of course. What did you think I should do?”

“I don’t know. If she’s expecting you, it’s a little—odd, I suppose, to do

nothing at all.”

“Oh no. She’s probably sent the same wire to half a dozen other men.
Some of them are bound to turn up.” His voice was hard and ironical.

She laughed faintly at that, but there was no answering laugh from him.

And then suddenly Ariane knew that if anything were to be done about
this crisis it must be she herself who did it. He was past handling the
situation. It was simply there like a deadweight between them, forcing
them apart, just when she had dared to hope that things were going to be all
right.
 She looked up. He was gazing abstractedly out of the window, that dark,
slightly sullen look showing the degree of strain.

“Harvey—”

His eyes came back to her face.

“We didn’t expect to come up against it so soon, of course, but it was a

situation we knew we should have to face sometime.” She wondered
whether he were resenting the “we,” but it was too late to take it back now.
“Don’t think I don’t know it’s ghastly for you, but once this is over, you’ll
see ahead much more clearly. It would always have been there, you know,
as a vague cloud in the future and—”

Her voice trailed off, because that sudden spurt of courage was failing.
Why couldn’t she have kept quiet, instead of babbling inane consolation?
Probably he was thinking that at least she might have had the good taste to
leave him alone.

“I’m sorry, Harvey.” She spoke again after a moment, but this time her
voice was very low and she sounded like a little girl who had suddenly
found herself a long way from home. “I’m sorry. I ought not to have rushed
in like that. Particularly when you must be wishing me at Jericho, in any
case. It’s only natural.”
 “No.” Harvey spoke then. “No, I wasn’t wishing anything of the sort. I
was wishing—”

“What?”

“Perhaps that I had half your courage and decency.”

“Why, Harvey! I—I don’t think I know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Do you realize that ninety-nine women out of a hundred

would have said how ghastly it was for them? You didn’t. You spoke about
my difficulties, as though your own feelings didn’t exist.”

“But it’s so much worse for you,” Ariane said simply.

“Is it, my dear?” He put his hand lightly over hers. “Well, if you can say
that, it’s for me to see you never feel it is worse for you, after all.”

She wanted to say something else—she scarcely knew what—but just

then a servant arrived to set their meal and there was no opportunity to
discuss things further. As soon as they had been left alone again, Harvey
spoke firmly of something quite different, and somehow it was impossible
to force the conversation back to the original point.

But Ariane found it difficult to make coherent answers. She felt utterly
bewildered, not only by the disastrous fact of Marta’s arrival, but because
she scarcely knew what to make of Harvey’s reaction.

That he was miserable and undecided about Marta she knew. But it was
odd that, even so, he found time and thought to praise her part in the
business.

“Anyway, I don’t know that I was so specially noble about it,” Ariane
reflected honestly. “It’s surely natural to want to help a man when you love
him.”

But then, of course, Harvey didn’t know that she loved him. Perhaps he
thought she was clinging with pathetic literalness to the vows she had made
a few hours ago. And, in that case, he probably felt that he ought to do the
same.

What was it he had said of Marta? “She’s romance and glamour and
fascination to me—and always will be.”

But since then he had solemnly promised to look after Ariane. And he had
meant those promises. He was determined that she should come to no harm
through him.

“That’s what it is, of course,” thought Ariane with a sigh. “The old, old
struggle between love and duty. And I’m going to have the unattractive task
of representing duty—
 “And so I think we’d better not try to get further than that tonight,”
Harvey’s voice broke across her thoughts.

“No—no, I’m sure you’re right.” She had no idea what they were talking
about, but she must go on pretending, keeping up her part in the
conversation.

And behind her smiling, attentive mask, her thoughts were running on:

“It was utterly absurd to take this on. Much more absurd even than the
fiasco with Frank. Because this time I care, and so everything counts so
much more. He’s deadly determined to do the right thing by me, and that
puts a miserable barrier round me from the first. And he’s scared and
impressed by what he thinks my sense of duty. He believes I’m playing my
part much more conscientiously than he. Oh, what a horrible muddle!”

And all the time that her thoughts were darting desperately to and fro, she
was agreeably discussing alternative routes with Harvey.

“Shall we go now?” He suggested at last.

“I think so.” She got up. “There’s nothing else to keep us.”

In spite of their intention not to go very far, it was really quite late when
they stopped for the night.
 The big hotel they had chosen was a landmark for miles around, and,
although some distance from any large town, prided itself on having every
luxury.

Certainly the suite into which they were shown would not have disgraced
either London or Paris.

“Oh, how nice!” Ariane exclaimed involuntarily.

The manager himself had conducted them there, and he smiled at Ariane’s
pleasure.

“Yes, madam. We call this our honeymoon suite, you know,” he

explained. “It has everything I think that you could wish.”

“Thank you. I’m sure we shall be comfortable.” Ariane’s answering smile

was polite, but when he had withdrawn, she stared rather hard at the panels
of the door. It was so obvious that he never, for one moment, supposed they
were a honeymoon couple.

“Are we so desperately lacking in all the signs?” thought Ariane with a

sort of amused wistfulness. “Funny—most honeymoon couples would be
thankful to hide it so well, but I hate our being classed as past the romantic
stage.”
 Not that Harvey was inattentive to her, or anything but perfectly
courteous when they went down to the palatial dining room. But then, after
all, brothers and cousins and fathers could accord you that impersonal
courtesy. That wasn’t what you wanted on the first evening of your
honeymoon.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ariane told herself sternly. “You knew perfectly

well that you couldn’t expect anything else. He told you why he was
marrying you. For companionship and a quiet home-life. Why are you
complaining?”

But she wasn’t really complaining, of course. It was only that she couldn’t
help asking herself how much “companionship” was supposed to cover.

She asked herself the same question several times during dinner. But the
answer never presented itself.

It was a little difficult to know what to do, once dinner was over. Each
deferred politely to the wishes of die other, with the result that it was
impossible to express overwhelming enthusiasm for anything.

They went into the ballroom and danced a couple of dances. Then Harvey
suddenly said with frank sincerity:

“What I’d really like to do would be to get out into the open air and have
a sharp walk. It was a bit cramping in the car, wasn’t it? and I’ve had
nearly enough of these Buckingham Palace effects.”

Ariane opened her lips to agree eagerly. Then she remembered that he
was probably longing to get away alone.

“Would you like me to come too?” Her voice was very casual. But he
glanced at her quickly.

“Why—of course.” He seemed very much taken aback. “But only if you
want to,” he added politely, the next minute.

“I’d love to,” she cried, with what she afterwards thought indecent
eagerness. “It was only—Will you wait five minutes while I change? I
won’t be long, really.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” he told her with a slightly puzzled smile. And as
he watched her run up the stairs, his face said very plainly that he didn’t
think he understood Ariane very well.

She was very little more than the promised five minutes, and when she
came down again—in a navy trouser suit with a yellow jumper that made
her look about fifteen—he was sitting at a desk in the lounge scribbling
something in pencil.

“Ready?” She sounded quite gay as she called across to him. But at the
slightly startled way he jumped to his feet, she felt her heart give a
sickening little jerk. And as he stuffed his scribblings into his pocket, she
knew what he had been doing. Roughing out a letter to Marta.

They went out together.

It was really quite cool when they got outside, and beyond the hotel
grounds there was nothing but a glimmer of moonlight to guide them.

“Sure you’re warm enough?”

“Oh yes, thank you.”

“And you’re not nervous?”

“Of what?” She laughed a little.

“Oh, I don’t know—The dark and the loneliness, I suppose.”

“It’s Ariane you’re taking out, you know—not Julie,” she reminded him
with a hint of amusement again.

And he said, “I’m sorry, my dear. How absurd of me,” and took her arm
after that.

It comforted her immeasurably, even though it probably only meant that

he didn’t want her to stumble. The very touch of his arm was something.
 They didn’t talk very much, any more than they had in the car when they
first drove away from home. But she felt, somehow, as though they had
captured something of that pleasant content again.

Only when they had turned back again and he spoke quite casually of
their home and the way they intended to have it, did she remember there
was something that she wanted to say to him.

“Harvey—you know when you said all those—nice things to me last

night?” (Was it really only last night?) “About being good to me, I mean?”

“Um-hm?” He sounded faintly amused and faintly embarrassed.

“Well, I—didn’t say so at the time, but I want you to know that—that I’ll
try hard, too, you know. I expect I shall make some pretty clumsy mistakes
at first—”

“I don’t expect for one moment that you will,” he interrupted calmly.
“You almost invariably do exactly the right thing.”

“Oh no—oh no, really.” She was rather more distressed than gratified by
that. “Please don’t expect too much, or else I shall fall very far short, and
then you’ll be—”

“Bad-tempered?” He drew her arm close against his side. “Is that what
you’re afraid of?”
 “No, I wasn’t going to say that at all.”

“What, then?”

“Well, I was only trying to say that I’d do my best to be a—a good wife,
and please don’t expect too much, but just give me the credit for trying.
That’s all,” she finished rather lamely.

“All right, I’ll remember,” he said.

She thought he was not going to add anything to that, but as they came to
the deep patch of shadow thrown by the trees at the entrance of the hotel
grounds, he said very quietly:

“Ariane.”

“Yes?”

“Kiss me, will you?”

Perhaps he knew that, with Ariane, there would be no whys and

wherefores and tiresome questions. At any rate, if he thought that, he was
right. She simply put up her face to his, and gave him a sweet, firm kiss on
his mouth.

Then they went on through the grounds and into the hotel.
 Even in the light, Ariane looked perfectly calm and collected. She knew
instinctively that that was how he would have her look. But that kiss could
not have meant nothing. It simply couldn’t—surely? And all the while, her
mind was searching frantically, hopefully, for a reason.

Was Marta—agitating, fascinating creature that she was—to be forced

into the background even of his thoughts? Was he going to give this
marriage with Ariane a fair trial as a genuine marriage, instead of just the
inhuman, unnatural bargain they had made. Surely he must know from the
way she had kissed him that whatever he chose to do she would accept.

Or did a kiss ever betray so much? His kiss had not told her much, after
all.

She saw from the clock in their sitting-room that it was late when they got
in, and she said almost immediately:

“I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“All right. Would you like anything?—a hot drink of some sort?”

“No, thank you. I’m not cold a bit; only rather tired.”

He nodded.

“Good night, then. I shan’t be long myself.”

 “Good night,” Ariane said, and went into her room.

Perhaps he considered one kiss enough for the evening. Or perhaps he had
only intended to say a partial good night. Did “I shan’t be long” mean
anything but that he was going to his own room in a minute or two?

She couldn’t possibly have said.

Ariane undressed rather slowly. She was in a curious state of mind

between apprehension and excitement, and sometimes she thought that kiss
had meant everything—and sometimes that it had meant nothing.

She got into bed presently, and switched off the light, leaving only the
moonlight. At least—no, not only the moonlight, for her room led straight
into the sitting-room, and there was a line of light under the door, telling
her that Harvey was still in there.

For a long time she lay watching it, and wondering what he was doing.
Reading?—smoking?—thinking things over? But surely they had both
thought things over for long enough.

Whatever it was, he was taking a long time about it.

And then suddenly she knew.

 She called herself a fool for having forgotten, anyway. Of course—he was
writing to Marta. And it was taking him a very long time to do it.

It was hard to say why, but at that her power of resting suddenly vanished.

It was nothing to do with jealousy. It was not even curiosity. She only
knew that if she could see his face as he wrote those lines to Marta she
would have some clue to how she should act in future.

Ariane got out of bed.

It was no attempt to spy on him. She only wanted help—some sort of

guide—in the maze in which she had found herself.

Very quietly she opened the door slightly.

There was no question of his hearing her, for the doors of the luxury suite
moved as though by magic. There was also no question of his seeing her,
for he was sitting with his back to her.

He was not writing, she saw, but a second later she realized that he had
been doing so, for he was reading from an unfolded sheet of paper in his
hand.

And then, even as she watched him, he must have reached the last words,
for, with a little wordless sound, he suddenly put his head down on his
arms.

She stood there staring at him in utter dismay. Never in her life had she so
longed to do anything as to run to him and put her arms round him.

But she must not, she knew. She was quite outside this inner life of his. It
was something she could neither share nor help.

Very quietly, she closed the door once more, and as she did so, she shut
out her ridiculous hopes and thoughts of ten minutes ago.

One kiss. What did that mean? It was Marta he wanted, not herself.

After that, it was no surprise to hear him get up and go to his own room.
The line of light under the door disappeared. Harvey had gone to bed. She
might as well do the same.

But she didn’t.

She sat on the side of her bed instead, watching the faint moonlight travel
slowly across the carpet. And all the while, growing deeper every minute,
was a cold humiliation of spirit that was more bitter than anything she had
ever known.

He didn’t want her. That was all—the beginning and the end of it.
 She climbed stiffly into her luxurious bed at last. But the pale moonlight
had given place to a pale dawn before she finally fell asleep.

Once or twice during the next few days, Ariane found herself wondering
who was responsible for starting that most trying institution, the
honeymoon.

Of course, if two people adored each other, or had every thought in

common, it was probably all right. Though even then, she reflected, it
must: be something of a strain suddenly to have to share every particular of
your life with someone, without even the security round you of the people
and places you knew.

But in her case it was hopelessly difficult. She had to hide her feelings.
She had to hide the fact that she knew his feelings. And they both had to
pretend to a situation which didn’t exist, for the benefit of any third person.

Perhaps they managed better than Ariane supposed, because the days slid
slowly past without any ruffling of the calm relationship between herself
and Harvey.

The evenings were the worst part. It was not so bad during the long hours
of September sunshine, when one could swim or walk or lie reading on the
smooth sand of the little Cornish cove. And it was not so bad at night when
—at least sometimes—one could sleep.
 But the evenings, when the deepening twilight seemed gradually to shut
away the outer world, and everything narrowed down to one’s own
immediate surroundings!

Ariane supposed that was the time which honeymoon lovers valued most
of all. The time when they exchanged their most intimate thoughts, and
were happy in their growing understanding of each other.

She could not, by any stretch of imagination, see herself and Harvey
exchanging their most intimate thoughts. It would probably mean a series
of violent shocks on both sides if they did, she reflected with faint humour.
And, in consequence, this was the time when, instead of understanding
each other better, they seemed to drift farther apart every moment.

Only bed-time released her from what was a nightly struggle to find
subjects of conversation which did not lead straight to their tangled
problems.

Nothing more was said about Marta, although the day of her return had
come and gone. And then, towards the end of the second week, Ariane saw
a photograph of her in one of the newspapers in the hotel reading-room.

Those long, lovely eyes seemed to smile up at her from the table, where
the paper had been thrown, and, with a feeling of frightened defiance,
Ariane leant over to read the interview printed beneath it.
 It was expressed in journalese of the more sensational order, and drew
attention to itself by a heavy black heading, announcing that:

“money doesn’t mean happiness,” declares

MARTA ROMA AFTER WHIRLWIND COURTSHIP AND

DISSILLUSIONMENT

In it, Marta was understood to express herself—with a frankness which

might, of course, have been her own or the reporter’s—on the subject of
her very brief marriage.

So far as Ariane could gather, it had taken her (or perhaps the millionaire)
only a few weeks to find that they had made a mistake. But the magic
phrase “temperamentally unsuited” appeared to have separated them again
with the usual miraculous ease.

The interviewer even added that they had parted in a perfectly friendly
spirit, though Ariane could not help wondering if the millionaire had parted
in the same perfectly friendly spirit with that portion of his millions which,
doubtless, had had to accompany Marta.

Right at the end, on being questioned about the future, Marta had stated
very definitely that she had no immediate intention of returning to the
London stage. She was going away “somewhere quiet” in order to recover
her “emotional and nervous balance.”
 Ariane raised her head and gazed thoughtfully in front of her. She was not
concerned with the problem of Marta’s restored balance—either emotional
or nervous. She was wondering with sudden acute misgiving whether
Norchester might be described as “somewhere quiet.”

For a moment, Ariane was sorely tempted to tear up the paper and thrust it
away where Harvey would not see it. But almost immediately she realized
what an absurd impulse that was. After all, you couldn’t go about
destroying the property of a hotel reading-room, simply because you were
frightened of your husband knowing the truth.

Whether or not Harvey saw the paper, in the end, she never knew. At any
rate, he made no comment about it. And three days later, he and Ariane left
for home.

She supposed it was ridiculous that her spirits bounded up so eagerly, and
she tried to tell herself it was the thought of her mother and Julie which
lightened her heart so much. But she knew perfectly well it was even more
because she hoped that her relations with Harvey would be easier and
happier when they were in familiar surroundings once more.

It was delightful, that first sight of home again as they turned the bend in
the drive. Then the door flew open and Julie precipitated herself down the
steps, to fling her arms round Ariane and kiss her. And there was Mother,
hurrying out, too. As Ariane ran to her, she heard Julie say politely to
Harvey:
 “I’ll kiss you too, if you like. After all, we are related.”

“Oh, Mother darling!” Ariane hugged her ecstatically, and then turned in
time to see Harvey gravely bending for Julie’s kiss as he said :

“Since you say it is perfectly proper, my mind is quite at rest.”

Then he greeted Mrs. Dobson, and they all went into the house.

It was all so much like the safe, familiar, pre-marriage days that Ariane
could have laughed with sheer relief. And Harvey, she noticed, seemed to
enjoy the atmosphere too.

After tea, she drove down with him to his own home, and, at her
suggestion, they went round by way of their future home, to see how
building was progressing.

Apparently everything had gone on very smoothly, because a good deal

more progress had been made than either of them had expected. And
Ariane was touched and pleased at the surprised delight Harvey showed.

“Look, Ariane!” He took her arm, and led her round to the other side of
the building. “I’d no idea they were going to make such an attractive thing
of this covered walk.”
 Ariane privately thought it looked a bit like a builder’s yard still, but she
agreed enthusiastically that one could see how nice it was going to be.

“Then here, too—” He insisted on going all over the skeleton building,
discussing its future beauties. And though Ariane thought the place
delightful, it was far more delightful to her to see that happy, almost
childlike excitement of ownership which sat so oddly on Harvey’s rather
grim face.

“Perhaps it’s going to be all right, after all,” she told herself wistfully.
And then, at the extreme familiarity of that thought, she wondered how
often she was to hope that, and how often be disappointed.

In the end, it was she who had to remind him that probably his family
were expecting them. And, even then, he came away with a reluctant,
backward glance which she thought was one of the nicest things she had
ever seen in Harvey.

Their arrival at the Muldanes’ home was not quite the tempestuous affair
that Julie’s welcome had been. Evidently no one had heard them drive up,
and Harvey let them in with his own key.

While he went at once to his father’s study, Ariane went in search of Sally
—not because she felt so much eagerness to see her, but because she
reflected that Sally had better exhaust her inquisitive inquiries on herself,
rather than irritate Harvey with them.
 Sally was in the library. Ariane heard her voice as soon as she approached
the door.

“It isn’t as though Harvey’s in the least fond of her,” she was saying. And
Ariane stopped dead.

There was an indistinguishable murmur from Maurice, which was

presumably some form of protest, because Sally retorted sharply:

“Don’t be absurd. You know as well as I do that he just married Ariane

out of pique. Of course she’s a nice girl, and of course he thinks he’ll make
do with her. Men are so silly. They talk vaguely of settling down and
having a home as though it’s some sort of spell. But I wouldn’t give much
for Harvey’s settling down and home-making, the moment that hussy
begins on him again. If you’re not worried at seeing her car here, I am. And
I don’t mind betting that Ariane will lose some sleep over it too.”
 CHAPTER XIII

Ariane stood where she was for a moment, very white and breathing
rather quickly, as though she had been running. Then she turned and went
along to old Mr. Muldane’s study. She would go in there with Harvey, after
all. She couldn’t face Sally and Maurice just now. Not when they had been
discussing her like that.

And Marta! Marta was here in Norchester already. She couldn’t pretend it
was anything of a surprise. It was merely the obvious thing to happen. But
oh, how she hated to think of yet another step in this ignominious struggle.

Mr. Muldane greeted her very kindly—took her face in his hands and
kissed her, rather as though she were his own daughter, and told her she
looked prettier than ever.

It comforted Ariane and made her remember how he had said she would
be good for Harvey.

“Am I?” she thought unhappily. “Am I even that? If I could think so, I
believe I could bear all the rest.”
 Presently they went into the lounge, and the other members of the family
joined them. There was nothing in Sally’s or Maurice’s manner to recall the
conversation Ariane had overheard, but she found it impossible to be
entirely at ease with them, and was afraid her manner was a trifle stiff.

Then Caroline came in with Frank, and told Ariane about the Hospital
Ball Caroline was organizing, and the various matters of great or small
importance which had happened in Norchester while she had been away.

No one, however, mentioned the matter of greatest importance. Marta

might still have been in Chicago with her millionaire for all she figured in
the conversation.

Instead, Ariane had to pretend that few things were more absorbing than
the Hospital Ball, and that of course she and Harvey would be only too
delighted to make their first “official” appearance after their marriage
there.

“Thanks. I knew I could count on you as two certainties,” Caroline

grinned. “Everyone who is anybody, and quite a lot who are nobody, are
coming.”

Everybody! Ariane found herself wondering several times during the

evening whether the one person unmentioned by them all would find a
place among the “everybody.”
 It was not really late when they both returned home, but already Mrs.
Dobson—and, of course, Julie—were in bed.

At first Ariane was slightly surprised. Then she realized this was probably
her mother’s tactful way of indicating that they were to go and come as
they pleased. No one would wait up for them or ask questions about what
they did. It would be as nearly as possible as though they were there alone.

“How very sweet and considerate of Mother,” thought Ariane with a

smile. But, actually, she could have done with less tact and more company.
As it was, it fell to her to inquire politely if Harvey had everything he
wanted in his room, and so on. And, somehow, it was very odd behaving to
your own husband as though he were your guest.

But if Harvey found anything queer in it, he certainly made no sign. And
after a kindly but casual “good night”, he went to his own room. While
Ariane, with an equally casual “good night”, went to hers.

The next morning, everything seemed, if possible, even more like the old
days. Harvey went off quite early to the Works, while Ariane was free to
occupy herself or amuse herself in just the way she always had. Her mother
was there for discussion or advice if she needed either, and Julie, though
always full of her own business, was as eager as ever to join
enthusiastically in whatever was going on.
 Once or twice, Ariane had to turn her wedding-ring on her finger in order
to persuade herself that the last few weeks were not all a dream.

It was not until late in the afternoon, when she and her mother were
sitting sewing and talking in that pleasant half-hour before tea, that Mrs.
Dobson said:

“You know, Ariane, since I always spoke quite frankly when I had
anything to say in criticism of Harvey, it’s only fair to say that I am
forming a very different opinion of him now.”

“Are you, Mother?” Ariane smiled a little, but felt a good deal surprised
as well. Her mother was not very quick to change her opinion of people
and things.

“It’s a great deal because of what Mr. Jordan says.”

“Oh?” Her surprise increased at that. Mr. Jordan, the acting manager of
Dobson’s, was not a man who often expressed approval.

“Yes.” Mrs. Dobson spoke emphatically. “He had a great deal to do with
Harvey, of course, in settling up the affairs of Dobson’s, and he seems to
have been very much struck by his whole attitude.”

“Well, I’m awfully glad you feel more confidence in him,” Ariane said
mildly. “How—how are things working out? Financially, I mean.”
 “Most satisfactorily, my dear. Much more satisfactorily than I had dared
to hope.” Mrs. Dobson’s face looked very bright and free from strain as she
spoke, and Ariane felt a warm rush of gratitude towards her husband for all
he had done.

“I must have had a distinctly over-gloomy idea of things before, you

know,” her mother went on cheerfully. “Actually, Dobson’s seems to be in
a fairly sound condition. It has not been necessary to sell—for which I am
more thankful than I can say—and Muldanes seem to have considered it
well worth their while to arrange something in the nature of an
amalgamation. I really don’t understand much about it,” Mrs. Dobson
added with obvious truth. “But Mr. Jordan is very satisfied.”

“Then Dobson’s will go on under its own name?” Ariane’s voice shook a
little.

“Yes. Even that, Ariane I And it seems that there will be a very sound
little income for me and Julie, on a part-shares basis. It’s so much more
than I could ever have imagined. You can’t think what a weight it is off my
mind, not having to—to sponge on anybody.”

“Oh yes, I can understand entirely, darling.” Ariane came over and kissed
her. “It’s no more than you deserve after the brave way you struggled for
the last year or two. And I’m specially glad that Dobson’s should be able to
keep the name. I know it means a lot to you.”
 “Yes.” Mrs. Dobson nodded happily. “I expect really, you know, the
Muldanes are very, very glad to be associated with a name like Dobson’s.”

“I daresay you’re right,” Ariane said gently. And then: “I think I’ll just
stroll down the road to meet Harvey.”

She went out into the hall, and, slipping on a coat, walked down the road
in the direction from which she knew he must come.

Her heart was so full that she scarcely knew what words she could use to
thank him. He would probably say he had only done what he had promised
to do. But it was not even so much the actual fact of what he had done, as
the way in which he had arranged everything. So tactfully and
thoughtfully, so that her mother should never have to feel—what she hated
most of all—that she was under an obligation to anyone.

And Sally, with her cheap little sneers, had tried to cast doubts on his
being a considerate husband!

Ariane had just reached the point of deciding that Sally was the silliest
and most unkind person she knew, when she saw Harvey’s car
approaching.

She waved, and he drew up at once.

“Hello, Ariane. Where are you off to?”

 “Nowhere. I just came down the road to meet you.”

“You—” He looked intensely surprised for a moment, and, then, with an

expression of extraordinary gratification, he leaned forward and opened the
door. “Did you, my dear? That was extremely nice of you.”

“Not such a very unusual attention, surely, to pay one’s husband?” she
said lightly, and smiled at him as she got in.

“I don’t know. It’s the first time I remember it happening to me. But then
I haven’t been a husband before,” he added, as he prepared to start the car
again.

“No, wait a minute. I want to thank you for something. I’ve just been
hearing from Mother how things were arranged at the Works and—you’re
an angel, Harvey!”

He laughed slightly.

“Nonsense. I thought we arranged all that long ago.”

“But I didn’t know just how you were going to do it. With such kindness
and tact. I scarcely know what to say.”

He put his arm round her at that and gave her a light kiss.
 “You are a dear, funny girl, Ariane. Do you always thank everyone for
everything?”

“I don’t know. But it seems to me that I’m always having good reason to
thank you for something.”

“You exaggerate,” he told her, as he started the car.

But when he handed her out a few minutes later he said:

“It’s odd—I believe you really do approve of me.”

“Well, of course!”

“Not ‘of course’ at all. It’s a very novel sensation, I assure you. But I like
it,” he added, with a touch of reflective amusement as they went into the
house.

The next few days were, with minor variations, very much like the first
one. Harvey was exceedingly busy, and Ariane saw very little of him,
except in the evenings, when they would very often stroll down to see how
the building of the house was progressing.

She and her mother were a great deal together in the daytime—very
happy in each other’s company, as they had always been. And Julie shared
in most things with characteristic energy.
 Of Marta Ariane neither heard nor saw anything, and she could only
suppose that, for once, she had spoken the truth when she described herself
as in need of quiet. Unless, of course, she was busily preparing for some
new conquest.

In due course, Julie departed on a visit to a school friend, and on the same
day, Mrs. Dobson went to visit an old friend who lived the other side of the
county.

“So for a day or two you really will have the place to yourself, my dear,”
she said, as she kissed Ariane good-bye.

And Ariane smiled and had to pretend that being left alone had its
advantages.

On the night of the Hospital Ball, she dressed with more than usual care,
reflecting as she did so, that it must have been in something like this mood
that soldiers used to polish their swords and lances before they went into
battle.

In her own mind there was practically no doubt that Marta would be
there. Why else should she have lingered on in Norchester? And why else
should she have held her hand until now?

She probably intended to meet her adversary on her own ground and
vanquish her with a couple of glances and a few honeyed words. It made
Ariane feel sick and nervous even to think of it. But it also had the effect of
stiffening her determination to fight too, if necessary.

“It’s a bit sordid, put like that,” Ariane told her reflection in the mirror.
“Two women squabbling for a man.” Then she paused, because she could
hear Harvey moving about in the next room and whistling quietly to
himself.

“It’s not sordid at all,” she thought the next moment. “It’s just looking
after one’s husband properly. In some ways a man has to look after a
woman, but occasionally it’s the other way round. And he never used to
whistle like that in Marta’s time.”

“Ready?” Harvey tapped on her door.

“Almost,” Ariane called out. “You can come in if you like.”

Harvey came in.

He stood watching her as she clasped her pearls round her throat and tied
the sash of her moonlight-blue dress. Then he spoke, as though
involuntarily.

“You are beautiful, Ariane,” he said slowly. “And you’re most beautiful
of all when you wear blue or white.”
 “White?” Ariane glanced at him in the glass and laughed. “Sure I look
nice in white?”

“Well, of course.” He looked interrogative. “Don’t all blondes look nice

in white?”

“I thought I was once described as ‘a mother’s darling got up to look like

the Dying Swan’ when I wore white,” she reminded him.

“Oh—lord, I’d forgotten.” He laughed, too, but he flushed deeply. “I’m

glad you told me I was a pompous ass that night,” he volunteered suddenly.
“I deserved it. You were really looking lovely, of course.”

“Thank you, Harvey. Then I take back my remark about you,” Ariane
said, and slipped into her evening coat, feeling cheered by the small
incident.

It was quite a short drive to the Assembly Rooms where the ball was
being held, and Ariane scarcely had time to feel nervous again before she
and Harvey were entering the really beautifully proportioned hall, which
dated back to Regency times.

“My dear, you look charming,” Caroline greeted her hastily. “Go about
and be frightfully social and amiable, won’t you? I’m supposed to be one
of the semi-official hostesses for this ramp, and I feel it’s up to me to see
the atmosphere is thawed.” “I’ll do my meagre best,” Ariane promised, and
was passing on, when Caroline caught her arm. She didn’t speak at once,
and glancing at her friend, Ariane saw that she was looking past her at the
door, as though she didn’t very much like what she saw there.

“Ariane, don’t look frightfully startled or anything, but did you know
Marta Roma was coming tonight?”

“I’m not specially surprised,” Ariane replied, with a calm that astonished
herself. “Is she there now?”

Caroline nodded.

“Thanks, my dear.” And Ariane went on to greet a group of people she

knew.

She had been separated from Harvey for a minute or two, and when she
joined him she knew quite well that he too had seen Marta. Perhaps anyone
who knew and loved him less would not have been able to tell. But to
Ariane the signs were perfectly plain in the taut line of his jaw and the
faintly bad-tempered air about him.

She toyed for a moment with the idea of saying something very casual
about Marta, but dismissed it almost immediately in favour of the safer and
more conventional:

“Shall we dance now?”

 It was only when they were actually dancing that Ariane forced herself to
look in Marta’s direction.

Her experience in matrimony appeared to have added an interesting air of

melancholy to her face, and a couple of remarkably fine emerald bracelets
to her wrists. Her dress was a strange iridescent green, and, as she looked
at her, Ariane thought dispassionately: “Snake-woman.”

Marta’s companions at the moment were the Conningsbys, an

exceedingly wealthy family of landowners who lived some miles out of
Norchester, and Ariane had very little difficulty in identifying the
infatuated Charles Conningsby as the victim who was to be played off
against Harvey.

So far as she could see, there was no glance of greeting between Harvey
and Marta, but Ariane scarcely thought Marta had overlooked him.

She wondered a little if each was equally determined that the other should
give the first sign of recognition.

“Are you all right, Ariane?” Harvey bent his head suddenly to look at her,
and she realized then that she could not have been playing her part so well
as she had thought. She must be looking pale or strained or something
ridiculous, she told herself angrily.
 “Yes,” she assured Harvey. “Yes, I’m perfectly all right. It’s—it’s terribly
hot though, isn’t it?”

“Is it? Come and let’s stand aside here for a minute and get some air.”

He drew her into a sheltered little alcove, where there was a window,
which he opened.

“Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” She laughed in a slightly ashamed way. “There was
nothing the matter really. Just—”

“I know,” Harvey said coolly, and somehow she didn’t feel it was
necessary to explain any more. She just sat there in silence for a few
minutes, her hair faintly ruffled by the breeze from the open window.

Then at last she looked up.

“Shall we go back now?”

“If you like.” He held out his hand then, and, as he did so, the palms at
the entry to the alcove were pushed aside, and Marta came in.

There was always something faintly dramatic about her slightest

movement, and at that moment she looked drama personified. But her
words and her tone were ordinary enough, as she said:

“Are you going to run away from me all the evening? You’re really most
elusive, Harvey.”

Harvey bowed slightly to her with quite remarkable calm.

“There’s no question of running away from you. We just hadn’t happened

to meet yet.”

“Or is it—” Marta’s wicked eyes just slid to Ariane for a moment—“or is
it that the new Mrs. Muldane doesn’t let you out of her sight?”

“I assure you Ariane has a very tactful hand on the matrimonial rein,”
Harvey said, keeping his tone determinedly light and flippant.

“So young, and yet so clever?” Marta gave a cool and deadly smile at
Ariane.

“Oh, not specially clever.” Ariane managed somehow to smile back at

her, though her lips felt absurdly stiff. “Just trying to learn, you know.”

“You are too modest,” Marta told her. “Which reminds me that I have not
yet congratulated you—” she paused—“on a very clever catch—What is
the expressive English phrase?—Ah, I know. To catch on the rebound. It is
one of your sporting terms. So clever. Is that football, Harvey, or cricket?”
 “Neither, my dear,” Harvey said coolly. “At the moment it’s just bad taste.
Don’t you think you had better end this conversation?”

“In consideration for the colourless little Ariane’s colourless little

feelings? Harvey—” Marta put her hand on his arm and looked up at him
reproachfully. “Have you forgotten—”

“That’s more than enough.” Harvey brushed her hand from his arm with
almost brutal curtness. “I can’t possibly have you speaking of Ariane in
that way. She has done me the honour to become my wife—”

But Marta’s very beautiful laugh stopped him from going any further.

“She has done you the honour! Done you the honour! Another English
expression of delicious absurdity. Why, my dear Harvey, she was waiting
there, hoping against hope that you would drop into her lap, besottedly in
love with you since long before I met her.”

Ariane moved sharply, tried wildly to find words—anything to stop her.

But, just as Harvey seemed bereft of speech, So her own voice had failed
her, and she could only listen while Marta’s sweet, spiteful voice trickled
like an ugly stream between them.

“You thought she was pretending when she told me that she loved you. It
was nothing but the crude truth!—a shameless attempt to drag you away
from me even then—”
 “No—” began Harvey sharply.

“Well, look at her if you want your answer.” Marta laughed

contemptuously. “Why do you think she broke her engagement to your
brother? It wasn’t Frank she wanted. It was you. It was always you. And
now she’s got you—nicely caught, with her arms padlocked round your
neck.”

“Be quiet!”

The tone in which Harvey said that stopped even Marta’s words. Almost
sullenly he raised his eyes to Ariane’s white face. And he must indeed have
read his answer there, for even Harvey’s eyes had never been bright with
quite such lightning anger.

In that moment it seemed to Ariane that she touched the last depths of
humiliation.

There had been other dreadful moments since her first meeting with
Harvey, moments when she had felt stripped of nearly every defence, with
her hopes and her fears laid bare. But this was something much more awful
than any of those. There was only one thing in her mind now—and that
was flight.

And before anyone could say another word, she had pushed almost
blindly past both of them and slipped away.
 As she thrust her way quickly through the group of people by the door,
she had a confused impression that he was following her, but she refused to
turn her head. She didn’t want even to see that his anger had lessened. It
would certainly be no better to see quiet disgust or—pity written in his
eyes. All she wanted was to get away.

Once out on the landing, she fled to the sanctuary of the cloakroom.

The elderly attendant got stiffly to her feet, thrusting a bus ticket into her
book, to mark her place, as she did so.

“You’re got going already, are you, madam?”

“Yes, yes, I must go at once. Can I have my things, please? There’s my

ticket. Seventy-three. Yes—that white fur coat—no, the long one. Thank
you.”

She was hastily powdering her nose, thrusting her things into her bag, and
finally flinging on her coat.

But even so, he would have had plenty of time to establish himself
outside the door if he wanted to stop her. And at the moment, Ariane could
not, could not face questions and explanations and—pity. That was the
worst of all. Pity!

“Is there another way out?” She turned back to the attendant.
 “Besides the main entrance, madam? Oh yes. Turn to the right when you
go out of here—”

“No, no, you don’t understand.” Ariane chewed her underlip with nervous
impatience. “I mean, can I get out of here—out of the dressing-room, by
any other way but that door? There’s someone outside whom I don’t want
to see and—”

“Oh!” Comprehension dawned on the woman, and she grinned. “I see.

Giving him the slip, are you, miss?”

“S-something like that,” Ariane murmured, and noticed, in passing, that

such frivolity apparently deprived her of any married status.

“Ah well, now—” the woman hesitated. “There’s only the little back
stairway here, miss. It’s never used at night and not even lighted. Not for
the public at all, miss. They just bring the coals up here and the laundry
and so on. I’m not supposed to let anyone else use it, miss, and I’d have to
come down and bolt the door later. You see the point, miss.”

Ariane saw the point, and, fumbling in her bag, found a florin.

“Thank you very much, miss. If I hold the door like this you’ll get a little
light. Mind your lovely coat. The stairs are none too clean. You’ll find the
door at the bottom of the stairs. Just pull the bolt back, miss, and bang the
door after you. It shuts itself—”
 Ariane slowly groped her way downwards, guided by the faint light and
the stream of directions from above. As she drew back the bolt and opened
the door, there was a rush of cold air, and only then did she realize how her
cheeks were burning.

She was out in the street now, a strangely unfamiliar side street in the
darkness. Then a bus rumbled past at the end of the road, she found her
bearings, and everything became familiar once more.

If she ran to the end of the street she was quite likely to find a taxi. If
there was not one—well, anyway, there must be one. She couldn’t walk all
the way home like this.

There was a taxi, and thankfully she climbed into its dim and slightly
musty interior. It started with a jerk, which threw her back against the
shiny upholstery, and then at last, she was driving away from that
miserable dance, and the odious scene with Marta.

At first it had seemed as though the relief of getting away would be

sufficient in itself to soothe her. But now that the actual problem of escape
was solved, the stinging humiliation of it all was overwhelming.

What was he thinking? What must he be thinking? He would be utterly

dismayed, of course. There was nothing more revolting to any man than
the knowledge that he was loved by some woman he didn’t want.
 If she had had no connection with him he would probably have thought,
like most men: “Lord, that girl’s keen on me! How awful! Well, I’d better
keep out of her way, for her sake, poor little devil, as well as mine.”

But he couldn’t keep out of her way. He was married to her, securely tied
to an over-fond wife, who presumably had been waiting and hoping for the
kind of thing he couldn’t dream of giving her.

Every deepening degree of his discomfiture would add to the weight of

her humiliation.

“This the house, ma’am?” The driver was holding open the taxi door.

“Oh yes—yes, thank you.”

Ariane got out, paid him hastily, and, running up the steps, opened the
door with fingers which trembled a little.

The place was very quiet. Thank heaven that Mother and Julie were away.
There were only the servants at the back of the house, and they had heard
nothing.

She fled upstairs to her room and locked herself in. She was not quite sure
why. There was no need, really, to turn the key, since no one was there to
disturb her, but somehow the action in itself seemed to shut out part of the
misery which was pursuing her.
 What was he doing now? He must have grown pretty tired of waiting for
her—if indeed he had waited. He had probably gone back to the ballroom
long ago.

Anyway, of course, it didn’t matter now. Except—she wondered suddenly

if he would go off in exasperation and seek consolation with Marta. It was
not impossible. Perhaps, after all, she had acted too hastily. She ought not
to have yielded to impulse. It would have been more dignified and sensible
if—

At that point she heard the front door open and then close and—a moment
later—Harvey’s step as he came springing up the stairs.

He made straight for her room and rapped sharply on the door.

“Ariane.”

Silence. And then: “What do you want?”

“You,” he said curtly. “Open the door.”

She felt a strange panic.

“I don’t want to open the door. I want to be left alone.”

But he seemed unmoved.

 “Are you going to open this door, Ariane?—or am I going to break it
down? It’s one or the other.”

“You couldn’t! It’s ridiculous. I—” Her voice trailed away. And then she
heard him put his shoulder to the door.

“No—wait! I’ll open it.”

She thought: “No one but Harvey would be so ridiculously

melodramatic.” But that made no difference. She had to do what he said.
And, running across to the door, she fumblingly turned the key.
 CHAPTER XIV

It was his hand in the end, not hers, which opened the door.

As he closed it again she took a quick step away. But she was a second
too late for, putting out his hand, he snatched her back into his arms, and
the next moment he was kissing her deliberately, all over her face, and
even, very softly, on her throat.

“You little idiot! You absolute little idiot! How dare you run away from
me at the most important moment of our lives?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I don’t understand.” Then her lips

were trembling so that she bit back any further words, and the tears were so
near that she had to close her eyes.

“What is it, dearest? Have I frightened you?” His voice was very gentle
now. “Forgive me. Please forgive me for that, as well as for all the rest.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she got out very huskily.

“Oh, yes, there is. Stupidity and cruelty and selfishness—and a dozen
things I hardly dare to think of.”
 “No—don’t.” She hid her face against him. “You’re saying all this
because you’re sorry for me. And I d-don’t want your pity.”

“No, I know.” He lifted her right off her feet then, and carrying her over to
the bed, sat down with her in his arms. “It’s my love you want—and you
have it. I’m not pitying you. I’m pitying myself for coming so near to
losing anything so precious. And to think it needed Marta herself to open
my eyes! Don’t cry, my little love—please don’t cry like that—”

She felt utterly bewildered, but, putting her arms round his neck, she
clung to him, trying to stifle her sobs. And then, at last, the murmur of his
voice and the touch of his hands had their effect, and she lay quite quiet
against him, but still with her face hidden.

“Won’t you look up at me, Ariane? I can’t kiss you if you lie so close
against me.”

She looked up then.

“D-don’t you love Marta any more?”

It wasn’t at all what she had meant to say. She had wanted to sound self-
controlled and dignified. And all she could do was to stammer out that
crude, pitiful inquiry.
 But perhaps he understood that it filled her whole life, all the same,
because he answered with equal simplicity:

“No, Ariane, I don’t love her any more. I didn’t know my feeling for her
had been dying all these weeks. I only knew it was utterly dead when she
insulted you this evening.”

“Oh—” Ariane pressed gratefully against him. “Do you—do you mean
I’ll do instead?”

“No, my God, I don’t!” He laughed and kissed her almost angrily. “You
couldn’t be a substitute for anyone. You’re too much your darling self. I
meant—Oh, it’s so difficult to explain. I don’t expect you’d understand
how I felt about Marta at all.”

“Shouldn’t I? Try,” Ariane said, and she was aware of a faint, delicious
stirring of her sense of humour again, because men always supposed their
feelings were much too complicated for anyone to understand them.

“It was a sort of—slavery—sickness, almost,” he said, frowning. “I hated

it and I hated myself half the time, yet I couldn’t get away.”

“I think I see,” Ariane said gently, as though she had never heard of
anyone being infatuated by a worthless woman before. He sighed and
passed his hand over his hair impatiently.
 “I don’t know quite when your sweet sanity began to have its effect,
Ariane. But one can’t be near you and your scale of values without
recovering a little from any emotional fever.”

She was really exceedingly touched by that, and put up her hand to pat his
cheek. He turned his face immediately and kissed the palm of her hand.

“Must I explain the rest?” he said unhappily. “I don’t really understand it

myself. It was something to do with always having your sweetness and
sincerity to measure her up against.”

“Then we’ll leave it alone, and perhaps one day I’ll explain it to you,” she
told him, with an irresistible curve of her mouth.

He held her very close.

“Are you laughing at me, you little beast?”

“Only a very little. Mustn’t I?”

He laughed slightly himself.

“You can do whatever you like. For the rest of our lives, you shall do what
you like,” he told her. “And now what do you want to do with the rest of
this evening, as a start?”
 “Isn’t it late—”

“No. Quite early yet.” He showed her his watch, and she gave a little
gasp. It was less than an hour since she had left the ball, with her life, as
she thought, in ruins.

“Would you like to go back? There’s plenty of time yet, sweetheart.”

Ariane’s smile deepened until her eyes were dark and sparkling.

“I think I should,” she said slowly. “I’ve always wanted to go to a dance

as—your sweetheart, and not just—”

He didn’t let her finish that before he caught her up and kissed her afresh.
Then he let her go, and stood by smiling, while she combed her tumbled
fair hair, and smoothed the crumples from her frock.

“Ready,” she said with a smile in her turn, and they went out to the car.

It was really such a little while since she had fled from the place in that
taxi, now she came to think of it. She supposed the cloakroom attendant
would put her down as an amiable lunatic.

But, actually, the woman was nothing like so much surprised as Ariane
had expected.
 “Well, well, miss, here you are again,” she said with undeniable truth.
“Don’t I know? Out the back to avoid one of them, and in again at the front
with another. Many’s the time I’ve seen it done, and enjoy yourselves while
you can, I say. But it stops when you marries and settles down, miss. Oh
yes, it stops then, mark my words.”

“Does it?” Ariane said politely.

“Oh yes, miss. You wait till it’s your husband that’s waiting outside the
door. You won’t be asking me then to show you the back way out.” And she
chuckled.

“Well,” Ariane smiled in her turn, “I daresay you’re right about that.” And
picking up her bag, she went out to join her husband who was waiting
outside the door.