THE BLACK BENEDICTS

Anita Charles

When Mallory accepted the job of governess to Raife Benedict’s niece and arrived at MorvenGrange, his beautiful house on the romantic Welsh Borderland, she had no idea how much the ‘BlackBenedicts’—all of them as dark as gipsies, and strikingly handsome—as they were called, were toaffect her own future.

There was Raife, her employer, arrogant and unapproachable—Adrian, the music-lover, who hadbeen badly injured in an accident which had deprived him of his wife—and Adrian’s daughter,Serena.

The three of them wove a kind of spell about Mallory and drew her, inextricably, into the pattern oftheir lives.

CHAPTER ONE

The housekeeper’s black dress made a faint, whispering noise as she moved along the gallery. Thebunch of keys at her waist jingled a little. At the head of the great carved oak staircase, with itsshallow shining treads, she sent a house-keeperly glance of approval along the glistening handrail,failed to detect so much as a particle of dust clinging to it, and beneath the eyes of the men andwomen in the portraits behind her descended to the well of the hall.

Phipps, the butler, had already caught the sound of a car coming along the drive outside, and withthe air of one performing a ritual he strode solemnly to the door and flung it open. Phipps would havemade an excellent Archbishop had circumstances permitted him to follow the Church as a career,and, as it was, his; bearing and his dignity were magnificent. Not by so much as the flicker of aneyelid did he betray any signs of interest, as, with Mrs. Carpenter, the housekeeper, standingcomplacent and vaguely expectant at his elbow, he watched Fordyce the chauffeur hold open the reardoor of his master’s long, grey, expensive-looking car for a young woman to alight.

Mrs. Carpenter’s eyes showed a faint glimmer of approval as the young woman stood for a momentlooking up at the house, clasping a neat dark handbag and a chubby umbrella to her bosom.

She was not very tall, and the hair that escaped like floss-silk from under the brim of her small butcaptivating hat (misty blue like the fleck in her sensible tweed coat) was as pale as the primrose lightthat was rapidly replacing the orange glow of sunset in the western sky. There was a half-smile onher lips, and between them her teeth gleamed white as almonds.

Young, thought Mrs. Carpenter—accustomed to making quick valuations, and assessing characterand potentialities all in a single glance—but sufficiently ladylike. Looks bright and alert, too, whichis important!

Doesn’t look like a governess, or so thought Phipps—without revealing that he was thinkinganything at all by his expression.

Mallory Gower continued to gaze up at the front of the house while the chauffeur extricated hercases from the boot of the car, and her expression revealed that she was quite genuinely pleased bywhat she saw.

It was certainly much more impressive and attractive than she had either expected or hoped for, forher mother had spent years of her life before her marriage on this debatable Welsh borderland andhad pictured for her a far more rugged setting, with, houses which still suggested the anxious eye ofthe English covering the Marches for signs of the black-haired marauding men from the hills. Buteven on a late February evening such as this, when the dusk was beginning to descend, and thesurrounding trees were still bare of leaf, this remote corner of Herefordshire Which she had firstglimpsed from the train seemed to be nothing but an exquisite patchwork of fields and woods and

valleys, with the view towards the west made up of the amiable Welsh giants brooding through thehaze upon the scene.

And the house itself was more than enough to arouse admiration in any case. A house of obviousand carefully preserved antiquity, a mellowed poem in serene grey stone, long, low and gracious,with mullioned windows and an iron-bound front door, and terraces falling away from it on all sides.Below the terraces there were lawns, a rose-garden, a sunken Dutch garden, an Italian garden, aswell as kitchen gardens and orchards and acres of rolling parkland. Nothing at all to suggest, as shehad half anticipated, a bleak fortress in the watchful hills, and even the moat was now filled in andcovered with turf like specially textured velvet.

Morven Grange...! A romantic and beautiful-sounding name, and a beautiful and romantic house ina perfect setting...!

But Mrs. Carpenter was awaiting her at the head of the steps, Phipps having withdrawn once moreinto the centuries-old hall where he passed so much of his dignified time, being comfortably awarethat this was no important visitor who would require or desire any display of subservience on hispart. And Phipps was not subservient to mere fellow employees, even if they were not underlings!

Mrs. Carpenter, however, had a warm hand held out to welcome the newcomer. Looking at her,Mallory was immediately pleased by what she saw. In her black dress, with her beautifully-orderedgrey hair, her smooth, unwrinkled complexion and her level eyes, she had as much poise, and evenelegance, as the chatelaine of the house might have been expected to possess.

“My dear,” she said, “I’m afraid you’ve had a very long and tiring journey.”

Mallory smiled at her, and when she smiled her face came alive with enthusiasm, and her greyeyes, that were very clear and direct in their gaze, seemed to hold some special sparkle ofexuberance.

“It was worth it,’ she replied without hesitation, “to arrive at such a place as this!”

Mrs. Carpenter looked almost as pleased as if she personally had been paid a compliment.

“Morven is beautiful,” she agreed, “but at this time of year it is not at its best. In the spring, and inthe summer ...!” Her pause and her expression indicated that at the right season of the year Morvenwas really quite breathtaking. “We do our best to maintain it in the old tradition, but it is not alwayseasy nowadays, with domestic and other problems. Rose!” She summoned a smart young parlourmaidfrom the rear of the hall and instructed her to relieve Miss Gower of her coat and hat, and to conveythem and her luggage upstairs to her room. “And I expect your greatest need at the moment is a cup oftea, isn’t it?” with a smile at Mallory. “I thought we would have it together in my sitting-room, andthen if you have any questions to ask I will do my best to answer them.”

“Thank you,” Mallory returned gratefully. “I am dying for a cup of tea. I had one on idle train but

somehow tea in a restaurant-car never actually tastes like tea.”

As they passed through the hall she caught a glimpse of Phipps the butler bending a most imposingback to add another log to the ones that were already crackling on the wide hearth, and a scent likeburning apple orchards—delectable and pungent—filled all the space between the polished rug-strewn floor and the great open timber roof which seemed so many miles away above their heads.There were crossed broadswords on the panelled walls, and a series of heraldic shields let into theenormous west window admitted the last of the light tinted like the many hues in the rainbow. A longoak refectory table occupied the entire centre of the hall, and on it was a great gleaming copper bowlfilled with golden sprays of mimosa—colour and perfume from the South of France!

But when Mrs. Carpenter’s sitting-room door was opened—a little room not far from the butler’spantry, and conveniently close to the green baize door which shut off the kitchen quarters—a pictureof much more homely comfort met and charmed the eyes. Here leaping firelight played in the soliddepths of good old-fashioned furniture, and there were chintz covers and cushions and photographs,and all the little things and the knick-knacks which help to make attractive a room in which it ispossible to relax.

The tea when it came was set out on a gleaming gate-legged table in front of the fire, and theservice was silver, of William and Mary pattern, the traycloth lace-edged, the china floweredporcelain. There were crumpets and tea-cakes in a silver chafing-dish, and an assortment of tinysandwiches and little cakes besides.

Mrs. Carpenter pulled forward her most comfortable chair for her visitor, and did the honours ather own tea-table.

“Tea first, and talk afterwards?” she suggested, with her barely perceptible smile, poising thesugar-tongs inquiringly above the sugar-basin.

Mallory was more than content that it should be so. It was good, after her rather wearisome journeyfrom London, to lie back in the comfortably sprung chair and absorb all the luxury—the dainty, highlycivilized luxury—of this most agreeable room, and let it seep into her innermost being. And in hermind she could not help comparing it with the condition of comfortable disorder which prevailed inher small cottage home on the fringe of a London suburb, where her mother coped with three stillquite young children and ran a boarding kennels and bred Siamese cats in order to eke out a livingand the small pension she received from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners as a mark of distinctionfor being a clergyman’s widow.

The comparison, however, was almost ludicrous, for at this hour her two brothers, having arrivedhome from school, would be occupying the sitting-room and littering it with their homework, and herfourteen-year-old sister Angela would be arguing about the right to listen to a favourite programmeon the wireless. And her mother wouldn’t dare to interfere, because already there would be a chaos,and she disliked interfering, anyway.

The Gower family, even when her father was alive, had a strong tendency to assert themselves, buton the whole they were a good-tempered family. They probably each inherited the amiability in theirdispositions from their mother, for she was amiability itself, and disliked any form of domineering.

Mrs. Carpenter, not naturally a woman of a great many words, thought it best to remove from thenew governess’s mind any preconceived notion she might have formed that she would be interviewedon her arrival by her employer. And catching sight of her studying a photograph on the mantelpiece,which was actually a photograph, when young, of the present master of the place, in the usual cricketcap, and wielding a cricket bat, she accepted it as a directive, and a fitting start to essentialconversation.

“That,” she informed Mallory, quietly, “is a photograph of Mr. Raife when he was about ten yearsof age. He is”—she paused—“a very busy man nowadays, and it is scarcely likely that you will meethim to-night, and perhaps not for a few days. He has, however, a great deal of confidence in theagency who sent you here—they supply, as a matter of fact, all our indoor staff—and I have no doubtat all that your references and so forth were most carefully checked?”

“I expect so.” Mallory permitted herself a faint smile, and her eyes twinkled a little. “But what Iwas more concerned about,” she confessed—“and this is a point the agency did not make at all clearit to me!—is who, and what, is Mr. Benedict...? Mr. Raife Benedict? Is he the father of myprospective pupil?”

“Oh, dear me, no!” Mrs. Carpenter sounded suddenly almost prim. “Mr. Benedict is not married.”

“Then, who...?” Mallory puckered up her slim eyebrows a trifle. “A niece, perhaps, or a ward...? Isthere no Mrs. Benedict...?”

“There is no Mrs. Benedict,” the housekeeper stated, in her clear, clipped tones, “not since my latemistress died the year after Mr. Raife inherited the property. Miss Serena, whom you also willprobably not see until to-morrow, is Mr. Adrian’s daughter, and Mr. Adrian is Mr. Raife ’s youngerbrother, and a widower.”

“But Mr. Raife is my employer?”

‘Mr. Raife, is the head of the house,” with a quite noticeable touch of old-fashioned pride. “Mr.Adrian lives here only because of Mr. Raife’s generosity, and his sense of, the fitness of things wouldnever allow him to live anywhere else, and that goes for Miss Serena as well. It is not entirely asatisfactory arrangement.”

“But, surely”—Mallory was thinking of the wonderful setting she had glimpsed outside, the ancientbeauty of the house, the evidence of a great deal of wealth inside it—“surely it is an absolutelyperfect place for a young child to be brought up in? There is so much room—such freedom for growthand development! I would have said that Serena is a very lucky girl indeed to live here.”

“Would you?” Mrs. Carpenter glanced at her a trifle obliquely while she handed her a second cupof tea. “But there are other things besides growth and development—physical growth, that is! Youwill find that Serena is a little bit—well, forward, is the best word I can use, for her age. She hasbeen more than a little spoiled—but that is largely the fault of her uncle. Otherwise she is quite apleasant child, and you’ll probably find her quick to learn.”

“I hope then in that case I’ll be able to keep pace with her requirements,” Mallory observed withher sudden, charming smile. “I’ve never done this sort of thing before, you know,” she confessed.“I’ve had plenty of experience coaching my brothers and sister, and I know a lot about all forms ofpet dogs, and I can even cook quite well if necessary. But I’m not really a governess.”

“However, the agency must have thought you were suitable,” Mrs. Carpenter remarked looking ather as if she herself had formed the opinion, after such a brief acquaintance, that there were otherthings besides scholastic attainments when dealing with a precocious small girl, and that this MissGower probably had them. At least she had naturalness and charm, and a certain quiet poise, and thatwell-developed little chin of hers had not been bestowed upon her for nothing.

“Well, my father was a bit of a stickler for cramming his children’s heads with as much of theinformation he thought should go into them as he could manage during his lifetime,” Malloryadmitted. “And I think it’s quite true to say I cut my first teeth on the Encyclopaedia Britannica, andtook my first steps with the classics, so I should be able to cope with a ten-year-old. But that remainsto be proved,” she ended modestly.

“And in the meantime your mother is going to miss you a great deal?” Mrs. Carpenter suggestedshrewdly.

Mallory looked unconsciously rather wistful.

“Well, one of us had to go forth from the fold and earn some money,” she explained quite honestly.“There is very little profit to be made out of pedigree household pets these days, and we are quite alarge family. I was the one to do the launching out, and governessing seemed the only thing as I can’teven type or do shorthand.”

The housekeeper looked suddenly rather thoughtful.

“I hope you won’t find it too lonely here,” she said. “We’re rather isolated where we’re situated,and a very quiet household, except when Mr. Raife entertains—which he does do sometimes. Andthen we’re often uncomfortably crowded.”

“It’s a wonderful house to entertain in,” Mallory remarked with enthusiasm. “I’m sure if it belongedto me I should love to fill it with people who would admire it as much as I did.”

Mrs. Carpenter remained silent.

“You said that it is unlikely I shall see my pupil to-night?” Mallory reminded her. “But if she’snearly ten it’s hardly likely that she has gone to bed yet?”

Again Mrs. Carpenter seemed to hesitate. “I’m not sure whether Darcy would wish you to see herto-night—she may even have to put her to bed early.”

Mallory looked astonished, f “Surely not! And who is Darcy?”

“Darcy has been with Miss Serena for the last five years,” the housekeeper explained. “I supposeyou would describe her as a kind of nannie.”

“But isn’t Serena a little too old for a nannie?”

Mrs. Carpenter made a slight movement with her black-clad shoulders.

“Darcy is not the typical kind of nannie,” she explained. “She is quite young, and she has been allthe close companionship the child has had for years.”

“I—I see...” Mallory said slowly, not really seeing at all.

Mrs. Carpenter pressed a bell.

“I will send for Rose to show you to your room,” she said. “I expect you will be glad to unpack andhave a wash after your journey. And, by the way, don’t hesitate to make use of Rose to help you withyour unpacking, and I hope you won’t mind having your meals served in your own sitting-room.Otherwise it is a little awkward...”

“Oh, of course,” Mallory agreed at once, anxious that no one should think she had imagined evenfor an instant that she would have meals with her employer. And her educational pretensions made itjust a little incorrect for her to appear in the servants’ hall...

A light tap came to the door and it swung open before the housekeeper could even grant permission.

Oh, hullo, Carpie,” said a man’s voice vaguely. “I thought I might find you alone...”

He was quite a young man, and very slenderly built, with dark—intensely dark—hair and eyes. Hisskin was pale, with a hint of olive, and the corners of his mouth had a melancholy droop. In the littlesitting-room, with the firelight playing on white panelled walls, and an atmosphere of warm cosinessand intimacy, he stood looking a little uncertain and slightly fragile, with his back to the silent,shadow-filled hall.

“What is it, Mr. Adrian?” Mrs. Carpenter stood up, and there was a certain amount of deference inher manner, perhaps also a shade of rebuke, but her voice was also extraordinarily gentle. “Is thereanything I can do for you?”

“No, nothing, thanks.” He was staring at Mallory as if more than astonished to see her there, andthen gradually his look became tinged with the merest suspicion of comprehension, a slow dawningas of recollection, and all at once he smiled It was a curiously charming smile, adding lustre to hisextraordinary lustreless eyes; that were large and deep and long-lashed. “You must be Serena’s newgoverness!” he said. “How do you do?”

Mallory gave him her hand, and he retained it within his for a second or so longer than was strictlynecessary, as if he liked the feel of it. And then he let it go, smiling afresh.

“Have you seen Serena yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I suppose that’s because Darcy has put her to bed early. Darcy’s a bit of a martinet.” The vaguelook crept back into his eyes, and they roved round the room. “I see you’ve just had tea,” he remarked“I expect you had a tiring journey?”

“Oh, it wasn’t really too bad,” Mallory assured him, and added: “And, anyway, it was worth it toarrive at such a wonderful spot as this.”

“You think so?” For an instant, like Mrs. Carpenter, he appeared pleased, and then he wanderedaway to the door. “Well, I hope you won’t find it too quiet here. It is very quiet—or some peoplemight find it so. But I never do...”

The door closed behind him, and Mallory found herself looking for explanation at Mrs. Carpenter.The housekeeper’s expression was quite surprising—her eyebrows were uplifted in obviousastonishment.

“Well!...” she said. And then a blank look descended over her face and she pressed the bell again,hard. “I can’t think what’s keeping Rose...”

CHAPTER TWO

Rose came in a few moments later, full of excuses and apologies for keeping them waiting, and Mrs.Carpenter reproved her with some severity. But Rose was a country girl with soft, dark, brillianteyes, which suggested her roots were on the other side of the border, and she looked shyly atMallory, and smiled at her very pleasantly, and conducted her willingly from the room.

On the way up the stairs, slippery with centuries of high polishing, Mallory paused to gaze at theportraits climbing the wall beside her. Dark men and women most of them, with here and there alighter hue having the strange effect of a star shining unexpectedly forth from a welter of dominatingblackness. The costumes in the portraits represented a cavalcade of changing fashions throughoutseveral centuries, and one and all were distinguished by a certain elegance of appearance, and atouch of unmistakable highbredness in the cast of well-marked features. Mallory thought sherecognized a Gainsborough amongst them, and a Lely, but her knowledge of the various Masters wasnot so great that she could establish without doubt the identity of any one of them when applied totheir work.

The well of the stairs was lighted by a great swinging lantern descending by unseen bronze chainsfrom the distant roof, but the warren of thickly-carpeted corridors along which she followed Rose—who frequently disappeared ahead of her—were much more fitfully illuminated. And the solemnticking of more than one grandfather clock out of the dimness was a little uncanny, especially asfootfalls made not the slightest sound.

When Rose flung open the door of a room on her right Mallory peered round it with the greatestcuriosity. Then she drew a little breath of pure pleasure, for the comfort which reigned downstairs inthe housekeeper’s sitting-room was equally well repeated up here, and her bedroom was just asdelightful. Mallory took in the pleasant combination of mushroom-coloured carpet and dainty floralhangings, in which clear green and pale primrose predominated, and was a trifle awed by theenormous half tester bed with huge feather pillows and hemstitched sheets. There was a beautifullittle Venetian mirror above the white mantelpiece, and magazines on a low table placed beside adeep armchair near the fire.

Rose insisted on unpacking her cases, although Mallory assured her she could do so quite wellherself. Rose looked at her with those transparent golden-brown eyes of hers, and said softly that itwas her job, and that Mrs. Carpenter had given her her instructions. She also inquired what timeMallory would like her dinner brought up, and whether she liked early tea in the morning.

Mallory looked at her humorously.

“Are you going to try and ruin me?” she asked. “It’s I who get up and get the breakfast at home, andmy early tea is usually consumed in the kitchen!”

“Then it will be nice for you to have a change,” Rose said decidedly. “I will bring tea to you athalf-past seven, if that is not too early?”

“But you mustn’t do that when you have visitors,” Mallory told her. “While the house is more orless empty I suppose it doesn’t matter, but when you have other people to attend to you must forgetabout me.”

Rose’s attractive face seemed to grow shrewish all at once.

“There are those whom it is always a pleasure to wait on,” she remarked, a trifle obscurely, andadded: “And there are those,” with emphasis, “whom it is not!”

And Mallory received the impression that amongst the visitors who sometimes came to the housewere certain individuals who were not entirely approved of by Rose at least.

She went early to bed that night, for she was deadly tired, and she was a little curious to test thecomfort of that enormous half tester bed. She felt a little lost when she climbed into it, and despite herweariness sleep did not come easily. With the light out and the electric fire turned off the room wasvery dark, but between gaps in the curtains moonlight found its way in after a while and silvered theedges of the furniture. Mallory tried to picture the scene outside, with that white light shining downon the terraced gardens and the slumbering Welsh hills. Almost she was tempted to desert her bedand creep across the room to look upon it from the window, but the exquisite comfort of the mattressclaimed her after a time, and she began to drowse.

Somewhere far off in the house someone was playing a piano, or it could have been the wireless.But it did not sound like the wireless. Sleepily Mallory decided that it was someone improvising, andthe improvisation was a kind of fantasia on the theme ‘Greensleeves’. It went on and on, rising andfalling softly like a sweet spring torrent bubbling its way over moss. Then it changed to a snatch ofBrahms, to the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and then back again to ‘Greensleeves’. It wasfascinating, and far from having a soporific effect it gradually restored Mallory to completewakefulness.

She lay staring in the darkness and wondering who it was who was obviously finding pleasure andconsolation in the mere touch of a piano at this late hour of the night. Oddly enough the word‘consolation’ did actually pass through her mind, for she was a fair player herself, and she knew themagic and queer soothing effect to be obtained from sitting in front of the ivory keys and allowingone’s hands to wander over them. It was one of her favourite forms of relaxation after a day spent inattending to the wants of her mother’s little tribe of mixed spaniels and Pekinese, and supervising thecooking arrangements for the family as well. It was a kind of release, an outlet, when otherwise therewould have been no outlet.

But after a time she forgot the music and began to think of other things. Why had she not beenallowed to meet her pupil, Serena, when she arrived, and in what part of the house was the childquartered? Why was it that Mrs. Carpenter had not introduced Adrian Benedict to her downstairs in

her sitting-room, and why had she looked at him as if for some reason he aroused her pity? Why didhe appear so vague...?

When would Raife Benedict condescend to interview her, and what was it that kept him soexceedingly busy apparently in a house where there were quite a lot of servants and every evidenceof a great deal of wealth! Was he some sort of business man in addition to being the owner of MorvenGrange...? How often did he entertain, and why did Rose look down her nose at the mere suggestionof waiting on his guests...?

Were all the Benedicts dark? Adrian Benedict looked like an Italian, and the men and women in theportraits were all dark-skinned and swarthy—or had been...!

There came a queer scratching sound at her door, and she sat up suddenly, startled. The pi ano hadceased and the house was very quiet, but the noise at the door was much louder—and somehowstealthier!—than that which any mouse could occasion. Certainly not a mouse of normalproportions...!

She switched on her bedside light rather hurriedly, and was about to demand in a hoarse whisperwho was there when the door started to open very slowly, inch by inch. Mallory felt her heart start tothump rather wildly, her eyes became glued in horrified fascination to the door, but now she couldfind no voice to call out any sort of question.

The door opened about a foot, and then a sibilant whisper reached her:

“Are you—awake ...?”

A queer whimpering noise followed the inquiry, and it sounded like the protest of a dog beingrequested to keep silent. A head appeared round the door, a head with dark, tangled elf-locks, and itwas followed by a slight form in a rose-pink satin quilted dressing-gown, hugging in her arms a smallbut worried-looking dachshund, who was plainly objecting to the order for silence, enforced by aslim hand encircling its muzzle.

Mallory drew a long breath and relaxed against her pillows. Her midnight visitor hastily closed thedoor and scampered across to her, taking a flying leap on to the bed and depositing the dachshund onthe eiderdown.

“You don’t object to Belinda, do you?” she inquired, in her penetrating whisper. “She won’t doanything or tear it, and I’ve been simply dying to see you! Darcy was a pig and put me to bed directlyafter tea so that I shouldn’t see you tonight, but I don’t care tuppence about Darcy, and I made up mymind that I would see you.”

“Well?” Mallory inquired in return, unable to resist a smile at the spectacle of the tousle-headedchild with the magnificent eyes gazing at her rather imploringly from the foot of her own bed Herdressing-gown and her pink feather-trimmed slippers—actually small mules from which her delicate

heels protruded—looked as if they were intended for the small daughter of a film star, and certainlythis new charge of hers was a quite extraordinary beauty. “Now that you’ve seen me what do youthink of me?”

“I like you,” came the reply at once. “I knew I would because Mrs. Allardyce saw you in the tea-leaves about two days ago and she said you were going to be perfectly all right, and not a bit likeMiss Peppercorn, who sucked bulls-eyes and wore little hard round felt hats. You don’t wear felthalts, do you?”

“Not hard round ones,” Mallory replied, adopting the conspiratorial attitude and speaking in awhisper. “And who,” she asked, “is—or, rather, are—Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Peppercorn?”

Slim eyebrows upraised themselves in surprise. “Why, Mrs. Allardyce is the cook of course andMiss Peppercorn used to be my governess—oh, a long time ago. Mrs. Allardyce is psychic,”impressively.

“Is she indeed?” Mallory murmured.

“She gets warnings, you know, and that sort of thing.”

“And you’re going to get a nice chill if you don’t put something round you,” Mallory declared ratheranxiously, leaning forward to adjust the eiderdown so that it covered the lower half of her unexpectedvisitor. “Of course, if I’d known you were going to pay me this visit I’d have been better prepared toreceive you. And as it is I think I’d better put on the fire,” preparing to get out of bed.

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” Serena begged, catching at her arm to detain her. “I’m quite warm, really,and very comfortable where I am. Unless, of course, you’d rather I came in with you...? And Linda aswell if you haven’t any fearfully strong objections? She doesn’t smell at all, only a kind ofdachshundish smell which all dachshunds have, and I keep her very well brushed, and spray hersometimes with perfume. Uncle Raife brought me a huge bottle of wonderful French scent from Paristhe last time he went there, and I’ve used it practically all on Belinda.”

Mallory felt there was no objection she could possibly raise after such a testimonial as this inconnection with Belinda’s personal hygiene—although she did think it was rather an odd present foran uncle to bring a small niece—within a matter of seconds after that they were all three nicelytucked in at the correct end of Mallory’s bed, and Belinda’s nose was hanging mournfully over thetop of the lavender-scented sheet, while her still somewhat worried golden eyes looked upwards alittle doubtfully at Mallory.

“And what do you think Darcy would say if she could see you now?” Mallory inquired, wonderingwhether she ought to insist on Serena returning to her own bed immediately.

“Darcy would be furious.”

“Well, then, I think you’d better go.”

But Serena ignored the suggestion.

“Uncle Raife wouldn’t mind. Uncle Raife lets me do most of the things I want to do.”

“H’m!” commented Mallory. “That isn’t particularly good for you, you know.”

“Isn’t it?” Serena glanced at her with interest. “That’s a pretty nightie you’re wearing,” sheremarked. “I love nice clothes, don’t you? Uncle Raife says that if you’ve got good looks you shouldbe dressed accordingly. Uncle Raife looks like a pirate, but I always think pirates are terriblyfascinating, especially when they don’t actually behave like pirates.”

“Well, I suppose that is an advantage,” Mallory admitted, endeavouring to sound as serious aspossible.

Serena glanced at her again as if she suspected a twinkle in her eyes.

“There’s a portrait in the library which is a portrait of one of our ancestors, and he was a pirate inthe days of Queen Elizabeth the First. He went about singeing the King of Spain’s beard and seizinghis ships, and he also seized a beautiful Spanish bride, but Queen Elizabeth wasn’t at all pleasedwhen he brought her home, and he very nearly lost his head—had it cut off, you know! But sheforgave him, because she liked him very much, and he brought her lots of treasure, and”—she triedhard to stifle a yawn—“he’s very like Uncle Raife, only he hasn’t got a beautiful Spanish bride—Uncle Raife, I mean...”

“You’re a monkey,” Mallory told her, smiling a little. “And you’re a very sleepy monkey,” sheadded.

Serena grimaced a little.

“That’s like Darcy,” she said. “She thinks children should be seen and not heard, but I’m not a child—I’m nearly ten!”

“And what about your father?” Mallory inquired “What does he think?”

“You mean Adrian?” with a faint air of surprise.

“Yes; he’s your father, isn’t he? Doesn’t he express any opinions where you are concerned?”

Serena shook her head.

“Not many—not any,” she corrected herself. “He plays the piano, and he doesn’t seem to botherabout anything else, or anyone. He”—she yawned suddenly and uncontrollably—“oh, I’m so tired...!

Do you think I could go to sleep in your bed?” and she started to snuggle down.

But Mallory decided that this was the point at which she asserted herself. She roused the reluctantyoungster with a certain amount of difficulty and persuaded her to return to her own room, completewith the much more willing Belinda. Serena, however, only agreed to go if she was accompaniedalong the corridor by Mallory, expressing a newly-discovered fear of the dark and the by nowcomplete silence of the house. And as her bedroom was some little distance away, in another wing ofthe house, and it did seem a little hard to expect the child to go alone, Mallory acted as her escortuntil she was safely in her own room. Then she tucked her up, saw Belinda into her basket, andreturned to the side of the small bed to say good-night.

“Good-night, Serena. Sleep well,” she said. “I hope you won’t be terribly tired in the morning.”

“I won’t,” Serena promised. Then she smiled at her sleepily. “You’re much nicer than MissPeppercorn!”

On the way back to her room Mallory found that she had to traverse the long, moonlit gallery alone,and it struck her as exceedingly eerie at that hour. She fled rather hastily past the head of the stairs,and then as she was about to plunge into her own corridor she noticed that the hall light was still on,and that a man was standing immediately beneath the great swinging lantern, in the middle of aglowing Persian rug. He was in evening dress, and he appeared to be quietly smoking a cigarette andcontemplating the remains of the fire on the wide hearth, above which his family’s coat-of-arms wascarved into the chimney breast.

As if instinctively Mallory paused and looked down at him, noting how tall he was, and what anexcellent pair of well-held shoulders he possessed. His head was very dark and sleek and well-brushed, and shone like ebony in the rays of the swinging lantern. Mallory could also observe that hisface was thoughtful, that he was not in the least like his brother, that his chin and jaw were noticeableand ruthless, that his nose was straight but his nostrils probably flared a little...

And then he looked up. She gasped, for his eyes were looking directly at her, and they were so dark—so dark, and deep, and—and yet there were tiny lights in them, golden lights, like lambent flames,and there was something mocking and— menacing...?

She drew back swiftly and the light clicked out, so suddenly that she realized he must have put out ahand and touched a switch which was right beside his elbow. But although she saw him no more shecould hear his footsteps moving towards the stairs and she became fairly galvanized into action. Sheraced along the corridor to her room, and when she reached it she found that she was actually turningthe key in the lock and that her fingers were trembling.

Why?

She wasn’t at all sure. But what on earth had he thought of her, wandering about the gallery at thathour?

CHAPTER THREE

A few mornings later Mallory and Serena took their first walk together in the great park. It was oneof those deceptively mild February mornings when spring seems just around the corner, and winter asgood as departed. Serena discovered aconites in sheltered places, and Belinda displayed a violententhusiasm for every rabbit hole she came upon, and it was Mallory’s job to extricate her, often withconsiderable difficulty, when her broad shoulders threatened to become stuck well below the surfaceof the ground.

Serena, who was as blithe as the morning, ran gaily ahead of Mallory, and the latter thought grimlyof the determined tussle she had had with Darcy, the Belgian nursemaid, when the question of takingher out arose. For Darcy had obstinate ideas about her charge, and amongst them was one thatattributed a highly susceptible fragility to the lively ten-year-old, and looked upon sunless wintermornings as menacing to her, and exercise— unless undertaken in her own company—a thing not tobe over-indulged in.

Darcy was dour, and dark, and bad-tempered, and plainly the type to be jealous of a newgoverness. While it was true that Serena, if she wished, could twist her round her finger, herdiscipline was sometimes harsh, and her ideas of a routine for the child were strongly at variancewith that which Mallory considered the only possible routine, when Serena did not attend school.Darcy was no believer in fresh air, and she had a weakness for the kitchen and cups of tea with thecook—enlivened by fortune-telling by means of the tea-cups. And if Miss Serena liked that sort ofthing, too, then she was the very last person to discourage her.

But Serena, for all her precociousness, was quite a natural nine-year-old, and if there was anydelicacy in her make-up it did not prevent her from running like the wind when the fancy took her,and climbing over gates and fences without much thought for her hand-made brogues and finely-pleated skirt.

Serena’s clothes were made specially for her in London, and one or two of her finer frocks hadbeen bought in Paris. Her wardrobe had astonished Mallory when she saw it for the first time, whilstwaiting for Darcy to get her ready for her outing. She had as many changes as a film-star, and shetook the keenest delight in the possession of so much rather unsuitable finery—or Mallory, who hadbeen brought up on the principle of ‘handing down’ to the next comer, could not quite persuadeherself that it was suitable. And she wondered just how important a part her obviously much admiredUncle Raife played in the life of his niece.

They were turning for home, and Serena was slightly ahead, still looking for wild flowers underevery bush and shrub, when Mallory became aware of the man sitting absolutely still on the back of abig, statuesque-looking, black horse, watching them from beneath the brim of a soft felt hat pulledrather well down over his eyes.

Despite the hat Mallory recognized him immediately as the man who had filled her with somemoments of completely unreasoning panic a few nights before.

The trees in that part of the park grew like the pillars of a cathedral soaring to the unseen grey of thewinter sky. They were mostly beech, with granite-smooth trunks, growing in serried ranks, and theyoffered but little protection to anyone wishing for some reason to remain unseen while acting the partof an onlooker. And in the case of Raife Benedict, owner of all that goodly timber and many hundredsof acres of fertile land beyond, it mattered little indeed—in fact, not at all!—whether he was seen ornot.

His horse was steaming, for he had evidently been riding it hard, and that it was of a nervoustemperament was betrayed by its uneasy, dilated nostrils and the eyes which rolled restlessly.Mallory came to an abrupt halt when she caught sight of its rider, and Serena, looking back, gave asudden, eager shout.

“Uncle Raife ... Oh, Uncle Raife, is that your new horse?”

“Keep away, Infant,” he ordered her, as her flying feet took her close to him. “My new horse, asyou call it, is not in the best of moods.”

“Come here, Serena,” Mallory called, and the child returned to her reluctantly.

“It’s as well to begin as you mean to go on,” Raife Benedict observed, looking closely at Mallory.With her pale curls escaping from under a blue cape, a blue suede windcheater zipped up to hersmooth and shapely throat, warm colour in her cheeks and eyes sparkling after exercise, she still borea sufficient resemblance to the slight and ghostly young woman who had appeared in the gallery onthe night of her arrival, but he gave no slightest sign that he had recognized her, or had even seen herin the gallery. “Obedience is a virtue which can and must be inculcated in the young, and with Serenait is doubly important, for she has always been inclined to flout authority.” Mallory did not reply, andhe said coolly:

“Miss Gower, I presume? My name is Benedict—Raife Benedict!”

Mallory made a very slight inclination of her head.

“Good morning, Mr. Benedict.”

She realized that although his hands appeared to be lying idly on his! horse’s neck they were ironhard, and that it was as much as he could do—and more a matter of an iron-hard will as well—tomaintain his nervous mount in that immobile attitude while he addressed her smoothly at the sametime.

She noticed that his eyes were not as dark as his brother’s—not as dark as she had imagined themthe other night—and they reminded her a little of rich brown sherry overcast by a shadow. The

shadow was the shadow of his black, wiry eyelashes, unusually long and thick for a man, and thequeer golden lights she had either seen or imagined were queer greenish flecks in daylight. His mouthwas thin and close-set and looked as if it might sneer easily, and, in fact, his whole expression wasslightly repellent. His voice had the chill of ice floes in it without being particularly hostile. She hadto admit that he had a magnificent seat on a horse, and his figure was both upright and elegant. Hewore a pale primrose sweater with a high polo collar beneath a perfectly fitting tweed jacket, and hisbuff breeches and riding boots were quite faultless.

She noticed also that the horse he bestrode was a really splendid animal, with a touch of the Arabin its svelte lines and snaky head and long undocked tail. As one who loved animals and had beenaccustomed to horses from her earliest days, she did not in the least approve that tail, but she wasvery much attracted to the horse itself. She looked at it consideringly.

“I should advise you, too, not to come any nearer,” Raife Benedict said to her rather sharply.“Saladin is not a sweet-tempered brute.”

“Saladin?” she echoed. “What a very suitable name!”

“Mephistopheles would be even more suitable!”

As if she had intended to do so from the first, she took an almost unnoticeable step forward,followed by another quiet, gliding movement, and her hand went out and caressed the velvet muzzleof the uncertain-tempered black. Instantly a kind of quiver ran through it, and for an instant the whiteteeth gleamed, and then it was absolutely still again. Mallory spoke to it in low, soothing, crooningtones.

“You beauty!—you perfect beauty...!”

She looked up and met the blazing eyes above her, and almost she quailed for an instant. Whereasbefore there had been greenish flecks in the light brown pupils, they were now completelyswallowed up by a display of red fireworks, and the thin lips were almost gnashed together.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “but I’m used to horses!”

“Used to pomeranians, I should imagine!” he returned furiously. “You little idiot, haven’t you anyidea what might have happened to you for your audacity? Even I don’t know the potentialities of thisbeast, and you deserve to have been kicked! Get back—and take that infant back to the house. It’sbeginning to rain.”

“Yes,” Mallory said, with deceptive meekness, and turned to retrace her steps.

“And come and see me in the library at a quarter past two this afternoon,” he called after her. “Iwant to talk to you. I’m catching a train at three o’clock, so whatever you do don’t be late!” Mallorydid not answer, but she stooped and scooped up Belinda, who was about to disappear down another

rabbit-hole, and then looked round for Serena, who was standing pouting and looking thoroughlydispleased. It always annoyed her when her uncle did not condescend to pay very much attention toher.

“Come along, Serena,” Mallory called. “We’ll have to run, or you’ll get wet, and Darcy will becross.”

“Bother Darcy!” Serena exclaimed petulantly. “Uncle Raife,” cupping her hands over her mouthand trying to make her voice carry after the now rapidly disappearing horseman, “can I rideShamrock while you’re away?”

“No—you—can—not!” came back his voice, harsh as a whip-lash. “You’ll ride nothing at all untilI get back!”

“Isn’t he hateful to-day?” Serena said, addressing Mallory, but thrusting out her lower lip fartherever while she gazed after the black horse and its rider who were crashing away down the emptyride. “He can be quite detestable sometimes, and after all you only just touched, his horse.”

“Disobedience is not a virtue,” Mallory reminded her, catching her by the arm preparatory tostarting to run with her. “And I flagrantly disobeyed an order, setting a bad example to you as well,so I think he was probably justifiably angry. Come along!”

At a quarter past two she knocked on the library door, and was instantly bidden to enter. Heremployer was seated behind a big roll-topped desk and rapidly clearing it of an accumulation ofletters, bills, circulars, etc., by the simple process of sweeping them into the various drawers andturning his keys in the locks. He had changed into a dark town suit and was decidedly immaculate asto the collar and cuffs and meticulously tied tie.

“Ah, Miss Gower!” he said, looking up at her, his expression no less grim than in the morning. “Soyou’re a good time-keeper, anyway.”

“You said a quarter past two,” Mallory returned in her smoothest tones, “and it is exactly a quarterpast two.”

“Exactly.” He consulted his watch, and when he looked up at her again she could have sworn that agleam of ironic humour shone in his strange brown eyes. “All the same, there’s little enough time tosay what I want to say to you, so I’d better get started without any delay.”

He stood up, hands thrust into the pockets of his beautiful creased trousers and started to pace upand down the room. She decided that his movements were graceful and rather pantherish, and out ofthe corner of her eye she noticed the portrait above the fireplace which was undoubtedly the onementioned by Serena a few nights earlier. But for the dissimilarity in the styles of dress it would havebeen difficult to tell the two men apart, and they were both distinguished by the hawk-like look ofarrogance and a forbidding determination to have things as much their own way as possible in a

world which was very much their world—or, in the case of the Elizabethan gentleman, the worldwhich had once been his!

“How long have you been a governess, Miss Gower?” he suddenly shot at her.

“For precisely three days,” Mallory replied truthfully.

“A somewhat limited experience,” he remarked, his eyebrows ascending a little.

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Mallory agreed quietly.

His eyes raked her from the crown of her head to the toe of her shoe. There was something quitemerciless in that regard, and she realized that beneath it she should have felt uncomfortable, but oddlyenough she did not. She did not even feel discomposed. His arrogance aroused in her a feeling ofresentment, but it did not make her quail. She once read a book called At the Mercy of Tiberius, andTiberius, she thought, must have had characteristics in common with this man. At least they bothsought to intimidate.

“And so this is your first job!” There was a note like mockery in his voice. “Your first job as agoverness, anyway. What have you been doing up till now?—or haven’t you been doing anything atall? Taking an interest in horses, perhaps?”

That, at least, made her flush a little. He could see the faint wave of carmine rise up in her cheeks,and her grey eyes retreated for an instant behind their long eyelashes.

“I suppose I ought to apologize for what I did this morning,” she managed at last, a little stiffly, “butI wasn’t conscious at the time of doing anything particularly outrageous. You see, I am used to horses,and in our family animals of every sort and kind have always played a very prominent part. Weprobably don’t think enough before we approach them—the more spirited kind, that is—but I’venever been bitten or mauled or kicked by any animal. My grandfather shot tigers, and my father couldtame the ‘heart out of a wild cat.”

“That’s most interesting,” he observed drily.

“But your Saladin, of course, is different.”

“I don’t know enough about my Saladin,” he admitted, “to be able to tell you whether he is merelydifferent, or whether he is possessed of a kind of devil, or whether it is simply nervousness and in theend he will prove tameable. I only bought him a little over a week ago, and as yet I haven’tdiscovered that he possesses any real virtues, apart from his looks, which are obvious. However,”glancing at his watch, “I didn’t ask you to come here to discuss Saladin, and, as I’ve already told you,my time is short.”

He continued to pace up and down the room, reminding her more and more of a restless animal

himself.

“I don’t want to know what you’ve been doing before you came here,” he said shortly. “You look tome as if you might be good for Serena—and I don’t think you can do her very much harm,” glancing ather obliquely.

Really, thought Mallory, he was insufferable...

“You are young, and that is what she needs—someone who can keep her amused, and give her areasonable amount of instruction, and keep her in order, too, when necessary. She is slightlyprecocious...”

“Have you thought of sending her to school?” Mallory asked.

“I have, but I don’t intend to do so—at least, not yet awhile.”

“I see,” said Mallory quietly.

“I don’t believe in packing young children off to boarding-school when a home can be provided forthem, especially during their most impressionable years. I suffered from that sort of thing myself—most boys do—but a girl is a very different proposition. A girl should be handled with lessbrutality.”

“A girl is more easily spoiled,” Mallory murmured, thinking that these expressed sentiments of hiswere somewhat surprising. “And boarding-schools for girls are sometimes excellent. I went to onemyself.”

“And you survived?” with a kind of irony.

“Certainly I survived. They were the happiest days of my life.”

“My dear girl,” he told her brusquely, “you are only at the very beginning of your life, and knownothing at all about happiness—as yet!”

He swept up a camel greatcoat from the back of a chair and also a dispatch-case.

“Mrs. Carpenter tells me that you have already met my brother, Serena’s father?” His voice wassuddenly pitched in a lower key, and she detected a new note of seriousness in it. “I think I’d betterexplain to you that my brother Adrian was the victim of an accident a few years ago which deprivedhim not only of his wife but of his health, and even to-day he is not an entirely fit man. He has fewinterests in life save this house and its surroundings and his piano-playing, and even Serena has nevermeant very much to him. I should be glad, Miss Gower—perhaps grateful would be a better word—if, should he show any disposition to talk to you at times, possibly on such a subject as his music, youwould not feel inclined to snub him. It is not often that he betrays any interest in anyone, but the

housekeeper seems to think you made an impression...”

“Oh, really?” said Mallory, considerably surprised.

The cold, sarcastic look crept back into his eyes. “Does that astonish you so much? Do modernyoung women under-value themselves?”

He moved towards the door.

“I must go. I’ve already told you I’ve a train to catch...” And then he stepped briskly back to herside, and his eyes this time were hard and keen. “But before I go I want to be sure you will notinveigle my niece on to the back of Saladin, or even Shamrock, while I am away! I want your wordfor it that you recognize your responsibility where she is concerned.”

“Really, Mr. Benedict,” Mallory almost gasped, “as if I would!” She was affronted at last, and theshock of what he must think of her turned her quite white. “I am not irresponsible...”

“Well, perhaps you are not...”

There came a quick tap at the door and Mrs. Carpenter put her head round it.

“The car is waiting, Mr. Raife, and you have not a great deal of time.”

“I’m coming, Carpie,” he told her. He looked again at Mallory, nodded his head curtly, and thensaid: “Very well!”

When he had swept from the room, and the sound of Fardyce, the chauffeur, closing upon his masterthe rear door of the expensive silver-grey car which had brought her from the station reached herears, she went out into the hall and stood beside Mrs. Carpenter, who was gazing with strangethoughtfulness out through the open front door.

“I suppose it’s because I never go up to Town these days,” the housekeeper remarked, almost as ifshe was communing with herself, “and it’s quite a few years now since Mr. Raife gave up the townhouse and took a flat instead—one of those flats they call a service flat—but living in the country I’vebecome used somehow to peace and quiet, and when we have visitors I feel as if our peace no longerexists. There’s always so much bustle and upset, and in a few days that’s what we shall have to putup with.”

Mallory glanced at her for explanation.

“Do you mean that Mr. Benedict will be bringing friends back with him when he returns?”

“Miss Sonia Martingale, the ballet dancer, and possibly one or two others as well. MissMartingale has been ill recently and ordered to rest. Mr. Raife is bringing her back by road.” She

paused. “Of course, he is going on business as well, but ... I’ve been ordered to get the yellow guestchamber ready. The yellow guest chamber has been recently redecorated and furnished at greatexpense...” The significance of this did not fail to sink into Mallory’s brain.

“Then Miss Martingale is rather a—particular friend of Mr. Benedict’s?”

“I didn’t think so at one time, but it certainly does begin to look rather like it...!”

CHAPTER FOUR

Mallory went upstairs slowly and found her way along the now slightly more familiar corridor to theschool-room, where she discovered Serena curled up on the window-seat. She was not reading, oremploying herself in any way, and she looked as if she had not yet fully recovered from her rebuff ofthe morning. Darcy had insisted that she ‘rest’ for half an hour after lunch, but Mallory had alreadymade up her mind while ascending the stairs that this was an unnecessary indulgence which wouldvery shortly be stopped. She was not anxious to come to grips with Darcy so very soon after herarrival, but there were many things which, in her opinion, would have to be revised and gone into,and a nine-year-old girl being, ordered to withdraw to her room and lie down on her bed for half anhour after lunch was one of them.

So far as she had been able to discover, there were very few books in the school-room, either forpleasure or for the purpose of educating a youthful mind. Copies of the Wind in the Willows,Edward Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes, and Alice Through the Looking-Glass were on a shelf beside thefireplace, together with some very well thumbed and definitely childish books, but that was all.“We’ll have to discuss this matter with your uncle when he comes back and get him to buy you somenew books,” Mallory, standing in front of the book-case, remarked to her pupil.

Serena looked up at her without betraying very much interest.

“There are heaps and heaps and heaps of books in the library,” she said, “and Uncle Raife gave mepermission to take whatever I want from there. But they are all so old, and so dull, except one ortwo, which I rather liked.”

“And what were those?” Mallory asked, with curiosity.

“There was one called East Lynne, and another”—she named a somewhat sensational Victoriannovel which had been popular in its day— “which I thought rather silly, very silly...”

“Upon my word, Serena,” Mallory exclaimed, amazed that so little real supervision had everentered into the child’s life, “do you mean to tell me that no one—no one—has ever organized yourreading, and that you were allowed to take books of that sort out of the library? And to bring them uphere?”

“Why, of course,” Serena answered mildly, her glorious eyes a little perplexed, and inclined alsoto twinkle slightly. “But I mostly read them in bed, and kept them under my pillows so that theywould be handy.”

“And Darcy said nothing about them?”

Serena shook her head.

“Why should she?”

Mallory gave it up. But this going to bed at six o’clock at night after a day which included littleexercise and staying awake until midnight, if she felt so disposed, was another of the things whichwould have to be stopped. She foresaw that the battle of wills with Darcy would have to be soonerthan she, personally, would have wished.

“Well, now,” she said, “as it’s a wet afternoon, and you have literally no school books, we’ll havea nice wholesome game of Ludo until tea-time, and then afterwards, If you’re good, we’ll dip intosome of the Nonsense Rhymes. And tomorrow I’ll find out what you do know about suchstraightforward subjects as history, geography and arithmetic.”

Serena sprang up to get the Ludo board.

“I can tell you how many wives Henry the Eighth had, but I’m no good at arithmetic,” she admittedcandidly. “And if we’re going to have the Nonsense Rhymes, do let us have the one about ‘BingyBongy Bo’.” And she started to recite:

“In the middle of the woods

Lived the Bingy Bongy Bo,

Two old chairs and half a candle,

One old jug without a handle,

These were all his worldly goods,

In the middle of the woods.”

“I said after tea,” Mallory remarked quietly, deliberately setting forth the Ludo men.

After dinner that night she felt oddly restless. Serena was in bed, and she had no one at all to talkto. She supposed that if she wished she could have gone downstairs and talked to Mrs. Carpenter inher sitting-room, but that would have looked as if she was without the power to entertain herself inher own room, and Mrs. Carpenter was not a woman who really enjoyed conversation.

Her sitting-room was warm and comfortable at that hour. Outside rain lashed against the windows,and the great trees in the park were tossing a mad dance encouraged by the elements. But within thefour walls of her little room her electric fire glowed strongly, simulating the appearance of logs inan old-fashioned basket, and on the little table beside her chair Rose had set down her coffee cup,and there were the magazines she had not yet had a chance to look at. There was also a letter to bewritten home to her mother, and she thought she had better get on with it.

But she lay back in her chair and, presently, during a lull in the wind, she found herself listening—without at first realizing that she was listening—to the music of a piano someone was playing not sovery far off in the house. And, of course, that someone must be Adrian, since both his daughter andhis brother had told her that music was almost his only form of relaxation and pleasure. And onceagain he was improvising, his touch so delicate said delightful that after a few minutes Malloryfound herself deserting her chair and stealing across to open the door a little, so that she could hearhim that much better.

As if compelled by the music she stole forward a little way along the corridor. There was no oneabout in that part of the house at that hour, and the thick carpet allowed her to move soundlessly. Atintervals softly-shaded lights shone down upon her as she moved, a slender figure in the dark dresswith the little white collar and cuffs which she had adopted as a badge of her position in thehousehold. Anyone meeting her would not have mistaken her for a domestic, but they would haverecognized that she was in some way a dependent, despite the pale aureole of soft, feathery-tippedcurls, and the grey eyes that were wide open and ardent and never anything but straight-gazing.

All at once the piano-playing grew louder, and she realized that she was standing outside the doorof the room behind which the pianist sought to while away a long and possibly lonely evening. Shebegan to realize that she had better retreat at once, for although it was only the playing which haddrawn her thus far, anyone coming upon her suddenly might have decided that she was behaving alittle oddly. Regretfully, therefore—for it was a Chopin Nocturne now that was filling the corridorwith beauty—she turned and started to retrace her steps.

But before she had taken more than six steps back to her own room the playing suddenly ceasedabruptly, in the middle of a bar, and the door behind her was whisked open.

“Who’s there?” called Adrian Benedict into the dim tunnel of soft light and softer carpet.

Mallory wheeled round at once.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t disturb you...?”

“I heard your footsteps stop outside the door,” he replied. His large dark eyes had a queer, almosteager brightness in them. “It’s Miss Gower, isn’t it?”

Mallory stood silent, wondering what to say. She felt like a child caught in a guilty act.

“I hope my playing didn’t bother you? Can you hear it in your room?”

“That was why I came along, to find out where it was coming from,” Mallory admitted. “It was—you play beautifully,” she finished simply.

“Do you think so?” he asked, and he sounded pleased. “It’s one of the few things I do dobeautifully,” he told her, with equal simplicity.

“That variation on the theme ‘Greensleeves’— it’s fascinating,” she said.

He bowed to her.

“All my own work,” he assured her, his voice quite grave.

“You must love music.”

“There’s not very much, else to love in life,” he replied immediately, and somehow he succeededin shocking her greatly, for he obviously meant what he said. And then he stood aside from hisdoorway. “Won’t you come inside and let me play to you for a little while if you like listening? Ifyou’re feeling lonely...? I suppose it is rather lonely for you here when Serena’s in bed?”

Mallory hesitated. She was not quite sure whether the room into which he invited her was a music-room, or whether it was his own sitting-room. But in any case her employer had bidden her not tosnub him, if it was possible for her to do otherwise. And there was a faintly pleading rather lost lookabout him as he stood there—something pathetic, like a dog anxious to be friendly, and fearing,perhaps, a rebuff.

“Thank you,” she returned, after a moment. “It’s very kind of you, and if you’re going on playing Iwould like to listen. I’m very keen on music myself.”

“I had already gathered that,” he told her quietly, and gestured towards the interior of his roomwith one very slender and beautifully-formed hand. “Apres vous, Mademoiselle!”

CHAPTER FIVE

His room was one of the most delightful rooms Mallory had ever found herself in. There was a greencarpet, like a carpet of moss, and curtains of moss-green velvet flowed before the tall windows. Thepiano occupied a most prominent position across a corner of the room, and was so beautiful thatMallory caught her breath at first sight of it. Behind it a standard lamp that diffused a mellow goldenlight reflected in the polished wood, also shone across a little occasional table and an arm-chairdrawn up close to the brightly-burning fire. And on the little table there was a decanter and glasses,and a handsome silver cigarette-box.

Adrian Benedict indicated the arm-chair beside the little table, and Mallory sank into its capaciousdepths. But when he also offered to provide her with a drink she shook her head.

“No?” He looked surprised.

Mallory smiled at him and explained. She had been brought up in a vicarage where there was neverenough money to provide anything more exciting in the way of liquid refreshment than a veryoccasional bottle of rather cheap sherry which her father—not only for reasons of economy—keptsolely for his own use after a particularly tiring day, and such a doubtful indulgence was notpermitted to his family.

Adrian stood before the fireplace studying her for several seconds in silence before he spoke, andshe began to feel mildly embarrassed. His look was not in the least offensive, but he appeared to beappraising her feature by feature, which made her feel a little odd.

“Forgive me for saying so,” he remarked at last, “but you do look rather young for a governess.”

Mallory smiled at him again. So that was it!

“I’m twenty-two,” she told him. “Almost twenty-three!”

“Almost twenty-three!” he echoed. There was nothing vague about his expression to-night, but in hisdark eyes there was a look which she found it difficult to analyse. It could, she decided, have been awistful look. There was something slightly wistful about his whole fragile appearance, and he lookedalmost boyishly slender in his well-cut dinner jacket. His shoulders stooped a little, and she haddiscovered that he dragged one foot slightly, as if his accident had inflicted upon him a limp. “I canremember how I felt when I was twenty-three, as if there was nothing in life I could not achieve, andthe world was mine for the grasping!” He gave a short sigh. “What dreams we have when we areyoung, Miss Gower, and ten years later they are most of them crumbled into ashes!”

Ten years, thought Mallory—then he must be thirty-three, and his brother was possibly a couple ofyears older.

“Isn’t that just typical of life?” she asked, in a gentle voice. “It isn’t what we decide that we will beand do, but what we actually become. And frequently our development has nothing to do with ourtastes and inclinations.”

“Which means that we are most of us frustrated?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Her grey eyes still retained their smile. “But sometimes we have to makedo with second best, and that means a lot of adjustment, which naturally isn’t easy.”

“You talk as if you were years older, ” he observed, looking at her in a good deal of surprise. “Isthat the result of being born in a vicarage?”

She shook her head, laughing a little.

“Being born in a vicarage means learning to do at an early age a lot of things which your instinctsdo not compel you to do, and which you probably wouldn’t do otherwise, but it is no guarantee thatthe instincts won’t have their own way later on, when, for instance, you’re away from the fold.” Shehoped she hadn’t sounded a little preachy, and added quickly, changing the subject: “What a brightchild Serena is! You must be very proud of her.”

“Must I?” But his voice was cool and unenthusiastic. “The general opinion is that she is sometimesa little too bright for her years.”

“Oh, well,” excusingly, “maybe she is just a little bit precocious, but that is nothing very serious.And she’s so lovely. I’ve no doubt that when she grows up she’ll be really beautiful, and you’ll haveyour work cut out stemming the rush of admirers.”

“Do you think so?” But again there was no enthusiasm. “She’s a typical Benedict. All the Benedictsare dark as gipsies, as you’ve probably realized after seeing their portraits, and also after seeingmyself and my brother. My brother Raife is probably the most typical of the lot of us, a worthydescendant of the gallant gentleman in the library who came near to losing his head when the firstElizabeth was on the throne. Maybe you haven’t yet had an opportunity of meeting that particularancestor, but when you do you’ll almost certainly see the likeness. And believe me only a facialresemblance. Raife is all the things a true Benedict ought to be, and which I,” with unmistakablebitterness, “can never hope to be!”

Mallory looked up at him in some surprise. He had invited her in to hear his music, but it wasobviously on the subject of his brother that he wished to engage her as a listener, and on the subject ofhis brother he could even become enthusiastic.

“I think I have already seen the portrait,” she told him. “After lunch to-day. It hangs over the fire-place, and .looks as if it might have been painted by Velasquez.”

“Which of course it was not! But you probably remarked on the extraordinary likeness?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Mallory admitted. “I think it’s rather an amazing likeness.”

“One day someone will have to tell you the story of that gentleman.” He started to move about theroom, dragging his lame foot soundlessly over the thick carpet, apparently affected by some of therestlessness of his brother, but unhappily without his brother’s curious feline grace. “Raife is themost extraordinary person. But for him we would none of us be living here at Morven Grange. Hesaved it for us! For Serena, and myself, and himself—and for his heirs if he ever marries, which Ihope very much he will do!”

“Oh, indeed?” Mallory murmured, beginning to grow interested.

“Yes.” He looked at her with simplicity. “You see,” he explained, “the house was already heavilymortgaged, and there was hardly any money left, but Raife decided upon a gamble...! He actuallymade money out of the last little bit we had left, by investing it in something or other, which turnedout well for him and us, and—and then he started to go in for running hotels, and it wasn’t long beforehe had a couple in Switzerland, and another on the Riviera, and all three doing well! And now, atleast, we can sit back and feel that the house is safe at last, and every stick and stone of its contents.And to a Benedict that means a great deal, I can assure you—particularly to Raife!”

“You mean that he loves Morven?”

“He loves it more than anything else on earth!”

Mallory was silent a moment.

“That was rather a plucky thing to do,” she said at last. “I mean, to go in for hotel running,particularly if he had had no previous experience. He must be a very good business man.”

“Raife is a first-class business man.”

“And very shrewd—and far-seeing...”

“Raife is all that, and he is hard-headed besides. Some people think he is hard-hearted—but thoseare only the people who do not really know him...”

“Indeed...?” Mallory murmured again.

She herself would have said that if he was not hard-hearted, he was certainly rather a ruthlessspecimen, unless, apparently, his affections were engaged...!

That obviously made a difference...

Adrian looked at her as if he hoped she was not one of those people who shared a doubtful opinionof his brother, and then he wandered over to his piano and, absent-mindedly almost, seated himself

on the piano-stool. His hands drifted on to the keys as if drawn there by a magnet.

“Everything I possess these days—my piano, my books, this room—I owe them all to Raife,” hesaid, offering a final tribute before losing himself in music.

And what, thought Mallory, of Serena? Did he never count her amongst the advantages he possessedthese days...?”

But in a moment she had forgotten everything save his playing, and for half an hour after that she satlistening to him while his whole expression grew very tranquil and he was obviously entirely happy.Liszt, Mozart, Debussy—half an hour of timeless magic which filled her, too, with unutterablecontentment, behind which was the uneasy conviction that she had stayed here long enough, and that itwas high time she departed to her own room She seized the opportunity when his hands remainedmotionless for a few seconds to stand up and move quietly but purposefully towards the door, and shelooked back at him with gratitude in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she said softly, “that was more than wonderful!”

He answered her quite casually. “Any time you’re feeling bored, or lonely, or in need ofentertainment, just come along here. I’d play to you half the night if you wished.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and escaped from the room while he held the door open for her. Whenshe was outside in the corridor she hastened to her own room, glad that no one was about to see her,and she thought that as a family these Benedicts were to from being ordinary. They were very muchthe reverse—they were completely unusual...

CHAPTER SIX

The next day and the following two days were very busy ones for Mrs. Carpenter, who gatheredtogether her team of underlings for the purpose of turning out the drawing-room and the other mainrooms of the house in preparation for the expected house-party. The bedrooms were alreadyprepared, and Mallory had her first glimpse of the yellow guest chamber when she and Serenareturned from their walk—this time confined to the formal gardens—on the morning after the masterof the place had left for London.

Mrs. Carpenter, with the assistance of Rose, was reverently removing a dust-cover from a stripedsatin-covered settee when Serena, seeing the door standing open, burst in to satisfy her curiosity.Mallory followed her, and then stood still, just inside the room, much more than struck by itsappointments.

For the first time in her life she stood upon an all-black carpet, and the effect was a little strange.The walls of the room were golden, like a tea-rose, and the curtains and the coverlet on the lowFrench bed were of tea-rose coloured moiré silk. The dressing-table stood in a petticoat of yellowsatin, and the bathroom adjoining glowed like the smooth sides of a peach. It was the sort of bedroomthat belonged to a film-set, and not an English country house. Mallory felt that so strongly that shecould only gaze about her in obvious astonishment.

Serena looked at her with a kind of triumph when she saw how taken aback the governess was.

“Isn’t it a wonderful room?” she demanded. “Wouldn’t you love to sleep in it?”

“Quite candidly,” answered Mallory, to her disappointment, “I would not. It’s a room for aprincess.”

“But Sonia is a princess,” the child declared emphatically. “Isn’t she, Mrs. Carpenter? Isn’t she,Rose? She’s the most beautiful person in the world, and she dances divinely. I’ve seen her—I’veseen her as the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and as a dying swan, and as an ice maiden. Uncle Raife thinks she’sbeautiful, too, and that’s why he’s had this room got ready for her. It’s her room—nobody else wouldbe allowed to sleep in it...”

“You talk too much, Miss Serena,” Mrs. Carpenter said disapprovingly. “And you’re getting in ourway up here, so stop fingering that crystal bowl, and put those brushes back on the table, and godownstairs with Miss Gower. Haven’t you any lessons to learn?”

“I can’t learn any lessons,” Serena flung back at her with pleased defiance, “because we haven’tgot any books for me to learn from, except dull old books from the library. And Uncle Raife doesthink Miss Martingale beautiful...”

“Serena!” Mallory exclaimed, in a voice which caused her pupil to swing round reluctantly andfollow her, pouting a good deal, from the room. But outside on the landing she had the last word.

“Well, just wait until you see her, and her clothes! You haven’t got any like them—not even a littlebit like them...”

“My dear child,” Mallory reminded her gently, “I’m only a governess.”

Serena had the grace to look faintly ashamed. She slipped a repentant hand into Mallory’s.

“All the same, I like you,” she said. “I like you even better than Miss Martingale!”

Two days later, it being the first day of March, which had come in like a lamb, the master ofMorven Grange returned to his home in Herefordshire about four o’clock in the afternoon. The oldhouse looked peaceful and mellow in the declining daylight; every window shone, and smokeascended into the fading blue above the twisted chimneys. In the drawing-room there were banked-upsheaves of lilac, and every bowl and vase was filled with a positive blaze of spring flowers, whichbrought the freshness of the out-of-doors into the elegant and beautifully-furnished room, centrally aswell as electrically heated, so that the wide white Adam fireplace was flower-filled also.

Phipps, in his best black, waited on tenterhooks in the hall for the sound of car wheels on the drive,and the moment when he could swing wide the front door. And when that moment arrived Mallory,who with Serena beside her, had watched from the great window at the head of the stairs for the carsto draw up—there were actually three—made her escape to the school-room, dragging a mostunwilling Serena with her.

After all, argued the child, they were missing all the fun of the arrival, and why did they not godownstairs into the hall to welcome the visitors as well as her uncle? She knew Miss Martingale—she had had tea with her in the drawing-room when she came to Morven before, and had gone downoften after dinner to be made a fuss of and entertained. Her uncle liked having her downstairs...

But despite all these coaxings and arguments, Mallory remained firm, and her edict was that theymust remain out of sight in their own quarters until such time as they were sent for, or Serena wassent for. And in the end Serena was won over to good humour and acquiescence by the promise ofbeing allowed to stay up and have dinner with Mallory in her own sitting-room, after which therewere no further attempts at persuasion so far as going downstairs was concerned.

Their meal was served to them more than an hour before the main meal in the dining-roomdownstairs, and during that time, while they sat cosily at Mallory’s little gate-legged table, and Rosebrought up special tit-bits from the kitchen with which to tempt Serena, there was a great deal ofcoming and going in the corridors outside, and the whole house had a different atmosphere because itwas now filled with visitors.

Mallory thought of Mrs. Carpenter’s lament that her peace ended when visitors arrived, and she

was inclined to agree with her. For the opening and shutting of doors, the rustling movements outsideher own sitting-room, the little bursts of low-toned conversation and occasional snatches of laughter—masculine as well as feminine—made her feel that the house had been taken over by an unseenarmy.

They were enjoying their sweet when the door suddenly opened, without any warning knock such asRose tactfully always gave, and Raife Benedict walked in. He was already dressed for dinner, andMallory’s first impression of him, received in the midst of sudden confusion, was that he was almoststartlingly handsome, with his white shirt front throwing into prominence his dark and swarthy skin,and his sleek blade hair. Her second was that for the first time she saw him in a thoroughly amiablemood, and that his strange brown eyes actually held little dancing points of laughter, and his whiteteeth—very hard, strong, and perfect teeth—gleamed in a smile.

“Well, well,” he observed, as he took in the fact that they were obviously enjoying a meal, and thatSerena was plainly quite content, “you seem to be very comfortable, both of you! Had you forgottenthat you possessed an uncle, my infant, and that he was coming home to-day? I looked for youdownstairs when we arrived.”

Serena let forth a delighted shriek and simply flew at him. To Mallory’s considerable amazementhe allowed her to wind both slim arms about his neck and almost strangle him with her hug, and sheeven found herself holding her own breath lest his immaculate neckwear should come to any harm.

“Oh, Uncle Raife!—dearest, belovedest Uncle Raife! Miss Gower wouldn’t let me comedownstairs and she said I could have dinner with her in here instead.”

“Did she, indeed?” He managed to free himself from the clinging arms, and then inserted a carefulfinger inside his collar and made sure that his beautifully tied bow-tie was not seriously disarranged.“And I take it that you prefer having dinner with Miss Gower in her sitting-room to coming andfinding out whether I still exist? Incidentally, Sonia has been asking after you, and she wants to seeyou after dinner, if Miss Gower will bring you down.”

He crossed over to an arm-chair beside the fire and dropped into it, stretching his long legs outbefore him as if he was tired and glad to relax. He rested his dark head against the cushions, andMallory could see how the light from the shaded lamp on the table was reflected in the polishedwaves of his hair. His eyes regarded her smilingly, but also she thought a trifle mockingly.

“So Miss Gower conquers! Miss Gower is already Favourite No. 1.”

“Nothing of the kind,” Mallory returned quite seriously, feeling the situation should be clarified. “Iwas not at all sure whether you would want us downstairs, but Serena was keen enough to see you.Too keen,” she added truthfully. “I had difficulty in keeping her up here.”

“Nevertheless, you succeeded, and Serena is an impetuous young woman, and accustomed to havingher own way. You must be dealing very competently with her.”

“Thank you,” Mallory replied to this, with her customary rather deceptive demureness. “But Serenais not all that difficult.”

“I am relieved to hear you say so,” he told her. “I have been accused so many times of all butruining my niece, and it is a load off my mind to know that I have not entirely done so.”

He held out a hand to the niece concerned, who instantly clambered like a responsive kitten on tothe arm of his chair.

“I have a present for you, Infant, and you shall see it when you come downstairs after dinner. Iwonder whether you can guess what it is?”

Serena looked thrilled and made excited guesses. “Another big bottle of perfume from Paris? Orchocolates!” she cried.

“I haven’t been to Paris, as you very well know, and your consumption of chocolate is already fartoo high for the welfare of your teeth.” He produced a cigarette-case and offered it to Mallory. “Yousmoke, Miss Gower?”

“Thank you.” She accepted a cigarette, and as he came slightly nearer to hold his lighter to the endof it she could feel, rather than see, his eyes, with those strange, mocking, darting lights, boring intoher own. His brown, strong-fingered hand held the lighter very firmly, and she did not need to takemore than one quick, slightly nervous puff. “Thank you,” she repeated.

He lay back in his chair again, drawing lazily at his own cigarette, and his eyes rovedappreciatively round the room.

“You are very cosy in here. There is a nice, homely atmosphere,” he observed, and he certainlysounded as if he meant it.

“It is a very nice room indeed, and so is my bed-room,” she said, thinking that perhaps she ought tothank him for them. “I am very comfortable here, Mr. Benedict. Mrs. Carpenter has done all that shecan to make me so.”

“Has she?” He sounded quite casual. “Well, that’s a good thing, anyway. You won ’t be tempted todesert us suddenly.”

“I don’t desert when it is my job,” she told him, resenting that slight, sarcastic slur in his voicewhich was seldom absent from it for long—when he addressed her, anyway.

“Excellent!” he exclaimed, approvingly, but again she was afraid he mocked.

Serena was catching at his arm and trying to attract his attention again.

“What is my present, Uncle Raife? Tell me,” she coaxed. “Please do tell me!”

But he merely laughed and shook her off and rose and said he must be going.

“The gong will sound any minute now, and I mustn’t keep my guests waiting. After dinner you willnot only be told but see your present.” He looked across at Mallory again, noting that she waswearing a simple dark dress unrelieved by any ornament, but that she managed to look remarkablyattractive in it just the same. “Let Serena wear something pretty to-night, and dress yourself up, too, ifyou feel like it. I have quite a few friends downstairs, and you will probably get some entertainmentout of the evening.”

It was permission to make an attempt to do so at least, which was a concession, she realized, whenshe was merely the governess.

With a careless pull at one of Serena’s curls he went out, and with his departure something forcefuland virile departed also from the little sitting-room. And away down in the depths of the hall the greatBurmese gong began to send forth its summons to dinner.

Serena was so excited that dressing her was a matter of some difficulty, and as this was Darcy’sevening off Mallory had to take over the task of making sure her appearance left no room forcriticism. She wanted to put on all sorts of trinkets, but Mallory forbade this, and in the end shelooked altogether enchanting in a dress of broderie Anglaise, with a satin ribbon looped through hercurls, and black patent-leather shoes. Mallory was more simply attired in her only evening frock, amisty grey georgette, which exactly matched her eyes, and with which she wore her mother’s pearls,loaned to her in case she should ever need them.

Behind the drawing-room door when they reached it they could hear sounds of mirth and a greatdeal of conversation. Mallory was about to knock and await permission to enter, but Serenaunhesitatingly thrust open the door, quite sure of her welcome, and stood beaming upon the thresholdof the long, flower-filled, softly-lighted room.

Mallory had a confused impression of sleek heads of men and black dinner-jacketed forms, anddresses which repeated all the tints in the rainbow, seen through a haze of cigarette smoke, whichwas curling upwards to the Adam ceiling. One pair of eyes, enormous and green as a cat’s, andblackly lashed, gazed languidly across at her from the depths of the most comfortable armchair in theroom, and their owner had her feet on a footstool, and it was about her that all others seemed to begathered, like courtiers paying homage before the occupant of a throne.

“Why, Serena!” exclaimed this green-eyed beauty, in a voice that was as languid as her looks—andthat she was beautiful no one could ever dispute, for hers was a beauty of colouring as well asperfection of feature, her complexion flawless as a paper-white rose, her lips red and inviting, herhair a coronet of silken black braids wound about her shapely head. And the dress she was wearingmust have cost far more than even a popular ballerina could afford. “Come here, child I Come andsee what we’ve got for you!”

There was a basket on the rug in front of the glowing electric fire, and Serena made straight for it,holding her breath when out from it emerged a pure white Siamese kitten, whose ears and tail had notyet acquired that delicate chocolate hue which would distinguish them later on. Its eyes were as blueas cornflowers, however, and Serena picked it up, crooned over it delightedly. “Oh, how perfect,”she cried. “How perfect!” She looked up at Mallory, and her eyes were sparkling.

“Hold it, Miss Gower,” she invited, thrusting the kitten at her. “It’s as soft as silk.”

Mallory took it from her gently, and the little creature, terrified by so many strange humanscollected around it, nestled against her as if seeking protection, and unexpectedly loud purrs filled theroom.

“Why, it likes you,” Serena cried, as if amazed. “It likes you even better than it does me! Look,Uncle Raife, the kitten really likes Miss Gower!”

“The kitten has probably got good taste,” Raife Benedict observed, tossing away his cigarette inorder to lean forward and tweak one of the soft white ears. “And Siamese kittens especially arereputed to have good sense as well.”

His eyes, without any sign of humour in them, seemed to be looking curiously at Mallory.

Sonia Martingale’s voice, also as soft as silk, but with a note like ice behind .the unruffled lazinessof it, remarked with apparent casualness:

“I am not at all fond of cats, Siamese or otherwise. I much prefer dogs.”

And she, too, was looking at Mallory, but there was no friendliness at all in her gaze.

Her host looked down at her, an odd smile curving his lips.

“Poor Sonia,” he said teasingly, bending over her caressingly to pat her hands. “Didn’t the kittenpurr loudly enough for you? Never mind!”

“I don’t mind,” Sonia assured him, looking up into his dark face with a brilliant smile. “My owndog comes into my room in the morning and gives me the most tremendous morning greeting, lickingme all over the face. So why do I have to bother about any other animal?”

“You don’t have to bother about anything or anyone—they bother about you!” Raife assured her,leaning negligently against the white marble fireplace and carelessly lighting another cigarette. “Andif you ask me, you possess an extraordinarily sensible dog!” There was a look on his face as hestudied his most beautiful guest which Mallory found it a little difficult to understand, for altogetherthere was a little flicker of something like tenderness in his eyes as they watched her, there wasundoubted amusement behind the tenderness, and Sonia, she was quite sure, sensed it. She did notlook too pleased.

“I am tired,” she announced suddenly, and assuming the look of a wilting flower all at once. “Isuppose I am not very strong yet, and it has been a long and tiring day.”

“Then you must go to bed early,” he said at once.

“I loathe going to bed early.” She looked at him reproachfully.

“Then we will all do something to amuse you and make you forget your tiredness,” and he came andsat on the arm of her chair and picked up one of her perfect hands, and this time his expression as helooked down at her was all tenderness, and Mallory concentrated all her attention on the kitten whenshe saw it softening the outline of his rather hard mouth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Mallory had only the vaguest recollection of what happened during the remainder of that eveningwhen she thought about it afterwards. She knew that Adrian came across and spoke to her, and that heseemed glad of the opportunity to do so, and that she was introduced to an elderly man with a keen,business-like face and unusually white hair and shrewd eyes who had something to do with MissMartingale’s professional life, and was as noticeably drawn to her as were all the other men in theroom. Then there was Miss Martingale’s dresser—apparently an old friend as well—a plump,suburban kind of little woman, who ran liberally to rows of unreal pearls, and ought never to haveworn purple velvet, because of her high colour. But she was friendly enough to Mallory, and plainlydelighted and a little overawed by her surroundings.

There was also the local doctor and his wife and daughter, the latter a tall, slim girl with reddishhair and clear brown eyes who looked often and thoughtfully at Adrian. She, too, was particularlyfriendly to Mallory, and when they sat side-by-side for a short time they exchanged quite a fewconfidences considering the extreme brevity of their acquaintance.

Jill Harding explained that she worked in London as a model, but she had been ill, and was at homefor a few weeks to recuperate. She invited Mallory, when she, got some free time, to visit them, andalso to bring Serena, if she found it impossible to leave her behind.

“That child has been well-nigh ruined by her uncle, but she’s a bit of a poppet all the same,” shesaid.

“Oh, there’s nothing very seriously wrong with Serena,” Mallory voiced it as her opinion.“Nothing, that is, that can’t very easily be put right—with her uncle’s co-operation, of course,” sheadded.

“Um!” Jill exclaimed, in a low voice. She was watching the host dividing his attention between hismost important guest and her own mother, and her straight dark eyebrows met in a little frown. “Pityhe doesn’t get married to someone who could really mother the child. All children are the better forsomeone who can at least act the part of a mother.”

Mallory followed the direction of her gaze.

“Miss Martingale is, I believe, a wonderful dancer,” she observed, wondering whether Jill had herin mind as a mother for Serena.

Jill’s answer was uttered with sudden, and unexpectedly vicious disdain.

“Oh, most people can do something, and quite a few can do a lot of things! In this life I think it isbetter to do a lot of things averagely than one thing superbly—better for other people, I mean! And

Miss Martingale is, of course, a superb dancer!”

Mallory looked at her in mild astonishment.

“But there are not many superb dancers in the world,” she reminded her.

Jill shrugged her shoulders carelessly.

“Just as well, if you want my candid opinion!”

She looked away and saw Adrian, standing a little disconsolately before one of the tall windows,parting the heavy velvet curtains and looking forth into the night.

“Poor Adrian!” she murmured, with sudden sympathy, her brown eyes— so many shades lighterthan Adrian’s own— softening miraculously. “How terribly out of it he always looks, and there’snothing very much anyone can do about it. It was a dreadful thing that happened to him.”

“Was it?” Mallory asked. “I haven’t been told a great deal about it, but I gather there was anaccident.”

Jill nodded.

“And he lost his wife and his earning capacity all in a single evening! There is only one interest leftto him in life, and that is his piano, and he really plays quite divinely.”

“I know,” Mallory told her. “I’ve heard him.”

Jill looked at her in slight surprise.

“Did he play for you, or did you just overhear him?”

“I overheard him, and he played for me,” Mallory admitted.

At that moment Adrian turned and caught sight of them and gravitated over to the settee on whichthey were both seated.

“You two girls look as if you might be holding some sort of a conference,” he remarked, with hisgentle smile—but it was a smile which was largely for Mallory. “Have you any objection if I break itup and join you?”

“None whatsoever,” Mallory assured him, but she thought that Jill made rather a wry little face.

“You honour us, Adrian, ” she told him, in a very distinct voice. “It isn’t often you work up enoughinterest on an evening such as this even to wish to break up a conference, as you term it. And I’m

wondering whether it’s some particular magic Miss Gower possesses?”

“As to that,” Adrian returned, quite gravely, his eyes dwelling thoughtfully on his daughter ’sgoverness’s face, “I think Miss Gower has got some sort of magic which has certainly had its effecton Serena. I was having a chat with the child a few minutes ago, and she tells me that she is already‘in love’ with Miss’ Gower. And she certainly never fell in love with Miss Peppercorn, or any of theothers who have had temporary charge of her.”

Mallory felt herself colouring slightly, for some reason which she could not quite fathom, under theinfluence of this compliment, but Jill Harding looked at her with the faintly rueful smile still clingingto her lips.

“There you are, Miss Gower! Serena has fallen for you! I wonder how many more conquests youwill make in Morven Grange before you depart from it?”

Her tone was light, but Mallory decided it was the moment to go in search of her small charge andtake her upstairs to bed.

“It’s late for her,” she said. “She’s accustomed to being in bed much earlier than this.”

But before she left the room with Serena she saw that Adrian was no longer sitting beside Jill onthe settee. He was back looking out of the window, that remote, lost look on his face.

Serena retired to bed with Belinda as usual, and it was arranged that Mallory should have the newkitten in its basket with her, in case, as Serena phrased it in some anxiety, Belinda should “suddenlywake up and eat it in the night.”

“Oh I don’t think Belinda has any cannibalistic tendencies of that order,” Mallory reassured her;“but it’s such a wee thing, it might be better it I took charge of it for a day or so, particularly as wedon’t even know whether it’s house-trained.”

Long after Serena had fallen into a state of quiet sleep and blissful dreams in her own room, withBelinda dreaming of strange white kittens and emitting uneasy little whimpers in her basket besideher, Mallory sat before the drawn-back curtains in her own room, and listened to the sound of musicand voices which reached her from the drawing-room immediately below her.

They were dancing now, the friends and the visitors who were there for the evening, dancing to themusic of gramophone records played on a powerful radio-gramophone which Mallory had glimpsedin a corner of the lovely room. That is to say the visitors were dancing, but the host and MissMartingale, who was still convalescent, were sitting comfortably in an alcove, screened by sheavesof the pure white lilac which sent forth all the perfume of the South of France into the softly lit anddeliciously-warmed atmosphere.

Miss Martingale, who looked like something out of an old French painting, and about whose looks

as well as her dancing so many enthusiasts raved, predicting a future as great as Pavlovas, wasalmost constantly in Mallory’s thoughts and she kept asking herself—would such a one be willing togive up adulation and applause and endless success in order to become the wife of such a man asRaife Benedict? He had so much to offer her, and if she looked ahead into the future she might decidethat security—complete security—would be worth far more than even the certainty of many moretriumphs in the years which might lie ahead. And if she happened to be in love...

Hugging the kitten in her arms, Mallory stood up and approached her window. Footsteps on theterrace below her caused her to look down, taking care to remain screened by her own curtains, andthere were two figures emerging on to the terrace, despite the bright, starlit chill of the night, and thewoman’s figure was shrouded in a soft fur coat—probably mink, Mallory thought!—over her longgold evening dress, with which she wore emerald ear-rings, and elbow-length gloves of emeraldvelvet. The man beside her was tall and arrogant, and with his hands in his pockets disdained even ascarf about his neck as they wandered forth and crossed the smooth lawns, disappearing finally intothe denser darkness which meant that they had been swallowed up by a maze of shrubberies.

Mallory let her curtains drop back into place and decided that she had better begin her preparationsfor bed. But she found herself sighing suddenly.

It must be rather nice to be a ballet dancer...!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Spring came in with a really determined rush less than a week later. Everything was early, even theazaleas in the winding drive ware putting forth every evidence of displaying the full perfection oftheir beauty within a very short space of time. Mallory was looking forward to seeing them at theirbest, for Mrs. Carpenter had told her that they formed a solid wall of colour mining almost from thedrive gates half-way up to the house, where the rhododendrons began, and that amongst them wasevery delectable tint imaginable, from creamy pink to burnished copper.

The wallflowers were out, too, under the south terrace, and their perfume filled the air on that sideof the house. Wave after wave of daffodils danced in the wind beneath the still bare-branched treeswhich guarded the carefully kept lawns, and the long-stemmed purple irises formed splashes ofcolour in the shade. The orchard grass was rapidly lengthening, and amongst it the birds-eye narcissiwaved graceful heads and simply demanded to be gathered into scented armsful for the house, and onthe terrace the picturesque stone vases were sending out trails of aubretia emboldened by thedeceptively early spring.

Mallory, during her daily walks with Serena, sometimes caught sight of Miss Martingale recliningon the terrace, well wrapped-up and protected by rugs, her extended chaise-lounge offering therestful ease for one who was recovering from what the newspapers had described as a breakdown asa result of overwork. She was obviously making the most of the sunshine, from which shenevertheless protected her eyes by wearing dark glasses, and usually her host was beside her, eitherreclining less elegantly in a chair or straddling one of the stone lions which also decorated theterrace.

Sometimes the other members of the house-party were scattered about the terrace, too, or Malloryand Serena would meet them on their walks, well turned out by London tailors and shoemakers whohad little idea of what were the real needs of life in the country. The white-haired John Carmichael,Miss Martingale’s closest shadow next to Raife Benedict, who sometimes drove a high-powered car,and seemed to find the district rather absorbing, never neglected to wave a cheerful hand to thegoverness and her charge whenever he caught sight of them, and the plump Mrs. Ainsworth, Sonia’sslightly incongruous friend, even joined them on one of their walks.

“I’m getting fat,” she admitted—and her voice had just the faintest trace of a Lancashire accentwhich Miss Martingale had striven hard to eradicate—“and I must have exercise. But these shoes”—usually she hobbled about on unsuitable high-heeled ones—“are going out of their way to kill me!”

Mallory offered her a pair of her own stout walkers, and the older woman was grateful. Theballerina, observing them, did not look so pleased.

“If you want shoes, why don’t you buy some, Lottie?” she suggested. “You shouldn’t borrow thingsfrom a governess.” She uttered the word ‘governess’ as if it had associations in her mind with an

under-housemaid.

“But she’s such a nice little thing.” Mrs. Ainsworth defended Mallory, who had just passed on intothe house. “Why, she’s even quite pretty—really pretty! She ought to have a job in London, whereshe could be seen, not just running around after some stupid, spoilt child.”

“Serena is Raife’s’ niece, don’t forget, Soma reminded her, with a displeased curl to her scarletupper lip, “and if Miss Gower chooses to act as her governess that is entirely her affair. Her positiondoesn’t call for any sympathy.”

“Well, perhaps not,” the amiable Lottie agreed; “but she’s so nice and ladylike—one can’t helpliking her...”

“She doesn’t affect me with any tremendous enthusiasm,” Sonia said, in her slow, cold drawl, andshifted a slender and beautifully arched foot in a sheer silk stocking and unpractical shoe in order toensure its greater ease.

Mrs. Ainsworth, who had known her for years, had the sense to say no more.

On Sunday—the first fine Sunday since she had arrived at Morven—Mallory took Serena tochurch, which was certainly an experience for Serena, who had not been encouraged to visit thesacred edifice. The church was in the very heart of the village, and it was old and grey and beautiful,with a squat Norman tower and a centuries old view in the churchyard. When they emerged from themorning service, with Serena carrying Mallory’s prayer book, and the sound of the organ camestealing out through the open doorway behind them into the sunshine of a glad, cool, sparkling Marchday, with flying clouds overhead, Jill Harding and her mother stopped to talk to them for a moment.The doctor had received one of his Sunday morning summonses and was not with them.

“Come to supper to-night,” Jill invited. “That’s all right, isn’t it, mother?”

“Of course,” Mrs. Harding replied at once. “And the doctor will run you home afterwards,” shepromised Mallory.

“Come early,” Jill called, as a big grey car drew up before the lych-gate through which they had allfour just emerged, and Serena instantly recognized her uncle at the wheel, with Sonia Martingalebeside him. “About six-ish!”

“All right,” Mallory called back, smiling gratefully. “Thank you very much.”

She was wearing her neat tweed coat with the bluish fleck, and her little blue hat that sat on theback of her head like a Juliet cap, and she looked very clear-eyed and content as, with her smallcharge’s hand held fast in her own, she moved towards the car.

Raife Benedict bent backwards to open the rear door for them, and Serena instantly scrambled in.

Sonia Martingale, her dark hair uncovered but protected to the chin by her luxurious mink coat, gaveher a smile out of her green eyes.

“Just in time to give you a lift,” Benedict observed. “I forgot,” he added, to Mallory, “that youwere a parson’s daughter.”

She looked at him in some astonishment.

“Do you mean,” she asked, “that you think that’s the only reason why I go to church?”

He shrugged slightly. As usual his eyes, or rather the expression in them, seemed to deride her, andhis voice held that subtly mocking note.

“How should I know why, or what it is that compels you to go to church? I’m not a churchgoermyself, but I’ve no objection at all to my niece being instructed along the right lines. Did you enjoythe service, Infant?”

“Oh, very much,” Serena admitted with enthusiasm. “I sang,” she added, “and so did Miss Gower.We both sang the hymns at the tops of our voices.”

“That must have been nice for all the other members of the congregation,” he commented. He slid inhis gears noiselessly. “And how is Mark Anthony?”

Mark Anthony was the new Siamese kitten, and the name was the one he himself had given it.

“Oh, he’s lovely,” Serena enthused again. “He sleeps with Miss Gower, and he’s already growingquite big.”

“Still adhering to his early attachment,” her uncle observed, but his eyes were on the road aheadthis time, and Mallory was rather thankful that she could not see whether or not they twinkledslightly.

When they reached the Grange, Adrian was standing at the foot of the steps, and he lookedsmilingly at Mallory. His brother, when he had alighted from the car, laid a friendly hand on hisshoulder.

“I was wondering,” Adrian said, a trifle diffidently, “whether I might borrow the car this afternoon,Raife? If you’re not going to use it? I thought about running out and having a look at White Cottage,and I thought perhaps Miss Gower—as it’s such a fine day...?”

He sounded even more diffident as he looked again towards Mallory.

“Why, of course, old chap.” But for an instant even Raife Benedict was surprised, and then Mallorysaw him look quickly at Miss Martingale, and her slender dark eyebrows rose just the fraction of an

inch. “If we want to go out we’ll take the other car. And certainly you can have this one.”

“Then you’ll come, Miss Gower?” Adrian asked quickly, and rather urgently.

Mallory hesitated for perhaps half a second, “Well, if Serena ... I expect Serena would like it,too...”

“Oh, yes, of course we’ll take Serena.”

“Oo, lovely!” exclaimed Serena, and started to execute a little un-Sunday-like dance on the broadgravel sweep. “White Cottage is such a pretty little house, and the country is lovely, too. You ’ll likeit, Miss Gower,” she assured her.

Before they went in to lunch the master of the house laid a detaining hand on his niece’s arm andthen spoke to Mallory.

“Since you two seem to have behaved yourselves while I was away I’ll take you both down to seeSaladin. Would you like to come, Sonia? Or do you want a little rest before lunch?”

“If you don’t mind,” she replied, for her ankle was hurting her a little, but she did not look toopleased to see all four of the others move off in the direction of the stables.

Serena was lifted up by her uncle to caress Shamrock, a shapely young chestnut without any vices,but he would not permit her to approach anywhere near to Saladin’s stall. Mallory leaned across thehalf-door and spoke to it softly, Adrian remaining close to her elbow, but only the owner of the bigblack went actually up to it and placed a strong, sensitive hand on its muzzle.

“It’s a wicked-looking brute, isn’t it?” he observed at last, over his shoulder to his brother andMallory.

“I don’t think it’s so much wickedness as perversity that is its besetting sin at the moment,” Malloryvoiced it as her opinion, “and the cure for that is a tremendous amount of exercise.”

Her employer glanced round at her with an odd smile on his lips.

“And I take it that you’d like to make yourself responsible for the exercising?”

“Oh, no, not me!” Mallory sounded quite genuinely horrified by the bare idea. “I couldn’t ride ahorse like that—it would be much too strong for me—but I do admire it all the same.”

“How much do you really know about horses?” Raife inquired, looking at her curiously.

“I’ve told you—quite a lot.”

“But you wouldn’t care to ride this one?”

“No; but I’d ride the chestnut.”

“Have you any clothes with you?”

“I’ve got jodhpurs.”

“Good! Then you shall have your wish, and one day you shall ride Shamrock. I’m getting a pony forSerena, and the two of you can get some exercise that way.”

“I think that’s a very nice idea,” Mallory told him, pleased, and Serena of course was delighted.Adrian looked on at them both as if he approved because they so obviously approved, and it was hiswish that they should both be happy.

CHAPTER NINE

The afternoon drive through a countryside coming alive with all the delights of Spring was, Malloryfound, most enjoyable. She was a little surprised that Adrian drove so well, and that he seemed tohave so much more confidence in charge of a car than he did at any other time—save, of course,when he was playing his piano—and also because he already looked younger than when she had seenhim first. His eyes held none of the vagueness she had first surmised in them, and his smile wasquick, and warm, and interested. Even to Serena he was much more affable, and she succeeded inamusing him at times just as much as she did Mallory.

The house they were to visit lay tucked away in a fold of steeply undulating country. Around it inthe summer there would be golden fields of wheat and every other sort of grain, and above it rosewooded heights. Below it a river twisted and sparkled in the changing light, and beyond the riverthere were green water-meadows where the peaceful cattle browsed.

Already the sap was bubbling in the bare branches of the trees, and in some cases Mallory couldalmost imagine a film of green overhanging them. A lark soared into the air and well-nigh burst itslittle throat with song when they slowed down to negotiate an unexpected sharp turn which actuallybrought them to the white gates of the house, beyond which rose twisted Tudor chimneys.

“This,” said Mallory, “is another very old house, isn’t it?”

“Old, yes, but not so old as Morven,” Adrian told her, “and of course not nearly so big. In fact it’sjust an enlarged and fairly recently modernized farmhouse, which was left to me by my great-aunt.”

“But you’ve never lived here?”

“No, never. I did plan to live here—once...”

His voice trailed away, and Mallory thought it wisest to say no more on that subject, for the timebeing at any rate. Instead she didn’t wait for him to open the car door but got down and assistedSerena to alight. Serena had not neglected to bring Belinda with her, and she was experiencing somedifficulty in grabbing her by her always rather slippery middle and attaching a lead to her collar, toprevent her from wandering off and getting lost.

The house was unoccupied, even by a caretaker, and no sooner were they inside it than Malloryrealized that it was badly neglected, although it possessed great possibilities. The floors were all ofsolid oak, and most of them had a slight list, and there were deep-set windows with diamond-panedlattices. The fire-places were huge and open, and the ceilings crossed by heavy beams. In the roomwhich had once been used as the dining-room there was some fine linenfold panelling, and thedrawing-room at that hour of the day had a lovely light from two windows which faced each other atopposite ends.

Mallory looked about her with appreciation, and Adrian watched her as if her reactions to what shesaw were important to him just then. Serena raced about what had once been a child’s nursery anddiscovered an old rocking-chair which she misused very happily for several minutes.

The garden had once been laid out very attractively, but was now mostly given over to weeds.Mallory stood looking down at the face of an old sundial and traced the inscription upon it with thetip of her little finger.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...”

The usual inscription, and the usual injunction to make the most of life that is all too fleeting...!

“I thought,” said Adrian, beside her, “of having something done to this place—of having it put intoorder again...”

“It would be a good idea,” Mallory replied rather absent-mindedly, for she was studying theshadow cast by the declining sun and trying to work out the time of day without consulting her ownwatch. “A very good idea...”

“You think so?”

His eyes were on her face, with its fair skin and its clear colour, her feathery-light eyebrows, thatshe darkened a little, although her eyelashes were exactly as nature intended them, long and muchdarker than her eyebrows, and dusted at the tips with something which looked like gold-dust. Theway her soft hair, growing out of its short cut, turned upwards on the nape of her neck fascinated him.

“Oh, yes—oh, yes, of course I do!” She suddenly realized that he was talking to her seriously, androused herself to return serious answers. “It’s a beautiful old house, and if it belonged to me Iwouldn’t let it remain like this for another day. At least, I’d start doing all I could to restore it with aslittle delay as possible. Why, there must be hundreds of people in the world who would go quitecrazy about a place like this...”

“I did think of selling it at one time,” he admitted.

“But why should you sell it? Your own house—an enchanting old house in an absolutely perfectsetting! Do you realize that this would be a kind of house agents’ dream, particularly if there is anyland going with it...?”

“There is quite a lot of land, but some of it is leased to neighbouring farmers. Even so, there arestill a good many acres which actually go with the house, and could be put to quite profitable use.”

“Have you ever thought of making use of them yourself?” she inquired.

“What, farming, you mean?”

“Yes, farming. With someone to do the actual work, of course—but it would still be an interest...”

“It would,” he agreed, and she could see that the germ of an idea had been born in his head. “Itcertainly would.” He looked at her again, his dark eyes lightening. “Miss Gower, do you like livingin the country?”

“I love it,” she confessed.

“Even in such an isolated spot as this?”

“I think an isolated spot is more attractive than a densely populated one...” She paused. Somethingin the way he was looking at her made her suddenly decide to proceed a trifle more cautiously. It wasnot impossible, of course, that he could find her rather attractive, but if he did—she wouldn’t everwant to hurt him. No man who had been hurt as he had been hurt—once—must ever be hurt again...!

She said rather quickly:

“I’m so sorry, but I’ve suddenly remembered I’m going out to supper to-night with the Hardings. Doyou think we could get back now? I don’t want to be late...”

“Of course not,” he agreed at once, and led the way out to the car.

But when they had collected Serena and Belinda and were actually on their way back to Morven,Adrian Benedict still appeared much more cheerful than those who knew him well were accustomedto seeing him. And he was burning over in his mind schemes for the restoration of the White Cottage.

Mallory just had time to effect a few necessary alterations to her appearance before setting out towalk the not very considerable distance to the doctor’s house in the village. It was a lovely evening,as it had been a lovely day, and she chose to take the short cut through the park.

Walking between the magnificent straight aisles of beech trees, she caught a curious drummingsound behind her which she decided immediately was the sound of galloping horses’s hooves. Shelooked back over her shoulder, and in the faint blue dusk which was deepening moment by moment,in the shade of the trees she made out the shape of a horse and rider coming towards her at speed.Instinctively she stepped aside, and then halted, but when the thunder of hooves grew louder and theman on the powerful black was almost abreast of her, unthinking she threw up a hand to greet them inpassing and her white glove gleamed ghostlike in the gloom.

There was a sudden, abrupt abatement of the horses’s speed, a kind of wild plunging of its iron-shod feet, and the next thing she knew was that its forefeet had actually left the ground and that it wasrearing upwards like a black fury. When it came down its rider also came down clean over its head,for he had had no opportunity to adjust himself or his balance to the suddenly altered pace and angleof his mount, and to Mallory’s horror, there in the deep gloom of the trees, she discovered that it washer own employer who was lying, apparently unconscious, almost at her feet.

Having relieved himself of his rider, Saladin trotted off quite happily apparently until he was lostamongst the trees, and Mallory knelt down fearfully beside Raife Benedict. She touched his face,which was, of course, still quite warm to her touch, and even in such a moment as that she noted howthick and crisp was his hair, and particularly the wave which persistently tried to dip down towardsone eyebrow. His eyelashes lay thick and black on his cheeks, making him look much younger, andrather devastatingly handsome.

But he showed no signs of life. She made up her mind that this was no time for nice feelings andslipped her hand inside his shirt, which was of thick, soft silk, and endeavoured to ascertain whetherhis heart still beat. And just as she did so he opened his eyes and looked up at her, coolly, calmly,with a hint of a smile in the sherry-brown depths.

“I am neither dead nor dying, Miss Gower,” he told her. “So pray do not upset yourself or prepareto shed tears over me. Instead, give me a hand and help me up!”

CHAPTER TEN

When she had helped him up, and he was standing leaning against a tree-trunk, as if despite his lightwords he felt the need of some support, Mallory realized by the feel of her cheeks that her colour washigh, and all that she kept thinking was that there had been no necessity for her to ascertain whetherhis heart was beating, and even at such a moment he had succeeded in mocking her a little.

“Why in the world did you want to stick your hand out like that just as we drew level with you?” hedemanded, a little irritably. “It was your white glove that upset Saladin. And, by the way, where ishe?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “He trotted off somewhere amongst the trees.”

“Then do you think you could find him? Confound it, but I seem to have wrenched my shoulder!” Hewas certainly looking rather pale, and his temper was appreciably not so good. “Don’t try any tricks,but if you could just manage to catch hold of his bridle and give me a heave up into the saddle I’d begrateful to you. I don’t think I can manage to walk back to the house.”

Mallory was immediately filled with concern for him.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere else apart from your shoulder...?”

“No; of course I’m not,” he answered, with a bite in the words. “Now, please don’t waste any moretime, but try and catch that black devil of a horse of mine, but don’t go anywhere near him if he looksin a nasty mood. You’ve told me you’re used to horses, so now let’s see whether you really are.”

Mallory uttered no further words but turned from him in the direction from whence the faint,musical jingle of bridle reached her ears, and a few seconds later she was talking coaxingly toSaladin, who appeared to be returning to look for his master, and made no objection at all when shelaid hold of his reins. With perfect composure, and secret satisfaction, she led him up to heremployer, and the latter raised his eyebrows in faint surprise.

“So you did catch him! Good for you!”

He seemed to wince a little, and turn even paler, when he was forced to desert the support of thetree; but with Mallory’s assistance he soon found himself in the saddle once more, and she gave thereins into his hands.

“All right,” he said, nodding at her rather abruptly, “you can go now.”

But Mallory decided that nothing would induce her to leave him until she had seen him safely backto the house.

“I will walk beside you,” she told him quietly, “since I don’t suppose you will risk cantering.”

“Certainly not!” he replied. “If you had my shoulder...!” He caught back a little half-groan whichhad tried to force its way through his lips. “But you were going out to supper. I heard you accept aninvitation this morning.”

“It is not in the least important, she assured him, “and the Hardings will understand perfectly. Infact I shall get on to the doctor as soon as we get home and he must come out and see to yourshoulder.”

“Hang it,” he muttered, between his clenched teeth, “I detest doctors, even old Harding—and heneedn’t think he’s going to turn me into an invalid!”

“Of course he won’t turn you into an invalid,” Mallory said to him soothingly. “But he may have toset your shoulder.”

His eyes glimmered down at her with a faint smile in their depths.

“What a girl you are!” he exclaimed. “You’ve got quite a way with you, haven’t you?—withchildren, horses, and Siamese cats...! And now I do believe you’re trying it on with me!”

“I’m not trying anything on with you,” Mallory retorted, with a touch of cool primness, “but I dothink it would be much easier for you if you didn’t attempt to talk until we get home. I’m quite sureyou’re suffering a good deal of pain.”

“Most intuitive of you,” he observed, but he took her advice and said nothing further until they werehalf way up the drive which led to Morven Grange, and then he remarked, as if apropos of nothing atall: “And there’s Adrian, of course—I forgot to mention Adrian...!”

Mallory looked up at him but said nothing. She hoped he was not beginning to ramble a little.

Once inside the house everyone seemed to be thrown into a state of great excitement and muchconfusion. The guests appeared from various corners of the house, and Sonia Martingale, who hadonly just come downstairs after resting in her room, and was looking particularly alluring in afloating creation of transparent black net, with high-heeled slippers of scarlet satin, and some blood-red stones at her startlingly. white throat, uttered a little shriek at sight of Raife, looking so white andunlike himself, and accompanied by Miss Gower, the governess.

“What on earth has happened?” she demanded. “You haven’t had an accident, have you? Raife,your coat is all stained and torn...”

“Mr. Raife! ” exclaimed Mrs. Carpenter, holding up her hands in horror. “What has happened?Don’t tell me it was that black devil...?”

“It was,” Raife answered shortly, and found his way through the press to the foot of the stairswithout another word.

Mallory went straight to the telephone in the library and asked Dr. Harding to come at once. Thenshe beckoned Phipps, who was hovering uncertainly in the doorway, and told him to take a stiffbrandy and soda to his master’s room.

“His horse threw him,” she explained. “Go and see what you can do for him.”

“But he’s never been thrown by a horse in his life!” Phipps exclaimed, as if he simply couldn’tbelieve it.

“Well, he’s been thrown this evening,” Mallory told him. “And hurry,” she added, “with thatbrandy!”

The following morning, about eleven o’clock, while she and Serena were ploughing throughmultiplication tables in the school-room, a knock came on the door. Phipps stood there when Malloryopened it.

“The master’s compliment’s, Miss,” he said, “and he would like to see you in his room.”

“The master?” Mallory echoed. “Mr. Benedict?—in his room?” And then, more hurriedly: “How—how is he this morning?”

“As well as any gentleman can be who has had his collar-bone broken and one wrist badlysprained, to say nothing of an ankle injured as well,” Phipps answered importantly. “He wishes tosee you, Miss, in his bedroom. Will you come this way?”

“And me?” called out Serena, preparing to follow them, but Phipps waved her away.

“Not you, Miss Serena. The master is in no mood for children this morning.”

He was, Mallory decided, when at last she entered the main bedroom of the house, in no mood foranything at all, save complete rest, and perhaps a little understanding sympathy as well. He waspropped up against his pillows in quite the most enormous four-poster bed she had ever seen in herlife, in a room that was dark with mahogany and rich crimson hangings. There was an odour ofantiquity in the room, too, as if much of the furniture and all of the hangings had been bequeathed tohim from a far, far distant age, and above it rose the protecting perfume of mothballs, which seemedactually to catch at the breath.

“Good morning, Miss Gower!” Raife Benedict’s voice, with a rasp in it, reached her from amongst

the bed curtains. “Do you mind trying to introduce a little more light into this room for me, please?Mrs. Carpenter seems to be labouring under the delusion that light is injurious in a case like mine.But as I’ve already explained to her at least a hundred times, I am not an invalid...!”

“Of course you’re not an invalid,” Mallory agreed quickly, in a voice that had all the sedativequalities of a turtle-dove in it, and going at once to the great windows she drew back the heavybrocade curtains as far as their cumbersome curtain-rings would permit, whereupon the morningsunlight actually found its way into the room. Then she went back to the bedside and looped back thebed-curtains so that the occupant of the bed was suddenly plainly revealed in striped silk pyjamas,his right arm in a sling, and the eiderdown littered with the mornings correspondence.

“Is that better?” she inquired gently, looking down at him.

“Much better,” he told her. He grinned suddenly, a rather boyish and faintly apologetic grin. “I feltas if I was imprisoned in a cage. These four-poster beds are the very devil when you’re not well—or, at least, confined to bed, as the saying goes. And Mrs. Carpenter hasn’t got a large amount ofimagination, poor soul, and she venerates anything which belonged to my ancestors.”

Mallory stood looking down at him, and she decided that he had had a sleepless night because therewere heavy rings under his eyes, and tiny lines of pain at the corners of his mouth.

“What else would you like me to do for you?” she asked. “I’m quite sure you didn’t send for me justto pull back the curtains.”

“Sensible girl!” he approved. “But, strangely enough, there is no one else in the house who couldhave done it as well as you, Miss Gower. You are nothing if not thorough. I like the way you setabout things, too, as if such a word as defeat would never be included in your vocabulary.”

Mallory smiled faintly. She had started to tidy up the litter on his bedside table—his ash-traychoked with ash, cigarettes lying open in a silver cigarette-box, a volume of poems lying facedownwards, a tumbler and one or two medicine bottles, amongst which was probably a sedativewhich had not entirely worked.

“I suppose the housemaid hasn’t got around to your room just yet,” she remarked.

“She got around, but I wouldn’t let her in,” he confessed. “Mrs. Carpenter was more than enough,with her revolting suggestions for a hearty breakfast.”

“Well, if you’re not an invalid you should eat,” she pointed out. “You must keep your strength up,you know.”

“My strength is still quite sufficient to frighten anyone who finds their way into this room withoutfirst receiving my permission,” he told her, rather a wicked gleam in his eyes.

Mallory could not prevent her smile from growing wider.

“Well,” she asked again, “what is it that you wish me to do for you?”

“First of all you can sit down,” he replied, indicating a chair drawn up close to the bed.

She sat down.

“The next thing is a question. Can you type?”

She shook her head.

“Do shorthand?”

Another shake answered him.

“A pity,” he remarked. “I thought perhaps you might have done both. However, you probably pen anice, round, feminine hand, and I’m quite sure all your letters are terrifically neat, so as I’ve got amass of correspondence which must be dealt with”—scooping together with his one hand the letterson the bed—“I’m going to get you to answer them for me if you will. I can’t do so myself with my lefthand, and some of them are important, so if I give you a, rough idea of what I want you to say, do youthink you can do the rest?”

“Oh, of course,” Mallory answered, quite pleased to, be of assistance, and a little flattered forsome reason because he had thought of her. “I can do that for you very easily.”

“Good!” he exclaimed. He looked at her. There was still a faint twinkle in his eyes, and she noticedthat when his mouth curved up in a certain fashion it had something very attractive about it. “I’ll payyou, of course, for your extra trouble. You needn’t think I’m trying to get a governess and a secretaryout of you all for the same weekly wage, or salary, or whatever you like to call it.”

Mallory felt herself flushing, and she actually felt quite angry.

“Mr. Benedict,” she said, “surely it is permissible for me to do something for you when you are illwithout expecting to receive compensation for my trouble?” Her clear voice sounded affronted. “I amnot a money-grubber, I hope!”

“Aren’t you?” His smile broadened. “Well, that’s something to know about you, anyway! But don’tforget I’m not ill, so that might make a difference to your feelings of generosity towards me...” Aknock came on the door, and he called out irritably, “Who’s there. Who is it?”

“Only me, darling,” Sonia Martingale called back soothingly, and without waiting for hispermission she flung open the door as if she was preparing for a stage entrance, stood framed for aninstant against the background of the corridor, with its crimson carpet and panelled walls, and then

sailed in and straight up to the side of the bed with her arms full of flowers she had extracted from thegardener. “All for you, my poor sweet,” she said, in her low, crooning voice, and laid them, like atribute, down before him on the eiderdown.

It was true that without in the least intending to do so she did accidentally touch his arm, in thesling, but quite apart from the jab of pain that might have caused him, Mallory saw him recoil, as ifstung, from the flowers. Sonia must, have worked hard over the gardener, who was a niggard with hisprecious blooms, for there were long-stemmed yellow roses from the hot-house, sprays of speciallycultivated larkspur and delphiniums, as well as daffodils, narcissi and tulips. And when she had laidthe whole lot on the bed, Sonia produced her trump-card, as it were, a neat posy of fragrant, deeplypurple violets nestling in cool, wet leaves, which the gardener had parted with most reluctantly, forthey were actually grown for the London market.

“There, darling! Aren’t they simply wonderful? And all for a poor lamb who got thrown from hishorse!”

“Really, Sonia...” The dark colour was stinging his cheeks, and at that unlucky mention of the causeof his misfortune—he who had never before been thrown from a horse!—it increased to a positivetide. “Do you have to deposit that mass of verdure right on top of all my letters? Confound it, but Iwas doing my best to sort them out...! And all this floral stuff is for a sick room, not mine!” He drewback as if the heavy odour of the flowers offended him, and Sonia looked astonished.

“But, darling, you are sick—this is a sick-room! I thought you would love them...” with a thin,disturbed wail in her voice.

His conscience pricked him, and he looked up at her guiltily.

“I do—oh, I do!” he assured her. “If only Miss Gower will take them away and find some sort of acontainer for them—preferably not in this room...! And come back, Miss Gower, when you havefinished and let’s make a start on these letters. Some of them ought to catch the afternoon post.”

“Very well, Mr. Benedict, ” Mallory replied, scooping up the flowers, while Sonia Martingalewatched her with upraised eyebrows. “I’ll be back very soon.”

“But what is Miss Gower doing in here?” Sonia demanded, before the door had closed upon thegoverness. “If you want help with your letters, surely I could be the one to help you?”

“No, no, Sonia, thank you,” he returned at once, and then reached forth his hand to pat her arm.“Run away now, there’s a good girl, and don’t pester me! I know I’m not being very grateful, and itwas sweet of you to think of me like this, but honestly I loathe flowers—I mean I don’t like them atclose quarters, in masses like this. All right for weddings and that sort of thing...”

“Weddings?” she murmured, and half closed her eyes, as if the word affected her very strongly.Then she opened her eyes again and focussed them reproachfully upon him, very large and green and

extraordinarily beautiful, and her lips pouted a little. “Raife, darling, why can’t I stay and talk toyou...”

“Presently,” he promised her, “you shall talk to me as much as you want to do, but for the momentI’m busy.”

“Then I shall get John to take me for a drive, “she said.

“Do,” he agreed at once. “And make it a long drive—it will do you good!”

She sailed away out of the room with her head held high, but he was not seriously perturbed by herdisplay of being more than a little upset. And when Miss Gower returned she was carrying the violetsin a dainty crystal goblet, the rest of the flowers being on view in his sitting-room, a somewhatmonastic apartment next door.

“I thought you would like to have these beside the bed,” she suggested, as she set them down on thebedside table.

He gave her a quick, amused look.

“Most tactful of you,” he observed, “most tactful!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

For the next few days Mallory had little time to devote to anybody save her employer, who kept herso busily occupied that Serena decided she was being neglected, and sulked a little in the school-room. The child was also extremely annoyed because she was not allowed to visit her uncle in hisbedroom, and the annoyance spread to Miss Martingale when she found that she, too, was to bepersistently barred entry.

“But this is quite ridiculous!” she exclaimed in tones of high indignation on the third day, when hersomewhat peremptory knock on the door resulted in its being opened by a bare few inches and thetemporary secretary politely refusing her admittance. “I’m sure if you tell Mr. Benedict that it’sme...”

But Mallory had already received her instructions, and they left her with little room to do anythingabout them. But she did try to soften the harshness of the edict.

“Mr. Benedict had rather a bad night, I’m afraid,” she explained, “and he doesn’t really wish to bedisturbed. Perhaps later to-day—or tomorrow...”

“If he had a bad night he ought not to be bothering about correspondence, and things like that,” theballerina declared, looking with barely veiled hostility at Mallory. “And it’s high time a propernurse took over and organized things for him. Business worries should be kept away from him at thistime—or if it’s a genuine emergency his London secretary could be brought down. I shall speak to thedoctor...”

When Mallory passed this information on to her employer he looked at first badly irritated, andthen all at once his irritation collapsed, and he lay back with a faint sigh on his pillows.

“In a way, I expect she’s right,” he admitted. “You can’t have guests and ignore them altogether.”

And then as Mallory’s gaze drifted to the violets beside the bed—magically retaining their beautyand perfume—his eyes followed the direction of hers, and he studied the flowers with greatthoughtfulness and concentration for several seconds. After which he announced that they wouldwork for a short while in the library the following morning, if she could spare the time, and that hewould be getting up for dinner that night.

“So you can pass on the intelligence to Miss Martingale if you see her,” he concluded, and Mallorywas a little surprised because it struck her that he was deliberately avoiding her eyes.

Miss Martingale was all over him when he descended to the dining-room that night, and because

his arm was still in a sling, and he had rather a marked pallor, she made a tenderly effusive fuss ofhim. But the fuss was not so noticeable when he insisted on Miss Gower bringing Serena to thedrawing-room after dinner, and although it was not part of the governess’s duties to be observantwhere he was concerned, it did strike her that although he joked in a somewhat caustic manner, andsuffered the attentiveness of Serena, who was quite genuinely devoted to him, as well as the lovelySonia’s more feline demonstrations of affection, by the time the evening was only half over he wasmaking a supreme effort to endure anyone about him at all. She fancied that his hard white teeth werefirmly gritted together behind the imperturbable mask of his face, and there were one or two beads ofperspiration glimmering brightly under a thick wave of his dark hair.

She promptly took it upon herself to order Serena upstairs to bed, and although she could not ofcourse say anything, she looked at him very hard before she left the room, and her look said plainly:

“Don’t you think that you’ve had enough...?”

The look was intercepted by Sonia Martingale, whose slender eyebrows rose, while the eyesthemselves looked suddenly extremely annoyed. But Raife Benedict smiled, the merest ghost of asmile, and he called after Mallory as she left the room with her charge:

“I shall follow your example before very long. And, don’t forget, I wish to see you in the morning,Miss Gower!”

In the morning, in the sombre panelled library, with the portrait of his ancestor looking down atthem from the wall above the fireplace, he regarded her with the old cynical look, faintly distortingthe shape of his mouth, as he sat at his walnut desk and finished handing over letters with which shewas to deal when she was alone.

“Shall I tell you something, Miss Gower?” he asked.

Mallory looked up in surprise, her pencil still poised.

“Yes, of course,” she answered—“if you think it’s something I should hear?”

“I do,” he told her. He was much more like himself this morning, and he was not even wearing thesling, and that mocking, disturbing sparkle was back in his curious hazel eyes. “Miss Martingalereproved me very strongly last night because she says I’ve been treating you unfairly these last fewdays. She will have it that a young unmarried woman, spending hours at a time in the bedroom of abachelor like myself, is unhappily likely to find herself compromised if that sort of thing goes on forlong! I must say it hadn’t occurred to me that I was placing you in any real danger, particularly asI’ve been feeling distinctly under the weather for the past few days, but perhaps you share MissMartingale’s views? Perhaps you feel that I’ve already compromised you?”

Mallory was so taken aback, and the mockery in his eyes confounded her so much, that for a fewseconds she could say nothing at all. And then she managed an expostulation.

“But that’s—that’s ridiculous...!”

“You think so?” he inquired, smoothly.

“You were ill, and I was merely helping you...”

“Very efficiently, too, if I must say so!”

“And someone had to assist you with your correspondence! And what if I’d happened to be yourreal secretary...?”

“Ah, but you see you aren’t!” he explained, carefully selecting a cigarette from his neat gold caseand then tapping it on the outside of the case. “You’re Serena’s governess, and your place is upstairsin the school-room, or walking in the park with Serena, and I hadn’t any real right to snatch you fromyour natural environment and incarcerate you in a bedroom smelling strongly of moth-balls andcarefully preserved antique furniture! The fact that I was temporarily without the use of one normallygood arm, and that I was so badly bruised from top to toe that I seemed to be one continuous ache,has nothing whatever to do with it. You were in danger from malicious tongues, and neither of usseemed to realize it!”

“That was because there was nothing to realize,” she answered stiffly, and started to gather up theletters. “Would you prefer it if I do these in the school-room?”

“Not at all. You can work here in the library, but to get back to this business of your beingcompromised...”

“Must we?” she asked, with dangerous calm, although her bottom lip for some reason required tobe caught up between two small white teeth to steady it.

“I think we must,” he answered, smiling enigmatically. “You see,” he explained, “you don’t looklike a secretary—and I’m not only quoting Miss Martingale! At least, you don’t look like theaccepted idea of a highly efficient young woman capable of ordering her employer’s life for him!Although I know you are efficient, you look young and vulnerable and—far too attractive...!”

“Please,” Mallory managed, controlling herself with an effort, “if these are all the letters you wantme to answer for you...”

“They are all I want you to answer for me to-day.”

He rose and pushed back his chair, and although he continued to smile, his eyes were no longerdeliberately mocking. There was even something faintly whimsical hovering about his lips now.

“And don’t let even the thought of malicious tongues worry you, will you? Because in this houseI’m quite sure you’re already highly popular! And although I’ve annoyed you I’ve been tremendously

appreciative of all you’ve done for me over the past few days,” surprising her considerably bysuddenly holding out his hand to her. “I’m going to London to-morrow, and I may not be back for aweek or more, but while I’m away I hope you’ll get some exercise on Shamrock, and Serena’s newpony should arrive any day now. Carry on the good work you’ve begun on Serena—I think she’simproved quite markedly since your arrival on the scene!”

“Oh!” Mallory exclaimed, and for the life of her just then she could not understand the feeling ofalmost acute disappointment which welled over her at his news, and the quality of flatness itintroduced into her voice. She supposed that if he was returning to London, Miss Martingale wouldbe returning with him, but—the house would seem extraordinarily empty once they had all left. Itwould seem extraordinarily empty once he had left!

She put her fingers into his clasp, and he retained them for several seconds—unusually long-drawn-out seconds they seemed for a hand-shake—and when it was over her fingers tingled queerly, and shefound it difficult to forget the strange vitality of that hand-clasp. It was just as if something warm andvital—and rather extraordinary!—had communicated itself from him to her at a moment when shewas quite unprepared for it, and in spite of the fact that she had felt so angry with him a few momentsago, when she had felt so sure that he was mocking her, and for some reason amusing himself at herexpense, all at once she was so loath to have him leave Morven Grange that she was afraid what shewas feeling would be given away by her eyes, and she kept them carefully lowered.

“Thank you,” she said. “I—Serena is very easy to deal with, really...”

“Unlike the rest of us Benedicts,” Raife observed, smiling this time with something odd andunamused in his smile. “As a family we are about as tractable as Saladin, and possibly asunpredictable!”

He gave her fingers a little, close squeeze, and then dropped them gently—remarkably gently forone whose movements were usually governed by impatience and impulse.

“And if you’ll put those letters on my desk before the afternoon post,” he said, “I’ll sign them andsee that they get away.”

Then he turned away almost brusquely and walked towards the door, and she realized that he wasgoing in search of Sonia—and it was quite possible that she might not see him again before he left!She might not see him for several weeks...!

CHAPTER TWELVE

As it happened, several weeks did actually pass away before Raife Benedict decided to return to acountryside that was now ablaze with midsummer, and in the interval Mallory found that life atMorven flowed along rather sluggishly. She and Serena spent a great deal of their time out of doors,especially when Serena’s pony arrived and they were able to take advantage of the sudden perfectionof the weather. Serena had sat astride her first pony when she was not much more than three yearsold, and she would have been quite happy to ride Shamrock, the little chestnut mare, if her uncle hadgiven permission; but as it was it was Mallory who found Shamrock just right for her weight, and inworn jodhpurs and an open-necked blouse, with Serena looking like a small equestrian fashion-platebeside her, they roamed the lanes and explored the woods around the Grange, discovering favouritebeauty spots and hidden nooks to which they returned again and again, occasionally persuading Mrs.Allardyce, the cook, to pack them up a picnic basket, and spending the whole of the day out of doors.

Other days they worked conscientiously in the school-room, a host of new books having been sentdown from London to assist them in their studies after Mallory had approached her employer on thesubject. With typical prodigality he had placed an order for a far larger number of text books, worksof reference on all sorts of subjects, as well as some lighter reading matter, than they were everlikely to require—at least, not in the interval before Serena was placed in some sort of a scholasticestablishment were sooner or later she would have to find herself.

In the meantime, she found Mallory a most pleasing companion, and a vast improvement on Darcy,who was beginning a retreat into a sulky shell where she found few sympathizers, for even Mrs.Allardyce had taken quite a fancy to the ‘new young lady’ and Mrs. Carpenter had approved of herfrom the very beginning.

It was the evenings when Mallory felt at her loneliest, and when she wished that there was someonewith whom she could share the long, frequently oppressive hours once her solitary evening meal badbeen served to her and was over, and night like a stealthy mantle crept down over the tall trees in thepark. It was at that hour that the old house, although so filled with luxury, seemed to come alive witha spirit of brooding which emphasized her aloneness, and when she looked back on that short periodwhen the house had been filled all at once with the laughter and the movement of guests, and whenlights had streamed from the drawing-room windows, and had spread across the velvet lawns, andeven although she herself had been offered little part in the purely temporary festivities, it had beensomething to feel that others were enjoying themselves around her.

At least, that was what she told herself when she stood behind the heavy curtains in her room,listening to the lonely hooting of owls in trees crowding close to the house, and watching the goldencrescent of a young moon rise into the clear blue above the tops of those trees.

In reality, the picture she saw most often was the picture of a tall and rather elegantly spare manwho moved with a pantherish ease, and looked at his best in regulation evening clothes, who stepped

from the lighted windows with a slender figure in a golden gown keeping close to his side. And thetwo figures always moved across the terrace to the head of the time-worn steps which led down tothe dimly-seen emerald lawn, and whether this picture gave her any satisfaction or not she could nottell—but for some reason it clung to her, and the hooting of the owls sounded lonelier than everwhenever she recaptured it.

Sometimes she caught the sound of Adrian entertaining himself throughout the long hours at hispiano, and once or twice he sent down an invitation for her to join him in his room. She felt it was aslightly unconventional thing to do to sit there with him while his fingers glided tirelessly over theivory keys of his piano; but when he elected to cease playing and sat instead in a chair quite near toher studying her in a fashion which always covered her in a certain embarrassment, while they talkeddesultorily of such things as music, then she felt that it was still more unconventional, for there was alook in his wonderful dark eyes which definitely disturbed her at times. It was a brooding look, athoughtful look—and it seemed to take in so much of herself, with her soft hair and her smooth, softcheek and slender throat, and the girlishly slim figure relaxed in something neat but cool as theevenings grew steadily warmer.

Once Jill Harding telephoned and asked her to spend the evening at the doctor’s house in thevillage, and Mallory accepted gratefully, and for the first time for many weeks she felt that she wasnot utterly alone and unwanted when the sun went down. Jill was spending a long week-end with herparents, and she recalled the occasion when Mallory was to have had supper with them before, andwhen her employer’s unfortunate accident had cancelled the evening for her.

“I always thought that brute Saladin was too much for even Raife Benedict,” Jill observed, whenthe two girls were sitting comfortably together in her sitting-room after they had helped to clear awaythe remnants of the evening meal—a much more homely evening meal than the one to which Mallorywas now accustomed. “Tell me,” crushing the end of a cigarette into an ash-tray and immediatelyselecting and lighting another, “has that ballet-dancer got a hope of catching him, do you think?”

Mallory was a little taken aback, and also this was not a subject she was altogether happy athearing discussed—although why she should shrink from it she hadn’t really at that stage of herexistence the least idea.

“How would I know?” she asked, rather helplessly. “Mrs. Carpenter, I know, is a little afraid that—that...”

“That she has?”

Mallory made a small, barely noticeable movement with her slim shoulders.

“Why, otherwise, does he bring her all the way to Morven...? And the best bedroom is always gotready for her, apparently, and he is very attentive ...” She was recalling the fact that, although he hadobviously felt very much more like remaining in his bed and the seclusion of his own room, whilerecovering from the effects of the tumble Saladin had occasioned him, Raife, the master of so much—

and surely of his own inclinations?—had decided that he had better make an effort and rejoin hisguests, otherwise one particular guest might take it amiss!

Jill shook her head, and stared at the glowing tip of her cigarette.

“And yet I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t really believe that a man as case-hardened—asimpervious, I always thought—as Raife Benedict would succumb quite easily to the rather obviouscharms of a dancer. Admittedly she is lovely, and she dances like a dream, but ...” She shook her headagain. “Somehow I can’t quite see the thing coming off.”

She lay back in her chair and looked across at Mallory as if something—something far more urgentthan the elder Benedict’s matrimonial concerns was occupying her mind, and whatever it was it madeher pleasant brown eyes look shadowed, and Mallory had already decided that she was a nervousbundle of energy, who dared not relax because she was always seeking to escape the agitation of herown thoughts. And yet, at the same time, she looked so slim and elegant— so much the sophisticatedLondon model with so much to occupy her time away from the limited horizon of her own home. Itwas difficult to believe that in an active and interesting life there was something else she desired.

“Tell me—tell me about Adrian,” she said softly, all at once. “Is he—how is he?”

Mallory looked at her in a slightly worried fashion. There was so little she could tell anyone aboutAdrian, save that he was apparently immersed in his music, and that nothing else—not even his owndaughter—made any real impact on his life. At least...

Jill said slowly, looking at her, “He likes you, doesn’t he? Mrs. Carpenter told Mother that you’rethe first person he’s taken any real notice of for years, and that Raife was amazed because hedisplayed so much interest in you.” Her lips twisted a little wryly, and suspecting what she suspectedMallory felt as if she had been accused of a crime, and she looked uncomfortable.

“I can assure you,” she answered, without any real conviction in her tones, “that if he’s interested inme it’s simply because—simply because of some link with Serena...”

“Nonsense!” Jill exclaimed, with gentle amusement. “Serena has had more than one governess inthe past, and to the best of my knowledge Adrian has scarcely even acknowledged their existence.No,” her smile at Mallory was wistful, but definitely kind and approving, “it’s something aboutyourself—something to do with yourself. You’re not an obvious beauty like Sonia Martingale, andpossibly anyone as sophisticated as Raife would overlook it altogether. But Adrian, with hisappreciation of music, and his strange, mystical mentality and need of something real and comforting,and consoling—to him you’ve probably got something far more important than beauty.”

She stood up as Mallory looked still more uncomfortable, even rather acutely embarrassed, andlooked at the clock.

“My dear; it’s getting late, and Daddy’s had to take the car out, and that means he can’t drive you

home. You’d better let me walk back with you at least a part of the way, and we can thank goodnessit’s a moonlight night. And, in any case, I think I can do with, some fresh air.”

But Mallory declined to allow her to do more than walk to the end of the village street with her,and then she cut across the park, which she knew would shorten her homeward journey by nearlythree-quarters of a mile. And it was, as Jill had said, a moonlight night—a breathlessly beautifulmoonlight night, with very little air and hardly a leaf stirring as she walked beneath spreadingbranches that interposed a kind of canopy between her and the brilliantly clear June sky, sewn withfar away stars like millions of tiny, twinkling jewels.

And the one thing which spoiled the peace and the loveliness of it all for her was the recollectionof something Jill Harding had said:

‘You’re not an obvious beauty like Sonia Martingale, and possibly anyone as sophisticated asRaife would overlook it altogether...’ Whatever it was about her that Adrian found attractive, shewas quite certain in her own heart that her employer was not in the least aware of it—and Jill had putthat certainty into words... She had made her feel that she was very ordinary clay indeed, comparedwith Sonia Martingale...

She had emerged from one of the denser thickets, and had just arrived at the edge of the broad,well-cared for stretch of road which cut diagonally across the park and presently joined the maindrive which led to the entrance of Morven Grange, when the head-lights of a car sent a sudden,dazzling beam across the whole width of the road, and the unmistakeable soft humming noise of thecar itself fell on her ears.

There was no need for anyone to inform her that it was a powerful car, and that it was travelling atspeed, and she drew back a little out of the glare of the lights and waited for it to sweep past her andonwards. But, considerably to her surprise, as she stood there like a shadow in the gloom of the trees,there was a sudden harsh grinding of rather ruthlessly applied brakes, and the car came to a standstilla few yards ahead of her. The door beside the driver was flung open, and a man s voice called to her:

“Miss Gower! What in the world do you think you’re doing wandering about the park at this hour?”

Her employer descended from his place behind the wheel, and she realized now that it was his longgrey car in which she herself had once been driven from the Station, and that from the glimpse shehad had of it as it swept past her he himself was its only occupant.

For no reason whatsoever that she could think of just then she felt all at once covered in guilt andconfusion as he came striding purposefully towards her, and when he reached her she saw that hewas hatless and wearing a light grey suit, and there was something almost intimidating in his eyes.

“Don’t tell me you’re taking a moonlight stroll?”

“No, I”—the sight of him affected her for a few moments, so oddly that she found it difficult to

conjure up a voice—“I’ve been spending the evening with the Hardings.”

“And couldn’t one of them have the decency to see you home?” His voice was harsh, and hesounded almost furious about coining upon her like this.

“The doctor was called out, and—and there was only Jill...”

He walked back to the car and went round and held open the door beside his own seat at the wheel.

“Get in,” he said curtly.

And when she had obeyed him and he had also climbed back into his place and was in the act ofengaging his gear, he looked sideways at her for a moment, and she could see that there was nosoftening of his expression.

“Don’t you know that this is a very lonely walk at night, and that for young women like you itshould be out of bounds after ten o’clock, even on a summer evening?” He thrust impatiently at thegear lever, although the gear wheels would have engaged easily without the slightest effort, and shecould see his dark, strong hand gripping it almost violently. “Please bear it in mind that I don’tapprove of you accepting invitations to other people’s houses unless they can give you a guaranteebeforehand that in the event of it being late when you leave someone will see you back to Morven. Isthat quite clear?”

“Y-yes—quite clear,” Mallory answered, in a very small and thread-like voice, and then subsidedinto complete silence beside him.

They sped across the park with only the faint purring of the engine making any sound at all in theotherwise almost uneasy hush of the night, and a faint breeze stirred up by their passage coming in atthe open window lifted Mallory’s soft fair hair off her brow. She was aware that there were suit-cases piled up on the seat behind her, that there was a faint masculine aroma of shaving cream andpipe tobacco floating in the enclosed space around her, and that the man beside her was concentratingon the road ahead with so much frowning concentration that his thick black brows, she was certain,were actually meeting above the somewhat arrogant bridge of his nose, and his thin lips appeared tobe clamped together, obviously because he was filled with displeasure.

And then all at once she felt him relax a little on the seat beside her, and to her further amazementhe suddenly gave vent to rather an amused laugh, and one of his hands deserted the wheel for aninstant and lightly—very lightly—patted her knee.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “if my burst of annoyance has petrified you, but I was quite genuinely horrifiedwhen I picked you up in my head-lights just now, and I really do mean it when I say that you arenever to repeat this sort of thing again. But I appreciate that you’ve been cooped up at Morven forsome time, and that you must have some kind of an outing sometimes...”

“It was a very harmless outing,” Mallory returned quietly, “and the first I’ve made since you’vebeen away.”

“Really?” He sounded surprised, and then his voice softened still more. “In that case you must havebeen finding life a little—well, dull! But it’s a pity Jill Harding didn’t have the sense to keep you forthe night if her father couldn’t drive you home.” He looked as if he was ready to frown again, but theywere nearing the house by this time, and he asked, rather more abruptly: “How’s Serena?”

“Oh, she’s very well, thank you.” Her voice was a little formal, because she was not sure that sheapproved of being treated like a housemaid who had made too much of her off-duty, and was in anycase a little irresponsible herself. “In fact, she’s completely well.”

“And she likes the new pony?”

“Yes; very much.”

“Then you can both ride with me to-morrow morning before breakfast, if it’s a good morning, andwe’ll see how well you manage Shamrock.” He brought the car to the smoothest of halts before thegreat front door, and Mallory spared a moment of sympathy for Mrs. Carpenter when she discoveredthat her employer had returned and that there had been no warning of his return, although his roomswere—as always—quite ready for him. But it was the least little bit inconsiderate, Mallory thought,not to give warning—even if he was not accompanied this time by Sonia Martingale!

But when he descended and held open her door for her to alight, and she caught him looking downat her from his superior height with something queerly searching, and at the same time slightlyquizzical, in his regard, that curious, breathless sensation that had attacked her before when she hadfirst realized that it was he, and recognized his big grey car, caught, like a human hand, at her throatagain, and she forgot to be critical. And deep down inside her something was even glad that he wasback.

“Don’t forget,” he called, as he watched her turn away rather hurriedly towards the steps, “thatyou’ve an early appointment for to-morrow! And Serena, too, if she can be persuaded to wake up intime.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Serena, when awakened the following morning, thought it the nicest thing that had happened to her fora long time that her uncle should want to ride with her—and Mallory, which was perhaps a littlemore surprising, in her childish opinion.

“For he’s never seen you on a horse, has he?” she said, as she scrambled out of bed and allowedMallory to assist her with her dressing. “And he doesn’t know how beautifully you manageShamrock. I do believe you could even ride Saladin if he’d let you, but he wouldn’t, of course.”

“No, and I’ve no intention of ever asking his permission to ride Saladin,” Mallory answered “Andnow do hurry, because it will never do to keep Mr. Benedict waiting.”

Serena sent her a somewhat arch glance as she tugged on a small brown riding-boot.

“Why do you always say Mr. Benedict,” she asked, “when Sonia calls him Raife? It would beeasier to say Raife, wouldn’t it? But perhaps he wouldn’t like it.”

“Perhaps not,” Mallory agreed, and turned quickly away.

Outside, it was a perfect early summer morning, with mist clinging to the tops of the trees, and abrilliant sunrise sending streaks of flame across an otherwise perfectly clear sky. There was alreadya feeling of heat in the air, promising much greater heat as the day advanced, and Mallory haddressed herself suitably in a thin silk blouse the colour of a blaze of blue larkspur, and her hairlooked pale and neat as a primrose in the early light. She found her employer waiting at the foot ofthe steps once they had crossed the silent, echoing hall and passed through the great entrancedoorway, and he was sitting astride Saladin while a groom, who also acted the part of a gardenerwhen he was not looking after the horses, held Shamrock and Felicity, Serena’s pony.

Mallory was aware that when she first met Raife Benedict’s eyes they were appraising her quitecoolly, but in a way that instantly brought a faint blush to her cheeks. She was not sure what it was inhis look that caused her to behave for an instant like a susceptible schoolgirl, but as they all threerode away down the drive, and the mellowed beauty of the old house was left farther and fartherbehind them, she was conscious of the fact that as she was a little ahead of him he still found itpossible to study her, and he was doing so.

Her impressions of that morning ride, after it was all over, were on the whole extremely pleasant,however, and the pleasure was not entirely derived from the sparkling beauty of the morning, and thefact that her little mare was such a beauty, and carried her superbly. The gauzy loveliness that layover this enchanting corner of England was enough to make one feel lyrical at that hour, it was true,and there was something alluring and provocative about the occasional glimpses of the distant Welshhills. And Serena, gay and abandoned, in a canary yellow blouse, and with her dark elfin locks

streaming out behind her like a silken dark cloak as she dug hard little heels into her pony’s flanks,flying always ahead of her, created an illusion of carefree and effortless speed which was infectious.

But behind her her employer rode Saladin almost sedately, as if he had no wish to give vent to anywild enthusiasms, and Mallory suited her pace to his, and when they were picking their way daintilyalong narrow woodland paths, or plunging into a tunnel-like lane which made it impossible to rideabreast, her mount was usually a length ahead of his, and whenever he addressed her deliberately shehad to turn her head over her shoulder and look at him.

“You ride well,” he told her once, in his blunt fashion. “In fact, you ride far better than a good manyyoung women I know. You sit well, and you look well on a horse.”

Once again, as she met his eyes, she felt herself inclined to flush a little, and a faint glimmer ofamusement appeared in those black-lashed eyes.

“Another thing to add to the testimonial I shall be able to write for you one of these days,” he said,“when you feel the desire to leave us. Have you any idea when that will be? Have you started togrow tired of Morven yet? If you have, I wouldn’t altogether blame you, because unless you’re usedto this type of country it can be very lonely sometimes.”

“I don’t find it in the least lonely,” Mallory answered, not altogether truthfully—for there had beenmoments in the past few weeks when, in spite of the beauty and the luxury surrounding her, she hadfelt as if she was a little redundant sometimes, and could very easily be dispensed with without anysingle feature of the fair landscape on to which she looked so often being blighted in any way by herdeparture. “And nobody could ever grow tired of Morven,” she added, because she meant it.

“Couldn’t they? That’s what Adrian says, and he scarcely ever leaves it, and I like it myself—particularly after I’ve been away from it for a while. But that applies to so many things, doesn’t it?You appreciate them so much more when you’ve been deprived of them for a time?”

His eyes were on her face as he spoke, and there was something thoughtful and speculative in hislook which, together with a strangely quiet note in his voice, caused her to look down rather wildly atthe reins in her hands, and unconsciously she tightened them so that her mount threw up its head andbecame mildly obstreperous for a moment.

“Obviously Shamrock doesn’t agree with me,” he remarked, a dry note of amusement in his voice.“Or, possibly, you don’t either, Miss Gower?”

“I”—Mallory had once again gained complete control of her mount, but her colour was high, andfor some reason she could not meet his eyes—“I’ve told you I don’t think anyone could ever growtired of Morven, and so far as I’m concerned once I like a thing I don’t have to be deprived of it tocontinue to appreciate it. But perhaps that’s because I’ve never had a great many things to claim myinterest and divide my allegiance,” she added, somewhat hurriedly lest he should think she sounded alittle prim and condemning.

“And does that apply to people, also?” he asked, rather curiously. “You’ve never met a largenumber of people?”

“Not outside my own family circle and old school friends, no,” she admitted, and thought how dullshe must strike him by comparison with someone like Sonia Martingale, for instance, who, althoughshe was still young, had already a large portion of the world at her feet. And not only was she used topeople, she was used to dealing with them and comporting herself amongst them in such a way thather poise was the one thing about her apart from her exotic beauty which struck anyone meeting herfor the first time as worthy of the greatest admiration.

“I think that’s rather an intriguing confession to be able to make,” Raife Benedict observed, and,daring to dart a small sideways look at him, Mallory was a little astonished to detect that the smile onhis lips was oddly gentle. “It means that there’s so much in store for you in the future, and so manyexperiences which you’ll probably find quite exciting. Life may have all sorts of things to offer you,and at the moment you don’t know anything at all about them...!” His eyes, that seemed to be muchdarker than sherry-brown to-day, with the little golden gleams floating in them almost lazily, dweltwith a kind of pleased contemplation on the whole slender outline of her as she rode beside him, andfor an instant his voice was almost caressing. “I could almost wish we had a crystal ball and couldpeer into it together, Miss Gower, and see just what the future has in store for you!”

She tried to laugh lightly, as if the suggestion genuinely amused her.

“It would probably reveal a whole succession of jobs somewhat similar to the one I’m holding atthe moment, and a great many new and difficult children all waiting for me to break them in. And noone could say that would be very exciting,” she concluded, wondering why her heart was beating ina kind of bumpy fashion rather in keeping with the hollow trotting of their horses’ hooves, and whyonce again she felt a little breathless as she spoke.

But he shook his head quite vigorously.

“That is a future I do not envisage for you,” he told her. “However good you are at governessing,you were not meant to keep it up—I can tell you that much!”

He sounded so emphatic about it that for a moment she did not know quite how to respond to hismood, and in order to change the subject she asked quickly:

“Did—did it take you long to recover completely from that nasty toss I caused Saladin to involveyou in?”

He seemed to relax and to smile with amusement both at the same time, and then he shook his head.

“I felt sore for a fortnight after that little episode, and I haven’t made up my mind yet whetherSaladin is suitably ashamed of himself.” He glanced down at the handsome black, and at the sametime he touched it almost caressingly on its arched and glossy neck. “However, time will tell whether

he’s worth hanging on to.” They heard Serena crashing noisily ahead of them through the dim, coolshade of a little beech wood, and before they entered it, and he had to fall back into single file behindMallory once more, Benedict remarked with a sudden complete change of tone:

“By the way, Miss Gower, I shall probably want your assistance again, but not with secretarialwork—or not exactly. Miss Martingale is going abroad in the autumn—a tour of the Continent withher ballet company—and before she leaves she’ll be coming down here for a few weeks, and she’dvery much like me to give a costume dance at Morven.” As Mallory could no longer make anyattempt to see his face she could obtain no clue as to whether he also thought it was a good idea, andhe continued. “I suppose Morven is just the right setting for that sort of thing, and in my mother’s daywe were not so inhospitable as we are now, and on the whole things were much gayer at Morven. Butgetting out of touch with things—being away so much, amongst other reasons—I’ve rather lost traceof the various families and people who would be likely to wish to receive invitations to a dance ofthat sort, and I thought perhaps you might make it one of your duties to unearth a few details about thelocal hoi polloi who would definitely be interested. Is that too much to ask of you?” They hademerged from the wood, and could see Serena galloping madly and heedlessly away in front of them,and Mallory answered with once again that little breathless tremble in her voice: “Of course not. Andof course I’ll do anything to help...”

“Good girl!” he exclaimed, but he was looking over her head at Serena, and his eyes were oncemore inscrutable. “That’s splendid, especially if you don’t mind taking a bit of trouble. Get on toCarpie, and ask her to help you—she’s a mine of information about this part of the world, and in anycase she’ll have to be consulted about all the arrangements. And Phipps will be in his element—Phipps loves formal parties, and that sort of thing.”

Mallory said nothing, and Serena suddenly pulled in her mount and her uncle cupped his hands overhis mouth and called to her to wait until they caught up with her. Then, for the last lap of the ride,Mallory was forced to put all other thoughts out of her mind as, in order to gratify Serena, they allthree rode their horses at exhilarating speed across the undulating country which lay between themand the parkland surrounding Morven, and when at last they galloped up the drive and then shotacross the stately timbered park to the house, with its diamond-paned lattices flung wide to thebrilliance of the new day, and the scent of opening roses in the rose-garden floating in the warm airand lapping it about like a caress, the faces of both the governess and her charge were glowing, andRaife Benedict also looked unusually alert and bright-eyed. As he swung himself out of his saddleand held out a hand to help Mallory dismount, she thought that his eyes were also once more just alittle inclined to mock her.

“We’ll have to see what we can do about that witch-ball,” he said. “Unless you’d rather possessyour soul in patience and just wait for things to happen?”

She did not answer, partly because she was quite sure he was laughing at her, and partly because atthat moment she had no slightest wish to peer into her future. Much of the brightness of that morninghad been dimmed for her when she had heard about Miss Martingale’s proposed second visit toMorven—a visit that was to last a few weeks!—and the costume dance which she desired so much

that no expense was to be spared in granting her wish.

Just then, despite that last blood-stirring canter which had brought the colour to her cheeks andmade her eyes look brilliant as soft grey jewels, something inside her was not happy. And she feltthat it would be a mistake to peer into the future—her future!

Whatever she might see in a witch-ball, it would bear no resemblance to the kind of things MissMartingale would see...!

That night, when she was thinking that it would be scarcely necessary to change her frock fordinner, Rose the maid brought a message to her room to the effect that Mr. Benedict would like MissGower to prepare her charge to stay up late and have dinner with him, and that he expected MissGower to join them as well.

It was so much like a command that Mallory knew there was nothing she could do about it, althoughhaving got Serena into some kind of a reasonable daily routine, she was not at all approving of herstaying up later than her usual bed time, for herself she would have infinitely preferred to have herevening meal alone in her own room.

But Serena was delighted when the news was conveyed to her, and she declared that it wasdelightful having Uncle Raife back at Morven. He had always spoiled her, and now he was beginningagain after a too long interval, and the only thought in her head was what she should wear to makeher appearance in the dining-room, and what sort of entertainment would be provided for afterdinner.

But Serena’s pleasure was short-lived, for the evening meal so far as she was concerned was oneof extreme simplicity, and afterwards she was dispatched to bed with small ceremony, and scarcelyany heed paid to her disappointed utterances because for once her Uncle Raife was behaving like adisciplinarian, and Miss Gower supported him almost with relief when it was suggested that Serenashould miss as little as was possible of her beauty sleep and go to bed without delay.

But if Mallory thought that by retiring upstairs again with Serena she would escape anything in thenature of a tete-a-tete with her employer, she, too, was doomed to disappointment. For he made itclear that he not only expected but requested her return downstairs once her small charge had eitherbeen handed over to Darcy, or she had seen her into bed herself. And although she couldn’t imaginewhy, although there were no guests in the house and he was probably feeling a trifle bored—perhapsmissing Sonia Martingale acutely!—he should want to continue a conversation which had seemedstilted and difficult at dinner, she knew better than to invent an excuse which would keep her in thesanctuary of her own rooms.

She had a feeling he would not listen to excuses, and that he would probably come upstairs andskilfully prove that it was only an excuse. So, after seeing Serena into bed, and leaving her withBelinda curled up in her basket beside her, she flicked a hasty powder-puff over her own face, gazeddisapprovingly at herself in her mirror because, in her own opinion, she was so sadly bereft of

anything approaching glamour, and then returned downstairs to the library where the master of theplace awaited her with a somewhat impatient look on his face, and the face of his ancestor in theportrait. On the wall above the fireplace behind him also looked down at her almost accusingly.

“If you’ve been putting Serena to bed,” he said, “that’s not one of your duties. It’s Darcy’s job toact nursemaid.”

“As a matter of fact,” Mallory answered, “Serena is a little old for a nursemaid.”

He waved a hand impatiently. He looked very handsome and arrogant in his dark evening clothes,and she felt very dowdy and inadequate in her one and only grey evening frock and her mother’ssmall pearls.

“That’s all beside the point,” he said. “This arrangement of your looking after Serena is onlytemporary, and Darcy’s job is only temporary, too, so we won’t discuss anything relating to Serenato-night. We can do all that another night, and in the meantime I want to talk to you.”

“Oh, yes?” Mallory said, and waited, wondering just how ‘temporary’ her job was going to be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Raife Benedict leaned one shoulder against the broad mantelshelf, and behind him the crossed broad-swords on the panelled walls made a fitting background to the dark haughtiness of his sleek head andfaintly hawk-like profile. The library was softly illuminated, for it was already quite dark outside,and only the tall cases of books and the more distant portraits were in deepest shadow—rather likethe velvet shadows which lurked outside the open windows. He produced his cigarette-case andoffered it to Mallory, but when she declined he carefully and rather slowly lighted himself acigarette, and then surveyed her thoughtfully through the faint haze of fragrant cigarette-smoke.

“Tell me something about yourself, Miss Gower,” he said suddenly, surprising her—so that shewas conscious all at once of a feeling of relief. “Something about your background, your family... Iknow practically nothing at all about you, save that your father dealt very adequately with wild cats,and your grandfather shot tigers!”

Mallory crimsoned on the instant, recalling that rattier childish boast she had once made to him ofher family’s ability to handle the most dangerous animals, but she could see that his eyes weretwinkling a little, and it was surprising, she thought, that he remembered her boast. “You werebrought up, I believe, in a parsonage, and that’s why you make a point of going to church on Sundays,and why Serena is nowadays much, less of a pagan. But that doesn’t give me a very clear picture ofyou when you are at home. I want to know whether you’ve brothers and sisters, and how you passyour time.”

Mallory, once her initial astonishment had been overcome, found it a comparatively simple matterto give him a few facts concerning the way she had lived until she came to Morven, and she couldsee that he was amused by her description of her mother’s menagerie of domestic pets, and the wayshe herself was called in to groom and attend to them in between being entirely responsible forcooking for the entire family. And the doings of her schoolboy brothers and sister also amused him,as well as her description of the muddle which usually prevailed in their small cottage home. But hedid not look so amused when she told him of the necessity to earn more money in order that theseveral members of her family could keep their heads above water, and her sympathetic picture ofher mother as an over-worked and constantly harried widow of a clergyman made him frown a little.

“So you had to be the one to turn out and earn the money!” he said. “We’ll have to go into thisquestion of your salary and decide whether it’s adequate or not.”

“It is—completely adequate!” she assured him. “And, in any case, I couldn’t accept any more.”

“Why not?” he asked, smiling a little.

“Because the salary I receive is already over-generous for the few duties I have to perform, and theease and comfort of my life here. If you offered me more, and I accepted it, I should be robbing you.”

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, as if that was a very serious offence. But from the way he continued tosmile she gathered that what she had actually succeeded in doing was amusing him even more thanshe had done before.

He turned and looked out of the open French window at the golden light that was streaming acrossthe lawns, and the way the shadows beyond merged into the deeper blackness of trees andshrubberies. The moon had not yet risen, but when it did the whole of the garden would come alive,bathed in mystic silver, and even the distant Welsh hills would become clearly visible from theupper windows.

“So your mother knows this part of the world, does she?” he mused reflectively. “And she preparedyou for the loneliness of it, and the feeling of primitiveness that lurks out there beneath the stars onsuch a night as this!” He glanced up at the portrait above him, and studied it intently for severalseconds. “In his day it was even more primitive,” he remarked, at last, “and Morven would havebeen much more of the stronghold you expected than the pleasant country house it is to-day. We werea wild lot up here on the border in the days of that ancestor of mine—a wild and lawless lot—and ifyou’d arrived here then you might not have found your job so pleasant.”

His eyes returned to her face, and he studied her thoughtfully while he crushed out the end of hiscigarette and lighted himself another.

“But in those days people were not so inhibited, and they behaved in a way their instincts dictated.My ancestor, for instance, was not much better than a pirate, and his piracy was not confined toamassing for himself a fortune. He also helped himself to a bride—a Spanish bride—and rumour hasit that the lady was not particularly willing, but he married her just the same! That sort of thing, to-day, would be well-nigh impossible, and in any case the law would call him to account for it. But inmany ways they were exciting times—they had much to commend them!” and she thought thatsomething like a tiny flame leapt and danced for a moment in his extraordinarily brilliant eyes, andreminded her of that first night when she had caught sight of him in the hall. His eyes had actuallyrather frightened her then.

He moved towards the open window, and then turned to look at her again.

“It’s very warm to-night,” he said. “Do you feel like a breath of air before you go upstairs to bed?”

Mallory rose like a demure grey moth in her grey gown and followed him out on to the delectablysmooth surface of the lawn. Once they had descended the terrace steps the crisp turf seemed toreceive their footsteps like velvet, and rise up as if anxious to caress their ankles. There were somany sweet scents floating in the atmosphere around them that they were like a particularly headyperfume which caught at Mallory’s nostrils and made her feel temporarily a little light-headed, andthe almost sensuous warmth and stillness of the night wrapped her about like a garment.

But, nevertheless, as they drew near to the first belt of shrubbery, Raife Benedict looked down ather, and, lightly touching her bare arm to feel whether it was cold, he asked with a sudden note of

concern in his voice:

“You’re not cold? Oughtn’t you, perhaps, to have fetched a wrap?”

She shook her head. She didn’t really want to speak because she felt it would shatter somethingpeaceful and magical between them.

“You’re—sure?” he asked.

“Quite sure,” she answered, and then, as they were descending slightly crumbling steps to the rose-garden, caught the toe of her evening slipper in a hollow formed by the disappearing brickwork, andbut for his arm which came out instantly to prevent her from falling she would have completed thedescent of the rest of the steps by tumbling down them to the flagged walk at the bottom, andprobably landing flat on her face.

“That was my fault!” he exclaimed, holding her so strongly that his arm felt like iron about her. Hesounded utterly vexed with himself and concerned because of the danger she had escaped. “I ought tohave warned you, and I’ll have to speak to one of the gardeners about these steps and see that they’remade safe. Are you quite all right, or did you hurt your ankle?”

She assured him that she had not hurt herself in the very slightest, but, peering down into her face inthe light of the steadily-rising moon, he did not seem quite satisfied. She looked so small and fragilein her gauzy grey dress, and her small face looked ethereally pure. She could see his eyes studyingher, very close to her own, and all at once the violent beating of her heart made her afraid that hewould hear the wild thunder of its beats, and the fact that this moment while he refused to let her gowas a moment she would treasure as if it was a precious gem entrusted to her care all the rest of herlife was something that she simply had to keep from him.

She shut her eyes for a moment, and a kind of panic assailed her. Oh, no...! she thought. Surely shewasn’t so foolish, so utterly stupid, as to be upon the very verge of—falling in love with him?

No; she wasn’t upon the verge of falling in love with him—she had fallen in love with him weeksago, when he had lain helpless in his big four-poster bed and had thanked her for letting the light intohis room! Perhaps even before that...!

“You look pale,” he said slowly, as she opened her eyes and looked up at him rather helplessly.“Are you quite sure you didn’t give your ankle a twist?”

But she assured him emphatically that there was nothing wrong with her ankle, and then quietly butdeterminedly she freed herself from his arm, and moved a foot or so away from him.

“I’m letting you make a fuss about nothing,” she said. “Shall we—shall we go on...?”

But to her surprise he shook his head.

“No, we’ll go back to the house and I’ll have a look at your ankle.”

And considerably to her disappointment they went back, returning across the lawns in absolutesilence this time, and she felt rather than saw that he was frowning as he kept his hands firmly in thepockets of his dinner-jacket and stared straight ahead through the silvery light, and when they re-entered the library he made her sit down in one of the deep arm-chairs while he knelt at her feet andexamined her slender ankle.

“Well, it looks all right to me,” he observed at last, as he stood up, and then as she started toreaffirm that it was perfectly all right he turned almost indifferently away from her and walked backto the fireplace.

“Well, in that case, I think you’d better go to bed,” he said. “I’ve probably kept you up rather lateas it is,” glancing at the clock, “and I don’t think you’re used to late hours.”

She said nothing. She felt as if already the atmosphere between them had changed, and instead ofbeing friendly and pleasant and companionable, it had the same degree of frostiness andunbridgeable aloofness that had characterized their earlier meetings, when she had felt almost afraidto come face to face with him. The old, slightly disdainful look was back on his face, and his voicewas cool like the drip of ice.

“And, by the way, Miss Gower,’ he added, as she rose to leave him, “you won’t forget what Iasked you to do this morning, will you? And don’t waste any time about it, will you, please? I’mrather anxious to go ahead with all the arrangements, and Miss Martingale will probably be arrivingquite soon. I’d like everything cut and dried by the time she arrives, as this is something she’slooking forward to.”

“Of course, Mr. Benedict,” she answered, but as she slowly mounted the grand staircase in the hallher thoughts were a bewildering torment. He had been kind—so different—and his concern for herhad surprised her so much. And then all at once he had altered, and she had felt almost snubbed.

But out there in the moon-bathed loveliness of the night she had known what it was like to have hisarm about her, and she wished ardently that she had not. Because in future the memory of it would behaunting her all the time, and obviously there was only one woman in the world who claimed thewhole of his thoughts, and that was Sonia Martingale!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

For the next week Mallory worked feverishly on the task that had been set her, and in this connectionshe was helped greatly by Mrs. Carpenter, who had most of the families in the district gradedaccording to importance. Mrs. Carpenter was not very enthusiastic about the idea of a costume ball,especially when she heard that it was to gratify a whim of Miss Martingale’s, and she lookeddoubtfully at Mallory, entrusted with the task of getting the invitations out. But Phipps thought it washigh time something really sensational was held at Morven, and he was secretly very disapproving ofhis master because he had remained a bachelor for so long and so little entertainment was providedby the Grange for the neighbourhood.

Serena, when she heard, was thrown into instant transports of delight, and she assumed immediatelythat if a dance was to be held she would be permitted to make an appearance at it, even if it was onlybrief. And she dragged Mallory along the picture gallery and insisted on making a close study of theportraits in order to decide which one of the costumes worn by her ancestresses could be faithfullycopied and worn by herself on the great night.

“If Uncle Raife won’t have it made up in London for me,” she said, “we’ll go into Beomster andbuy the material and Mrs. Howland can come up here and make it.”

Mrs. Howland was the local seamstress who was quite clever at renovating chair covers anddarning sheets, but whether she could copy a period gown once worn at Court by a Benedict beautyMallory doubted. However, Serena was so filled with enthusiasm that he hadn’t the heart to dampher until she had discussed the matter with the child’s uncle, and in the end the somewhat precociousnine-year-old decided that she would like to look like a Gainsborough lady.

“And you?” Serena then wanted to know. “What will you wear, Miss Gower? Shall we pick oneout for you?”

But Mallory was so horrified by the notion that having faithfully fulfilled her task of organizing thecountless details of the dance with the assistance of Mrs. Carpenter, she would be expected to put inan appearance at the dance itself, that her expression amazed Serena. For one thing—and this she didnot think it necessary to explain her charge—it was beyond the limit of her purse-strings to afford areally suitable dress for such an occasion. And for another, she could imagine the faintly disdainfulexpression on Sonia Martingale’s exquisite face when it was explained to her that the governess hadbeen allowed a share in the evening’s festivities because Serena had to have someone to keep an eyeon her.

No; whatever happened, she would not attend the dance, and in order to prevent Serena talking toher about a costume she explained to her, without any feelings of self-pity, that she was employed byher uncle as a kind of upper servant, and upper servants did not receive invitations to county balls.

But Serena looked at her with an odd expression in her large dark eyes.

“Does Uncle Raife know that you won’t be going?” she asked.

Mallory shook her head.

“It just wouldn’t occur to him that I would expect to go.”

“But he asked you to have dinner with him and me the other night, and he’s never asked Mrs.Carpenter.” She surveyed Mallory with a faintly triumphant look in her eyes. “And Mrs. Carpenter isa servant—so that means you’re not!”

Mallory gave it up. But she also gave Serena clearly to understand that on the night of the dance shewould be spending the evening upstairs in her sitting-room, and it would be entertainment enough forher to hear the music of the dance band.

But there was a great deal to be done before the night of the dance, and a great deal to be donebefore Miss Martingale returned to Morven. Everything had to be in a condition of readiness that shecould approve, and with that object in view the big ballroom on the south side of the house that hadbeen dust-sheeted for more than a year was opened up, and the crystal chandeliers and the wallmirrors were cleaned until they sparkled like a blaze of diamonds. It was such a lovely room thatMallory, when she first saw it, felt her breath catch with admiration. It was not the sort of room thatcould possibly be used often nowadays, for the expense of maintaining it at the pitch of perfectionwas too great. But when it was used, and its lovely garlanded ceiling and gilded cornices proclaimedthat the period when it had been added to the house was about the middle of the eighteenth century,then it provided a highly fitting background for graceful dancers.

Mallory assisted Mrs. Carpenter and her band of other helpers collected in the village to washpaintwork and polish delicate examples of Hepplewhite furniture mid remove the covers fromdamask-covered couches, and when all the hard work was done there only remained the actualdecoration of the room. But that was to be left to experts, and in any case the dance was not to takeplace until a week after Miss Martingale had arrived back at Morven.

Mallory knew that inwardly, and very secretly, she rather dreaded her return, and it was not onlybecause once that happened she would have to watch Raife Benedict and the famous ballerinadisappearing into sheltered corners of the grounds probably on several occasions during each dayand evening, and if she was summoned with Serena down to the drawing-room watch them looking atone another from time to time in the way two people do look when they plan to spend their futurelives together.

She had seen scarcely anything at all of her employer since that night when they had walkedtogether in the moonlit grounds, and he had saved her from falling down the steps into the rosegarden. It was not that she made any attempt to keep out of his way, but if they did meet he alwaysappeared preoccupied, and, according to Mrs. Carpenter, he spent hours at a time shut up in the

library where no one ever dared to disturb him. And it seemed clear to Mallory that he was missingthe warm society of Miss Martingale and the friends who seemed always to accompany her wherevershe went—since, again according to Mrs. Carpenter, they always arrived with the dancer at Morven—and he had no desire even for the society of his niece, who was too thrilled by all that was goingon around her to notice for once that she was being neglected by her adored Uncle Raife.

Their morning ride had not been repeated, and if he rode by himself Mallory hoped—and she knewit was absurd to feel so much anxiety about a man who would have been amused if he had guessed atit—that Saladin could now be trusted to behave himself, and that there was no danger of a repeatperformance of the incident which had broken the master of the manor’s collar-bone for him, andkept him in bed for several days.

The day that Miss Martingale was expected back, Mallory withdrew into her-own sitting-room andshut the door even upon Serena. This time she was determined that she was not going to share a vigilwith Serena and watch for the moment when the cars came gliding smoothly up the drive, and SoniaMartingale emerged on to the gravel sweep looking lovelier than ever and faintly triumphant becausethis was almost as good as coming home for her.

Serena watched with Darcy from the schoolroom window, which overlooked the drive, andMallory sat with the Siamese kitten, Mark Anthony, on her lap, and wished for the first time since shehad come to Morven that she had never seen or heard of the place, and that she was safely back inher own home with her mother and her two brothers and sister.

She was not actively unhappy—but she was very certain that before many more months had passedshe was going to be actively unhappy unless she did something about it. And the only sensible thingshe could do about it was to go away from Morven.

Raife Benedict had said something about her job being only temporary, and now that she recalledhis words she was thankful for it. But she also felt as if her inside had become suddenly very hollow,as if it was weighted down with something not easily described as misery, and that she shrank fromevery passing footfall outside her door or commotion on the stairs, and wished with all her heart thatthe moment would not arrive when Serena came bursting in on her with the information that ‘she’ hadarrived.

But, inevitably, Serena did come bursting in, and she was full of the exquisite elegance of MissMartingale’s clothes, and the fact that this time Miss Martingale had brought her dog with her.Mallory decided that that was almost certainly the animal who licked her face in the mornings, andshe was a little surprised when she encountered it for the first time to discover that it was a large andrather fierce-looking Alsatian.

Belinda took particular exception to a stranger dog of such splendid proportions and commandingappearance being allowed to take up residence in the living quarters at Morven, and in order toavoid any possible trouble Serena was forced to keep her pet enclosed within the safety of thenursery-wing, as it was called, and which contained her own apartments and Mallory’s and the

schoolroom.

It was not so difficult to keep Belinda shut up— although she sent up protesting howls from time totime—but Mark Anthony, who was inclined to regard himself as a free rover, was an entirelydifferent matter. Mark Anthony, when incarcerated in Mallory’s sitting-room, managed to escape bythe open window and swarm down the drainpipe and in that way gain the outside world. But hissatisfaction at having achieved something did not remain with him for long, for hardly had he arrivedwith all four chocolate-tipped paws firmly planted on the gravel of the pathway outside the drawing-room window that Miss Martingale’s Alsatian made his appearance in the window and took thegreatest exception to him immediately.

Mallory, who was upstairs at the time, having just entered her sitting-room to look for her work-basket and repair a rent in Serena’s crisp summer dress, heard the altercation which began below thewindow, and as soon as she realized that Mark Anthony was no longer in the room she thrust herhead out of the window and saw to her horror that the Alsatian had the little cat petrified with terror,and was advancing towards it menacingly.

She waited to see no more, but raced out of the room and down the stairs and out on to the pathoutside the drawing-room window where the contestants were still facing one another. But MarkAnthony had recovered a little of his courage and was uttering alarming noises which seemed tocome from somewhere deep inside him, and he was getting ready to spit venom the instant thepowerful dog moved. But Mallory had no intention of waiting to see what would happen when thatmoment arrived, and she darted forward and snatched Mark Anthony up just as the beautiful cream-coloured Alsatian leapt through the air and sent them both flying—Mallory miraculously avoidingcrashing her head against a solid stone ornamental urn cascading brilliant blossom, and MarkAnthony on a return journey up the drainpipe from whence he eventually reached the roof, where heonce more started to use his lungs and filled the air with protesting yowls.

Mallory picked herself up shakily from the gravel path just as the Alsatian looked as if he wasabout to concentrate his entire attention upon her, and take another leap at her. But before he could doso Raife Benedict appeared in the opening of the drawing-room windows and with a harsh commandsent the animal cowering away, after which he turned to Mallory with the utmost concern written allover his dark face.

She looked up at him vaguely, feeling slightly sick because she had badly bruised one of herelbows, and the thought that she might so easily have split her head open on the stone urn gave her anasty, empty feeling inside.

But hardly had she answered automatically—as she had done once before—that she was all right,than she remembered the Siamese kitten, whose fate was unknown to her just then, and she saidurgently:

“But, Mark Anthony...! Please! I don’t know where he is! Will you get him for me...”

“Never mind Mark Anthony,” he answered, almost brusquely. “Phipps can locate him and bringhim in, but you—your arm is bleeding!” he exclaimed, the concern on his face growing. “Let me havea look at it, and don’t attempt to pull down your sleeve like that,” as she attempted to cover up thegraze.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just a scratch from the gravel, and there’s no need at all to make a fuss...”

“I’m not making a fuss! But that brute Ajax might have caused you a serious injury if by ill luckyou’d hit that urn over there!” He glanced at the urn with a kind of bitter animosity on his face, andthen turned as Sonia Martingale appeared at his elbow, and slipped a hand inside his arm.

“What is it?” she asked, in a cool, disinterested voice. “And Ajax is not a brute, Raife, and I reallycan’t have you calling him one!” She looked at Mallory as if she was making a mental effort to recallwho she was and at the same time despising her for creating such an unpleasant scene right outsidethe drawing-room windows. “Honestly, darling, any dog will attack a cat, and your silly little MarkAnthony would have escaped unscathed if Miss—Miss Gower, here, hadn’t done such a foolish thingas try to snatch him up in front of poor Ajax’s eyes! It was simply asking for trouble—and, in anycase, I don’t think the trouble is very serious.”

“Don’t you?” Mallory was amazed at the note of ice in his voice when he answered her—thisbeautiful, poised ballerina for whom he was giving a very costly dance in a few days’ time—and shewondered whether perhaps it was her imagination, and because she did feel a little dazed and unlikeherself just then, and although she despised herself for it, the sight of blood—any blood—alwaysmade her feel horribly squeamish, and it seemed to be flowing down her lacerated right arm. “Well,that may be your opinion, but I don’t happen to share it, and if you’ll grab hold of Ajax and take himaway and have him tied up securely somewhere in the stables I’ll take Miss Gower through to thelibrary and get her arm attended to.”

“But...” Sonia began, as if she could not honestly believe he was addressing her in those curt, icy,commanding tones. And then as she caught a glimpse of his face she added with commendablerestraint and composure: “Oh, very well.”

Mallory never afterwards had a very clear recollection of what transpired in the library once theyreached it, but she did know that a glass of something tasting very strong and fiery was thrust into hershaking left hand, and that she was peremptorily ordered to drink it all up. She did drink it up, but shechoked a little over it, and then she was thrust into a chair and Raife Benedict rang the bell for Mrs.Carpenter, who quickly possessed herself of a bowl of warm water and some iodine and proceededto dean up the damage to Mallory’s arm. Mallory tried not to wince as the iodine did its work, butdespite tremendous efforts the tears stung her eyes and she could see her employer’s dark facelooking down at her through a blur which presently, and to her horror, spilled over on to her cheeksand formed two tiny rivers running down to her chin.

She gulped, and thought what a coward he must think her; and then in the midst of her distress oncemore remembered Mark Anthony and besought him in a shaking voice to make sure that the little cat

was all right.

“I’ve told you that the cat is almost certain to be all right, and in any case Phipps already hasinstructions to bring him down off the roof. At this moment he’s probably getting a long enoughladder.”

“A—a ladder?” she stammered, for something to say.

“Yes. And in future don’t try to interfere between a dog and cat argument.” His voice wasdisturbingly rough as he spoke to her, and she realized that he was probably seriously annoyedbecause she was largely responsible for this unpleasant episode, and relations between him and MissMartingale might now be a little strained—for a time, at least.

She looked down into Mrs. Carpenter’s sympathetic eyes, and the housekeeper said to reassure her:

“There’s no need to get the doctor to do anything about this graze because it’s quite clean now, andalthough it will probably be sore for days it will heal up nicely enough. But I think it would be agood idea if you went upstairs to your room and had a little rest after the shock of it. Darcy can keepan eye on Serena, and you’re definitely looking a bit upset.”

“I’m—quite all right,” Mallory assured her, and thought that she would probably feel much moreall right if she was not so firmly convinced that her employer was secretly chafing with irritation.“And, in any case, I’m not an invalid.”

Later that day Serena came racing to Mallory and told her that she had been invited to have tea inthe drawing-room, and that Miss Martingale had actually brought her a fancy dress all the way fromLondon, and she was going to be allowed to see it.

“Isn’t it wonderful!” she exclaimed, doing a delighted little skip about the room. “It’s a copy of apicture by somebody called Romney, and I’m to wear a big hat and have my hair dressed in ringletson the night of the dance. Isn’t it absolutely gorgeously thrilling?” And she threw her arms aroundMallory and hugged her exuberantly until Mallory winced uncontrollably, when the naturallysympathetic heart of the child was touched.

“I’m sorry about Mark Anthony,” she exclaimed, stroking the fur of the subdued small animal as itlay in Mallory’s lap, “but, as Sonia says you ought not to have interfered between it and Ajax,because that simply excited Ajax and otherwise he wouldn’t have done Mark Anthony any harm atall. And now poor Ajax is shut up in the stables, and Sonia is very cross about it.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Mallory replied, rather wearily. “But although she may be quite right, I’mglad I took no chances, and at the moment Mark Anthony is all in one piece.” And then as Serenagazed at her with a mixture of interest, doubt and sympathy, she added a trifle more impatiently:“And now, run away and have your tea and get your first glimpse of your new dress. And if theywanted you to do so you can stay downstairs until dinner-time, and then Darcy will help you to bed.”

But when Serena had gone, and she pictured the domestic scene in the drawing-room, massed with itsusual flowers, and Sonia presiding behind the tea-equipage, while Serena exclaimed in delight at herfancy dress costume, and the host stood looking on benignly—unless he had not yet completelyrecovered his temper—one or two more weak tears rolled down her cheeks, said even theresponsive purrs of Mark Anthony wore scarcely a comfort to her just then.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

For the next few days the whole house seemed to be in a state of uproar, with all sorts of peoplecoming and going and tradesmen’s vans constantly appearing in the drive Serena was in her elementand raced excitedly about the house, getting in everyone’s way and making it difficult for Mallory tocontrol her because her uncle was apparently indulging her just then, and Miss Martingale had alsotaken to spoiling her.

Miss Martingale was a prime favourite with Serena at that period of her life, not only because thedress she was to wear on the night of the dance was enchanting, and made the most of the nine-year-old’s striking good looks, but because she was constantly being pressed by her to have tea in thedrawing-room, and even to walk with her and Raife in the grounds.

Mallory deliberately sank herself into the background in those days, and having helped as much asshe could in the early days, when the ballroom was being brought to life after its long sleep andperiod of forgetfulness, she decided that she would be better out of the way now, and wheneverSerena was invited to join the other members of the house-party—for this time quite a swarm ofpeople seemed to have accompanied Sonia to Morven—she made an excuse to remain in her ownroom, and as the excuses were not challenged, took it that her absence was definitely preferred to hercompany.

Only Adrian, apart from herself, seemed to hold aloof from all the excitement that was going on inMorven, and when she lay in bed at night Mallory could hear him amusing himself tirelessly at hispiano, but in a way which was sometimes inclined to wring her heart. She felt that he, like herself,was aware that he was not really wanted, and possibly he was happier keeping to his own rooms inhis own remote wing of the house.

One evening when the rest were having dinner she caught him wandering about the rose garden inthe gathering dusk, and when she looked at him in surprise he explained that he did not really enjoylarge house-parties, and that Raife understood his desire to be left alone and did not pester him tojoin them.

“But you,” he said, looking at Mallory, who was wearing a simple cotton dress with a white beltand sandals, and whose small face bore a look of wistfulness which caused him to study her fathersharply, “you’re different from me—you’re young and attractive, and you ought to enjoy otherpeople’s society. In any case it isn’t natural for you to be quite alone when all the others arecongregated in one spot, and I can’t think how you managed to get away with it. Didn’t Serenademand your attendance to-night? Or is she in bed?”

“No,” Mallory answered, “she’s dining in the dining-room to-night, as a special treat, but she’scoming up stairs as soon as coffee is served, and I’m putting her to bed.”

“And you?” Adrian asked. “Weren’t invited, too?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, ’ Mallory confessed, “I was. But,” looking him straight in the eyes, incase he should be inclined to disbelieve her and pity her, “I’m rather like you, Mr. Benedict, and Iprefer to be alone.”

She might have added that as she had only one dress in which to appear in the dining-room, amongstexceptionally smart guests, whose clothes had probably been purchased in Paris, and SoniaMartingale had already seen her in that dress on several occasions, she preferred for the sake of herpride to keep to the sanctuary of her own rooms.

“Well, in that case,” Adrian Benedict answered rather swiftly, “since we’re alike we ought tospend more of our time together, and I’d like you to come up to my room more often than you do.What about coming up for a little while this evening, after you’ve put Serena to bed? We both enjoymusic, and it’s an immense consolation when you feel a little—well—out of things!” She wonderedwhether he was shrewd enough to realize that that was just what she did feel—out of things! Then sherecalled that Raife, his brother, had once expressed the wish that when ever it was possible for her todo so she should at least not begrudge devoting a little of her time to Adrian, and because his eyesseemed to be pleading with her a little she nodded and smiled at him.

“If you would like me to do so,” she told him, “I should find it very pleasant.”

Instantly his whole face lighted up, and he thanked her with obvious sincerity.

“Then that’s settled!” he exclaimed. “We’ll have a Chopin evening—and perhaps a little ofBrahms! You shall tell me what you would like me to play, and I will play it for you.”

Mallory felt vaguely sorry for him as she , watched him disappear towards the house, and sheherself remained out of doors in the rose garden until the light was fading, when she hurried up to thenursery wing to put Serena to bed.

Serena was actually waiting for her, a little bored because the grown-ups had talked over her headduring dinner, and she had not had as much limelight as she would have enjoyed. But no sooner wasshe in bed than she was asleep, and Mallory entered her bedroom and decided to make a fewalterations to her appearance. She took down a little lavender-blue dress out of her wardrobe whichhad seen much service, but was newly back from the cleaners, and with the addition of her mother’spearls and a little extra make-up she realized, as she turned to herself in the mirror, that she was notunattractive—in fact, some people might have thought her remarkably attractive.

As she went along the corridor the softened lights shone down on her palely gleaming hair and herflower-like skin, and it was only when she passed the head of the staircase and looked down into theluxurious well of the hall, that the thought that the one man she could have been happy to spend theevening with was down there being extremely attentive to a successful ballerina affected her with afaint, wistful feeling of sadness. And then she mentally squared her shoulders, and went on towards

Adrian’s room with another thought giving her a little more confidence—that at least by acting as anaudience to the younger Benedict’s playing, she could give him a certain amount of happiness.

He had obviously been listening for the sound of her footfalls, for the instant she reached his door itwas flung wide open, and he stood eagerly waiting for her to enter. His room looked attractive in theamber light of his tall reading lamp which stood beside the piano, and she noticed that he himself waslooking almost startlingly handsome, if just a little feminine, in a velvet dinner-jacket, with a crimsonsilk handkerchief escaping from the end of his sleeve.

He placed her in his most comfortable chair, and then offered her a glass of sherry, which on thisvisit she accepted, and then instead of making for his piano he sat down beside her on the broadChesterfield couch and looked at her with disconcerting admiration in his velvety dark eyes.

“Do you know,” he said rather abruptly, disconcerting her still more, “that I’m quite sure yourcoming here to Morven to teach Serena was something that was especially ordained.” His dark eyeswere glowing like lamps, she thought, and they had an almost burning way of looking at her, as if tohim she was as welcome a sight as an oasis in the desert would be to a man dying of thirst. He setdown his glass of sherry on the little table between them, and leant a little towards her. “Out of all thehouses in England to which you might have gone you had to come here,” he said softly—“and it washere that I was waiting for someone like you to wake up out of my lethargy and give me a new interestin life!”

If he noticed her slight recoil—the way she shrank back amongst the cushions of the Chesterfield—he gave no sign of it, and his look dwelt caressingly on the pale gold of her hair, the slender shape ofher body beneath the flimsy material of her gown. He spoke more earnestly.

“You do like Serena, don’t you?—in fact, you’re very fond of her, aren’t you? And I’m Serena’sfather! The three of us could be happy together—or that’s what I’ve decided! Mallory...!” He put outan eager, beautifully-formed hand and lightly touched one of hers. “Haven’t you any idea at all whatI’m leading up to? I know I’m rather rushing things—or I must appear to be rushing things—but I’vethought about you and me so much, and...”

“Please, Mr. Benedict!” Mallory made a little movement as if she would get to her feet, and theexpression in her eyes was amazed and perturbed, but he caught her swiftly by the arm and drew herdown again.

“Mallory, you’re so lovely... I want to marry you and take you away from here to the White Cottagewhere we can live together and be happy, and if you haven’t thought about it as much as I have, don’tplease turn me down until you’ve promised to give the matter your consideration at least. If only forSerena’s sake...”

But Mallory was so shocked by this utterly unexpected declaration that for a few moments sheactually looked quite horrified, and then she made a determined attempt to rise from the couch, and,snatching free her arm, moved several paces away from him. He stood up, looking rather pale, and,

moving near to her again, stretched forth his hands pleadingly.

“Then you don’t—you’re not even a little bit interested...?”

“I’m afraid—not...” But Mallory blamed herself. She blamed herself because not unnaturally he hadmisunderstood her willingness to spend whole evenings with him alone in this room, and although onprevious occasions he had behaved perfectly, giving her no clue to what he was planning, to-night hehad obviously been feeling so sure of her and her answer that he had not even waited until they hadhad a little ordinary conversation before he astounded her by uttering his proposal. And now that shewas looking almost horrified by it there was something so bitterly disappointed and almost agonizedin his face that a great wave of sympathy for him flowed over, and she regretted perhaps more thanshe had ever regretted anything in her life that she had got to add one more disappointment to hismarred disappointed life.

“I’m so sorry,” she told him, her soft voice shaking a little because she meant it, “so terribly sorry—but not even for Serena’s sake could I—could I marry you...”

“Not if I’m patient and give you time to get used to the idea? To think it over?”

“I’m afraid not.”

She sounded so definite that his face grew even more stricken.

“You couldn’t bring yourself to fall in love with me?”

She shook her head.

“It’s not that, I—I don’t love you...”

And it was true, she thought, that she could never love him—handsome though he was—actually farmore handsome than his brother, because his features were well-nigh perfect, and there wassomething about him which appealed to her—something wistful and pathetic. But to be comparedwith his brother there was nothing—nothing about him that could ever cause her pulses to beat a littlefaster, to feel breathless when he spoke to her, secretly agonized when he ignored her, unhappybecause life had never meant them anything other than employer and employee...

She turned towards the door, and she said in rather a flat voice:

“I think it would be better if I returned to my own room...”

But he got between her and the door, and he began to plead again.

“But I’ve been waiting for you to come up here!—I’ve been listening for your footsteps, and youcan’t leave me so soon. We’ve had no time together at all, and I couldn’t bear it if you went away

without even letting me play to you. I won’t let you...”

She said sorrowfully: “You can’t stop me.”

“That’s true,” he agreed, looked at her appealingly, and then bit his lip. “All the same, I...”

“Yes?”

But as she looked up at him, and her clear grey eyes met his, without any suspicion of what his nextmove was going to be, a dark flush rose under his clear olive skin, and in a single movement he wasright beside her, and had caught her by her slender shoulders. An alarmed look flashed into her eyes,but before she could utter even a protest his arms had closed violently about her, and she was crushedup against him, the strength of his deceptively slender body filling her with one brief moment ofamazement before his lips clamped down on hers and she was powerless to do anything at all.

As soon as he lifted his head, however, she started to struggle violently. She beat at him with hersmall, clenched fists, and her frantic resistance seemed to act like the flames of a fire on his alreadyuncontrollable passion, and he kissed every available inch of her face in a despairing manner whichsecretly terrified her, although she did her utmost to prevent it. And then just as he bent to cover herslim white throat with the same hungry, hopeless kisses a knock came on the door, sharp andperemptory, and for a moment Adrian once again lifted his head.

The knock was not repeated, but the door opened, and as Raife Benedict stood looking with archedbrows into the room Mallory made her escape from the arms that had held her imprisoned, and,darting a little towards him, she exclaimed with a sob of relief in her voice:

“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come! I—I...”And then as she saw he was looking at her with a cold andalmost contemptuous look on his hawk-like face a flood of brilliant crimson rolled up over her faceand neck, and she put both hands in a bewildered fashion up to her eyes and stood there for a momentin front of him as if she was quite despairing.

Then she lifted her head from her hands, and without meeting his eyes she breathed in a husky voicequite unlike her own:

“Do you mind if I—if I go back to my own room...?”

“Not at all,” he answered, the note of ice in his voice causing her to wince inwardly.

He stood aside from the doorway, and she passed him and fled along the corridor, feeling moreabjectly humiliated and more bitterly, unhappy than she had ever felt in her life before.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The next day Mallory waited for the summons to the library which she felt certain would be the resultof the night before, and although the morning passed without the expected tap on the schoolroom doorfollowed by the appearance of Rose requesting her to go at once to the private and particular sanctumof the master of the house, it was not until late afternoon that the summons actually came.

Then it was Mrs. Carpenter, and not Rose, who put her head round the school-room door andlooked at Mallory a little oddly as she said:

“Mr. Raife would like to see you in the library, Miss Gower, if you’ll go down.” She looked moreseverely at Serena, who, taking this as a signal that lessons were over for the day, was sweeping herschool books together preparatory to tossing them into the cupboard where they lived when they werenot in active use, and added with a much primmer note in her voice: “And you, Miss Serena, havebeen invited to have tea in the drawing-room by Miss Martingale!”

“Oo, lovely!” Serena exclaimed, and barely waited for Mallory to give her permission before shescampered off to wash her hands and get Darcy to brush her hair.

Mrs. Carpenter remained in the school-room for a few minutes longer, looking once again atMallory, who she thought looked a little pale and unlike herself to-day.

“I don’t suppose it’s anything very dreadful,” she said, with sudden sympathy, to the girl whoseoddly frozen expression troubled her. “Mr. Raife can bite very hard when he feels like it, but I’mquite sure you haven’t done anything to cause him to be more than a little peevish.” It was her privateopinion that ‘Mr. Raife,’ as she called him, was looking extremely peevish to-day, but she did notpass this information on to Mallory. “It’s all this upset in the house that’s getting on his nerves, andit’ll be a good thing in my opinion When it’s all over, and Miss Martingale gone back to Town.”

But in the minds of both women, as they looked at one another, was the thought that MissMartingale’s return to Town might very easily be the prelude to more lengthy visits to Morven—perhaps even a permanent visit!

This was a thought which shook Mrs. Carpenter, for in that event it was fairly certain that her owndays at Morven would be numbered, since the ballerina made no secret of the fact that she dislikedthe housekeeper—almost certainly because she was aware that the housekeeper disliked her, and,what was more, disapproved of her. But Mallory was in the state of mind when nothing greatlymattered to her, and whether or not Sonia Martingale became mistress of Morven, she knew that theday when she herself said good-bye to it could not be far distant.

As she rose and mechanically tidied herself before making her appearance in the library, she wasquite prepared to receive her dismissal on the spot.

In answer to her nervous tap on the heavy oak door her employer called to her to enter. He wasseated in his favourite position before his roll-topped desk, engaged apparently in sorting theevening’s mail, and he did not look up as he ordered her rather curtly to sit down.

It was the kind of reception she had anticipated, and it merely made her go a little colder inside.She had made up her mind beforehand that there was little point in putting any blame uponAdrian—she did not blame him in her own heart, for, according to his lights, he had receivedencouragement from her, and it was she who was to blame for taking her employer’s request that sheshould be a little friendly to his brother rather too literally. She imagined he was furiously indignant,and she clasped her hands together tightly in her lap and waited for him to condemn her.

But when he spoke at last, although his voice was forbiddingly cold, his words surprised her.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I’m sure Adrian’s sorry, too—although his intentions werestrictly honourable! He is very anxious to marry you.”

“I—I know,” Mallory answered, and her voice was so dry that it was like la whisper of witheredleaves in her throat.

He glanced at her for an instant sideways. “But you are not anxious to marry him?”

“No.”

This time the leaves all but impeded utterance. He picked up a handsome gold fountain-pen andtoyed with it while he spoke again.

“I’m sorry for Adrian, because you appear to have a tremendous appeal for him, and his life has notbeen happy up to date. But if you do not return his interest and his attentions were thrust on you, asapparently they were, then I feel that as the head of the family I owe you an apology for what tookplace last night” He stood up and pushed back his chair and started to pace restlessly up and downthe room, never once really looking deliberately at her, although he passed very close to her chair,and as she watched him with dull eyes once again the thought leapt to her mind that there wassomething pantherishly graceful in his agile stride. “It was my fault,” he concluded, “for asking younot to go out of your way to snub him if by chance he displayed a desire to talk to you when you werenot otherwise occupied.”

Mallory said nothing, only moistened her lips a little, and suddenly he turned and looked directly ather.

“You’re quite sure you don’t wish to marry my brother? He’s not a poor man, you know—at least,he wouldn’t be if he desired to set up an establishment of his own. I would see to that. And at leastyou appear to have a great love of music, which is something you apparently have in common,” acuriously cynical twist distorting his lips.

Mallory’s eyes betrayed a spark of indignation. If he thought that by offering to provide for herfuture and the future of his brother he would supply her with an inducement to consider marriage tothe younger Benedict he was more or less offering her a direct insult. And the insult stung, and madeher quiver inwardly.

“I’m quite sure I don’t wish to marry your brother—quite, quite sure,” she answered, hoping thedismayed tremble was not noticeable in her voice.

“In that case,” and she saw his eyebrows lift as he stopped again in front of her, “why did youchoose to spend the evening with him last night instead of accepting an invitation which was sent toyou to have dinner in the dining-room with the rest of us?” His tone was clipped, and cold, andcondemning. “You allowed Serena to join us in the dining-room, but although it was actually yourduty as her governess to attend her, you preferred to more or less ignore the invitation and slip up toAdrian’s room with the intention of spending several hours with him. He told me that you agreed tospend a musical evening together, and yet you expect me to blame him and him alone for whatoccurred last night, and exonerate you altogether. Well, I ’m not at all sure that I feel like exoneratingyou!”

His face was dark and almost frightening with anger, and she leapt to her feet and confronted him.

“I don’t—I don’t expect you to exonerate me at all,” she cried, her sudden surge of anger andresentment almost as great as his own, “and in fact I realize perfectly that it was probably thestupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life to spend whole evenings in your brother’s room, although Ihonestly thought it was only his music he lived for, and I knew that he was lonely—terribly lonely!And downstairs you were none of you lonely—and the invitation to me to have dinner in the dining-room was issued only out of politeness, and I was well aware that Miss Martingale at least wouldinfinitely prefer it if the governess kept her distance! Governesses do not fit in well with dinnerparties, and it was Serena’s company that was desired—not mine! Serena is not a baby—she wasable to behave herself without having me at her elbow, and in any case I couldn’t dress the part...”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, with upraised brows, as she paused for breath.

“I have only one evening dress,” she answered at once, “and I have worn it on several occasionsalready. It would probably amuse Miss Martingale to see me wearing it again and again, but I— Ihave a little pride of my own...”

She bit her lip so hard to prevent herself going on in the same manner that a tiny spot of bloodspurted, and When she touched her lip shakily with her handkerchief the tiny square of cambric wasmarred by a faint smear of red.

Raife Benedict’s strange sherry-brown eyes seemed to narrow a little.

“You don’t appear to have a great deal of liking for Miss Martingale,” he observed.

Mallory did not deny the charge, but at the same time she felt bitterly ashamed of herself becauseshe had permitted that dislike to become evident. He probably despised her for her lack of control,and added to that she felt certain he must resent even the slightest criticism of his No. 1 guest.

He turned away from her and walked to the window, looking out at the softened green lawns, withthe slanting light of the setting sun gilding the edges of them, and the blithe figure of Serena suddenlyappeared from the house and started to chase a butterfly over the velvet turf.

“And what about to-morrow night?” he asked suddenly, without turning. “What are you proposingto wear for the dance to-morrow?”

“Nothing,” she replied to this, without hesitation. “I don’t propose to be at the dance.”

“I see.” He turned and surveyed her curiously, as if she interested him. “Then how will you spendthe evening?”

“I’ve promised to help Mrs. Carpenter in the kitchen, and by making myself generally useful. Themaids are going to have a great deal to do, in spite of all the hired help, and an extra pair of handswill come in useful. Besides,” she added hastily, “in that way I shall hear the music, and see quite alot of the dancing without...”

“Without making your appearance in your one evening frock!” he finished for her, very dryly. “Verywell—so long as I know exactly what you are doing, and there is no danger of a repeat performanceof last night. Adrian is attending the ball as a buccaneer—a costume he fancied, even if the role is alittle beyond him—and I fancy you will be quite safe from any attentions from him. But I should liketo know exactly where you are, and what you are doing, at given periods throughout the evening.”

“Very well,” she answered, almost meekly, and then felt more insignificant than she had ever felt inher life as he turned his back upon her deliberately and walked back to his desk.

“You may go now, Miss Gower, ” he said, almost casually, and without waiting for anything furtherfrom him she left the room with burning cheeks. But her hands were cold with humiliation as shestarted to climb the stairs.

The whole of the next day until the dance started at nine o’clock there was no sense to be got out ofanyone, certainly not Serena. She was so excited that by the time Mallory commenced to dress hershe was already a little fractious, and Mallory thought how much wiser it would have been if, insteadof being allowed to have a part in the dance itself, she had been given something extra tempting forher supper and allowed to sit up for about an hour beyond her usual bed-time and permitted to viewthe arrival of the guests. After that, securely tucked up in her own bed, she could not have missedhearing the lilt of the orchestra, and would probably have been lulled to sleep by it at last.

Instead of which, because Miss Martingale thought it an excellent idea, and had adopted a policy ofcurrying favour with the child, she was to be allowed up until goodness knows what hour, and the

following day She would be so tired and cross that she would be well-nigh unmanageable.

But when she was dressed she looked so delightful that Mallory had to tell her honestly that no onecould look nicer, and that she would almost certainly be the belle of the ball. Then, after givingherself another lengthy admiring glance in the mirror, she hugged Mallory and told her that she wassorry she hadn’t got a fancy dress costume, too, and then pulled on her white lace mittens and toredownstairs as if she was anxious not to miss a moment of what was going on, looking exactly as ifshe had stepped out of one of Romney’s most enchanting studies.

Mallory watched her go with a little twinge at her heart, because there were moments when shewas quite sure Serena was fond of her, yet to-night she was quite happy to leave her alone upstairs.Then she told herself sternly that she was employed as a governess, and a governess’s role was not toseek to emulate the ways of those who employed her.

She had dinner with Mrs. Carpenter in her little sitting-room, and as soon as dinner was over theguests began to arrive. The house was transformed by flowers, and in addition to Phipps in his bestblack there was a bevy of other men servants and hired waiters hurrying backwards and forwardsfrom the domestic quarters.

The drive, which Mallory viewed from her bedroom window, was lined with cars, and almostevery one of the guests had taken advantage of the opportunity their invitation cards presented themwith to don fancy dress. There were cavaliers and columbines, pierrots and shepherdesses,Cleopatras and Bonnie Prince Charlies, as well as more original and ambitious characters, and onlythe host apparently appeared to be in ordinary evening dress. When Mallory encountered him in thehall as she was carrying a tray of sherry glasses through to the buffet in the ballroom, he was lookinghis usual impeccable self in white tie and tails, but he made no attempt to join in the true spirit of theevening by adopting a gay pretence at disguise.

He stopped short and looked at her with a sharp frown as she very nearly cannoned right into himwith her tray of glasses, and as she apologized hurriedly Sonia Martingale came gliding sinuouslytowards him from the foot of the great carved staircase, looking the most alluring eastern houri it waspossible to imagine. She was heavily made up, her eyes smeared with kohl, and her all butdiaphanous floating trousers and breast-plates were scattered like star-dust with sequins. She slippeda possessive hand inside her host’s arm, but her eyes reflected a look of surprise.

“But, darling,” She exclaimed, “what has happened to your costume? You were to be anElizabethan like that ancestor of yours in the library, but here you are wearing ordinary eveningthings.”

“As a matter of fact,” he answered, a little shortly Mallory thought, as she moved away from them.“I changed my mind about wearing fancy dress yesterday. I feel more like myself, and a trifle lessconspicuous, as I am.”

But by that time Mallory was out of earshot, and she did not hear Sonia’s rather wailing protest

made in answer.

Much later Mallory seized the opportunity to enjoy a brief period of rest and quiet inside Phipp’spantry, normally a positive blaze of silver, although it was almost all being used to-night. She wassitting on a high stool and sipping a cup of strong coffee and listening to the delectable strains of aViennese waltz, to which she imagined Raife Benedict and Sonia dancing with effortless grace,which readied her clearly from the ball-room, when a shadow appeared in the doorway, and shediscovered that it was her employer who was looking in at her, a quite unreadable expression on hisface.

She put down the cup of coffee hastily—so hastily that it spilled into the saucer, and some of itsplashed on to her dress—as if she had no right to it, and he observed in a very dry voice:

“Trying to keep up your strength on coffee? Surely Phipps could provide you with something moresuited to the occasion than that!” Then he looked at her more closely, noting the rather pronouncedpallor of her face—for she had been on her feet for quite a while now, carrying all sorts of trays,heavily loaded and otherwise—and as it was a warm night, and the pantry was rather airless, therewas even a bead or two of perspiration on her ‘brow, and her hair formed moist, feathery curls abouther face. “I want you to go upstairs and change into that grey dress of yours,” he said, “and then comedown and join us in the ball-room. Will you do as I ask?”

She looked at him in astonishment, for there was no arrogance in his voice—only something politeand rather earnest, as if he hoped she would do as he wished.

“If—if I must!” she murmured.

“You don’t have to, but I’d like you to,” he answered.

“Very well,” and she slid from her stool and slipped past him in the doorway.

She felt too tired to take very much pains with her dressing, but a dab of eau de cologne behind herears and at her temples freshened her up considerably. When she crossed the hall to the corridorwhich led to the ball-room everything seemed suddenly very quiet, and when she reached the ball-room the reason for the quietness was explained to her at once.

Couples were no longer dancing on the glistening floor, and instead they were all seated round it onthe elegant chairs and couches, and the lights had been lowered. At one end something in the nature ofa stage had been rigged up, with velvet curtains falling before it from ceiling to floor. Just as sheentered the ball-room, tip-toeing softly because of the expectant hush, the curtains were just about topart and rise, and then the whole stage became softly flood-lighted and revealed an elegant backcloth,depicting a Grecian temple and a starry night sky.

Then the flood-lighting was switched off, and a spot-light replaced it—a spot-light which focussedon and followed the movements of an exquisite graceful figure, clad in flesh-pink tights and a brief

ballet costume, with slender, weaving white arms, and a coronet of silken black plaits wound about aperfect, patrician head.

The orchestra commenced to play, softly, music by Tchaikovsky. Mallory caught her breath. Thiswas the first time she had seen a real ballet-dancer before a selected audience, and the beauty and thepoetry of it all enchanted her. While she watched she was able to forget that it was Sonia Martingalewho was performing superbly before her, and that she had every reason to envy her and feel bitterlyunhappy because of her.

She looked along the rows of seats in front of her, and with ease she made out one dark, sleek headand slightly arrogant profile, just then quite immobile, while its owner obviously worshipped at theshrine of beauty. Wistfully, in a spir it of true renunciation, she thought that she could quite understandhim—as a man who loved beauty he could have done nothing other than capitulate before suchflawless beauty, and such undisputable talent, as Sonia Martingale displayed.

Then someone touched Mallory lightly on the shoulder, and she turned to find Darcy standing at herelbow. Darcy looked agitated—so agitated that Mallory looked amazed—and she was making signsto Mallory that she wished to speak to her, and that the matter was urgent.

Mallory slid noiselessly out of her seat and followed the heavier figure of the Belgian nurse outinto the corridor. Darcy turned on her and caught her by her arm, and she exclaimed hoarsely:

“It is the child—it is Miss Serena! She is ill, and I do not know what to do for her. We must get thedoctor, because she is so sick, and I do not know how or where to find him! He is not here, and he isnot at his house...! I have already telephoned! Will you see what you can do...? Mr. Adrian will driveyou to the village if we cannot get in touch with him any other way...”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Afterwards Mallory thought it odd that Dr. Harding, who had been invited with his family to the ball,should not be at Morven, and the telephone was certainly dead when she tried to contact him at hishouse. She raced upstairs to Serena, and saw at once that the child was suffering a sharp attack ofsomething, and she appeared to be running a high temperature. Darcy was genuinely upset, and besidethe bed stood Adrian. He had made a brief appearance in his buccaneer costume, but was now inordinary evening clothes like his brother. He looked at Mallory with a faint hint of appeal in his eyes,as if imploring her to forgive him for the night she had visited his room.

But Mallory scarcely noticed, so full of concern was she for Serena. When she had taken the child’stemperature herself, and discovered how high it was, she decided to waste no more time, and sheturned to Adrian.

“We don’t want to disturb Mr. Benedict and his guests if we can help it, and I don’t think I coulddrive one of the cars here. They’re too powerful for me. But if you...”

“Of course,” Adrian answered immediately “I’m afraid it’s the only thing to do because Harding’stelephone must be out of order, and we’ll have to get hold of him somehow.” He sounded morepractical and alert than Mallory had known him before, and. she thought he, too, looked anxious as hesurveyed his child. Then the two of them were hastening down the stairs, after he had insisted on herfetching a wrap, and while the sounds of applause from the ballroom reached them—wave after waveof almost hysterical hand-clapping, and loud cries of ‘encore’—they made their way round the cornerof the house to the huge modern garages, and within a matter of seconds after that Adrian had hisbrother’s big grey car purring into life, and they were slipping noiselessly away down the drive.

It was a night of cloud and windless darkness, with only occasionally the pale face of the moonappearing between a rift in the solid bank of clouds. The atmosphere was close and oppressive, too,and Mallory was glad once they started to gather speed to feel a cooler air reaching her through theopen roof. The village when they reached it seemed asleep, which was not surprising since it wasclose upon midnight, and no lights showed in any of the windows. The doctor’s house, a compactGeorgian residence standing well back from the main highway, was in utter darkness, but in the shortdrive before the front door a car was standing. To Mallory’s relief as Adrian brought their car to ahalt just behind it, and she sprang out from her seat beside him at the wheel, a dark figure appearedemerging from the house, and in the beam of their headlights she easily recognized Dr. Hardinghimself, in full evening dress, and he looked considerably astonished as she rushed at him and caughthis arm.

She explained in a few words what had happened, and he explained that his telephone wasswitched to his partner’s house at the other end of the village, and he it was who had agreed to takeemergency calls for that one night, while Dr. Harding was attending the ball. He had returned to hishouse because his wife was anxious about a window left unfastened, and that was the reason why

they had been unable to establish contact with him before. But once he heard about Serena he got intohis car straight away, and started to lead the way back to Morven, and Mallory uttered a sigh of reliefas she climbed into her place again beside Adrian and he instantly let in his clutch.

“Thank goodness we found him!” she exclaimed. “I was wondering what on earth we were going todo if we couldn’t find a doctor—at least, not without wasting a lot of time.”

Adrian agreed with her, but she thought that his voice sounded cooler now, and more detached. Sheglanced at him in the queer, greenish light from the dash-board, and he was staring straight ahead atthe broad, metalled road, an oddly complacent look on his face as his slender capable handscontrolled the wheel. She recalled that on the one occasion when she had driven with him before shehad been surprised because he was obviously such an excellent driver, and seemed happy at thewheel of a car, and tonight, as the speedometer swung from fifty to sixty miles an hour, and then up toeighty, the impression she received was that, in spite of his recent anxiety—or was it no more than afancied anxiety, because she herself was so consumed with the same emotion?—an expression ofsettled contentment was taking the place of every other look on his face, and his hands on the wheelwere clutching it almost triumphantly.

The broad road was tree-lined but open until they reached the point at which a narrower lanebranched off it and led to Morven. Already the doctor’s car had disappeared up that lane, his red taillight swallowed up in the tunnel-like darkness, but, instead of swinging the grey car round after it,Adrian kept to his course on the smooth main highway and steadily increased his speed.

Mallory felt the wind created by their passage sing past her ears, and the light, gauzy stole about hershoulders was whipped away from them and she had to catch at it with both hands in order to preventit being blown right out of the car. Her hair streamed behind her like a cloak, and turning to Adrianshe exclaimed urgently:

“You’ve missed the turning! We’ll have to stop and go back! Didn’t you see Dr. Harding turn off?”

“Of course I saw him,” Adrian answered calmly, “but there’s no need to be anxious now he’s on hisway to Serena, and there’s no reason why we would rush back to the house, either. You ’ve had apretty miserable evening—as I observed when I saw you running round with Carpie and actuallycarrying trays!—and now we’re going to have a little run on our own, so just sit back and relax andenjoy it!”

He shot a fleeting glance at her, and his white teeth flashed in an obsessed smile. “The trouble withyou is that you’re so terribly conscientious you never know when you should be on duty and when youshould be off. To-night I decree that you shall be off!”

“But—but, Serena!” Mallory exclaimed, feeling suddenly appalled. It was the look on his facewhich filled her all at once with such an overpowering sensation of foreboding—something whichprickled along her spine like a warning of impending and unavoidable disaster, and caused her evento forget Serena, although she uttered her name—and for a few moments she felt her throat go dry

with almost ungovernable fear. “We —we must go back...”she managed.

“Nonsense!” Adrian replied, and she could feel him settling back in his seat while his foot hoveredas if magnetised over the accelerator. “This is our night, and we’re going to enjoy ourselves. I knowyou haven’t forgiven me for kissing you the other night, but I don’t regret it for a single moment, andas soon as the opportunity arises I shall repeat the experiment...”

Mallory felt only half convinced that this was not a rather unpleasant dream, and that very shortlyshe would wake up and find herself safely back in her own comfortable bedroom at Morven, whileAdrian coaxed rippling music out of his piano in the silence of the night. But as she sat with her handsclutching at her stole the other part of her knew that it was not a dream, and between reawakeninganxiety for Serena and a kind of hollow fear for herself she felt possessed with a kind of frenzy.

She glanced over her shoulder as a light attracted her eyes and saw that a pair of powerfulheadlights had appeared in the entrance to another by-road which they had just flashed past, andanother car swung out on to the main road and came creeping stealthily up behind them. The glarefrom its head-lamps bathed them in a light like the steady beam of a searchlight, and Mallory wasaware that Adrian was suddenly irritated by it.

“Confound it!” he exclaimed. “Who’s that following us? And why on earth can’t the fellow pass?”

But he did not attempt to slow to give the car an opportunity to pass, and instead he increased hisspeed so that the head-lights behind started to recede, and Mallory felt an almost breathless sensationof disappointment because she was afraid they would disappear altogether.

But Adrian was gritting impatient teeth in his annoyance, and his foot over the accelerator presseddown so hard that Mallory was flung backwards in her seat and by a miracle avoided crashing herhead against the glass partition behind her. She gasped, and there was desperation and appeal in hervoice as she cried above the shriek of the wind:

“Adrian! Adrian, for goodness sake, stop ...! Please ...! Please, this is madness ...! Let us goback...!”

But Adrian did not even bother to answer, her, let alone pay heed to her request, and the only faintcomfort she had was that the car lights behind them were gaining on them again, and by this time shewas sure they were following them for a purpose.

But Adrian must have sensed this, too, for his skilful handling of the car became more erratic, andas the road had taken to developing bends there was every need at the rate they were travelling foreven greater caution. But Adrian was swearing softly under his breath, and Mallory was sure he waspossessed by a demon-like rage. He swung the car round a sharp S bend, and inevitably disasteroccurred. Mallory, who was gripping the seat hard, shut her eyes when the moment of impacthappened, and after that she was only aware of a tumultuous noise, rather like an explosion of whichshe was actually a part, and then the car rolled over and over as if it was a kind of bouncing ball, and

she herself was flung through the roof and landed on a soft bank where she lay and was perfectlyconscious while the explosive noise died away, and was followed by a harsh squealing of violently-applied brakes.

Then, as she lay there dully, thinking that the world around her was intensely quiet after all thathideous noise, footsteps echoed on the hard road, and came moving with lightning speed towards her.Someone climbed the bank and bent over her, and a voice—a man’s voice—called to her with a noteof agony in it.

“Mallory! Oh, Mallory, my darling—my darling!”

Mallory looked up at him, and she was quite sure she was merely delirious.

“I’m—all right,” she told him, in a faint voice. “I’m—quite all right.”

She could feel his hands moving over her, passing over her body with miraculous gentleness,feeling for the injuries he dreaded but did not find. She heard him give a long, shuddering sigh ofrelief, and then he breathed shakily:

“Mallory, my sweetheart, I’ll have to carry you to the car. Do you think you can bear it if I lift youup? I’ll be as gentle as possible, and I promise you I won’t jar you.”

“I know you won’t,” she whispered back, and when she was in his arms she nestled against him likea tired child with a tiny sigh of contentment. “You didn’t hurt me at all,” she whispered, more thinly.“I’m quite sure I could walk...” And then she slipped into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The room in which she lay was light and bright with sunshine and an enormous quantity of flowers.They occupied vases on all sides of her, or so it seemed, and lying back against her piled up pillows,with a fleecy pink bed-jacket round her shoulders, over one of her own hand-made nightdresses,Mallory could hardly believe that they had all been intended for her. There were blue trails oflarkspur, yellow roses, pink roses—and some very deeply scarlet ones on the little table beside herbed.

Mallory put out a hand and touched them, gently, lovingly. She had done that several times thatmorning since she opened her eyes and discovered than there, almost touching her pillow. The daybefore the vase had contained crimson carnations, and the day before that some almost purplish redroses. But they were always glowing and palpitating with the same passionate colour, these fragrantsmelling floral tributes that were placed so near to her face, where she couldn’t fail but be aware ofthem, and although she asked no questions about them Mallory felt a tranquil sensation of quiethappiness flooding through her every time she looked at them.

Mrs. Carpenter had been to see her and Rose. Serena, apparently quite recovered from herindisposition of the party night—which, it had been decided, was due to something she had eaten,possibly in too large quantities—asked questions about her, and sent her her dearest love, but wasnot allowed to visit her. Belinda, the dachshund, and Mark Anthony, who seemed to have become herown property, also sent their love, according to the messages Mrs. Carpenter brought with her whenshe came. And she had come several times, sitting quietly by Mallory’s bed, smiling at her, lookingsecretly almost pleased about something, although there was a shadow at the back of her eyes, too—and Mallory knew why that was there.

Only Raife Benedict did not come, but Mallory felt sure he would before very long. The matron hadtold her that he telephoned every night and first thing every morning. He knew all about her and therate of progress she was making. And after nearly a week in hospital she was to be allowed out verysoon. By nothing short of a miracle she had sustained no serious injuries, and was largely sufferingfrom shock and reaction. And even that was passing now. She was beginning to grow restless as shelooked at her flowers.

Then one morning, when it looked very much as if she would be discharged before the one personshe longed to visit her would have a chance to do so, the door opened quietly, and he stood therelooking across at her, The nurse who had conducted him to the room withdrew at once, returningsilently along the corridor by the way she had come, and Mallory and the man who had called her‘darling’ and ‘sweetheart’ and sounded as if his life would have had no more savour of any kind ifshe had not responded, were alone together at last for the first time since that dreadful night, whichneither of them would ever forget.

He brought her no flowers, and his hands were empty, and he crossed the room with silent strides

and sat down on the side of the bed and took both her hands in his. He looked at them, fragile andwhite and flower-like, and then carried one of them up to his face and held it there, while everythingshe wanted to know looked at her out of his eyes, and for the first time there was not even a shadowof mockery in them.

“Mallory,” he said, a little huskily. “Mallory, you do understand why I didn’t come before...?”

She nodded, her grey eyes filled with sympathy.

“You’ve had a dreadful time,” she whispered.

“It wasn’t only that.” He looked down at her hands again, trying not to crush them too hard withinhis own. “I wanted everything to be over before—before I came.” Once again his eyes lookeddirectly down at her, and the strange golden-brown depths were blazing with something that sentlittle shivers of ecstasy along her spine. “For one thing, I wanted you to be a little stronger...”

“Why?” she barely whispered, hardly daring to meet his eyes.

For the first time he smiled a little.

“Can’t you guess?”

She was about to say ‘No,’ and shake her head, when the sudden realization of how unnecessarythat was welled over her, and instead she bravely allowed her long eyelashes to lift and stared backfully into his eyes. He uttered a little sound of almost unbelievable happiness, and then, in spite of thefact that she looked like a piece of Dresden china, caught her by her slender shoulders and drew herclose and hard into his arms, holding her so tightly against him that, as he buried shaking lips in hersoft hair, she could feel the violent beating of his heart keeping pace with the violent beating of herown.

“Dearest,” he breathed. “Oh, my little beloved...! If anything had happened to you that night...”

“But it didn’t,” she whispered back, managing to free her face and turning it up to his own. So whynot forget all about it?”

“But it was my fault! I meant to keep an almost continuous eye on you that night, because I didn’ttrust Adrian, and Mrs. Carpenter promised to watch you, too—and then we both failed!” He groaned.“I deserved to have lost you for good and all!”

She gazed at him a little wonderingly. “But, you see,” she said, softly, “I had no idea at all that—that it would have hurt you very much if I’d been lost to you. In fact, I always thought you ratherdisapproved of me, that I annoyed you for some reason...”

“Only because I could never be certain of you!” he answered. “In the very beginning I knew that

you were the one woman out of all the world I wanted—whom I meant to have somehow or other oneday!—but you were such an independent little thing, and I formed the idea that you disliked me. I wasvery sure you disapproved of me sometimes I even thought you detested me!”

“If I did,” she replied, with a little unsteady laugh in her voice, “it was because I sometimes thoughtyou detested me, too! And there was another thing,” she added, shyly burying her face, ‘and that wasthe real reason why I—why I never even dared to hope...”

“And what was that?” he asked, curiously.

“Miss Martingale!” she told him, in a muffled voice. “I was so certain you were going to many her—Mrs. Carpenter was certain—we were all certain...”

“Then I, apparently, was the only one who was not certain!” she heard him reply a little dryly.“And as I never had the remotest intention of marrying Miss Martingale, as I’ve never even thoughtabout marrying Miss Martingale, and haven’t the faintest idea how she would respond if I asked her—then you were all just a little bit out in your certainties, weren’t you?”

But she was not altogether satisfied, and she kept her face persistently hidden.

“But you obviously admired her—she calls you ‘darling,’ and whenever she came to Morven shewas treated like a princess.” She put up a small, indignant face. “The best bedroom, even a ballarranged especially for her—what else did you expect any of us to think?”

He laughed softly, and almost triumphantly, and as she dived for shelter again he put his fingersunder her chin and held it firmly, so that she could not wriggle away from his look. And his look wassuddenly extremely amused.

“I do believe you’re consumed with jealousy of Miss Martingale!” he exclaimed. “But, my darlingchild, I’ve known her for years—ever since she was a struggling dancer in her early ‘teens, and I’vedone a lot to help advance her career, because she’s a wonderful artist, and for that reason alone I’veadmired her. I was able to pull strings—to help her in various ways, and for that reason I believe shehas always been excessively grateful to me. But artists of her ability do not marry if they are wise,because invariably it upsets their career, and with Sonia her career is everything. She is not the leastlittle bit in love with me, I assure you.”

But Mallory, as she watched his lips coming nearer to hers, knew she would never be convinced ofthat. No woman in her senses...

And then his lips had closed down on hers, and for close upon a minute neither of them could haveuttered a word even if they’d wanted to. And Mallory, in a kind of ecstasy, certainly didn’t want to.She wound her slim arms upwards about his neck and held him tightly, and when at last they drewapart both were trembling and a little pale because the wonder of it was almost too much.

“And do you still believe,” he asked, rather sternly, “that I ever gave a serious thought to MissMartingale?”

Later he told her that the house party at Morven was now broken up, and that Sonia and her friendshad returned to London. There had been other, less pleasant, duties, which he had had to see to overthe past few days. They brought a tired, sad look to his face as he mentioned them, but he was notgoing to go into any detail with her about them until she said, her own face grave and sad, too:

“You mean Adrian! I—I know about him—I asked...!”

Again he possessed himself of her hands and held them tightly, as if they were a kind of comfort.

“I didn’t want you to know until you were fit enough, but in a way, perhaps, it was not such a tragicthing for him! He was not—quite as other men are, since that other accident of his, and then he fell inlove with you,” with a rather quivering sigh. “He wouldn’t have been happy.”

Because it was still too much of a nightmare for her to recall, Mallory had been striving hard overthe past few days to keep all thought of that hideous drive away from her. But of one thing she wasnow certain. Adrian, that night, had not been entirely sane.

“Was it—instantaneous?” she asked.

“Not quite. He died in hospital, and Jill Harding was with him—she insisted on it! You see, ” heexplained, “When Harding came back from the village with the intelligence that you and Adrian hadbeen searching for him because Serena had been taken ill, and instead of following the doctor back tothe house, there was not any sign of your car, some sixth sense warned me that things were wrong.And I grabbed a car that was actually standing in the drive and came off after you—or, rather, Idecided to try and cut you off, but succeeded in seeing you flash past when I arrived at the bottom ofthe lane.”

Mallory shut her eyes tightly, and turned away her head, and he caught her instantly into his armsand held her comfortingly close.

“It’s over now, my darling,” he assured her soothingly. “You don’t have to think of it any more.”

But Mallory whispered:

“I was thinking of Jill! She—she loved him!”

“I know,” he said, and his face twisted slightly. “But as it was in any case a hopeless love she isn’treally any the worse off. And at least she was with him—at the last!”

For a moment there was silence between them, and then he spoke to her with deliberate briskness:

“And do you know what I’m going to do now?” he said. “I’m going to drive you home to Morven assoon as they’ll let me do so—and I think that will be tomorrow!—and then just as soon as you’re fitfor the journey I’m taking you back to your mother, and immediately I’ve received her permission todo so I’m going to marry you! And bring you back to Morven!”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and her eyes were like soft grey stars as she turned them to him.

He stroked her cheek caressingly.

“Two people who will be delighted about that will be Mrs. Carpenter and Serena,” he told her.“For now you really will be like a mother to Serena! And perhaps one day...!”

The look in his eyes brought such a vivid blush to her cheeks that he decided to spare her andkissed her, lingeringly, instead. And then he whispered:

“Do you know, there’s something we’ve neither of us said to one another, and I’m going to say itnow! I love you, Mallory, my darling! I love you so much that I can’t imagine however I existedbefore you came into my life!”

And she looked up at him shyly, but with radiant happiness in her eyes, and whispered backs “Ilove you, Raife! I’ll love you—always!”

THE END