Softest, shimmering amber chiffon over satin, like sunlight seen through a glass of sherry-with a tiny yoke and sleeves, its full skirts swirling just to her knees.

As she slipped into it, she knew that no other dress would ever do. It had about it that odd, sweet whisper of Victorian days-but no one, not even Rosalie, could say this dress resembled a nightdress.

Distinctly and quite shamelessly, she thought, ‘I want Julian to see me in this.’

And Julian, of course, would be at Rosalie’s birthday dance.

When she came down on the night of the dance, Alison thought that surely Aunt Lydia must say a word of approval.

But Aunt Lydia had no eyes for her young niece. She was standing talking to Rosalie, and her face wore an expression as near to consternation as any Alison had seen there.

‘You can’t do it this way, Rosalie,’ she was saying. ‘You can’t possibly.’

But Rosalie, almost insolently lovely in a gown of silvery white, seemed to think she could-whatever it was.

‘He turned the laugh against me at one dance, Mother. I haven’t forgotten that. To-night it’s he they’ll find amusing.’

‘Your father will be terribly angry.’ Aunt Lydia didn’t offer that as though she thought it would have much effect.

It had none.

Rosalie merely replied indifferently, ‘He’s not my father.’

Alison wondered what Rosalie had been doing now, but the murmur of arriving guests prevented any questions, even if she had dared to ask any.

She looked curiously at her cousin, taking in every line of her. Her beautiful burnished hair in its careless curls, the lovely set of her head and shoulders, the perfect line of her figure, her delicate hands-

And suddenly Alison’s eyes nearly started from her head.

On Rosalie’s left hand, where Julian’s diamond should have sparkled, a magnificent ruby hung, like a drop of blood.

For a moment her mind went completely blank. And then, with a shock of horror much worse than the first, she realised that Julian was greeting her slightly agitated aunt. Julian-smiling, cool, utterly unprepared for what was to happen in the next few minutes.

‘Julian!’ She was beside him, unaware that she had called him by his Christian name.

But in the same second Rosalie said ‘Julian’ too. And he turned to her first.

‘I must speak to you for a moment.’ Rosalie was perfectly calm. She put her hand on his arm. Her left hand.

Alison saw his gaze drop to that ruby.

And then, suddenly, unable to bear the rest, she pushed her way, unheeding, through the crowd of early arrivals- out into the hall. Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran up the stairs and along to her room. She was possessed by a sort of unreasoning panic, as though she had seen someone run over in the street, and must get as far as possible away from the scene.

Up and down her little bedroom she walked. She had often fled here, wretched, lonely, oppressed by her own misery; but now no thought of herself came near her mind. It was Julian, Julian-and the heartbreak and humiliation he must be suffering.

She could visualise that scene downstairs with Rosalie, for no one knew better than Alison how cruel her cousin could be when her spite was roused.

And Julian would be so bewildered, so utterly unprepared and unarmed against such a terrible attack. Rosalie would force him to show his feelings, to give himself away in a manner he would never forget And she would be amused and triumphant because she had contrived to humiliate him.

It wasn’t as though any of the others would have a grain of sympathy either. They too would find it thoroughly amusing and piquant to break off an engagement this way.

Aunt Lydia herself might have been shocked in the first moment of learning Rosalie’s intention, but her consternation was not prompted by any feeling of sympathy for Julian. She was merely concerned in case Rosalie should go too far and incur the disapproval of anyone who mattered.

He would be surrounded by enemies, enemies who were all the more bitter because they smiled. And there would be no one to appreciate his feelings or care in the least. No one, that was, except herself.

Suddenly Alison was brought up short.

She shouldn’t be up there, panicking in a corner like some ridiculous child. There was nothing she could do for him-nothing at all. But at least she ought to be there, to stand by him in some way-if only by just being there. She must go now, at once.

Down the stairs she ran, almost as quickly as she had fled up them, and, as she hesitated on the bottom step he came out of her aunt’s little study.

He looked white and extremely bewildered, and one lock of his dark hair seemed inclined to fall damply over his forehead. For a moment he stared at Alison as though he. didn’t see her. Then he crossed the hall in two or three strides.

‘Alison-’ His hand closed on her bare arm painfully.

‘Yes, I know.’ Alison spoke very gently, and put her hand lightly over his.

‘Come into the library,’ he said abruptly. ‘I must talk to you-to someone.’

She came without a word. She wondered if he knew he was still gripping her arm.

‘You know about it? What Rosalie has done?’ He spoke in little, staccato sentences.

‘Yes.’

‘But I don’t understand.’ He passed his hand bewilderedly over his eyes. ‘What have I done?’

‘I’m afraid-I’m afraid, Julian, it’s just that she wants someone else.’

‘Yes, yes.’ He spoke with weary impatience. ‘I understand that I can’t bear it, but I can understand it. Only this-this unspeakable humiliation. To tell me-almost in front of those people. To wear another man’s ring before I knew she’d taken off mine. How could she?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alison whispered, feeling terribly inadequate.

‘She-we were to be married in less than four weeks.’ He spoke half to himself. ‘She must have known how she felt before this. She must.’

Alison thought so too, but could find nothing to say.

Julian turned away in a sudden passion of misery.

‘She did it on purpose. She staged it.’ He gave a furious little laugh that made Alison wince. ‘Well, she’s done me one good turn. She’s cured me of my madness for her at last. I could never care for her again. Never!’

‘Don’t, Julian!’

Alison felt she couldn’t bear to see him snatch at that little rag of pretence, to hide the naked misery of his humiliation.

He sat down heavily, and just for a moment he put his head in his hands.

‘It’s true.’ He spoke sullenly. ‘I don’t care about her as a person any more-not after such baseness. All I care about is the unspeakable way she’s broken everything up. I can’t take on the South American job now. I can’t get away.’ He said that last sentence with a sort of angry forlornness that brought the tears to Alison’s eyes.

‘Julian,’ she said gently, longing to put her hand on his hair, but not daring to touch him… ‘Julian, the first awfulness will pass, you know. It couldn’t feel like this for very long.’

‘I’m not thinking of that part of it,’ he insisted with dreary, childish obstinacy. ‘I’m thinking of my lost chance in Buenos Aires -that job I can’t take unless I’m married. I don’t care a damn about losing Rosalie as a person. I’m concerned about losing her as a wife.’

There was a long, heavy silence, which neither of them seemed able to break.

And then it was Alison who spoke.

‘I suppose I wouldn’t do?’