CHAPTER IV

THERE was another long silence, which seemed to Alison to last for hours.

Then slowly he raised his head.

‘What did you say?’ he got out at last.

She didn’t repeat it. She couldn’t. Besides, she could see from his face that he had heard.

Her hands were shaking so that she had to clasp them together. And after a moment she sank down on the rug in front of him, partly because her legs refused to support her any longer.

He took hold of her wrist suddenly and jerked her round to face him.

‘Did you mean that-what you said?’

‘Yes.’

She didn’t look up. She stared at the firelight on the amber satin of her frock, while he stared at the firelight on the pale gold satin of her hair.

Then he gave an impatient little exclamation and almost pushed her away.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he told her roughly. ‘You’re only a schoolgirl.’

‘I’m not I’m twenty. And-and I’d do anything to get away from here.’ Better to put it on that footing at once, and, in any case, her passionate sincerity gave point to it.

She saw his expression change a little, but he only said curtly, ‘Well, chasing over the world with a man you scarcely know isn’t a good solution.’

‘I only thought-’

Alison stopped, and bit her lip, wondering rather wildly how she had got herself involved in this awful discussion.

‘What did you think?’ He looked a little disagreeable, but singularly unperturbed for a man who had just received a proposal.

‘I thought,’ Alison said in a very low voice, ‘I thought-it might be a business arrangement that suited us both.’

‘So your idea is that you would escape from your aunt’s petty tyranny and I should be able to take my South American job-and by mutual consent we should look on it as nothing more than a business deal?’

‘Yes.’ Alison’s voice sounded very small, even to her own ears.

‘Well, you’re a silly little fool,’ he told her uncompromisingly. ‘It’s the sort of idea that sounds excellent in theory and just doesn’t work in practice.’

‘Oh, but why?’ Alison spoke with the boldness of desperation.

‘Because it’s a false and ridiculous position for any ordinary man and girl. And now that every link with Rosalie has been broken’-his mouth tightened-’you and I have no other connection. That’s all we are to each other. Any ordinary man and girl.’

He meant it as a dash of cold water, she knew, but it had quite the opposite effect. Something in that phrase made her senses tingle oddly, made her realise how completely he had put himself outside Rosalie’s life at last. She stared into the fire so that he shouldn’t see the sudden light in her eyes, or the agitated colour in her cheeks.

‘Well then,’ she said quietly, ‘as an ordinary girl to an ordinary man, I suggest that we both stand to gain and not lose by the arrangement. I don’t want to sound calculating’ -he smiled slightly, perhaps because he saw how childishly her hands were trembling-’but I can’t help seeing that life as your-I mean, life out there-would be infinitely preferable to my life here. And, on your side, you either have to marry someone or else give up the job and stay here to watch Rosalie and her new fiancé.’

She saw from the angry way he winced that the last sentence had found its mark, and impulsively she put her hand on his.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, only it’s the truth.’

‘I know, I know,’ he said with an impatient sigh. Then he took her by the shoulders, not ungently, and turned her towards him again.

‘I wish I knew how much of this is angry impulse which you’ll bitterly regret.’

She wouldn’t look at him, but she said very earnestly, It’s not just impulse-really. And I shouldn’t regret it. It seems to me it’s just-just common sense.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said with a short laugh. ‘Whatever else it is, it isn’t that.’

‘But, Julian,’-she spoke his name timidly-’it isn’t as though we aren’t both a good deal afraid of the future as it is now.’

‘You mean we don’t either of us stand to lose much?’ He smiled grimly again. ‘No, I suppose we don’t.’

‘It’s simply a-a question of whether you think getting that job in Buenos Aires is worth the risk of marrying me.’

‘Not only that, Alison,’ he said. ‘There’s another side to it too.’

‘What?’

‘Look at me.’ His voice was quiet but peremptory, and reluctantly she raised her scared brown eyes to his face. There’s the question of whether you think escaping from your life here is worth the risk of marrying me.’

‘But I’ve told you-’ Alison whispered.

He stared unsmilingly at her, and then all at once he drew her against him.

‘Poor little Alison. You’re terribly scared really, aren’t you?’

But for a moment she felt him put his cheek down against the top of her head as though it were he, and not she, who needed comforting.

‘I’m not scared-exactly,’ she said, with a shaky little laugh. ‘Only it’s rather a shock to find you’ve proposed to someone.’

He laughed a little, too, at that. ‘Good lord, I suppose that is what you did. And I haven’t really even accepted you yet, have I?’

She moved slightly in a circle of his arm.

‘Do you realise what you’re taking on, I wonder?’ He spoke much more gently now. ‘I’m not a very easy man to live with, you know. I think Rosalie would tell you I’m violent and unreasonable and difficult.’

‘I’m not interested in Rosalie’s opinion of you,’ Alison said quietly. ‘We’re not likely to see eye to eye on anything-least of all on you.’

For some reason, that seemed to please him. He tightened his arm impulsively and said, ‘You’re a darling, Alison-and extraordinarily comforting.’

‘I’m very glad.’ She moved her hand rather shyly up and down his arm with a little caressing movement. ‘I-I meant to be comforting,’ she said gently, ‘but I think I must just have sounded aggressive and rather shameless.’

He laughed softly, even a little teasingly. ‘Not aggressive exactly. Merely as though you were sure you knew what was best for us. And as for being shameless, why, the only time you raised your eyes to my face was when I deliberately told you to.’

‘Oh.’ She coloured.

Then she saw suddenly that he was not noticing her any more. An idea seemed to have struck him. He put her away from him, gently but quite firmly, and, getting up, began to walk up and down the room.

She watched him nervously, and, when he stopped abruptly in front of her, she got hastily to her feet as though feeling a little foolish at discovering that she was still crouching there.

‘Would you be very much afraid if I took you back into that room with me now, and told them I was engaged to you?’ His curiously light grey eyes looked cold and brilliant in his dark face.

‘Why, of course not,’ she said gently. ‘At least-if you think that is the best way to do it, I’m quite ready. It’s going to be rather a shock for them, whichever way we choose.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s going to be rather a shock.’ And, at the expression on his face, Alison caught herself hoping nervously that she would never make him look like that. He was a good hater, she could see.

‘Give me your hand, Alison,’ he said abruptly.

‘My hand? Why?’

He looked a little drily amused at that.

‘Why do you think?’ he said as he drew off his signet ring.

‘Oh!’ Alison went scarlet and then white.

‘It’s only a makeshift, of course. I’ll buy you a real one to-morrow-whatever you like. But I’m going to make them all believe that Rosalie and I parted by mutual consent, because we both wanted someone else.’

She bit her lip sharply. There was something of the angry, hurt boy about this feverish, transparent effort to ease his crushed pride, to take away the sting of the frightful humiliation Rosalie had put on him.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ she said in a resolutely matter-of-fact tone, and was touched again to see the relief in his face.