‘Why. Alison child, of course.’ He came over to her at once. But before he could touch her, there was a knock at the door, and a servant announced, ‘Mr. Langtoft.’

‘Simon!’ Julian turned, with something like annoyance as well as surprise.

Simon came straight across the room. He looked as nearly agitated as Alison could imagine him looking, and it frightened her suddenly.

‘I’m sorry to barge in like this.’ His voice had lost its slow laziness ‘But this cable has just arrived at the office for you. I thought you’d better have it at once.’

Alison watched the two men with a curious sort of detachment as they stood there under the light, like figures on a stage.

She saw Julian rip the cablegram out of its envelope, read it and then go slowly white.

‘What is it, Julian?’ she said in a whisper. ‘What is it?’

He handed her the paper without a word, and slowly she read the squarely printed letters:

‘CANCEL FLIGHT ARRANGEMENTS BUSINESS CRISIS NECESSITATES ENTIRE REARRANGEMENT OF OFFICE HERE. WRITING AIR MAIL. FARADAY.

She was very distinctly conscious of the loud ticking of the clock in. the silent room, of the nervous opening and closing of Julian’s hand, of the rustle of the cablegram in her own fingers. And then-somehow, much more startling and significant than all of these-that Simon Langtoft was watching her intently with those curious black eyes of his.

CHAPTER VI

IT was Julian who spoke first.He turned to Simon a little stiffly, as though his muscles were tense and it was a physical impossibility to relax them.

‘Thanks for coming straight along. We’ll have to make- some alterations in our plans, of course.’

He spoke slowly, a little jerkily, like someone struggling to retain consciousness. And at that Alison forgot her own distress and fear in her overwhelming pity for him.

‘Julian.’ She came and stood beside him, longing to say something that would comfort him. But she couldn’t think of anything. She just slipped her hand into his and held it very hard.

He glanced at her as though he had forgotten her existence. Then, as her timid smile seemed to reach him, his fingers closed tightly on hers with a sort of bewildered relief.

‘Perhaps it will only mean putting off going for a short while,’ she suggested gently.

But Julian shook his head.

‘No. If Faraday had authority to sign that cable it almost certainly means the big amalgamation which they tried to put through the last year. Don’t you think so, Simon?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Simon was no longer watching anybody in particular, and she wondered confusedly why she had thought his expression so peculiar a minute ago. ‘Of course, Faraday always wanted that job himself, and if there has been an amalgamation it will mean much more influence for him.’

‘Exactly. He’ll make out a good case for filling the post from that side, and-’ Julian completed the sentence by a significant gesture of one hand, while with the other he still held tightly to Alison’s fingers.

‘It’s rotten luck for you,’ Simon said. ‘You were specially anxious to get out there again, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Julian spoke curtly, but, Alison saw, he was almost completely master of himself again. ‘Still, we can’t tell much until the letter comes. It will probably arrive while we’re on-while we are away. I’ll leave you to open it and deal with it as you think best.’

‘Yes, I will. And the arrangements for to-morrow are to stand, of course?’ Simon’s voice expressed nothing more than the bare query.

There was a second’s pause. Neither Julian nor Alison looked at each other. Then Julian said:

‘Of course.’

Alison had felt her heart stop when Simon asked that question; and then, at Julian’s reply, it went racing on again, thumping against her ribs so that she thought the two men must hear it.

‘Why should you suppose anything else?’ Julian spoke sharply, almost haughtily.

‘No reason at all,’ Simon said lightly. ‘Only, as best man, I naturally want to have everything clear.’

‘Naturally,’ Julian agreed, just a little drily.

‘Well, I won’t keep you two any longer.’ Simon turned to Alison with a smile. ‘Good night, Alison. When I see you to-morrow you mustn’t be looking so pale as this. Don’t have too many regrets for Buenos Aires. We’ll contrive to give you quite a good time in London.’

‘Thank you, Simon.’ Alison managed to smile in return.

The two men exchanged a nod, and Simon went out of the room. They heard him say a word to one of the servants as he crossed the hall. There was the sound of the front door closing. And then-silence.

With an effort, Alison raised her eyes to Julian’s face, and in return she received that sombre, absent look which seemed to take no account of her in his scheme of things.

There were a dozen things she might have said-tactful, well-considered things that would have helped to gloss the moment over.

She said none of them. She merely stated crudely and painfully: ‘You-don’t have to marry me, Julian.’

‘What do you mean?’

The very slightest smile broke the tenseness of his expression.

Alison dropped her eyes, her own expression almost sulky in the effort not to betray her feelings.

‘Well, your reason for the marriage is gone, isn’t it?’ she reminded him doggedly. ‘You were only marrying because it was necessary to have a wife in this South American job. Now that you can’t have the job anyway, you-you don’t need a wife.’

‘But your reason is still there,’ he said gently, and, loosing her hand at last, he put his arm round her. ‘You don’t really suppose I should back out now, do you?’

‘It’s terribly like being-caught, though,’ Alison murmured unhappily. ‘In a way, I rushed us both into this. If you’d taken normal time to think about it-’

But he wouldn’t let her finish.

‘My dear child, it was I who insisted on rushing things. It’s easy enough for us to be wise now and say we should have waited, but I absolutely refuse to have you blaming yourself. In any case, if we were going to do it at all, we had to do it quickly. It’s just bad luck that things haven’t turned out as we expected.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Alison’s voice was very little more than a whisper. ‘Only I-I don’t want to hold you to the bargain. I mean-well, it’s rather awful for you staying here among all the people you know, married to someone for a reason that no longer exists.’

‘Do you propose that I should jilt you?’ he asked quietly.

‘We could just say we had made a mistake.’

‘And what do you suppose it would be like for you, being thrust back on your aunt’s hands?’

Alison moved slightly in the circle of his arm.

‘Well, that’s my affair, isn’t it?’ she said a little sulkily. ‘Not yours.’

‘No, Alison.’ Julian spoke quietly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You are my affair now. For good or bad we made that decision four weeks ago. God knows what sort of a muddle we’ve landed ourselves in. You were just as unprepared for this as I, and will probably have some difficult readjusting, too. But at least we’re in it now-and we’ve got to go on.’

‘But I don’t want you making such a sacrifice-’ began Alison desperately.

‘Hush.’ He very lightly put his hand against her startled mouth. ‘There’s no question of sacrifice. Don’t you see that it would be as unpleasant for me as for you if we called everything off now? I simply can’t afford another fiasco after the business with-Rosalie. I’m not exactly sensitive’- (‘That’s not true,’ thought Alison with quick tenderness)-’but I must confess I couldn’t face much more.’

‘Do you really mean that?’ She looked up at him very earnestly.’

‘I do’ He gave his grave smile at her.

‘Then we’ll go on with it,’ she said with a little sigh.