‘I see.’ Julian looked amused.

‘Have I your permission?’

‘Mine? You’d better ask Alison, hadn’t you?’ Julian said with a little laugh. ‘She is the one concerned.’

‘Oh, I shan’t ask Alison,’ Simon declared. ‘Always kiss a woman first and ask her afterwards. It’s an excellent rule.’

And, putting his arm lightly round Alison, he kissed her full on her mouth.

It was all very easily and laughingly done, but, as Simon’s lips touched hers, Alison was conscious of the most extraordinary sensation. She didn’t want to be kissed like that. Not by any man-except perhaps Julian. Simon’s laughing remarks might not say much, but Simon’s mouth said a good deal more.

There was something about the whole incident which she resented fiercely-but, most of all, because, in the mirror of Simon’s manner, she saw quite clearly how utterly unemotional and impersonal any caress of Julian’s had always been.

Besides, it came to her with an angry pain that Julian had never actually kissed her at all. And that Simon- Simon-should do it first was hateful!

She turned away, oddly disturbed, and she was still feeling shaken when her aunt came over to tell her it was time for her to slip away and change.

‘And why ever didn’t you tell me about your not going to Buenos Aires after all?’ Aunt Lydia wanted to know. ‘You are an extraordinary girl, Alison.’

‘I did try to tell you this morning,’ said Alison, ‘but you didn’t have time to stay and hear.’

‘But why hadn’t you told us all last night? You knew then, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Alison hesitated. It was so difficult for her to explain. ‘There didn’t seem to be an opportunity,’ she said lamely at last.

‘Really, Alison, I don’t understand you at all. Unless-’ Aunt Lydia stopped, and looked at her niece in a peculiar, not very friendly fashion. ‘Well, perhaps I do. You had better run along and get dressed now.’ And, without another word, she moved off, leaving Alison feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable.

It didn’t take long, with Prentiss’s help, to change from her wedding-dress into the little pink suit, with the wonderful mink coat over it.

When she came downstairs, Julian, too, was ready. The suitcases were outside in the grey Daimler, and Audrey was hopping about, first on one foot and then on the other, a bag of confetti very partially concealed in the hand she was holding behind her.

‘You needn’t be so secretive about that filthy stuff,’ Julian told her. ‘But if you chuck all that at us I’ll run you down with the car.’

‘It’s really only because I’m so pleased,’ Audrey said ingenuously.

‘Pleased? Whose wedding is this-yours of mine?’

‘Yours, of course. But I’m so glad it’s Alison’s too.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Just for a second, Alison saw him glance across to where Rosalie was standing a little aloof from all this. And, as he did so, the light seemed to go out of his face, and she could see a little pulse beating agitatedly in his cheek.

She turned away to say good-bye to her aunt, her heart heavy with apprehension and a strange pity for him, which seemed to blot out her own personal feelings.

Aunt Lydia indulged in a slightly emotional good-bye for the sake of appearances, but Alison knew how much more meaning there was to her uncle’s quiet, ‘Good-bye, child. I hope you will be very happy.’

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she went over to where Rosalie was standing.

‘Good-bye, Rosalie,’ she said, and, although it cost her an effort, she held out her hand.

But her cousin took no notice of it. She looked steadily back at Alison, her eyes like cold blue stones.

‘You were careful I shouldn’t know about Julian’s staying in England until you had him nice and secure, weren’t you?’ she said in a low, contemptuous voice.

‘Rosalie, that isn’t true.’ Alison, too, kept her voice low, and stood so that Rosalie was hidden from the rest of the people. ‘I never thought of such a thing. You know I didn’t’

‘You needn’t play innocent on top of it all.’ Rosalie twisted her own engagement ring on her finger with a nervous anger which suddenly showed Alison with deadly clearness that it was of no real importance to her. ‘You always meant to get Julian. Well, I suppose, in a way, you have got him now. But he isn’t really yours in any sense that matters. And you know it as well as I do.’

‘Please Rosalie-’ Alison began. But her cousin cut across her words with furious scorn.

‘Oh, don’t bother to say any more. Why don’t you do the same as Julian? He has more sense than to try to come and speak to me.’ She gave a slight laugh, and then added slowly: ‘Unless, of course, it is that he knows he can’t trust himself near me.’

There wasn’t any answer to make to such a speech, and, trembling all over, Alison went back to Julian.

She scarcely took any note of the other good-byes, except for the welcome warmth of Audrey’s kiss.

And even when the car moved clear of the farewell group, and Julian and she were alone together, she could find nothing to say. She leaned back in her seat beside him, pale and with her eyes closed, and for a while he drove in silence.

At last he said: ‘What is it, Alison? Are you very tired?’

‘A little yes,’ she said quickly. And then: ‘Do you mind if I don’t talk at all for a bit?’

‘Not in the least, my child.’ He spoke very quietly and calmingly, ‘I imagine this isn’t exactly an easy day for you.’

‘It can’t be easy for you either, darling,’ she thought impulsively. ‘But you do it all so much better than I.’

They were clear of London and heading for the open country before he spoke again. And then his tone was still blessedly cool and matter-of-fact.

‘I don’t know how much you’ve had to eat to-day, but it probably isn’t any more than I have. Suppose we stop and have a very late lunch somewhere.’

Alison agreed, and, ten minutes later, over a good meal in a country inn, she began to feel better. Even now, it made her feel faintly sick to think of what Rosalie had said, but she must try not to remember her cold, angry face, and her bitter words.

It was terrible to have someone hate you like that. Terrible-and so bewilderingly unfair.

Alison glanced across timidly at Julian and thought:

‘It’s not even as though I had taken him away from her. I could understand her anger if I had done that; But I tried so hard not to do anything unfair so long as he was hers. It was only afterwards-’

But then, of course, what Rosalie had probably wanted was to be able to whistle him back again, chastened and humiliated, if she happened to want him. She had never really meant him to go out of her reach so finally.

And, in that case, would he have come back? Alison wondered. Reluctant and resisting, no doubt, but fascinated into submission.

‘Well, I’m glad I saved him from that, at any rate,’ she told herself grimly. ‘She’s done some awful things to his self-respect, but she hasn’t been able to do that.’ And she gave a sigh, half-triumphant, half-afraid.

‘Eat up your lunch, child, and think out the problems afterwards,’ Julian’s voice said quietly at that moment, and she looked up quickly to find him watching her with a kindly, worried air.

‘I’m sorry.’ She laughed a little, and deliberately cleared the expression of care from her face.

‘That’s better.’ His own expression lightened too at that, and after a moment or two she began to talk to him quite naturally and almost gaily.

By the time they came out again to the car the late afternoon light was beginning to fade. Sudden grey clouds were rolling up from the west, and a strong wind was rising. Even as they moved off, the first big drops of rain came splashing against the windscreen.

‘There’s going to be a heavy storm,’ Julian remarked. ‘You’re not nervous driving in a storm, I suppose?’

‘Not if you’re driving,’ Alison said. Whereat he laughed.