They didn’t stay long in any one place, usually arriving late in the evening and leaving in good time the next morning. And everywhere Julian was the perfection of kindness and courtesy to her.

But it was the same kindness and courtesy he might have used towards his mother or a younger sister-anyone, in fact, for whom he felt a dutiful responsibility. There was none of the tender, passionate attention, the eager interest, that a man would give to the woman he loved.

On the last day of their short holiday he said to her:

‘We shall have to start house-hunting as soon as we get back, Alison. I’m afraid my bachelor flat will be very cramped quarters for us, but perhaps we can manage for a week or two. You can have my room, of course.’

‘Thank you,’ Alison said, but, as a matter of fact, she was bitterly hurt at his way of putting it.

Julian’s flat was small, but unexpectedly charming and luxurious. It was a service flat, so that there was nothing whatever for Alison to do. And, as she watched him on the first evening, immersed in his accumulation of correspondence, she had the odd feeling again that she had no place at all in his life. He seemed absolutely detached. The picture was complete without her.

She drew a quiet sigh, and then, after a moment longer, she plucked up courage to break the silence.

‘Julian.’

‘Um?’

‘We won’t have a service flat for our actual home, will we?’

‘No? Why not?’ He still spoke absently, his attention half on his correspondence.

‘Well, there’s nothing for me to do.’

He looked up then, rather amused.

‘What’s the matter? Do you feel it your duty to turn yourself into a domestic slave?’

‘No. Only-I want to do some things.’

‘What things?’ he said obtusely.

‘Things for-for you.’ Her voice quivered.

‘Alison-’ He got up suddenly and came over and picked her right up in his arms. ‘What absurd, sweet things you say to me. I never met anyone before who wanted to "do things" for me.’

‘Didn’t you?’ she whispered, and for a moment she felt she had a place in his life.

He carried her back to where he had been sitting and drew her down on to his knee.

‘You can open some of my letters for me, if you like.’

It was ridiculous, of course, and made her feel more like a child than ever, but somehow it was very sweet, too.

‘He’ll give me a blue pencil to play with in a minute,’ she thought.

And then she felt him put his cheek down against the top of her head, and she didn’t much care what he did after that.

‘Here’s an invitation from the Fortescues to go to a dance of theirs next Thursday,’ she said presently. ‘Do you want to go?’

‘Not much.’

‘No? It’s evidently going to be a big affair. I should dunk it might be rather nice.’

‘Might it?’

She looked up. ‘Why don’t you want to go, Julian?’

‘Don’t you know?’ He was smiling faintly, but he continued to stare absently at the letter in his hand.

And then she remembered. The Fortescues were great friends of Rosalie’s. She was bound to be there.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alison whispered, and reached up to kiss his cheek softly.

He turned his head then and gave her a quick, hard kiss on her mouth.

He didn’t say a word, but she had the exquisite conviction that, in some queer way, they were fighting danger together.

The next afternoon, when Julian was at his office, she went to see Aunt Lydia. Not that she was specially anxious to see her aunt, or, indeed, to go anywhere near the house at all, since the twins would be back at school and her uncle most certainly away or at his office. But Aunt Lydia was bound to expect a visit soon, so she might as well get it over. And perhaps, if she herself went fairly often, it would give Julian a chance to stay away without much comment.

‘Dear me, Alison, you’re looking rather pale. I don’t know that mink is quite the right colour for you,’ was Aunt Lydia ’s characteristic greeting.

‘I don’t feel pale,’ Alison assured her, more amused than annoyed.

‘Did you have a good time?’

‘Yes, thank you. Very good.’

‘And now you’re going to settle down in London, instead of going to South America? It’s really rather unfortunate.’

Alison forbore to ask why.

‘What are you going to have-a house or a flat?’ was her aunt’s next question.

‘A flat, I think. We’re going to look at some places to-morrow.’

‘Well, I suppose you know your own mind best, but I must say I always think in a flat you’re so much on top of each other. There’s no chance of getting away.’

Alison didn’t know quite what to say in answer to this novel idea of married life. She supposed her aunt would have been surprised if she had firmly stated that she had no special wish to ‘get away’ from Julian.

‘Where are you now? In an hotel, I suppose?’

‘No. In Julian’s old flat.’

‘But that’s only a tiny place, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but it’s very nice.’ For some reason or other, Alison felt angrily on the defensive.

‘I thought there wasn’t much more than a bedroom and a sitting-room.’

‘There isn’t.’

‘How very extraordinary,’ said Aunt Lydia, and stared at her niece with hard, uncompromising violet eyes. ‘Well, I suppose most men are the same when it comes to the point. Almost any girl will do.’

To her extreme annoyance, Alison felt herself go hot all over. For a wild moment she wanted to accuse Aunt Lydia to her face of being a coarse-minded cynic. But, of course, it was quite, quite impossible, and would not, in any case, have been the least good to anybody if she had.

Instead, she asked in a slightly breathless voice how her uncle was.

‘Quite all right, I think. Very busy, I suppose, since I see scarcely anything of him.’

‘And the twins?’

‘They’re back at school, of course.’

Evidently they passed from Aunt Lydia ’s notice and interest entirely as soon as they were out of sight.

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then, with an effort that made her clench her hands, Alison said, ‘Is-is Rosalie still at home?’

‘Oh, yes. She’s out at the moment-fortunately. She isn’t feeling very pleased with you just now, naturally.’

‘Isn’t that rather unfair?’ Alison said in a low voice.

‘Well, my dear, no girl likes to see the man she wants taken by another girl. Especially when there is a little bit of trickery about it.’

‘Aunt Lydia, I won’t have that!’ The colour flamed up in Alison’s face. ‘There was no trickery whatever about it. You know there wasn’t. It’s wicked and mean to say there was.’

Aunt Lydia remained perfectly cool, and smiled in a way which, Alison knew, meant that some particularly illogical statement of the case was coming.

‘I don’t expect you want to face the fact,’ she said with exasperating tolerance, ‘but no one can deny that you took advantage of an ordinary lovers’-tiff, if you like-to snatch at Julian. We all know it was Rosalie he wanted-’ and, I have no doubt, still does.’

‘No!’ Alison gasped that out quickly.

‘Well, my dear, you can take it from me that the Julian type doesn’t change so quickly. He is the most complete example of the one-woman man that I know, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen him give any indication that you were the one woman.’

Alison was wordless.

‘You have only yourself to thank for things being as they are, Alison,’ her aunt said. And then: ‘I suppose you did the proposing?’ she shot at her niece suddenly.

‘I-I-’

‘Well, I see you did. Mind, speaking impersonally,’ said Aunt Lydia, who was incapable of doing so, ‘I don’t exactly blame you. Nobody was likely to ask you, and you had a priceless opportunity of catching an excellent match on the rebound. Only you mustn’t expect Rosalie to feel affectionate about it.’

‘It wasn’t like that-oh, it wasn’t!’ Alison cried desperately, ‘You seem to forget that Rosalie had jilted him. Why shouldn’t he marry me instead?’