Love is for Ever by Barbara Rowan Page A

was to the little old lady, and the Senora Cortina smiled at her as if she found her a very pleasant sight, in spite of her very modern dress, and patted her
    hands with pleasure.
    “This is one of my very good days,” she said, “and so I decided to emerge from my room and drink an aperitif with you all before lunch.”
    “But this is marvellous!” Jacqueline exclaimed. “Maravillosa !” she added, in Spanish.
    Dominic bent over his grandmother’s tiny, frail figure and kissed her with a kind of exquisite gentleness. Jacqueline was quite touched by the way in which he did it, and by the instant clinging response of the old lady’s beringed fingers. She looked up at him as if she adored him.
    “Provide me with a drink, Dominico, mi querido ,” she said softly, pushing him from her at last. “A little of that very dry sherry which I can sometimes take.”
    He hastened to obey her request, and Jacqueline sat down on the grass at her hostess’s feet, and accepted a glass of sherry also. The Senora Cortina looked a little surprised.
    “But where is the so beautiful Miss Howard?” she asked. “Was I misinformed when I was told that you had all gone to the beach together?”
    Dominic explained. Miss Howard was in her room, resting. If she didn’t appear at lunch something would have to be sent to her on a tray, for she suffered very badly from migraine, and the heat had brought on one of her bad heads. In fact—and he summoned Juanita, who was waiting on them—it might be as well if an enquiry was made at once, and Juanita was despatched to the house to find out the latest intelligence concerning Miss Howard; and when she returned it was with the information that Miss Howard would not be appearing at lunch, but that her headache was better. However, she thought she would keep her room for the rest of the afternoon.
    The same thought must have passed through the Senora Cortina’s mind that passed through Jacqueline’s—and that was that a lover’s quarrel might have resulted in a certain amount of temporary tension—for they looked at one another with the same silent and not too discreetly veiled question in their eyes, and the senora’s eyes even twinkled a little, as if the vagaries of youth amused her. But Jacqueline was wondering whether perhaps Martine’s sudden indisposition had anything to do with Dominic’s offer to drive her, Jacqueline, into the town that morning from the beach.
    “Ah, well,” the Senora Cortina observed, “it would seem that I am not to have both my guests and my family around me at the same time; but at least it is very pleasant to set eyes on you again, my dear child,” she told Jacqueline. “You look like a pretty boy in that dress, and when I was your age it would have caused something worse than consternation if I had appeared in even twice as much clothing. But times change, and we must all adjust ourselves,” with a little sigh.
    Jacqueline felt herself flushing faintly because Dominic’s eyes were on her, and she realized that they were smiling a little mockingly and saying to her:
    “What did I tell you! ... At least my grandmother does not know that you have been anywhere other than the beach dressed like that! And with me to protect you if the need arose!”
    “Perhaps,” she suggested, attempting to get to her feet, “I ought to go in and change ...?”
    “No, no, my dear!” Her hostess prevented her with a hand on her shoulder. “It is so pleasant here in the sunshine, with you and my grandson and Lola, and soon I shall have to go in, and then you can change if you wish.”
    She sighed as she lay back in her chair, obviously supremely content. Jacqueline felt strangely touched by her inclusion in that little speech —“with you and my grandson and Lola!” It had sounded as if she belonged, somehow—as if she had a right to be included.
    She looked away across the patio, with its beds of colorful flowers, it scents of lemon and verbena and orange