Tell Me My Fortune by Mary Burchell Page B

haven’t said I will do it,” she whispered hastily.
    “No.”
    He did not elaborate on that, as though willing to let her make up her own mind in the final analysis. And then he was so still that she had the curious impression that he was like a bird-watcher, who feared to make the slightest movement lest he should frighten away something he thought almost within his grasp.
    “Reid—how long would we have to keep it up?”
    “What, darling?”
    He bent his head down to hers, because her question had been so low that it was almost impossible to catch.
    She repeated the words, curiously aware of a nearness which was not only physical.
    “The engagement? Not very long, I imagine.”
    “And then, when it had served its purpose, it could be dissolved quite easily.”
    “Of course.”
    “I wish I didn’t feel so mean about it. As though my one thought were to take away the girl Oliver. wants.”
    “Dear heart, you won’t take her away, if she truly loves him. Remember, if Oliver is the man she wants, your being engaged to me won’t make me any the more desirable to her.”
    “No, that’s true.” Leslie glanced up with a relieved smile. “It’s only a sort of test.”
    “If you like to put it that way.”
    She thought she did like to put it that way and, though she drew a long sigh, a much more satisfied and contented look came into her face.
    He watched her, with a sort of indulgent amusement.
    “Well, when do we announce the engagement?”
    “Oh.” Her glance came quickly to his face again then. “We shall have to do some leading up to it, Reid. After all, I only met you yesterday.”
    “Did we? Don't you think I might have swept you off your feet?”
    She smiled and said, “No.” But in her heart she thought he probably was the sort who swept one off one’s feet.
    “Perhaps the real argument is that I’m not the kind to be swept off my feet,” she said. “Give me a few days, Reid.”
    “Whatever you say. But don’t make it too long.”
    “I promise,” she said rather soberly. And they went back into the house together.
    Only Morley and Katherine were still in the drawing room and, glancing round, Leslie asked absently,
    “Where’s Alma?”
    “Why, gone to bed, of course. Long ago.” Katherine looked at her curiously. And only then did it dawn on Leslie that she and Reid had been out in the garden a very long time, and that both her brother and sister looked a little oddly at her because of it.
    “I didn’t realize it was so late,” she said, and felt a certain embarrassed annoyance that she should have put herself in that position. Then she realized that, quite unwittingly, she had planted the first interested sense of query in their minds, and she supposed she ought to be glad of it.
    She went and sat by Morley, and asked him in a low voice how he was feeling, because once or twice during that harassing evening she had thought he looked more than ordinarily pale and drawn, and her anxiety returned in full force now that she saw him directly under the light.
    He put down his book and smiled at her.
    “Not too good. But not too awful either.”
    “What about having Dr. Bendick look in tomorrow?”
    “He’s going to. There’s a specialist coming down from London too.”
    “Morley!” She was overwhelmed by remorseful anxiety, and her own affairs were completely forgotten. “Is there something wrong?”
    “Not more so than usual. Don’t get excited.”
    “But I didn’t know anything about this.”
    “It was necessary. Oliver arranged it all. He told me this evening that it was all fixed.”
    “You mean that you’ve been feeling lately that you’re in need of more—o f different treatment? Haven’t you been as well as usual, Morley?”
    “No. There’s been a slow deterioration and—”
    “Oh, why didn’t you tell me, dear?” she exclaimed in a tone of loving concern.
    Morley smiled at her.
    “Because you girls get in a fearful flap over nothing,” he countered with