The Quiet Heart by Susan Barrie Page B

a shadowiness in the grey depths that indicated he was growing tired. “If you make me too comfortable here at Leydon you’ll have me on your hands at Christmas! I usually go to my sister at Christmas, but this year I’ll probably dump myself on you!”
    “That,” she replied, feeling curiously attracted by the prospect, “is all right by me. And after all, why shouldn’t you spend Christmas in your own home? ... Your family home!”
    “Very touching, I’m sure,” he commented, sounding vaguely irritated. “But if I’m here for Christmas Prim will have to spend Christmas here, too. She hasn’t many friends or relatives, and I couldn’t cast her adrift at the festive season. And I wouldn’t,” he added firmly.
    “Of course she must come here,” Alison heard herself say with simulated enthusiasm, but she was beginning to wish she knew exactly what Miss Prim looked like. It was becoming important to her to know what she looked like ... and, indeed, what sort of a person she actually was, apart from being Charles Leydon’s secretary.
    “It’s time you went back to bed,” she said, rising hurriedly from the rug because all at once he looked quite alarmingly exhausted. In the whole of her life she had never felt her heart wrung as it was by the sight of his wan, tired face and hollow eyes.
    She started to take herself to task for allowing him to stay up too long.

 
    CHAPTER VI
    TWO days later Leydon removed to the fresh set of rooms that had been prepared for him. While she was helping Mrs. Davenport get these ready for him Alison was amazed at herself because she hadn’t thought of this particular suite in the first place. And if she only had thought of it in the first place he might not have caught a chill ... for the temperature of his bedroom on the first night that he slept in it had been near to freezing.
    And it was her fault that his fire had died down and he had retired to an icy bed. If only she hadn’t fallen asleep in the library his fire would have been kept up for him, and certainly his hot-water bottles would have been renewed.
    She had such a guilty feeling about that night when she fell asleep in front of the library fire that she more or less attributed to herself Leydon’s sharp attack of illness. The fact that he himself had behaved with a complete lack of consideration towards herself did little to ease her conscience, and since his illness the first impression she had formed of him had become so blurred that she was inclined to suspect herself also of hasty judgement. The Charles Leydon who lay in bed and was so meekly submissive whenever she ordered him to take his medicine or swallow his nourishment while she looked on to make absolutely certain he did that very thing was so different from the Charles Leydon whose coldness and forbidding appearance had chilled her to the heart had so little in common that she simply couldn’t believe she had been right in her earlier judgement.
    No man could change as much as Leydon had changed simply because he was ill and be as unpleasant as she had once felt fully convinced the new owner of Leydon Hall was and would continue to be.
    She had expected endless tussles with him, and now she all but had him eating out of her hand.
    Of course, there was always the possibility that he would change back again when he was well. And she had not yet had his plans for the Hall outlined to her in full ... With a further sensation of guilt she recollected that he had been about to outline them to her when she fell asleep.
    No doubt, in time, she would hear what they were, when he was well enough to re-introduce that clipped, concise note into his voice, and wear an expression of aloof detachment that at the moment seemed beyond him.
    She and Mrs. Davenport enjoyed themselves far more getting the fresh set of rooms ready than they had done opening up the main dining room and the library. The new rooms were in a corridor that connected with Alison’s own flat,