There Will Come A Stranger by Dorothy Rivers

the last minute John had said that as the snow was in such superb condition he would stay on a little longer, cancelled his seat on the plane, and booked a later one—much to the surprise of Susan, who declared to Harry that she had never known him change plans of his own accord before, in all the years that she had been his sister! But now he could no longer put off his departure. Business was claiming him; to-morrow he and Rory must be off together.
    Rory was spending the last of his currency on a farewell party to which he had invited Valerie, and John had taken Vivian for the last time to have dinner at a quiet little inn he had discovered on the outskirts of the village. The Moulin Vert was an unpretentious little place, furnished in the simplest peasant fashion, with no more than half a dozen tables, and plain wooden chairs, gay, coarse pottery, and bright checked table cloths. But the landlady had worked under a first-class chef at the Schweizerhof before her marriage to a local guide; she could turn out a superlative omelette and delicious creamy sweets that melted in the mouth, and her specialité de la maison, a delectable dish of veal cooked in white wine with olives and mushrooms and chopped ham, was something to dream about! No other English visitors seemed to have discovered it; those who came here were for the most part Swiss, with a sprinkling of French people who had ferreted it out with their usual flair for tracking down good food.
    John, as he looked at Vivian across their little table, thought that she grew more attractive every day. Long hours of sunshine in the exhilarating mountain air, heady as wine, had heightened her vitality and made her bright eyes brighter still. Happiness, he reflected, was a greater beautifier than all the maquillage in Bond Street, and there was no doubt that her pretty mouth was prettier than ever, now that her lips had lost their wistful curves and learnt to smile more easily. The frock she wore this evening was the colour of champagne, so flattering to a woman with a fair skin and richly-coloured hair. One of her attractions was that she was such a mixture—so intensely feminine in her good taste and love of pretty things, and yet so knowledgeable about matters that might have been more to a man ’ s taste—sailing, and big game fishing, and the like.
    “I simply can ’ t believe that a whole fortnight has gone by since Valerie and I came here!” she told him pensively, as the savoury, a fragile boat of pastry filled with cream cheese beaten together with anchovies, crumbled in flakes beneath her fork.
    “I can ’ t believe it either,” John agreed. “A queer thing, time—flashing by when one is happy, dragging when one is bored or miserable and longs for it to pass.”
    When one is happy ... Like a gong his words rang through her consciousness. She had believed all happiness on her own account was left behind for ever, that the only happiness remaining to her lay in giving it to others. Until this revealing moment she had taken it for granted that the joy she had found here in this little mountain village was a reflection of the happiness that she had been the means of giving Valerie, who had been living in a blissful whirl, ski-ing by day with more and more enjoyment as her skill grew and her tumbles became few and far between, and of an evening amusing herself with the group of gay young people in which she had become caught up.
    But she knew now, quite suddenly, that for the first time since Pete ’ s death she had been happy for herself . And knowing it, she was ashamed, feeling that her happiness implied disloyalty to Pete. Not that she had forgotten him. Constantly she thought of him and longed for him. She could not see a lovely view, could not experience some new happening, without wishing he were there to share it. Yet the fact of being happy gave her a guilty feeling as though she had gone ahead without him, leaving him behind, alone,