There Will Come A Stranger by Dorothy Rivers Page A

deserted.
    Perhaps John read her thoughts in her expressive eyes. Possibly he knew them by intuition: friendship takes small account of time, and during the last fortnight they had seen more of one another than many friends do in a year, talking together of an evening in a quiet corner of the lounge while Valerie and the Prescotts were in the games room, dining together at his table or hers when the others had gone off elsewhere of an evening. After she and Valerie had graduated from the nursery slopes to more adventurous activities, he had several times foregone the longer runs that he habitually made to spend the time with them instead. During that time he and Vivian had learned more of one another than perhaps either realized. And so John knew, now, what lay in Vivian ’ s mind, and knew he could not leave her to do battle with it by herself.
    He did not speak of it until they were alone. Luck was on his side; as the landlady brought their coffee the only other people dining here to-night, a Swiss couple, asked for their bill, paid it, and left. The landlady brought the two Benedictines John had ordered, then left them to themselves, beamed sy m pathetically; she believed the handsome couple who always seemed so pleased with one another ’ s company were honeymooning, since the lady wore a wedding ring.
    John waited for a moment. Then he said deliberately, “To look at you, one never would imagine that you were so full of complexes!” Startled, she met his eyes, steady and kind.
    “ Complexes !”
    “ Yes! First of all, you got some queer kind of notion that you must put up a prickly barrier between us, or otherwise I might feel you thought I ought to be responsible for helping you to find your feet here, as it was through me you came. We soon scotched that one—but it seems another complex has attached you now; Far more dangerous, this time. One that will wreck your life, if it ’ s not nipped in the bud.”
    Vivian said in a low voice, not looking at him now, “My life was wrecked two years ago.”
    “My dear, forgive me if I ’ m crashing in where any angel of good sense would fear to tiptoe—but I like you far too well to go away to-morrow without first doing what I can to drive away this foolish bee that ’ s buzzing in your bonnet! ... Nobody ’ s life is wrecked at twenty-seven. In fact, I very much doubt whether a life is wreckable at any age. Maimed, yes, and cruelly injured. But injuries do heal in time, although the scars remain.”
    The fingers of her right hand turned her wedding ring upon its finger in a way they had, as she said huskily, “Thank you for putting it so well. Only, you know, one feels—disloyal — ”
    “I can understand that, yes. But it ’ s a feeling that can do no good. Only harm. You are far too sensible to believe that Pete would want you to go through the years ahead perpetually grieving! Because he loved you, he would want you to be happy.”
    Vivian said nothing, staring into her coffee cup. After a minute or two John went on, “You ’ re young. Too young not to take your share of happiness when it comes your way. Too young to stand aside from life, believing you should have no pleasure on your own account—only in that of other people!”
    She said, “I know you ’ re right. Only it ’ s difficult — ”
    “I know. But you have common-sense and courage on your side. You ’ ll win through, maybe sooner than you think. You would have seen the truth of what I ’ ve said for yourself, in time. But sometimes a short cut saves one a long, hard bit of road.”
    He changed the subject, talking of a plan he had of going one day to film big game, until Vivian was herself again.
    So their last hour together ticked away, until the cuckoo clock proclaimed the time to be eleven, and the landlady came to tell them that the sleigh had come to take them back to their hotel.
    The lounge was empty when they reached the Casque d ’ Or; no one was there to see their parting as