To Journey Together by Mary Burchell

that little bit less than careful."
    "Not quite the moment to come charging into an unknown village at sixty miles an hour, Fraulein," Rudi said dryly.
    "It was nothing like sixty!" the girl exclaimed indignantly.
    "It felt like a hundred when you sent me flying," Rudi assured her.
    "I am sorry! I came to apologize and so I won't argue about speeds. But I thought I had really just cleared you."
    "You very nearly had. It was only a glancing blow from your mudguard. Otherwise," he added cheerfully, "you would probably be bringing a handsome wreath instead of your personal apologies."
    The girl shuddered a little. But more for effect than from genuine dismay, Elinor thought.
    "Please don't say such things."
    "No? But surely the remark is the measure of my good fortune in escaping," Rudi said carelessly. "It was kind of you to come and apologize in person. Did you stay on in Ehrwald specially to do so?"
    "Not exactly. I expected to meet a friend here. But, as a matter of fact, he had left. I shall probably stay for a day or two, all the same."
    "Then I hope I shall see you again, Fraulein."
    It was second nature to Rudi to make himself agreeable in this way, but Elinor experienced a slight stab of something almost like jealousy when she
     
    heard him being so nice to someone else. Someone who had knocked him down with her car too!
    The girl, however, took the remark as a friendly dismissal—as indeed it was—and rose to go.
    "The doctor tells me that you'll be laid up for a few days " she began. But Rudi interrupted her with a smile.
    "You are too kind! Do you mean that you have actually already discussed your victim with the doctor?"
    "Of course. There's the question of my responsibility for extra expenses incurred, you know."
    "Fraulein, I don't think we shall quarrel over those." Rudi held out his hand to her. "It is true that your—intervention prevented my going to Vienna today, as I had intended. But, in that admirable mood known to the British as 'making the best of it', I have come to the conclusion that, after all, what I really want to do is to stay on here. I am indebted to you for making this clear to me."
    The girl laughed at that and, as though she could not help it, her glance slid for a moment to Elinor, standing silent and as inconspicuous as she could make herself in the background.
    "Well," she agreed good-humouredly, "things do sometimes work out that way. But it is generous of you to regard my carelessness in that light. Please express my regrets to your—other sister. The one I also knocked over."
    "Thank you, I will," Rudi said gravely. And then the girl inclined her head to Elinor and went out.
    "Why did you let her go away thinking I was your sister?" Elinor blurted out.
    "It hardly seemed worthwhile undeceiving her in the circumstances," Rudi replied calmly. "She will be here only a day or two. We shall probably never meet again. If she likes to think that she came in to find me affectionately kissing my sister, well and good. If she even mentions the fact to anyone, no one will be the wiser. Altogether a very satisfactory solution of a slightly tiresome problem."
     
    "I don't think she really believed I was your sister," Elinor could not help saying.
    "Very likely not," Rudi agreed carelessly. "That also doesn't much matter, I think. We just found a pleasant formula of words which covered the slight embarrassment of us all."
    Elinor could not help feeling that her own embarrassment had been increased, rather than reduced, by the final subterfuge, but she felt it would be ungracious to press her own views further, when Rudi evidently thought he had saved her rather neatly. At least the girl was a complete stranger.
    "You don't even know her name, do you?" she asked rather anxiously.
    "I did hear it last night, but I don't know that I recall " He frowned and made an obvious effort to remember. "Rosalind something. Rosalind-Rosaline- No! Rosemary—that was it. Rosemary Copeland. Quite a charming