wondered what Blanche was doing now. She must have reached Baghdad—she had joined her husband. The husband sounded rather a dreadful kind of man. Poor Blanche—dreadful to come down in the world like that. If it hadn’t been for that very good-looking young vet, Harry Marston—if Blanche had met some nice man like Rodney. Blanche herself had said how charming Rodney was.
Yes, and Blanche had said something else. What was it? Something about Rodney’s having a roving eye. Such a common expression—and quite untrue! Quite untrue! Rodney had never—never once—
The same thought as before, but not so snakelike in its rapidity, passed across the surface of Joan’s mind.
The Randolph girl …
Really, thought Joan indignantly, walking suddenly just a little faster as though to outpace some unwelcome thought, I can’t imagine why I keep thinking of the Randolph girl. It’s not as though Rodney …
I mean, there’s nothing in it …
Nothing at all …
It was simply that Myrna Randolph was that kind of a girl. A big, dark, luscious-looking girl. A girl who, if she took a fancy to a man, didn’t seem to have any reticence about advertising the fact.
To speak plainly, she’d made a dead set at Rodney. Kept saying how wonderful he was. Always wanted him for a partner at tennis. Had even got a habit of sitting at parties devouring him with her eyes.
Naturally Rodney had been a little flattered. Any man would have been. In fact, it would have been quite ridiculous if Rodney hadn’t been flattered and pleased by the attentions of a girl years younger than he was and one of the best-looking girls in the town.
Joan thought to herself, if I hadn’t been clever and tactful about the whole thing …
She reviewed her conduct with a gentle glow of self-approbation. She had handled the situation very well—very well indeed. The light touch.
‘Your girl friend’s waiting for you, Rodney. Don’t keep her waiting … Myrna Randolph of course … Oh yes, she is, darling … Really she makes herself quite ridiculous sometimes.’
Rodney had grumbled.
‘I don’t want to play tennis with the girl. Put her in that other set.’
‘Now don’t be ungracious, Rodney. You must play with her.’
That was the right way to handle things—lightly—playfully. Showing quite well that she knew that there couldn’t be anything serious in it …
It must have been rather nice for Rodney—for all that he growled and pretended to be annoyed. Myrna Randolph was the kind of girl that practically every man found attractive. She was capricious and treated her admirers with deep contempt, saying rude things to them and then beckoning them back to her with a sideways glance of the eyes.
Really, thought Joan (with a heat that was unusual in her) a most detestable girl. Doing everything she could to break up my married life.
No, she didn’t blame Rodney. She blamed the girl. Men were so easily flattered. And Rodney had been married then about—what—ten years? Eleven? Ten years was what writers called a dangerous period in married life. A time when one or the other party had a tendency to run off the rails. A time to get through warily until you settled down beyond it into comfortable, set ways.
As she and Rodney had …
No she didn’t blame Rodney—not even for that kiss she had surprised.
Under the mistletoe indeed!
That was what the girl had had the impudence to say when she came into the study.
‘We’re christening the mistletoe, Mrs Scudamore. Hope you don’t mind.’
Well, Joan thought, I kept my head and didn’t show anything.
‘Now, hands off my husband, Myrna! Go and find some young man of your own.’
And she had laughingly chivvied Myrna out of the room. Taking it all as a joke.
And then Rodney had said, ‘Sorry, Joan. But she’s an attractive wench—and it’s Christmas time.’
He had stood there smiling at her, apologizing, but not looking really sheepish or upset. It showed that the thing hadn’t really gone far.
And it shouldn’t go any farther! She had made up her mind to that. She had taken every care to keep Rodney out of Myrna Randolph’s way. And the following Easter Myrna had got engaged to the Arlington boy.
So really the whole incident amounted to exactly nothing at all. Perhaps there had been just a little fun in it for Rodney. Poor old Rodney—he really deserved a little fun. He worked so hard.
Ten years—yes, it was a dangerous time. Even she herself, she remembered, had felt a certain restlessness …
That rather wild-looking young man, that artist—what was his name now? Really she couldn’t remember. Hadn’t she been a little taken with him herself?
She admitted to herself with a smile that she really had been—yes—just a little silly about him. He had been so earnest—had stared at her with such disarming intensity. Then he had asked if she would sit for him.
An excuse, of course. He had done one or two charcoal sketches and then torn them up. He couldn’t ‘get’ her on canvas, he had said.
Joan remembered her own subtly flattered, pleased feelings. Poor boy, she had thought, I’m afraid he really is getting rather fond of me …
Yes, that had been a pleasant month …
Though the end of it had been rather disconcerting. Not at all according to plan. In fact, it just showed that Michael Callaway (Callaway, that was his name, of course!) was a thoroughly unsatisfactory sort of person.
They had gone for a walk together, she remembered, in Haling Woods, along the path where the Medaway comes twisting down from the summit of Asheldown. He had asked her to come in a rather gruff, shy voice.
She had envisaged their probable conversation. He would tell her, perhaps, that he loved her, and she would be very sweet and gentle and understanding and a little—just a little—regretful. She thought of several charming things she might say, things that Michael might like to remember afterwards.
But it hadn’t turned out like that.
It hadn’t turned out like that at all!
Instead, Michael Callaway had, without warning, seized her and kissed her with a violence and a brutality that had momentarily deprived her of breath, and letting go of her had observed in a loud and self-congratulatory voice:
‘My God, I wanted that!’ and had proceeded to fill a pipe, with complete unconcern and apparently deaf to her angry reproaches.
He had merely said, stretching his arms and yawning, ‘I feel a lot better now.’
It was exactly, thought Joan, remembering the
