Across the Counter (10 page)

At this point the master of ceremonies shook them both heartily by the hand, expressed the good wishes of all present and suggested that Mr. Kendale should now lead out his partner for the next dance. The band, having completed their unwelcome tribute to the occasion, broke into a lively foxtrot and—with feelings more mixed than anyone there could possibly have imagined Paul Kendale and Katherine swung out onto the dance floor.

Gradually everyone else began to dance again and they felt a trifle less conspicuous. But even so he found it necessary to say quietly to her, “Now it’s you who are looking grave. Could you give me another of those charming and encouraging smiles?”

She laughed then. But she looked up at him.

“It’s the most impossible situation,” she protested. “Almost funny if it weren’t so awkward. But where do we go from here? Have you any idea how we can put a stop to the situation before it becomes even more complicated?”

“None that wouldn’t involve us both in acute embarrassment,” he admitted.

“Then what can we do?
”
She tried not to look as anxious as she felt, but it was difficult.

“My dear, there’s only one thing w
e
can
do. And that is—go on with things as they are,” he told her coolly.

“Oh, but we can’t!” She forgot about appearances then and would have stopped dead in consternation if he had not firmly guided her onward.

“Of course we can—for the month that you’re here.”

“Oh, but—”

“Look happy, Katherine,” he admonished her teasingly. “Or
I
shall have to kiss you in order to impart an air of probability to a deteriorating scene.”

She knew then—indeed, she had been suspecting it for some minutes now—that he was deriving a certain amount of enjoyable amusement from their joint dilemma, and the discovery annoyed her.

“You’d better not try to kiss me,
”
she informed him in a chilly little voice, “or—”

“Or what?” he inquired. And as though to put the matter to the test, he bent his head and just touched her cheek with his lips.

It did the most extraordinary things to her. If it lighted a flame of anger in her, it also engendered a sensation of reckless bravado quite unlike her usual cool, sensible reactions. And prompted by this—or perhaps merely on the principle that he should not hand out all the surprises—she coolly reached up and returned the kiss.

There was nothing studied or serious about it. The whole incident was carried through with the lightest touch. But as she felt his arm tighten slightly around her and saw him set his mouth, she knew that their relationship had undergone some subtle change.

Inevitably, the evening provided many difficult moments. But the worst of all was when Geraldine claimed gaily that she must have at least one dance with her brother on this happy evening and that in exchange she would lend Katherine her Malcolm.

No one could possibly demur at this most natural arrangement. And once more Katherine found herself on the dance floor—only this time it was Malcolm’s arm that was around her.

There was nothing new about it for her—but that was what made the situation so infinitely distressing. For etched on her mind, with the acid of bitter recollection, were the many other occasions when she had danced with him as the happy girl who expected one day to marry him.

She supposed he, too, was recalling those times and finding it difficult to think of anything to say. But then he uttered something at last and, to her surprise what he said was, “Katherine, you can’t possibly do this thing.”

“Do what thing?” She looked up at him in genuine surprise.

“You know perfectly well what
I
mean!” He sounded nervously impatient and in some queer way worried. “You can’t marry Paul Kendale. You hardly know him.”

“My dear Malcolm, don’t be absurd!” She was indignant as well as surprised by this unexpected reaction, and this lent more emphasis to her words than she would otherwise have achieved. “As Paul himself said to you, you’re the last one who should take that line.
You
didn’t take long
a
bout making up your mind either.”

“
I
took a good deal longer than five days,” he retorted doggedly. “And anyway, that isn’t the aspect of my engagement that I’d advocate anyone copying.”

“You don’t have to advocate anything, as far as I am concerned, Malcolm,” she said a little coldly. “It’s simply not your business, if I decide to marry Paul—or anyone else, come to that.”

“Of course it is, in the circumstances,” he insisted irritably. “I feel responsible.”

“You do?” Again she was genuinely astonished. “Why on earth should you?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Katherine—you know perfectly well. You’re not going to tell me you’d be engaged to Paul Kendale on Saturday if I hadn’t
...
hadn’t given you such a confounded shock on Tuesday.”

“Oh—I see. You think I’m marrying Paul on the rebound.”

“Well, aren’t you?” he said, with brutal directness. She had been so concerned with the circumstances that had landed her in this tangle that she had omitted to see how inevitably Malcolm must jump to this conclusion.

“I suppose it must seem like that,” she agreed slowly. “But it
...
it isn’t quite so simple.”

“Are you going to tell me you’re madly in love with him?”

“No. I’m not,” she said deliberately, for she saw it would be useless to offer that explanation to Malcolm, who already knew so much about her. “
I
like and respect him—”

But he let her get no further than the well-worn phrase. “You don’t really know a thing about him,” he interrupted her curtly. “You haven’t known him long enough to judge him. And
he
hasn’t known
you
long enough to make any decision on the grounds of feelings. He’s simply exploiting you in some way for his own ends.”

“Malcolm,
I
won’t have you say such things about the man I’ve just agreed to—”

“Someone has to say these things to you.
I
tell you—I know these Kendales a great deal better
than you do. They’re single-minded and ruthless—all of them.”

“Malcolm!” She looked taken aback. “You’re speaking of your own
fiancée
—and her family.”

“I know
... I
know. But being mad about Geraldine doesn’t make me unrealistic about her—or the others. I take none of it back.”

“You mean you think that she, too, is single-minded and
...
ruthless?”

“I know she is,” he said coolly. “That’s partly why she fascinates me.”

Katherine managed not to wince at that, and to maintain an appearance of being unaffected now by his reactions to Geraldine.

“Then by the same argument,” she said just as coolly, “why shouldn’t that be partly what fascinates me about Paul?”

“Does he fascinate you?” inquired Malcolm somberly.

“Yes, he does,” she replied deliberately, and suddenly she had the queer inner-conviction that this was not entirely untrue.

“It won’t work, you know,” he said unhappily. “You’re much too gentle and loving to take permanent pleasure in someone else’s ruthlessness.”

She wished he would not describe her like that. It brought the sudden tears to her eyes, and she had to look down quickly so that he would not see them.

If only they could have put back the clock and never known the Kendales at all! If he could still speak of her in that almost tender way, how
could
he be fascinated by the streak of ruthlessness in Geraldine? And come to that, by what possible process of accident and improvisation had she come to get herself engaged
—
however temporarily—to Paul?

There’s something dangerous about these Kendales,
she thought unhappily,
quite apart from their ruthlessness.

And at the same moment Malcolm said, almost gently, “Think about it a little longer, Katherine, before you absolutely decide.”

“Perhaps
... I
will.” There was no harm, really, in saying at least that. It would prepare the way for the announcement that she and Paul were
not
going to marry after all—whenever that might come.

They finished the rest of the dance in silence, and presently Paul claimed her once more, and Malcolm went away with Geraldine.

“Would you like to have something to eat—or drink?” Paul inquired politely.

“Not really, thank you. I just wish we could get away somewhere and talk.”

“Well, I don’t know why we shouldn’t. I’m sure it’s expected of us.” He smiled slightly. “And this place is very well provided with sitting rooms. Let’s see if we can find one that’s reasonably deserted.”

They did even better than that. They found a small, secluded room that was completely deserted, and here Katherine sat down at one end of a charming striped sofa that looked as though Madame Recamier might once have reclined upon it.

At first Paul walked up and down a trifle moodily, with his hands in his pockets. But then she said, “Please come and sit down. It makes me nervous if you pace around.”

“
Does it really?” He looked amused. But he came and sat at the other end of the sofa. “I didn’t know that anything made you nervous. You’ve been so cool about this business that I’m lost in admiration and almost wish our arrangement were a genuine one.”

“That isn’t particularly funny,” she said coldly.

“I don’t know that it was meant to be particularly funny,” he retorted good-humoredly, which threw her off slightly.

She was silent for a moment. Then she said with an effort, “We simply must decide just what we’re going to do.”

“But I thought we had decided.” Evidently he assumed that she had fallen in with his wishes. “We have to go on with our so-called engagement for the time being. When you return to London, we’ll let the whole thing quietly lapse.”

She wondered how he thought this sort of engagement lapsed quietly—either at Kendales or at Bremmisons, where no doubt the news would spread like wildfire as soon as those incriminating photographs appeared upon the board.

“Even if we do that—and I haven’t said I will,” she warned him, “we still have to think of the day-to-day complications. More specifically, we have to think of tomorrow’s complications.”

“Will there be any tomorrow?” he inquired lazily. “It’s Sunday.”

“And I’m due to go and spend the day with my family,” she informed him. “Am I to ignore the whole thing? No, I can’t do that, because they’ll see one of those horrible photographs in the newspaper. Then I’m bound to come before them as the happily engaged girl.”

“I see.” He considered that thoughtfully. “Would you like me to come with you?”

“Good heavens, no!” She spoke with candor.

“It’s customary to introduce one’s
fiancé
to one’s family,” he said mildly. “That’s all I was thinking.”

“No. I think you’d better be unavoidably detained elsewhere. My family knows me too well to be taken in by any sort
of
...
of special behavior we could put on.”

“You mean we can’t yet make love convincingly before a critical audience,” he said more exactly. And again she saw that he found the situation quite unnecessarily amusing.

“It’s not in very good taste to treat the whole thing as a joke,” she said angrily.

“Nor would it be sensible to be over solemn about it,” he assured her.

“I
...
I
haven’t
been over solemn,” she protested, and her voice shook slightly.

“No. You’ve been wonderful—and I’m eternally grateful to you,” he told her, not entirely lightly. “The only time you looked preternaturally serious was when Malcolm was talking to you. What on earth was he saying?”

She resented the fact that he had observed her then, and she thought it impertinent of him to inquire about any conversation between her and Malcolm. So she coolly gave him the truth.

“If you want to know, he was warning me against marrying you,” she said curtly.

“A friendly act on the part of a future brother-in-law, I must say. Why did he warn you?”

She was too tired and unhappy to invent any more tactful answers.

“He said you were completely ruthless and just exploiting me in some way for your own ends. And I’m not at all sure he wasn’t right,” she added and leaned her aching head upon her hand.

There was silence for a moment or two. Then he said, quietly and without any trace of amusement now. “What did you say in answer to that, Katherine?”

“I didn’t deny it—if that’s what you’re h
oping I did.” She spoke without
looking up.

“You mean you admitted you thought the man you’d just become engaged to was ruthless and trying to exploit you?”