My Surgeon Neighbour (14 page)

She smiled up at him. “Only another friend, as far as I’m concerned. He’ll always be that, I hope. But
that
night he had asked me to marry him
—
”

“And you said
—
?”

“No, of course.”

“Why? For your carreer’s sake? Or even then, dare I hope, because of me?” Oliver wanted to know.

“
Then,
not consciously because of you,” she told him. “I only knew that I didn’t love Dick enough to marry
him
.
And bless his good heart, he didn’t let it alter
anything
else between us. You mustn’t be jealous of
him
;
you can’t be. He’s rather a Victorian type really, he simply won’t allow that women should be given their head in their own affairs. I set up Monckton in the teeth of his opposition which was quite as damping as yours at first. But since then he has swung the other way.
Now
he is suggesting I should branch out in a big way, turn into a Limited Company or something, in time for Fareborough’s expansion.”

“And that mightn’t be such a bad idea,” mused Oliver. “For as you are going to marry me and that very soon, have you thought what is to become of Monckton?”

Sarah’s face fell. “No, that is
—
oh Oliver, now I’ve started it, I can’t abandon it just like that! I
can’t
!”

“Not even if I insist that marriage to me will be a full time job? There you are, the conflict you claimed would solve itself when the time came. So now what’s your choice
—
your job or me?”

She said gravely, “You of course, without question. But
—
” she stopped as her glance caught the quirk of amusement at the
corner
of his mouth, the teasing glint in his eye. She threw herself into his arms again. “Oh Oliver, you wretch, you were only making me eat my own words, when I thought for one awful moment you were serious!”

He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I was testing your wifely compliance,” he said. “But now were agreed that I do rate higher than Monckton, I repeat that I think Finder has got something in this idea of his. You needn’t go headlong at it, but that should be the way of Monckton’s future, I think, a gradual division of responsibility and work, with yours the controlling finger for as long as you like to keep it there.”

“Now you are doing a Dick, beginning to manage me too!” she accused him happily.

“And who with a better right?” he retorted. “And now what about our own plans? How soon are you going to marry me and move over to Greystones?”

“To
—
?” She sat up sharply, but he only laughed at her dismay.

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “We shall have it to ourselves and you’ll be its only mistress. As I told you, the place itself is mine and, failing to buy yours as an annexe, Kate is moving the Nursing Home, lock, stock and barrel, to Brighton. So now my thorny little pocket enterprise,
when
are you going to marry me?”

She met the eager light in his eyes. “As soon as you say, if you’re quite, quite sure you want me,” she told him.

“And how sure is ‘quite, quite’? If you mean sure for ever, then that’s all right with me,” he countered. And as his arms drew her to him for a kiss which was to seal their future, all hope, all certainty was in his voice.

THE END