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She cried suddenly, her voice trembling with anxiety, 'Have you something to tell me about Irene— something—?'

He interrupted her. 'I've nothing untoward to tell you, I assure you. I just wanted to see you –'

She said almost challengingly, 'But you have been seeing me. . .'

His steady gaze unnerved her; it held an intimacy that she resisted.

'Not
alone and not
here
,' he retorted.

'The voice of authority,' she challenged. 'Is that it?'

His words came slowly and deliberately. 'I'd like to think that I had some authority where you are concerned, Emma.'

The sound of her name tore down the barrier she wanted to build. She made a little questioning gesture. 'I don't see why.'

Adam's pulse quickened; there was something about Emma that roused his senses and he didn't try-to deny it. She had attracted him from the moment he saw her, and from an initial liking had come desire which was even then robbing him of his usual calm and
sang froid.
But he did not deceive himself; Emma would not be easy to sway, and that added to her charm in his estimation.

She felt his gaze upon her and could not tear her own away from it, almost as though she were mesmerised. She managed to escape from his searching eyes and, her voice suddenly cold, said, 'Suppose you come to the point. Just why have you asked me to come here?'

At that, he moved from his desk and came to stand by her side, his nearness disconcerting.

'To warn you that if you go on as you are now, you will sacrifice your life for your sister.'

Emma was roused to anger. 'And on what do you base that dire assumption?'

'Your readiness to fall in with her every whim, devote all your time to her. . .' He shook his head and his gaze was warning.

'You cannot cite any instance——'

He interrupted, and the atmosphere between them reached a tension that was almost tangible as he looked deeply into her eyes and said, 'Can you deny that you would have had dinner with me, had it not been for leaving Irene?'

Emma
heard Adam's words, resisting them as an accusation which fired her with a sudden rebellion. What right had he to question her motives? It was her business whether or not she had dinner with him, she argued. Nevertheless there was an uneasiness in her contemplation of the issue and she faced him stormily, her voice raised. 'I see no reason why I should deny such an accusation. Having dinner with you is wholly a matter of choice and. . .' She hesitated, unnerved by his inescapable gaze.

'That is the
point exactly,' he said with telling emphasis. 'You did not make the choice with free will.'

His words fell significantly on the uneasy silence, and Emma lost a little of her nerve. She did not want to dwell on the matter, or be faced with the fact that her refusal had been influenced by Irene; that, despite herself and the antagonism she was slowly building up against this man, she found the prospect of dining with him a singular challenge, even temptation.

She burst forth protestingly, 'You have no right whatsoever to question my motives. Or is it that you cannot face rejection of any kind?' There was a faint note of scorn in her voice.

Adam was roused by her annoyance, aware of the flashing of her blue eyes and the firm set of her red inviting lips.

He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders and shake her into submission, unprepared for the passionate reaction her dismissal had stimulated.

'If,' he said with emphasis, 'I had felt that the rejection was genuine, I should have dealt with it in a very different way.' He paused, and defied her to avoid his gaze. 'My point is still valid and my concern for you very great.'

Emma felt the walls of the room were closing in on her and that there was no escape from someone who had suddenly constituted himself her judge.

She burst out accusingly, 'You seem deliberately to underestimate my sister's condition, and make no allowances for her fears. No one has agoraphobia for pleasure. You didn't know Irene before all this happened,' she added fiercely. 'To have both parents killed ' She broke off shakenly, furious with herself because emotion overwhelmed her, the loss seeming to be as real as when the shock of the news first reached her.

Adam felt a terrible sense of inadequacy as he hastened to say, his voice low and sympathetic, 'I assure you I do not overlook one facet of all this. If I did, I should not concern myself beyond the purely professional aspect.'

Her gaze was direct and unnerving. 'Perhaps it would be very much better if you brought only a medical assessment to the case.'

'I don't merely treat symptoms,' he said with quiet firmness.

She flashed, 'You surprise me. I should have thought that was precisely what you are doing with Irene.'

He said gently, 'You're wrong, Emma. Irene has become a child who cannot bear to have its mother out of its sight. With you there, she lives in a little world of her own and finds both consolation and security in it.'

Emma said loyally, 'Is that so strange?'

His voice seemed to throb into the silence. 'Not strange but dangerous! For you both.'

Emma's nerves were taut; emotion flamed, the awareness of Adam's assessment disquieting. Her only weapon against him seemed to be attack as she rushed forth, 'Isn't all this a little dramatic? Just because I refused your dinner invitation,' she finished in a little sharp utterance.

Still he continued to study her, his eyes reaching the depths of her being, disturbingly, passionately and half accusingly, as he retorted, 'You know it goes far deeper than that. If my accusation hadn't been true, you would have been able to dismiss it without question, but your whole attitude is tentative. I'm not deceived.'

She flared, 'And it's for this that you got me to come here!' She looked around the room, but not noticing the oak panelling, the instrument cabinet on which several photographs were displayed. He had in fact
stamped
his personality upon it, and it was a welcoming sympathetic room which had seen great sorrow, tragedy and happiness. At that moment the atmosphere was tense and warring.

He asked abruptly, as she remained silent, 'You don't, I imagine, take many cases these days? Your work. . .'

She bristled.

'I take such cases as are necessary and which fit in with my plans.' She added, with what she realised was a little starchiness, 'Our parents left us comfortably provided for, so we have no problems.'

Adam thought that was both a blessing and a pity. Necessity would have forced Emma to divorce herself in some measure from Irene's demands and thus, inevitably, Irene would have been thrown back on her own resources.

Emma noticed the time at that juncture and said hastily, 'I must be going. I've shopping to do.' Then, as though aware of Adam's concerned gaze, she said in a conciliatory manner, 'If I have seemed ungracious, forgive me.'

Just then, he thought, she looked defeated and he wanted to draw her into his arms, make her understand his fears for her, as well as his concern for his patient. He hadn't expected this immediate response to her needs, or the fact that he could not argue with her further.

'You do not need to be my patient for me to have your welfare at heart,' he assured her. 'I'm afraid I haven't accomplished very much.' He looked at her with intensity. 'I shall keep inviting you out to dinner until you say yes,' he warned her.

She lowered her gaze. Her heart quickened its beat. She was both flattered and annoyed. She didn't want him intruding into her life.

'That is as much your privilege as it is mine to say no,' she flashed back at him.

His steady scrutiny unnerved her and she got up from her chair. He didn't step back and they stood perilously close, their bodies almost touching, their eyes meeting and betraying an awareness of each other that reduced them to silence. A pulse seemed to throb in the room that made the silence dangerous. Adam was aware of a faint warm fragrance stealing from her body which stirred his senses and aroused a fierce desire to take her in his arms. He stepped back abruptly.

'I'll remind you of those words at a future date.' His voice was low and, despite herself, she tensed. Her mouth was dry.

The intercom went and Adam said, 'Edmund. . . yes; she's about to leave. Do.

'Dr Bryant,' he said. 'Looking in to see you.'

Edmund Bryant joined them a matter of seconds later, flashing his gaze from face to face and, knowing Emma intimately after years of family friendship and patient care, he sensed the atmosphere between her and Adam with surprise and a degree of intrigue.

'Good to see you,' he said in greeting. 'It's a long while since you were here.'

Edmund Bryant was a man of sixty who had the face and figure of a man ten years younger. It was an interesting face, with clear direct eyes, smiling, yet solemn and tender in turn. His voice was firm, but had a gentle note in it as he added, 'I meant to look in on you last week.' He paused, and added, 'I'll make up for it. . . I've had news of you both from Adam.' There was no formality in his attitude; his long association with the Sinclair family made it unnecessary, and he had deliberately introduced Adam into the circle feeling that his presence, both as a doctor and as a man, would prove beneficial. In addition he had wanted a new look at Irene's case, with which he was all too familiar. He asked deliberately, 'Have you met Ruth, Adam's sister, by the way?'

Emma looked surprised and flashed Adam a startled look.

'Why, no,' she said a trifle awkwardly. Why ever should she?

Adam saw an ideal opening and said, 'You must do so. I'm temporarily living with Ruth at King's Road.'

'By the Long Walk,' Emma said, not wanting to commit herself. So, she thought, Adam wasn't just the bachelor living alone with a devoted housekeeper. She wondered what circumstances had prompted the arrangement.

As though reading her thoughts, Adam volunteered, 'Ruth amicably divorced her husband, and as I moved from London to Windsor, our joining forces seemed an excellent solution. We do not cramp each other's style. You must join us one evening.' He spoke deliberately, challenging her. There seemed no obstacle to her meeting Ruth and, he argued, it would be a step in the right direction for dinner
a deux.

Emma didn't deceive herself: she did not want to be drawn into any social life with this man who seemed to challenge the fabric of her existence. She murmured a few inarticulate words and emphasised that she must be going. She was aware of Edmund's almost paternal observation and wished that she could be alone with him.

But he glanced at his watch and said, 'I've a consultation at Heatherwood.' Heatherwood Hospital was at Ascot, about eight miles away. He took Emma's hands in a little intimate gesture of farewell. 'I'll be along to see you and Irene,' he promised and, nodding to Adam, was gone.

'I'm glad Edmund mentioned Ruth,' Adam said in the tone of one who wanted to keep the conversation going and prolong Emma's stay. 'I'd like you to meet her.' His voice had a commanding note in its persuasion.

Emma was adamant. 'I don't make plans, Adam. My life and your sister's must be worlds apart.'

'Only if you see them as such. The divorce was without rancour and her ex-husband has married again. Ruth also has a friend—Paul Knight—who would like her to be his wife.'

Emma didn't know why she wanted to be so resistant as she said smoothly, 'All very civilised.'

He shot at her, 'Do you prefer disharmony and ill-feeling?'

She countered immediately, 'Not having been married, or divorced, I'm not in a position to
judge.
' It was, she knew, a foolish remark and she took a step towards the door.

He stopped her with a disturbing look.

'If I said white, you'd say black.'

She didn't flinch as she replied, 'I think that is a good summing-up of the gulf that separates us.' Her voice was cool and decisive.

He challenged, 'But at least identifies us in the divergence of our opinions.'

She turned a steady gaze upon him, telling herself that he would never cease to irritate her. Without thinking, and with a sudden change of mood, she said, 'If you can use your professional skill to help my sister, that is all I ask; but as I see it now, you will have to change your opinions in order to bring that about.'

'I rather think time will tell. . . At least I have gone some way towards winning her confidence. I'd like to believe that she now sees me as a friend.'

Emma could not contradict him and remained silent.

'And do you see me as an enemy?' His question came unexpectedly and lingered on in the silence, in which tension mounted as they looked at each other.

Emma's pulse quickened and it annoyed her to face the fact that he disturbed her, prompting her to fight and never to compromise.

'Don't you think that is giving the relationship too great an importance?' she flashed.

His eyes darkened; his expression unnerved her.

'I'm consoled that you use the word "relationship", Emma. . . It identifies us.'

Emma felt she was being drawn into a web from which she could not extricate herself. There was an implacable calm about him as he stood there that defied contradiction, but she said hastily, 'You are my sister's doctor—that is all the identification necessary.'

'But you question the validity of my assessment of her case? And oppose my judgement so far as your involvement is concerned,' he commented deliberately.

'Your concern for my welfare is unnecessary and
unwanted. I thought I had made that quite clear.' Her voice was sharp. She added a trifle anxiously as she thought of the time, 'I must go. My visit. . .' She didn't finish the sentence, but conveyed that it had been a waste of time.

A wave of depression surged over Adam. It was like fighting against a relentless tide and he knew he had not furthered his cause by the meeting. Her silent resistance to seeing Ruth, and her attitude generally, offered no semblance of flexibility. A flame of anger burned within him as he walked with her to the door. His impotence at that moment discounted compromise.