Sally kept her balance. “Not very polite, are you? It’s time someone taught you that having a game leg doesn’t entitle you to be a boor and a burden. You’re sick to death of yourself—I know that. I also know that you could get round on crutches...”
“I do, when it’s necessary!”
“I’m glad to hear it, but it should be necessary more often. Exercise is vital—you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“No, I don’t I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me anything!”
Dane sauntered into an atmosphere which was slightly electrical. He poured tall drinks and handed them, raised his own and smiled nonchalantly.
“Happy days,” he said, and drank.
Five minutes later he was driving Sally back to the hotel. She sat beside him, perplexed but not defeated, and told him of the exchange between his cousin and herself.
Dane gestured. “You’re in too much of a hurry. You ought to have had half a dozen companionable talks with him before letting him guess you were brought here expressly for him. We’ll go up again in a couple of days.” She shook her head decisively. “No. From now on, I’ll manage him alone. It so happens that he can’t kick me out or escape. I’ll be like the Old Man of the Sea. He’ll see that it’s easier to give in a little than to shake me off.”
“You’ll find it wearing.”
“Not if it does some good.” She thought before asking, “What was he, before the accident?”
“A journalist. He reported on North African affairs for a couple of English papers.”
“That’s splendid. He could write something else—or even carry on with the reporting to some extent.”
“Possibly. He dropped everything, though, and I doubt whether you could make him pick up the ends. Get him fit and he’ll start living again.” He smiled at her tolerantly. “You might have done better if you’d worn something continental.”
“I’m not selling myself,” she said shortly, “not even to a patient.”
“In any case,” he commented equably, “you might look odd in anything but clinical linen or English tweeds. All right, child, go ahead in your own way. Don’t forget what I promised you.”
“The trousseau? I won’t.”
He looked her way again. “Got someone in mind?”
“Not yet. Supposing I earn the trousseau before I find the husband?”
“It’s a problem, isn’t it? Not fair to make the offer without providing a man to go with it. Very well, I’ll have a go at that angle, too. Any particular type you prefer?”
His mood and the topic excited her a little, but she sounded modest as she answered, “I like them solid, with a sense of humor and not too much imagination.”
“Just what I’d expect. What about cash?”
“It’s not important, but I would like him to be good with his hands—you know, someone who’s keen on making things.”
“Such as cow-pens and kids’ toys?” he asked with lifted brow.
Something in his voice put her quickly on the defensive. “Why not? They’re both necessary.”
“Oh, sure. I think I know the brand, but we don’t get many of them in Shiran. Maybe after you’ve lived here a week or two you’ll change your ideas. Who knows, even the centenarian charm of the farmhouse may go a little dim for you.”
“It won’t,” she said positively. “All this is a little too gilded to be real.”
“There’s no gilt—you’re looking at the genuine article.” He had gone cool again. “Get that very firmly in your mind, because before long you’ll come up against reality right here in Shiran. If you were older, you might be able to skim along the surface, but being so young and untried you’re bound to catch a few sharp corners.” He slowed to enter the courtyard of the Mirador, said abruptly, “I’ve just decided something. We’ll forget the trousseau and I’ll give you a bonus cheque instead.”
“Very well, Mr. Ryland,” she answered, as distantly. “Thank you for the lift I shall now be able to find my own way up to Mr. Ritchie’s house each day.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” he said evenly, as he braked. “A car will be at your disposal. All you have to do is ring the desk when you want it.”
“All right, if you insist.”
“I do. The car will wait at the house each time to bring you back.”
“I see.” With her hand ready to open the door, she said, “About my room; I don’t need a luxury suite. In fact, I’d be happier on the next floor in a bed-sitter.”
“You’ll keep Suite Seven,” he said briefly. “That’s an order.”
He gave Sally no time to make an exasperated reply, but came round and opened the door. They entered the Mirador together; he led her to a seat in the lounge and called a waiter.
“Serve mademoiselle,” he said. Then bowed to Sally as if she were a guest. “I’ve things to attend to. Excuse me?”
He was gone, striding carelessly out into the vestibule to greet a couple of French businessmen in white who sported huge cigars. Sally relaxed and ordered iced grenadilla. She could feel sand in her shoes and heat at the back of her neck, but so far she had not found the climate enervating. Which was just as well, when one had to contend with a man like Dane Ryland.
It had not been a very rewarding morning, she thought. Mike Ritchie didn’t want to be helped, and Dane Ryland was sceptical of her powers of persuasion. Sally wasn’t too confident about them herself, but she meant to use them for all she was worth. She would have to be careful and dogged.
After which decision she felt calm and cheerful.
* * *
Just before dinner that evening, Sally decided to take a walk in the hotel grounds. Beyond die lighted terrace were the usual star-shot darkness, the black spikes of the palms, the scents released by coolness, and she ran down the steps to enjoy the breeze which rustled through the trees. But on the driveway she almost collapsed with fright as someone stepped from behind a sizeable bush and caught her arm.
“It’s Tony,” he said in conspiratorial tones. “I’ve been hoping you’d come out for the traditional breath of air. What about going somewhere else for dinner?”
“Like this?” she said blankly, indicating the striped glazed cotton she wore.
“You look heavenly to me,” he said. “I know a place where we can relax. Game?”
“Well ... yes.”
“Good. We’ll use the old man’s car.”
He took her hand and led her swiftly round to the side of the hotel. He put her into a biggish limousine, which had seen many years but only a few thousand miles. It moved well, even under Tony’s impatient hands. He drove down the esplanade and turned along one of the innumerable narrow lanes of the town, which at this hour was crowded with Moors and Berbers in white and striped djellabahs, a few beggars and water-carriers, and vendors of the syrupy concoctions beloved by the population.
When they entered a wider thoroughfare which showed a white mosque against the skyline. Tony’s graceful dark head turned towards her for a moment.
“Dane squelched my idea about the date plantation. My father’s willing to whittle his bankroll down to nothing to buy it, but Dane won’t put up the capital to develop the thing. He’s sure I have an ulterior motive.”
“And have you?”
“That’s hard,” he said in hurt tones. “I want to settle down.”
“Perhaps Mr. Ryland finds you a little too sudden. With a man like him you have to prove yourself before he’ll believe in you.”
“Have you found that out, too?”
“Yes, but I’m not worried.” She paused. “You used to be friendly with Michael Ritchie, didn’t you?”
He lost the little-boy lightness and nodded. “We had some good times together. He’d get an assignment and we’d both chase up to Algiers or Tunis and wade into whatever was going on. That was a peach of a car he smashed up.”
“It was a good physical specimen he damaged, too.” There was a silence. Then Tony said, “It w
as worse for Mike than you or anyone else can know. There was a girl he wanted; the minute she knew he’d lost the use of his leg she dropped out.”
“That was a terrible thing to do,” she said soberly. “I knew there must be something more than just the paralysis of the leg. When I saw him this morning. As if that weren’t bad enough, he has to lose faith in himself as a man. Who was the girl?”
Tony shrugged. “Her people had a villa for a while and she drifted about the Mirador. I’m not sure that it would have lasted with Mike, but the crash came just as the affair was near the climax. I suppose the idiot came out of the ether convinced that he would never attract another girl in his life. He didn’t help the doctors at all. All the rest of the injuries cleared up simply because he was one of those disgustingly healthy types, like Dane.”
“Didn’t Mr. Ryland guess anything about this girl?”
“Why should he? Mike always had a sweetie in tow, and this one was no more remarkable than the others.” He waved a hand towards a stretch of colored neon. “The bright lights of Shiran. You may have your choice between Le Perroquet and the Chapeau Vert. Both are semi-night clubs with a distinctly French flavor, though they’re completely harmless at this time of the evening. Le Perroquet is the prettier, isn’t it?”
It was indeed, with its tubs of flowers in the entrance and the nodding parrot in neon tubing overhead. Tony led Sally into the vestibule, where they were taken in hand by a smiling steward. They were conducted into a dining room, where gaudy murals depicted a human-looking bird in many postures, and given a table which was half screened by pot plants.
The dinner was not of Mirador standard, but it was adequate, and the floor-show which began at nine was astonishingly modest. Tony explained that the atmosphere did not “hot up” till midnight.
“And what happens then?” asked Sally ingenuously. Tony grinned charmingly. “Another floor show, different wines,” he said. “I first came to Le Perroquet on my sixteenth birthday. In some ways we were very French, you see. I was educated in England and spent all my holidays here. I used to take hair-raising tales back to school, and because my home was in Morocco they were believed. In fact, though, Shiran is no more evil than Brighton. It’s just a lot more attractive!”
Sally was enjoying herself, but she had not forgotten the reason she was here in Shiran. That was why, a little later, she asked him casually, “Why aren’t you friends any longer with Mike Ritchie?”
Obviously, Tony heartily disliked controversial topics. He looked uneasy, and smiled. “I went to see him in the hospital and he told me to clear out—said he never wanted to see me again.”
“Seems to be a habit he has. He said the same to me this morning.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll soon be returning to England!”
“Of course not. I’m going up to his house tomorrow.”
“Lord, you’ve got pluck. I wouldn’t go near Mike again till he invited me.”
“That’s wrong,” she said severely. “You should have gone to see him again and again, till he grew tired of kicking you out.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?”
“It is. Are you staying long in Shiran?”
“A week or two, perhaps.” He looked apprehensive. “Not going to make me call on Mike, are you?”
“Not yet. I still have to get to know him.” She squashed out her cigarette. “We ought to go now, I think. May we drive a little way before we go back to the Mirador?”
Tony’s expression was a comic blend of surprise and alacrity. “I never expected that sort of invitation from you, Sally. Of course we may!”
She said firmly, “I mean exactly what I said—a short drive and then back to the hotel.”
“Oh, well, that’s better than an early night. Let’s move.” They left the dining room, came into the vestibule once more, and were bowed on to a crowded pavement. There were French officers, an Arab in a white burnous, a few small boys, all of them interested in the long silver and blue car which had pulled up outside Le Perroquet. Sally watched, wide-eyed, felt queer little feathers along her skin as Dane came round from the driver’s seat and helped his companion from the car. She was a pale honey-blonde with dark eyes and a form-fitting gown in silvery blue. About her shoulders she wore a blue mink cape, and the hand with which she held on to it glittered under the weight of a magnificent sapphire and several diamonds. She wore no other jewellery, but her whole personality sparkled from highly-colored lips and eyes that must have been touched by belladonna.
For a long moment Sally looked up into Dane’s eyes. Then his cool, arrogant glance shifted quickly to Tony, and he nodded to the two of them. That was all. The jewelled hand slipped into the crook of his arm and they passed into Le Perroquet.
Feeling slightly stunned, Sally walked a few yards with Tony and took her seat in Monsieur de Chalain’s car. They were drawing away from the lights when she asked, “Who was the creature in glorious Technicolor?”
“She’s some baby, isn’t she?” he said. “Her name is Cécile Vaugard and she sings love songs in a husky voice; I believe she also sings opera in a rather better voice. Every year, for a few weeks, she appears at Le Perroquet.”
“A flame of Dane Ryland’s?”
“You might call her that. He’s always her escort while she’s in Shiran.”
“I thought he didn’t care about women.”
“He’s almost human sometimes.” Tony gave a laugh. “Cécile’s got up like that for the public. Between times she puts on the homely act. She’s half owner with Dane of the phosphate mine.”
“She doesn’t look like a business woman.”
“Not phosphates, anyway,” said Tony with an engaging leer. “Actually, she found herself owner of the mine when her father died, but it was losing so much money that she closed it down. Then she met Dane and told him about it; he took it on, put in new equipment and a couple of mine experts, and now it’s so prosperous that Cécile sings only for fun and glory.”
Sally was quiet for some time. She looked out at the trees and the glimpses of the sea, saw in the distance the undulating walls of the medina. Then she realized that they were speeding into darkness.
She said suddenly, “I don’t think I want a drive after all, Tony. This is only my second night here and I find myself a bit tired. Do you mind taking me back?”
“Of course I mind,” he said ruefully. “Will you go out with me again?”
She promised she would, and said no more. At the Hotel Mirador she said goodnight to him almost abruptly and walked quickly to the lift. In her room, Sally did not pause and think. With an oddly stubborn smile on her lips, she sat down at the beautiful little writing table and began a letter. And presently she was back in the farmhouse in Cumberland, with her mild-mannered father and spare, tweedy mother, and the boys. Yet even with those dear familiar people brought close, she knew a sense of strain. Sally straightened in her chair, still holding her pen. Hollowly, she wondered if Shiran were already working some queer and irrevocable change within her.
CHAPTER THREE
SALLY had always lived very much in the present, and when she awoke next morning it was with the usual sensation of this being another day for her to use as best she could. But when she had slipped out of bed and on to the balcony, she remembered last night and her own extraordinary feelings. For there below, dropping a bathrobe and taking a header into the swimming pool, was the muscular figure of Dane Ryland. No idling for him by the poolside, no delicious floating with the sun warming his body. A dive, several lengths of powerful overarm stuff and then a leap up on to the marble. His morning swim was as much of a business, apparently, as the hotel or his other interests.
Determinedly, Sally backed into the bedroom and hummed to herself while she took a shower and dressed. She ate the usual light breakfast which was brought to the suite, and went down to the esplanade for a walk. She found some colonnaded shopping streets, covered souks which were crammed with men in robes
and women who were only distinguishable from the men by their yashmaks. A little shy of buying from people who did not understand English, she returned to the Mirador and entered its emporium, a splendid store whose plate glass windows walled a tiled corridor on the ground floor. She bought white shorts and was politely warned by the assistant to wear them only in the hotel grounds, and she acquired several sports shirts in gay colors, a sun-frock, harlequin sun glasses, plaited straw slippers and a floppy straw hat. Extravagant for the first time in her life, she bought pretty white ear clips and a multicolored linen jacket she could easily have done without.
The assistant promised to send the goods to her suite. “Number Seven?” he said with a bow. “I will charge them, mademoiselle.”
“I don’t have an account with the hotel,” she told him. “I’d better pay you now.”
The dark eyes looked comprehending. “You are the young lady from England? I have orders from Mr. Ryland that you are to buy what you wish, at no cost.”
“But that’s impossible. I could send you bankrupt.”
He smiled, lifted his shoulders. “I doubt that, mademoiselle. Mr. Ryland was emphatic.”
For a moment Sally was tempted to tell him to return the things she had chosen to their shelves and hangers, and then she grew vexed again. Bother Dane Ryland!
“Just give me a note of what I’ve selected and their prices,” she said. “I’ll deal with it later.”
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