THE SCARS SHALL FADE

Nerina Hilliard

The scar that marked Andrew Dalwin's face was a slight thing compared to the scar that a woman's fickleness had left on his heart and his feelings. How Trina Meriton overcame his suspicion and distrust and brought him back to happiness is told in a pleasant story, set in Australia. Is Trina Meriton the woman to give him back joy?

CHAPTER ONE

I

TRINA MERITON stood for one moment with her black braids hanging on either side of her face, for all the world like a rather pixie-faced Indian girl, then with swift fingers that had the quick, sure dexterity of long practice she pinned up the glossy ropes - but with a wry little grimace this time.

Even if she was rather scared of the interview in front of her, there was no putting it off, not if she wanted the job. And, of course, she did want the job. It would help a lot to be able to get away from Sydney at the present time. The emotions Dennis aroused in her were too dangerous and altogether wrong. She had found out only a week ago that he was married, but right from the beginning she had never been able to decide whether or not she really liked him. He fascinated her, but that was an altogether different matter. One could still love a man, even while being completely disillusioned about him. He was vain, conceited and quite without any moral sense. He must be, to have pursued her right from their first meeting, knowing all the time that he was married and that nothing could come of any love between them that he managed to bring alive. That he had managed it did not alter the situation. Even if he would not admit that It was wrong, she knew that it was. If she gave way to his persuasions to go away with him it would outrage everything she had been brought up to believe in.

Unfortunately, she was not sure that she could resist his soft voice and caressing lips. Not knowing that he was married, she had made no attempt to fight against loving him, perhaps subconsciously hoping that those one or two things about him that did jar on her would somehow miraculously disappear when they were married. Apparently the old feminine failing of hoping to change the man she loved had entrapped her also, but she knew now that the inherent

selfishness of Dennis Lenyard was too much a part of him ever to allow him to change. Not only that, he did not respect the scruples of anyone else, not even Trina Meriton, whom he professed to love, and that was why it was so necessary for her to get away from him until she could find some way to control the riot of emotions he had awakened to life in her.

Marda sauntered in just as she was turning away from the mirror, grinned sympathetically and reached for a vivid scarlet sweater,

"Getting the jitters?"

Trina nodded. "They're getting worse every minute."

Marda grinned. "'Don't look so much like one of the early Christians being thrown to the lions, darling," she drawled. "The days of slave labour and sleeping with the boss have gone for good."

Trina smiled, deeming it wise to pass over the latter part of the remark. "Is that what I look like?" she asked. "I was hoping I looked cool and composed."

"Dennis still bothering you?"

Trina nodded wordlessly.

"You know he's no good, don't you?" Marda added quietly. While under lighter circumstances - such as her friend not being the least bit in love with Dennis Lenyard - she might have made some joking remark about taking what the gods had to offer and living in sin, never in the smallest degree expecting Trina to take her seriously, she could always be depended on to be serious when it was something that really mattered.

"I know ... at least I think I do," Trina admitted haltingly. "But ... but I can't seem to think of anything except him when we're together.

That's why I have to get away ... until I can get things properly in focus again."

It had been too quick and shattering. Dennis was another artist and she had met him at a studio party given by one of Marda's friends. For this Marda always persisted in blaming herself, asserting that if she had not persuaded Trina, who had been feeling lonely and depressed after her grandfather's death, to go to the party, she would never have met the quite fatally attractive Dennis Lenyard, who seemed to be as immoral as he was charming.

As she helped Marda to prepare breakfast, Trina allowed her thoughts to go back over the years. Actually, she supposed, it had been her upbringing that had made her so vulnerable where Dennis was concerned. She was just not used to people of his type.

She had been born in a rather quiet, select suburb of London, spent seven years there, and then, on the death of her parents, had gone to live with her father's parents in Dorminster, a little town in Buckinghamshire. Dorminster had nothing particularly outstanding about it, except its small but exceedingly high-standard college. Both her grandparents - surprisingly young to be grandparents - had professorial degrees and were still practising lecturers. Consequently the rest of her life had been spent in an atmosphere that was overwhelmingly academic. Although they had allowed Trina to follow her wishes and train as a ballet dancer, the grandparents had seen to it that she had a first-class scholastic education as well, and probably only an inherent sense of mischief and laughter had saved her from becoming a rather academic young woman herself. As it was, nobody looking at her would suspect the background she had grown up against. For one thing she was small and slender and looked like a pixie. There was a perpetual tilt of mischief to her mouth, her nose was definitely retrousse and her blue eyes were not in the least serious:

And Dennis? She had, of course, not met him until they had come to Australia. The sudden death of her grandmother, her grandfather's neglect of a cold that led to a bout of pneumonia and the doctor's warning that he would have to leave England - they were the things that had really been responsible for her meeting Dennis. Strange to think that but for the fact of old Professor Meriton catching pneumonia she would never have met Dennis and never been caught in the cleft stick of longing and her moral sense of knowing what was right and what was very definitely wrong.

She had not wanted to leave England in the beginning, but it had been her own persuasions that had finally made the old man move to a warmer climate. It was the very least she could have done after all her grandparents had done for her. She had been fond of the old man, and even with the sense of loss when he had finally gone, she had had the satisfaction of knowing that instead of the three to six months of life the doctor had warned of in England, he had had four years of lazing around in the sunlight, living contentedly on the small pension his old college had given him, while Trina worked as a member of the city's ballet company. She found she liked Australia and was able to continue her career as well.

Four years had made her feel that she belonged there, and when the professor died, making it necessary to give up the large flat they had been renting, because of course his pension died with him, she had answered an advertisement to share a flat with another girl. That was when she had first met Marda; she had hesitated rather dubiously about sharing a home with someone so bohemian, but instinct had told her not to throw away the chance. The alternative was a single room with cooking facilities in one corner - perhaps not even that - so she had trusted to the instinct that told her she would like Marda Grenwen in spite of outward appearances, and instinct had proved quite right. Marda belied her bohemian appearance in being extremely tidy, and was also easy to get on with. Apparently the other girl who had been sharing the flat with her had left to get

married, not because of some quarrel, so Trina had taken possession of the divan bed beneath the window, and after only a few hours had felt quite at home chatting to Marda as the older girl lounged on a settee smoking a cigarette in a long jade holder, mixing dryly humorous comments on the world with disparaging remarks about the landlord's idea of a colour scheme and furnishings for the flat.

Marda's "arty" parties had amused her - and then she had met Dennis, which situation was now proving far from amusing. His pursuit of her had been almost ruthless, upsetting all her preconceived ideas and at the last even the ideals she had grown up with. She had allowed herself to love him, even when instinct, which had been right about Marda, had warned her that she could never find happiness with his type of man, and instinct had again been right. Perhaps she would have made more of a fight against loving him if she had known from the very beginning that he was already married. Now she had to get away somewhere quite different from her usual haunts, somewhere where he could not find her until she could regain her sense of perspective. If it was merely a mad infatuation, it would pass; if love, she would have to learn to control it, because she realised instinctively that to give way to his persuasions would be to kill something in her. Love could not be based on a sense of wrong and the loss of integrity. Dennis was married, and whatever the position between Linda Lenyard and her husband, whether or not they were estranged, that did not alter the fact that they were married. Perhaps Linda was cruel and malicious to refuse a divorce, but that again did not alter the position.

"You know you might be jeopardising your career, going away like this?" Marda commented after a while, her eyes on the tea she was pouring out. They had by now got beyond the first stages of breakfast and were intent on emptying a large teapot that both agreed was far too big for two people, but which they always managed to finish.

Trina shot her a quick glance and shook her head. "Didn't I tell you? - it's only for a month. And you haven't heard the rest of my news. There's a new ballet company being formed - the International - and I've been told I can start with them in a month. Everything just fits in."

Marda raised expressive eyebrows. "That's news. Better than the other crowd?"

Trina nodded. "I think so . . . more opportunity too. I think I might even get some solo parts."

"About time," Marda retorted. "Sounds as if things are changing your way at last," she added briskly. "A new job with good prospects and a month's fill-in to give you the chance to get Dennis out of your system."

"If I get this other job."

They finally emptied the teapot, cleared away and washed up quickly between them. Trina then attended to the final details of her toilet and turned to Marda with her fingers crossed.

"Wish me luck."

Marda laconically wished her luck, and a few minutes later she was walking briskly towards the tram stop and the tram that would carry her into the city. From the city stop it would only be a few minutes' walk to the large, expensive and exclusive hotel mentioned in the advertisement.

On the tram, to keep her thoughts away from Dennis, she determinedly made herself think about the job she was going to apply for.

As she had told Marda, she did not have the qualifications asked for - she was not a schoolteacher or a private coach - but she was hoping that the extensive education she had received would be in her favour. After all, coaching four children - two pairs of twins, strangely enough - did not seem to present too many difficulties. It was not as if they would need very advanced education, so two little girls of seven and a boy and girl of eleven should not be too much trouble.

When she arrived at the hotel she could not stop herself feeling a tiny little thrill of awe and pleasure at its sumptuous luxury. Whoever Geraldine Dalwin was, she must possess an exceedingly comfortable income to be able to afford to stay in a place like this.

She went over to the reception desk, and when she explained whom she had come to see she was whisked upstairs in a silent lift that deposited her in a grey-carpeted corridor. A page in a deep maroon uniform showed her to the door of Mrs. Dalwin's suite and then left her with a little bow. The door was opened by a trim maid in a smartly cut black dress and, trying to appear as dignified as possible - and unconsciously imitating her grandmother's stance on the lecture platform - Trina explained her errand. Half a minute later she was sitting in a room with three other women.

Three pairs of eyes immediately studied her with* as much interest as she was giving the other occupants of the room, no doubt trying to assess how much chance she had of the job they no doubt all had some reason for coveting.

It seemed an eternity to Trina while one after the other of the three went into the room, but at last the maid came back and announced in a prim, almost expressionless voice:

"Mrs. Dalwin will see you now, Miss Meriton."

Trina rose to her feet and followed the maid across the thick carpet, out into the hall and into a room on the other side of it. As the door closed, Geraldine Dalwin rose to her feet with a pleasant smile and waved her hand towards another chair at the table at which she had been sitting when Trina entered.

"Please sit down, Miss Meriton." She waited until the girl had complied before she sat down herself. She was a smardy dressed, middle-aged woman, still handsome, with a brisk manner but a kindly twinkle in very dark eyes. "First I had better take your name, age and address, then we'll get down to qualifications."

Trina inwardly quailed at the last few words, but quietly, in what she hoped was a businesslike voice - or, better still, the sort of voice she hoped a real schoolteacher would have used - gave details of name, age and address, as requested.

Geraldine Dalwin leaned back in her chair with a rather speculative look in her eyes.

"You are somewhat younger than I really wanted, but on the other hand I don't want anyone of my own age," she said with a smile, and Trina guessed that the two older applicants had been written off. Mrs. Dalwin nodded and confirmed it with another smile. "As you might have guessed, two of your predecessors were not suitable. I have nothing against middle-aged schoolteachers, in fact they are of course more experienced, but in this case they would be quite unsuitable. One of them, I'm afraid, might have been too much of a martinet; the children would have disobeyed her out of sheer perversity. The other lady would not have been able to handle them. They are a little unruly, I'm sorry to have to admit."

"They have been away from school through sickness?" Trina enquired, feeling that something was expected of her, since Mrs. Dalwin paused as if giving her a chance to remark on the subject.

"No - although they've been away from school all right," the older woman said a little grimly. "They have been allowed to play truant as much as they like. They have now come under my nephew's care and he wants their education brought up to what it should be at their age, so that they can enter appropriate schools."

"I see," Trina said slowly, and this was the horrible moment. "You'll want to know what qualifications I have to do that."

"Of course," Geraldine Dalwin agreed "At which school were you last teaching, or are you a private coach?"

"I'm not a private coach or . . . or a schoolteacher." She hesitated, but there was no way out and so she added baldly, "I'm a ballet dancer."

"A ballet dancer!"

Trina felt quite sure that very little managed to upset Geraldine Dalwin's self-possession, but at that moment - and Trina agreed that it was most certainly justified - her eyes widened and a distinct ripple of shock passed over her face.

"A ballet dancer!" she repeated blankly. "I don't quite..."

"Please let me explain," Trina said desperately, cutting in, feeling as if already her chances were evaporating. "I ... I wanted to get away from Sydney at the moment, and I thought that . . ." She broke off, hesitated a moment, then quickly explained as much as she could about her background, finishing, "I was told when I graduated that I could take up teaching, but I went into ballet instead. I'm sure I could coach the children if you gave me the chance."

Mrs. Dalwin shook her head. "I'm afraid I wanted someone with experience in teaching and handling children. I told you that they could be rather unruly." She smiled kindly, but her voice was quite

firm. "I am sorry, my dear, but I don't think you would be at all suitable."

With a temporary feeling of defeat, Trina rose to her feet, apologised to Geraldine Dalwin for troubling her and quietly left the hotel.

II

When Trina returned to the flat her expression told its own tale. Marda looked up from the table beneath its large window where she was sketching.

"No good?"

Trina shook her head. "Not a hope. I went the rounds of the agencies too. About the only thing they had was a chorus opening in some travelling show. I went along to see about it . . ."

"But it was no good either?" Marda finished for her.

"I suppose I could have taken it, but .. ."

Her expression said so vividly that, although she might have taken the job, there were some things she just could not take. Marda's expressive eyebrows went up and a wicked light glinted in her eyes.

"The chorus girls wear as little as they can get away with and are chased by the boss?" she enquired.

"Marda!" Trina laughed in spite of herself. "Something like that, I should imagine," she admitted. "The boss didn't look a very nice type and the show was less than fifth rate."

"Don't worry, pet," Marda assured her easily. "Something will turn up. Maybe we could take a holiday together . . . then if you show signs of taking off back to Dermis, I could rope you to the bedpost."

Trina smiled, but quickly became serious again. "You know you couldn't get away at this time," she protested, knowing that Marda was working on an important commission at the moment. "Especially just to dry-nurse me."

"I suppose not," Marda agreed reluctantly. "But even if you can't get a job away from Sydney, go away somewhere for a holiday. Promise me that? You need to get away from Dennis and . . . well, all the old familiar surroundings . . . and sort things out. While you stay here, he'll always be pestering you."

"You don't like him, do you?"

"I detest him," Marda said frankly, dropping her ultramodern pose and becoming quietly and deadly serious. "I don't mind telling you so either, pet. One of these days you're going to wake up and wonder what you ever saw in him."

"I tell myself that too," Trina agreed wearily. "But so far it hasn't done any good. I know he's bad, because he made me fall in love with him, knowing all the time that he was married and it couldn't come to anything except . . She broke off and bit her lips almost savagely, shook her head as if to try to clear the tears from her eyes. "Sometimes I feel he doesn't respect me ... or he wouldn't have asked me to go away with him . . . and it hurts so much."

"He's completely selfish," Marda said, being brutally frank again and hoping it might do some good. "You know as well as I do that the only person who really matters to him is Dennis Lenyard. He doesn't love you, and you'll find that out for yourself one of these days ... especially if you went away with him. He would just leave you flat when he tired of you."

"No ... !"

She was silent for so long that Marda thought she had gone too far, but at last Trina looked up, her blue eyes bright with unshed tears.

"When I lie awake at night, I find myself thinking those things too, trying not to believe them . .. and when I see him again, I don't believe them. Nothing matters any more, except that we're in love - that's why I have to go away. Whatever happens, I have to go away for a time," she added tensely. "It's the only way I can find out whether I can get over this."

Perhaps she would fool herself into thinking she was safe, though, and then, when she saw him again, it would all flare up worse than ever.

"Let's get dinner over, then we'll go see a film," Marda suggested briskly. "It will take our minds off the problem and maybe in the morning something will turn up."

The film was a good one, about ancient Rome, a period erf history that had always interested Trina. It did succeed in taking her mind off Dennis for a while, and in the morning something did turn up.

They were still pottering around in their dressing gowns when the telephone rang. Marda spoke for a moment, thai handed the receiver to Trina. "It's for you - a Mrs. Geraldine Dalwin."

"Mrs. Dalwin!" Trina snatched the receiver, new hope in her eyes. "Hallo, Trina Meriton here," she said, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. She listened for a while, speaking in monosyllables, then finally rang off and turned to Marda. "She wants me to take the job after all."

Marda raised her brows. "Well, that's unexpected. Better go into it thoroughly before you say you'll take it."

"I've already said I will."

"Well, still try and find out why the others didn't take it."

"There were apparently only the four of us, and two she didn't want from the beginning. It was the other one, about the same age as me, whom she decided on in the end, and then she was in an accident and broke her leg."

"Oh, I see," Marda said, working out without much difficulty that it was not Geraldine Dalwin who had broken her leg, but the successful applicant for the job. She grinned with the impishness that lit up her plain but oddly attractive face. "Well, what did I tell you? Something did turn up."

"I wish the other girl hadn't broken her leg," Trina said worriedly.

"That's not your fault. Maybe she would have broken it whatever job she had applied for," Marda pointed out with brisk practicality. "You'd better get over there now before she changes her mind and decides to have another look round for a real schoolteacher."

Thus adjured, Trina managed to get ready in record time, and a little before ten o'clock she found that same maid leading her into the room where she had seen Geraldine Dalwin the day before. This time the older woman, clad in an elegant velvet housecoat, was standing looking out of the window. She turned as Trina entered, and waved her to a chair, then sat down herself, opposite her.

"I'm glad to find you are still free, Miss Meriton."

"I'm grateful that you decided to give me the chance after all," Trina replied.

"To be quite frank," Mrs. Dalwin told her, "I would not have done so had there been anyone else. However, I'm leaving town today and I

have to get this matter settled. I will be as brief as I can about the situation in which you will find yourself. You know already that there are four children and that they are two sets of twins."

"Yes," Trina said, and could not help adding, "It's very unusual."

Geraldine Dalwin nodded. "Yes, it is quite rare. The children are rather unusual too." There seemed to be a hint of warning there. "They are orphans, and the younger twins, girls of seven, never knew their mother. She died at their birth."

"Oh ... how sad!"

Trina's remark was quite involuntary, but Geraldine gave her a rather quizzical glance.

"You need not pity her, my dear. I'm sure she was glad to go. Her husband was an incurable alcoholic and treated her badly." She gave a little shrug. "I have no hesitation in telling you this - in fact I think you should be prepared, since the children quite freely discuss their father's drinking habits. He died a short while ago, however, and my nephew has taken over responsibility for the children. Their mother was a distant connection of our family, but we were still somewhat surprised to realise that the father had made a will appointing Andrew their guardian."

"Your nephew isn't married?" Trina asked tentatively.

"No." Geraldine looked grim for a moment, then continued rather quickly. "I won't disguise the fact that you will be taking on a somewhat difficult task. Andrew is not a good man with children, I'm afraid, and you will have to keep them out of his way."

Trina found a picture forming that she did not like very much. Four bereaved children, no doubt somewhat in need of discipline but still

children who had lost their parents, pitched suddenly into an atmosphere where they perhaps sensed they were not wanted.

"What is the idea of having them privately coached?" she asked after a moment. "Wouldn't they pull up just as quickly at school?"

"Perhaps, but I thought it might help them more if they could have private tuition and then start school - we have already decided on good boarding schools for them - on an even footing with other children of their age."

Geraldine spoke for some time in her soft, cultured voice, describing the house she would live in, far enough from Sydney to be classed as "country" but not too remote. Andrew Dalwin apparently had a flat in town where he lived during the week and at the week-ends returned to Barakee, the house that had-been in his family for nearly a hundred and fifty years. During the week they could have the run of the house and grounds, but over the week-ends they were to keep severely out of sight and sound.

Andrew Dalwin was not old - in his middle thirties - but had decided ideas of his own and did very little entertaining. Geraldine went on for quite some time and then, with an inner gasp, Trina realised that, in a somewhat round-about way and with nothing said outright, she was being warned that she must also keep out of his way, as well as the children, and not entertain any romantic ideas about him, as he had no use for women. It did not, however, make her dislike Geraldine Dalwin, only increased the smouldering antipathy she had for the man she had not yet met.

Mr. Nephew Andrew.' Her thoughts about him were becoming darkly acidulous.

"I assure you, Mrs. Dalwin, that I shall cause your nephew no inconvenience or concern in that respect," she said quietly, although

she was seething inside. Good heavens, did the man think he was such an Adonis that every woman he met would fall instantly and fatally in love with him? "In any case," she added, "I'm very much in love with somebody else."

Geraldine gave her a deprecating little smile. "I'm glad you have taken it that way, my dear. I wasn't trying to be insulting, merely warning you for your own good. Andrew, unfortunately, has the idea that any woman who shows an interest in him is only thinking of his money, and I'm afraid he can be very scathing on the subject."

III

She travelled down to Barakee three days later. Marda had unearthed an old book of aborigine word meanings and told her the name meant Place of Stone - which sounded ominous. A stone house and a stony-hearted owner. Anyway, he would only be there over the week-ends, she told herself reassuringly, and she would only be at Barakee for a month, so that meant only four week-ends to put up with him if he did turn out to be as disagreeable as he sounded.

When she alighted from the train at Myuna a blaze of colour from flower-beds on the station platforms greeted her eyes, and just outside the station three tall flame trees were in full flower and blazed brilliant red.

"Miss Meriton?" a voice enquired as she surrendered her ticket and went outside.

She turned quickly and found a middle-aged man in chauffeur's uniform behind her.

"Yes, I'm Trina Meriton."

He saluted and nodded towards the gate. "Mrs. Dalwin sent me to pick you up, miss. She's waiting for you out at Barakee."

Her cases most swiftly and efficiently conveyed to an exceedingly luxurious car, Trina found herself also installed in the same vehicle and within minutes they were moving away from the town, along a narrow but well-kept road that ran across what was almost a plateau of high ground. All round them were the tall, thin trunks of gum trees, with their peculiarity of growing straight upwards for quite enormous heights and then bursting into foliage at the top.

After about half an hour they passed a settlement that could have been either a large village or a small town. This little place was the nearest centre of civilisation to Barakee. The information was tendered rather dryly by Sanders, the driver, who had quickly lost his slightly formal air and soon became chatty about the neighbourhood. A bus connected Dalthorpe to Myuna, but nothing but the car connected Barakee to Dalthorpe. Trina, her interest caught by the English-sounding name in the middle of all the aborigine ones, asked if the village was named after the Dalwins.

Sanders nodded. "They own a lot of the land around this way."

Five minutes later the road twisted abruptly and Trina leaned forward with a little gasp. Spread out below was a shallow valley, wooded on its slopes, except from the direction from which the car approached, which gave it somewhat the appearance of a crescent. Set within the curve of the crescent was Barakee, the place of stone - not a cold, chilling stone, but warm and mellowed, its windows gleaming in the sunlight like welcoming diamonds.

They descended the curving road and at last were running between more of the tall, ever-present gums along the drive to the house itself. Near at hand it was still as attractive, square and solid, built in the old colonial style with archways forming shady verandahs both upstairs

and downstairs at ground level. When the car drew to a standstill she was shown into a large, cool hall, and a moment later Geraldine Dalwin herself appeared.

"Come and meet your charges," she invited, and Trina found herself conducted into a long, dark-panelled room where french windows opened into the garden. Lined up in an attitude of demure respect - an attitude she would have known instinctively was assumed, even without Geraldine's previous warning - were two small angelic girls, golden- haired and small even for their seven years, and a boy and girl with flaming red hair and mischievous, freckled faces that looked positively unnatural in their present attitude of "wouldn't do a thing wrong".

Introductions were performed with due solemnity, but already the eyes of the elder twins were beginning to sparkle with impishness. The girl, Julie, frankly grinned.

"Thank heaven you're young. I was afraid you would turn out to be some old dragon," she said, blithely careless that Geraldine, who had had the task of choosing their coach, was listening.

"I think I might manage a little fire and smoke on occasion," Trina informed her, a subtle warning that, although she might not look tough, she was not going to allow herself to be too easy to handle.

Rod gave her an openly speculative glance. "You don't look like a schoolteacher," he commented.

"She's not," Geraldine said dryly. She looked from one to the other of them, appreciating the young, healthy faces, even though she might try to appear stern with them on occasion. "She's a ballet dancer."

"She's what!" Julie screamed in delighted surprise. "Then she's not going to give us lessons after all."

"Don't you believe it," Geraldine retorted grimly. "She may be a ballet dancer, but she also holds all sorts of degrees - so you just mind your p's and q's."

She dismissed the children into the garden and then took Trina on a tour of the house, explaining that she would be returning home soon - she lived about twenty miles away - so she had better show her as much as possible while she had the time, and then Trina could ask any questions which occurred to her. Geraldine first took Trina through to the back of the house to introduce her to the housekeeper, Mrs. Jamison, an old Scotswoman who still retained a trace of accent even though she had been in the country for about thirty years. There were a couple of girls from farms in the district, and Mrs. Pirie, the cook, who was not in the least like Trina's idea of what a cook should look like. There was not an ounce of spare flesh on her, and instead she was small and birdlike. Even her movements were reminiscent of a sparrow, and she boasted that her family had been in Australia for as long as the Dalwins. Two gardeners and Sanders, the chauffeur, completed the staff. Geraldine then led the way towards a wide staircase that swept upwards to the as yet unexplored second floor. Downstairs she had already pointed out to Trina the rooms she could use - and the one she must on no account enter, unless summoned there: Andrew's study.

At the top of the stairs there was a three-sided gallery that overlooked the hall, rather like an old minstrels' gallery. A long corridor led from the centre portion of the gallery straight through to the back of the house, where there was another stairway, not so ornate or wide as the front one. Presumably the service stairway. Andrew's room was right at the front, along a side corridor that led off from the main one. The children's rooms and also Trina's room were on the other side of the house. Farther away still - presumably as far as possible from Andrew's apartment - was the schoolroom and what Geraldine termed the rumpus room.

"I thought you might like to have the schoolroom right away from everywhere," she explained. "You can bang their heads together if they play up too much. The rumpus room - for relaxation - is next door. So long as they work hard during the day, I'm not in favour of continuous study."

The room contained four desks of varying sizes and on them were neatly stacked the primers that Trina had ordered after a hasty consultation with a friend of Marda's, who sur-

prisingly enough had turned out to be a full-time schoolteacher and who had been able to give her valuable information and help to start her off on the right track. At the front of the small classroom was a desk for herself and a blackboard. It was well lighted by windows all down one side of the room.

"It's excellent," Trina said, then she smiled. "What did the children say - or haven't they seen it yet?"

"Oh, they've seen it all right - and they just quietly tiptoed out without saying a word, every one of them wearing a positively diabolical grin." She gave Trina her friendly smile. "I don't mind admitting that I don't envy you at all."

Trina merely laughed and shook her head. Geraldine threw open a door that led off the classroom into another room.

"This is the rumpus room."

Room was hardly an appropriate word. It was the size of a barn and so amazingly fitted up that Trina could for a moment only stand there and stare. Into one corner was pushed a vaulting horse, parallel bars and various other gymnastic equipment. In the other corner, at the same end of the room, was a long narrow table rigged up for table tennis. As in the schoolroom, long windows were ranged all down

one wall, and beneath them, each one .attractively painted a different but harmonious colour, were numerous cupboards, all of them containing games and other implements to keep young minds occupied. A large table, a few chairs and a radiogram and record cabinet finished the furnishings.

Trina bent down to the record cabinet with a smiling glance at Geraldine. "May I?"

"Of course." The older woman watched her glance at the covers of the records. "You will probably find a few of them to your own taste. Young Julie has quite an adult taste in music."

Trina nodded, with a little crease of interest on her fore-

head. She had an idea that the four neat piles of gramophone records might tell her more about her charges.

Julie's records were all classical, Rod's pop music, while the younger twins' were in both cases musical fairy-tales.

"Well?" Geraldine smiled. "Tell you anything?"

"A little." Trina met her smile. "Most of it I'll probably find out for myself."

Later that evening, unpacking in her pleasant, tastefully furnished room that overlooked the sweep of the valley, she hoped she would not find out too much the hard way. Geraldine had gone and she was on her own now.

That brought a faint smile to her lips, because, with so many people in the house, it seemed rather ridiculous to think of herself as being alone. Mrs. Jamison and also the cook, firm friends themselves, seemed to have taken an instant liking to her, although neither made it too obvious. It was just a feeling of helpful friendship that warmed

her heart and made her glad to realise that they at least would not make her days difficult - whatever the owner of Barakee might be like.

With a little grimace, she turned off the light and climbed into bed, even crossing her fingers in a superstitious little gesture as if to invoke good luck, yet when at length the full moon shone through the window she was fast asleep and the peace on her face would have given no intimation to any onlooker of the problems she must face in the morning.

IV

The sun shone through the window and on, to four young, scrubbed and shining faces. Trina faced them, neat and attractive in a dress of rich, deep blue, her gleaming braids wound into a coronet around her head and the smooth sweep of hair brushed back from her forehead shining like black satin. Her blue eyes had the sparkle of youth in them and a light dusting of make-up enhanced the picture she made, which was nothing at all like a schoolteacher, but still like a pixie masquerading at being somebody serious and studious.

Julie grinned and whistled admiringly, then she put her head on one side and looked at Trina speculatively.

"You're not really going to give us lessons, are you?"

"I am," Trina assured her grimly. "Make no mistake about that. I'm here to give you lessons - and lessons you will have."

"What if we play up?" Roger suggested cheekily.

Trina shrugged, as if it did not really matter to her one way or the other.

"Then when you go to school," she told them, "you'll all be a pack of dunces and probably go right to the bottom of your class - or in a class lower than your age group."

She saw Julie frown slightly at that, and quickly pressed her advantage, hoping that she was on the right track.

"You realise, of course, that the days of playing truant are over. You've had a good run, so you can't realty complain."

"I suppose not," Julie agreed, with her grin coming back, as if she liked being treated as an equal.

Rod said nothing for a moment, but he too seemed to be considering the question of his pride and being placed at the bottom of the class. The younger twins, Lynnette and Gail, seemed faintly impressed but were probably too young to really understand. Most likely they would merely follow where the older two chose to lead.

"Perhaps we had better get the matter quite clear," Trina continued. "I'm not asking you to help me, merely pointing out that if I don't carry out the job I've been brought here to do, somebody else will - or more likely you will just be sent to school and find children younger than yourselves are more advanced than you are. After all, it's about time you started to grow up."

"Oh well, we'll try to behave," Julie grinned again with a gamin impishness that made Trina warm towards her, however much of a problem child she might be. " 'Course it'll be hard, because we're not used to it."

And hard it doubtless was, although Trina had to admit that they were trying. Julie was quite obviously the ringleader, and Rod followed her to a certain extent, the younger twins all the way. While Julie was kept tractable, the others would be fairly easy to handle,

until the inmate impish devilry in them broke out, as no doubt it would eventually.

That first morning she spent setting them various exercises, to see just what stage they had reached, and found them nowhere near as backward as she had been led to believe. It might even have been that, out of sheer perversity, the young wretches had pretended to be more ignorant than they really were. With an inner sigh of relief she realised that it was not going to be at ajl difficult to bring them up to the standard they should be at by the time school recommenced - if the children themselves co-operated, which was the main point.

They had lunch in the rumpus room and in the afternoon again returned to lessons. At four o'clock, with a smile, Trina wiped her blackboard clean.

"Enough for today."

"How have we done?" Julie enquired blithely.

"Quite well - but don't let it go to your head," Trina told her jokingly. "See that you do as well, or better, tomorrow."

"Have a heart," Julie protested. "You're as bad as Lord Zeus."

"Lord who?" Trina enquired blankly, then she endeavoured to suppress a chuckle of pure delight when she realised to whom the girl was referring. "Oh, you mean your uncle."

"He's not really our uncle," Gail chimed in. "He's just taking care of us for the time being."

"Why Lord Zeus?" asked Trina.

Julie shrugged carelessly, but with a touch of her cheeky grin. "Isn't Zeus the king of the ancient Greek gods - the one who's always, frowning and throwing thunderbolts about?"

That sounded a far from promising description of Andrew Dalwin. Trina inwardly shuddered and dreaded her meeting with him.

"Zeus also had another side to him," she pointed out. "One your uncle might not like if he heard you call him that."

"Oh?" Julie looked intensely interested. "Did he have sacrifices and people burned alive . . . something like that?"

"No, but he was always chasing after beautiful maidens on earth and he had a wife who henpecked him a bit and was always changing his girl friends into cows and other animals."

Julie let out a great shout of laughter, but it was almost eclipsed by Rod's howl of delight. The younger twins added their own quota, probably not realising what the joke was about, but laughing because Julie and Rod were doing so.

"You know, you're a most unusual kind of school-teacher," Julie gurgled when some measure of coherence had at last returned to her voice. "Our last one, at school, was a real old sourpuss." She put her head on one side consideringly. "I think we might let you stay after all."

"Thank you," Trina retorted dryly. "And now I suppose we'd better see about some tea - although considering what you consumed at lunch I don't know where you're going to put it."

Rod patted his stomach complacently. "Plenty of room there."

Despite Trina's misgivings they consumed a tea even larger than their lunch, and then Julie demanded:

"You're going to dance for us this evening, aren't you, Trina?"

Trina passed over the blatant use of her Christian name, even though she was sure it was bad for discipline.

"What gave you that idea?"

"Intuition," Julie grinned. "You will, though, won't you?" she added cajolingly.

Trina hesitated, then nodded. "All right. While the twins are being prepared for bed you can pick out one erf your records."

"Can we watch too?" the twins asked in chorus, and beamed at her when she agreed.

When the time came to carry out her promise, Trina went to her room to change into a white dress with a full skirt, as the one she had been wearing during the day was slimly fitted. She had brought her ballet shoes with her, intending to practice when she could in the privacy of her own room, and now she reached into the bottom of the cupboard where she had placed them, then went up to the rumpus room.

Rod and Julie had their heads together at the record cabinet when she entered, but both looked round at the sound of the door opening.

"Well, have you decided on anything yet?" Rod grinned and held out a colourful and rather frightening cover that depicted a wagon train being defended against an attack by Red Indians.

"There's a marvellous war dance on this one."

Trina shuddered. "What have I let myself in for?"

Julie gave a little chuckle. "You can make something up as you go along, can't you? Anyway, we thought the kids would like this best."

She was so obviously sincere, in spite of her grin, that Trina determined to go through with it, whatever it cost, even if she had to embellish it with war-whoops to make it more realistic. Surreptitiously, though, when they played the war dance through to let her hear what it was like, she crossed her fingers. There was no need for her to embellish it with war-whoops. They were included. It was a typical Indian war dance and she was inclined to think that some member of the Apache tribe could do it far more justice than she could.

Nevertheless, true to her promise, when Gail and Lynette were brought in by Margaret, one of the young girls who worked at Barakee, she fastened on her shoes and even submitted to being crowned with a feather headdress which Rod unearthed out of the cupboard, although she did look somewhat askance at the toy tomahawk he thrust into her hand.

"This too?" she asked dubiously.

"Definitely," Julie insisted, while Rod started up the record and the first ominous roll of drums - with a promise in than of what was to come - drifted from the radiogram.

In spite of her joking protests, Trina began to enjoy herself. The record had a well-marked rhythm, and as the pounding urge of the drums found its way into her blood, she moved faster and faster, with the result that her long braids, insecurely pinned for once, chose that moment to spill down, very appropriately, over her shoulders. A whoop of approval came from both Julie and Rod - and in that moment Trina became aware that the door had opened silently and that a man with a face as dark as a thundercloud stood watching the scene. She did not need to be told who it was.

CHAPTER TWO

I

TRINA stopped dancing with a jerk and the absurd feather headdress tilted forward almost over her eyes. Julie started to laugh again, then, realising that something had stopped Trina dancing, looked over towards the door.

Blank dismay crossed her face. "Oh, lord!"

Julie's exclamation brought Trina out of her horrified trance and she realised that she had been standing poised on her toes, one hand still raised with the tomahawk and the headdress rakishly riding her brows. She came down flat with a little gulp, tossed the tomahawk on the table and hastily tore off the feather crown and sent it to join the toy hatchet. Then she could give her attention fully to the man in the doorway - and as she did so she felt the breath catch in her throat. All down the right side of his face was a long, jagged scar. She knew then why there had been no photographs of him about the house.

"Mrs. Jamison told me I should find the children's teacher, Miss Meriton, here." His cold, unfriendly tone seemed to suggest that she could not possibly be that person, and if she wasn't, then what was she doing in his house?

Trina tilted her head slightly. "I am Trina Meriton," she said quietly.

"I see." Extremely dark eyes, as cold and unfriendly as his voice, went over her with what she was sure was not too well hidden distaste. "You're not quite what I expected."

"She wasn't quite what we expected either," Julie put in, apparently not as damped as she had first seemed at his sudden appearance.

The cold dark eyes flicked over the girl without a vestige of warmth or affection. "Possibly not." He glanced back at Trina, and it was like a blast of icy wind. "Perhaps you will come to my study, Miss Meriton - when you have finished your. . . performance, of course." Then he turned and went out, closing the door behind him with a most restrained click. No violence about Andrew Dalwin. He was too remotely inhuman ever to give way to emotion, even though he was plainly displeased with his aunt's choice of a coach for the children.

Julie shivered artistically when he had gone. "Brr! It's gone cold in here."

"He wasn't expected back for another two days," Rod grumbled. "Why did he have to turn up like that?"

Margaret gave Trina a sympathetic smile and caught a twin by either hand. "I'll take the babes along to bed now, Miss Meriton. Rod and Julie usually stay up another two hours," she added, before either of the other two children could extend the hour of their own retirement.

Julie grimaced as Margaret went out, then she grinned sympathetically at Trina, who was rescuing hairpins from the floor and fastening her braids again.

"Good luck - and mind the thunderbolts!"

As she obeyed the summons to go to the study, Trina crossed her fingers and hoped for the best. It was really a most inauspicious beginning. She had intended to dress carefully for the first time she met the owner of Barakee, doing her best to appear what a teacher should be - and instead he had found her with feathers in her hair, an absurd tomahawk clutched in one hand, doing an Indian war dance. It could not possibly have been worse, although surely he would not be prejudiced enough to sack her on the spot, without giving her a

chance to show that she was capable of carrying out the job she had been brought to Barakee to do.

She raised her hand, hesitated for a brief moment, then tapped resolutely on the door, received a brusque command to enter, and did so, looking across the room to where he stood, over by a large, polished desk.

Andrew Dalwin was a tall man, dark-faced and dark-eyed and dark-haired. Once he would have been an exceedingly attractive man - and then she realised a very strange thing. The scar, instead of being ugly, somehow added to rather than detracted from his appearance. His features were thin and aquiline, so darkly tanned that the skin was almost swarthy, and against it the scar stood out in a thin white line. It suited him, though, because his had never in the first place been conventional good looks and now he had an almost satanic attraction. She wondered what he would look like if he smiled, although it seemed impossible that those cold, graven features could ever achieve anything like a smile.

He raised one thin, strong hand and touched the scar, with a rather sardonic look on his dark face.

"It is rather noticeable, isn't it?"

"Yes." Trina did not hesitate about replying, because she knew instinctively that he would despise any attempt at evasion or a facile denial. It was quite true that the scar was instantly noticeable, but not in the way he thought, and it was impossible for a girl to tell a perfect stranger that he was the only man she had ever met whose appearance could have been improved by a scar rather than ruined by it.

"At least you're honest," he said grudgingly, as if even that was a point he did not like to concede to her.

Trina said nothing, deeming that there was no choice of words safe enough for the moment. She merely stood there, her hands at her sides, endeavouring not to clench her fingers with nervousness. Her appearance was trim and serene now, the dark braids pinned into place without a single rebellious hair escaping, and she hoped he would not hold her original appearance against her, although of course he was just the type of man to judge one on first impressions, she decided with a mental sigh. At least it seemed to her that was what he was going to do, because his dark face was wearing a positively thundercloud look.

"You realise that that little exhibition I walked in an a short time ago was not what I expected from somebody brought here for educational purposes."

Trina stiffened inwardly, but she answered him composedly enough. "I admit that it might not have been educational, but at least the children seemed to find it entertaining - and I might point out that school had finished for the day."

Andrew raised those dark brows slightly, with the very faintest suggestion of a derisive, sardonic smile on his thin mouth.

"True enough, I suppose. You don't intend to give them lessons in the evening?"

'They seem intelligent children. Once they settle down to work seriously I don't think intensive evening study will be necessary. If it is . . ." She broke off and shrugged. "Well, naturally, in that case, I should see that they received whatever additional coaching was necessary."

He nodded and seemed to take that quite equably. "You realise, of course, that you will only be needed here until term commences?" Those dark eyes watched her levelly without much expression in

them that she could read. "The children will not be in need of a nurse or companion, or anything of that kind, afterwards."

Her chin tilted slightly. "I'm quite aware of that," she said with a cool dignity that surprised her. "Actually I would have no wish to stay, as I have a job to return to, one which I like very much."

There - let him put that into his metaphorical pipe and smoke it, she thought crossly to herself, with Geraldine's warning returning to mind. She did not know how any woman possibly could run after him, but if they did it was his own fault if they ran after him only for his money. He made no attempt at all to be reasonably pleasant, still looking at her like a cross between a blizzard and a thunderstorm.

"Really?" His voice sounded cold and withdrawn. "Might I enquire what branch of teaching you specialise in?"

"I don't teach." She paused and added quite deliberately, "I'm a ballet dancer."

For a moment, as she heard the words sounding so stark and unbelievable, she regretted them, but the following second she had again changed her mind. No, it was better to be honest from the start. She had made no attempt to hide her real profession from Geraldine and she should not do so now. He could not accuse her afterwards of trying to hide the fact that she had had no previous experience in teaching - and in any case she enjoyed the look of shocked surprise that crossed his face, even though it was followed instantly by disapproval.

"A ballet dancer!" Those dark brows drew together again. "And you have the audacity to came here and attempt to coach children."

Pompous, overbearing prig, she thought angrily. Nevertheless she somehow managed to keep her voice cool and unruffled. Any display

of fury would only make him think of her as nothing more than a temperamental dancer.

"Perhaps I did have ... the audacity, as you put it, to take on a job I have never tried before, but I explained the position quite openly to your aunt. At first she told me that I was unsuitable, but as the others who answered the advertisement were either unable to come, or just as unsuitable, it seemed that I was the ... the ..."

"The best of a bad bunch," he finished with almost a grunt as she paused.

"Thank you," Trina answered icily, making no attempt to hide her dislike now. "Best of a bad bunch or not, on my being recalled for a second interview with your aunt, she seemed to think I might be able to carry out the coaching of the children, considering the qualifications I possess."

"And those qualifications?"

He still sounded sceptical and almost rude, so that, for once, Trina made no attempt to minimise her scholastic achievements, as she usually did, because she never had been able to understand how she had walked off with a good degree, especially as she had had to give so much time to her dancing.

"I took an extra-mural degree at Dorminster University," she stated evenly, "in that new Tripos which includes both Arts and Science subjects. Mathematics was one of the subjects I passed at Advanced Level for the General Certificate of Education. I should have no difficulty in explaining the intricacies of fractions and decimals to the children, if that's what is worrying you, Mr. Dalwin. And now, if you don't mind, I'll return to Julie and Rod. Perhaps you will let me know in the morning whether or not you want me to stay."

With that - and a slight, cool inclination of her head - she turned on her heel and went out, closing the door with the same restraint as he had used on the schoolroom door, much though she felt like giving it a good hard slam.

Outside she stood for a moment with her hands clenched at her side, then walked swiftly over towards the stairs. It eased her feelings somewhat to be able to run up them in a release of the fury that boiled inside her, and by the time she reached the rumpus room she was quite breathless, although it had done little to dissipate her intense dislike towards the man she had left below.

Of all the odious, rude, hateful and overbearing creatures she had ever come across, he eclipsed the lot! Then a reluctant smile tugged at her lips. Without doubt, he had not expected to be walked out on like that, with the request that he let her know his decision in the morning, as if it did not matter to her one way or the other whether or not she kept the job. It also let him see that she was not going to be bullied. Probably she would be presented with her marching orders in the morning and it would really be her own fault, although his attitude had hardly made a conciliatory one on her part at all easy.

Then the smile left her lips. If she left Barakee she would be back where she had started - thinking about Dennis and probably seeing him again. Already the change and the job, keeping track of such an ebullient quartet as the Campbells, had successfully prevented Dennis from coming too frequently to mind - although of course there had been nothing to keep him at bay while she lay in bed the night before, not even thoughtful contemplation of the personalities of her charges. There it had all returned in painful force, the longing for his voice with its caressing, soft undertones, the yearning for a demanding mouth against her own, evoking the response she could never deny him. She had wanted him near her then as she had never yearned for his presence before, knowing this time that she was far away from him and that she must try to forget him. If they ever did

meet again she must meet him as if they were just casual acquaintances; she must never think of the times when she had been in his arms and her lips had eagerly given what his own had demanded.

He was no good, either to herself or anyone else. Marda had told her that he was bad, rotten to the core, and she had had to agree. He was selfish, egocentric, even cruel, and he apparently had no respect for the ideals she had grown up with, but that did not stop her loving him. Perhaps it never would, but that did not alter the horrible and too often occurring triangle. Dennis was married. She was in love with a married man, and as his Wife would not release him, nothing could ever come of the love between them.

Love or infatuation? It was still hard to tell. She was clearsighted enough not to want to be a martyr, and so she prayed fervently that it was only infatuation, so that one day it would pass, freeing her from the emotional and mental hold he had over her. Then perhaps she would fall in love - really fall in love this time - with somebody else, somebody who was free to love her in return, or perhaps she would even throw herself into her work and make that her entire life instead. She knew that was what she would do if her feelings for Dennis really were love and not merely infatuation.

Then, without her quite knowing why it should happen, a different face flashed into her thoughts, a dark, swarthy face and brilliant dark eyes, jet-dark hair and a long, white scar.

Andrew Dalwin!

Why should she think of him, when she had only a few seconds ago been fully occupied with her longing for the man she loved? Somewhat natural perhaps that he should intrude into her thoughts, considering that he did have a forceful personality, even though she might not like him. It would be hard to forget immediately a man

with whom one had just had the sort of interview she had gone through. But then an even more strange thing happened. A little voice somewhere at the back of her mind suddenly whispered that if it was Andrew Dalwin who held her in such emotional and mental thraldom, if the glacial detachment and derision ever broke - she would not be able to forget him easily. If at all.

II

When she opened the door of the rumpus room and finally went in, two inquisitive, enquiring faces met her gaze.

"Was it rough?" Julie enquired companionably.

For answer Trina held up crossed fingers. "Maybe I'll be leaving in the morning, maybe not."

"He'd better not send you away," Rod declared belligerently. "We'll make a hell of a fuss if he does."

"Rod! Your language!" She felt bound to protest, although she could not help being rather touched and pleased that they had apparently taken a liking to her. "He's perfectly entitled to send me away," she added reasonably. "After all, I'm not a qualified schoolteacher."

Julie's small chin stuck out pugnaciously. "The old thundercloud will regret it if he does." She put her thin young hand on Trina's arm. "You won't let him send you away, will you? You seem to make the lessons much more interesting, and it would be awful if some old fogey came here instead."

Trina attempted to repress a smile, but did not quite manage it. "I haven't given you any lessons yet, only a few tests," she pointed out. "In any case, there's nothing I can do about it if he does decide to send me away."

"No, I suppose there isn't." Julie sat down on a chair and glumly rested her chin on her hands, while Rod stood a few yards away with his hands thrust into his pockets and a frown on his young face. "We'll just have to think of something," Julie continued. "Trina, couldn't you . . . ?" She broke off, gave Trina a speculative look and shook her head. "No, you couldn't. You're not the type."

"Not the type for what?"

Julie grinned. "To vamp him."

"Heaven forbid!" Trina said, positively horrified at the very thought.

They fell silent, and Trina looked from one to the other of the amazing children, again quite unable to suppress her smile, although she was more reluctant than ever to leave Barakee now - and for reasons quite apart from Dennis. Not only did she want to coach the children and see them take their places triumphantly at their new schools, but she also wanted Andrew Dalwin to have to eat his words and acknowledge that she was capable of carrying out what was asked of her.

"Anyway, he hasn't said yet that I have to go," she pointed out. She glanced at her watch, to change the subject. "An hour and a half before bedtime. Anything in particular you'd like to do?"

"Guess I'd better take the pup for his nightly constitutional before it gets too late," Rod commented. He had a small puppy of decidedly mixed breed and every night, with the smiling co-operation of Mrs. Jamison, it was smuggled up to his room to keep him company. Whether Andrew was aware of this and turned a blind eye to the little escapade, nobody seemed to know. He was probably quite unaware, Trina thought with some asperity. He was just the sort of man to refuse to allow a boy to take his pet into the bedroom with him.

When Rod had gone out, Trina turned round to find Julie regarding her with a curious smile on her thin face.

"Trina?" the child said strangely. "You really do want to stay, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Trina assured her instantly. "As a matter of fact, I rather want to be out of Sydney at the moment - and the law is not after me," she added with a quick smile, anticipating the interested glance Julie gave her.

"Oh." The amazing child gave her a speculative glance and then nodded. "It's a man, then. It usually is, the stupid great oxen."

That struck Trina completely dumb, so much so that for the moment she did not even think of refuting Julie's startling statement, and when her lips did part to say something, Julie shrugged good-naturedly.

"I know. I'm a precocious brat. Father always said so, and I suppose you can't expect the leopard to change its spots at this late stage."

Precocious! Trina thought she was positively astounding.

"Does it have to be a man?" she asked.

"Not necessarily," Julie replied, "but I guessed you had something cm your mind and you admitted yourself that you wanted to get away from Sydney, so a man was the most likely reason." Once again Trina found herself bereft of words, then she shook her head. "I'd rather not talk about it, Julie. It's just.. ."

"One of those things?" Julie finished for her. "Maybe we'd better talk about something else, then." She tilted her head on one side persuasively. "Will you dance for me?"

"Again?"

"Lord Zeus walked in before. That spoilt it."

"He might walk in again."

"Not twice in one night. He's paid his royal visit. Will you, Trina?" she wheedled, and Trina gave in, both because she loved dancing for any reason and at any time and because it would distract her mind from the thoughts of Dennis which Julie had brought back so strongly.

As she sat down to fasten on her shoes, she could not help darting a swift glance at the girl, who was drawing a record out of its cover. Since the moment she had first met them, she had been unable to treat Rod and Julie as children. They had something adult about them and she had, prompted by some instinct, treated them more or less as equals, still retaining some measure of discipline over them, and perhaps that was the secret of the success she had achieved with them. No doubt they could be unruly and rather unmanageable, but perhaps that had been brought on by rebelliousness, a distaste for being treated too much as infants. They were old beyond their years and any talking down to them would undoubtedly bring out the worst in them. The younger twins were different, of course. They would have that same unruly wildness, but it would be more or less copied. They were still extremely malleable, although guided a lot by their brother and sister.

She heard a soft "damn" as Julie apparently stuck the needle in her finger, gently reproved the girl and then heard the beautiful strains of Swan Lake steal through the rumpus room. She stood up, and her eyes met those of the girl. Both of them smiled, joined by the exquisite harmonies of a great composer who would live for ever through his music.

III

Trina awoke slowly, yawned with luxurious pleasure in the warm sunlight that streamed through her window - and then abruptly remembered.

That man!

Instantly a vision of Andrew Dalwin's dark features flashed into her mind and she made a little sound of disgust.

This morning she dressed as she had meant to for the first interview with her employer, braiding her hair neatly and firmly and wearing a dark, severely cut dress with a white collar and cuffs. The children greeted her with instant enquiries as to whether she had heard yet if she was to stay, but Trina could only shake her head.

After breakfast the summons she had expected duly arrived. Julie and Rod solemnly wished her good luck and the twins followed suit. Feeling fortified by their good wishes but not really afraid of her employer, Trina then set off for his study. After all, he could only dismiss her. It would make her fight against Dennis all the harder, but at least it would not endanger her livelihood.

With that thought in mind, she tapped firmly on the study door and, receiving the same cool response she had the night before, turned the handle and walked in. This time Andrew was sitting at his desk. Whatever his private feelings towards her - and all women for that matter - he rose to his feet courteously at her entrance.

"Good morning, Miss Meriton. Please sit down."

Trina responded to his good morning with formal politeness - the tone in which it had been given - and sat down in the chair he indicated, opposite his own on the other side of the desk where the

morning light streamed ruthlessly on to her face. Almost absently, she noticed that his voice gave no indication of what he had decided.

"I have spoken to my aunt," he commented abruptly, "and she tells me there would be nobody else available, so ..."

"So I may presume that I'm to stay," Trina finished for him, with a demure sweetness in her voice that would have spoken volumes to anybody who knew her well.

Andrew shrugged rather ungraciously. "That seems to be the only answer."

"Thank you." Her voice was even more demure and sweet, but there was just a faint thread of ice becoming apparent in it.

Andrew gave her a sharp glance, but seemingly chose to ignore the warning undertone her voice had held.

"I shall only be here at week-ends, but I want it understood that the children are to be kept as much as possible to their own part of the house while I am here."

"I quite understand," Trina told him, and this time she made no attempt to hide the ice in her voice. "I assure you, Mr. Dalwin, that neither the children nor myself will encroach on your time or your presence. If, unfortunately, it should happen that we do, then it will be quite by accident." Her blue eyes burned with a fury she had hardly felt so intensely before, but her voice was still icy, because she could control her dislike of this man and not give him the opportunity to call her an uncontrolled child - or a temperamental ballerina. "Furthermore," she added, "I don't think it has ever been my misfortune to meet a more disagreeable and rude person, and if it were not for the fact that I particularly want to be. out of Sydney at the present time, I wouldn't stay for a moment longer in this job

you've so ungraciously allowed me to accept." She rose to her feet with a dignity that was superb but quite unconscious. "And now I'll return to the children, if I may. If you decide after all that I'm not to stay, please let me know by mid-day, so that I can catch the express back to Sydney."

With that she inclined her head in a proud little gesture that dismissed her employer and walked from the room. Outside, an excess of fury rising through her self-control, she stamped her foot sharply on the ground, scowled and felt the temptation to pick up whatever movable object was nearest and throw it with all her might.

Resisting the desire to smash a nearby vase - after all it was not hers, and however much she disliked her employer, if he was still her employer, she could not go around smashing his property - she turned and went up the stairs, expecting all the time to hear the door below open violently and an irate voice thunder after her that she was dismissed after all and need not wait until lunch-time to find out.

However, no door opened and no voice thundered after her. That need not be a good omen, though. He was probably stunned with shod:. She was quite sure that people rarely - if ever - spoke to him like that. Do him good, she thought rebelliously, show him that not everybody was going to be a positive doormat for him to walk on whenever he felt like expressing displeasure. However, although the little tirade might have relieved her feelings, she was quite sure it had not done her any good in his eyes.

She shook her head. "Temper," she told herself sternly. 'This time you've really done it, my girl."

But after all, she excused herself, there were extenuating circumstances. No girl of spirit could take that treatment from someone who was almost a stranger. The only time said girl of spirit could allow such comments to pass relatively unremarked would be

from the man she loved - and although she might have bowed down to such things coming from Dennis, when they originated from Andrew Dalwin it was an entirely different matter - not that Dennis would ever have spoken to her like that.

After a while her sense of humour reasserted itself and she was her old self when she went into the schoolroom to join the children. Even if he did intend to dismiss her, she might as well continue with her job as long as possible. If he decided to overlook her remarks and then found her loafing around the place, it might make him reconsider his decision.

IV

Four pairs of eyes fastened on her immediately she entered the schoolroom.

"Well?" Julie demanded. "Do you stay or go?" - which certainly put the whole matter in the proverbial nutshell.

"The decision still hangs in the balance," Trina told them, having no intention whatsoever of repeating the conversation that had passed between her employer and herself. In retrospect she wondered more than ever how she could possibly have said those things to him. It would be completely her own fault if he told her she had already been there longer than necessary.

"Why can't the dratted man make up his mind?" Julie grumbled, and Trina forbore to mention that he had made it up once, but that Miss Trina Meriton had possibly unmade it for him.

They were in the middle of an arithmetic lesson when Andrew himself walked in, without even knocking. Trina felt herself stiffen slightly, but she looked over at him with apparent calm.

"Did you want to speak to me, Mr. Dalwin?"

"Later. Just carry on."

So he had come to see how good - or bad - she really was, had he? Such an observer would have been enough to make anyone jittery, even an experienced teacher, but there was no way out. As instructed, she "carried on" and found that his presence, instead of flustering her, had the opposite effect of putting her on her mettle, added to which Julie and Rod were absolutely models of obedience and intelligence. They must have been straining every bit of brain power to understand her, so that they did not have to ask too many questions and make it appear that she could not put over her meaning clearly enough. The questions they did ask were sensible ones and she was able to answer them quite easily, still refusing to allow Andrew's presence to disturb her. At the aid Julie walked up to the blackboard and with great aplomb and serenity, as if she too was determined to do her best, solved a problem that Trina set for her. Moreover she did not make one mistake, nor did Rod when similarly called upon. Trina could have hugged them. It was not to be expected that such absolutely exemplary behaviour should last, though.

"Aren't you going to set a problem for Andrew now?" Julie asked with a gamin grin on her lips.

For a moment Trina wondered whether she ought to reprimand Julie for using the man's Christian name, but decided to let it pass. That could be done later, in private.

"I don't think so," she said in answer to Julie's query. "Unless of course he wants me to," she added, when really she should have let the matter rest. Then she met the coldly withdrawn look in his dark eyes and thought that he was probably of the opinion that her capacity for imparting knowledge was hardly much higher than that

which she had displayed already and certainly she would not be able to set some problem that would baffle Mr. Nephew Andrew.

The impulse that sent her round to the blackboard was rather mixed. A touch of annoyance that he should persist in believing her guilty of deception, when she had already shown that she could teach the children, made her want to hit back at him, but at the same time she was conscious of a most inexplicable sensation of wanting to justify herself to him. The long line of letters and figures she wrote across the blackboard had quite obviously come from some highly complicated mathematical treatise, but immediately she had written it, she felt a little ashamed of herself, as if she was showing off - and then she had an even more inexplicable feeling when she saw Andrew's hand go up to his cheek, to touch the scar, with a kind of sulky boyishness, before his hand dropped to his side and he seemed to withdraw into himself again.

"Why - he's lonely," she thought in some surprise. Not really bad-tempered and rude. The scar had made him ultrasensitive. That was why he kept touching it, instead of just ignoring it. He could not forget for one moment that it was there - and she wondered suddenly who had made him so conscious of it.

She was surprised to find that she was smiling at him almost reassuringly, then he darted her a quick glance from those fine dark eyes and abruptly went out of the room without another word.

Julie drew a breath of relief. "Whew! Thank heaven for that. The Presence is removed."

A little absently, Trina directed their attention back to work, wondering at herself for smiling at him like that. It was not as if she liked the man, but something about that sulky, oddly boyish look had caught at her heart in a most peculiar way.

She might have dismissed the whole thing as imagination had it not been for the fact that some time later, the same day, she saw him standing alone in the hall, making the same gesture. She herself was standing in the gallery that overlooked the hall and was able to watch him unobserved, something she was quite sure he would have hated had he known.

His dark face was frowning and one hand again touched the thin line of the scar of his cheek, but this time there was more loneliness than sulkiness in his expression and a kind of fierce pride that would not have accepted sympathy from anybody. While she watched, he walked over to a long mirror and turned his head so that the scarred cheek was reflected.

Again the long, thin fingers went up to touch the jagged line of the scar and a wryly bitter smile twisted his lips. A moment later he gave a shrug of self-contempt and went into his study.

She shook her head with a soft smile, certain now that her earlier thoughts had been right. Somebody had made him abnormally conscious of that scar. Probably a woman. Perhaps he had been in love with her and when the accident happened that left him scarred she might have let him see that she found it repugnant. A stupid woman if that was the case - and she certainly could not have truly loved him. Even if the scar had been really ugly, that would not have mattered to a girl who genuinely cared for him, but the scar was not disfiguring, which was the strangest thing of all. If it was not a woman, obviously something had given him the idea that he was repugnant to look at, and if, underneath the mask, he was quite a normal man, no wonder he had so much contempt for any woman who let him see he interested her, because he would be convinced, as Geraldine had said, that it was really only his money that was the attraction.

It was a pity, she thought, shaking her head as she wait • into her room. He was missing so much from life. But at least she would try to make allowances if his attitude angered her in future. She was still sure that she did not really like him, but being one of those people who are always ready to make allowances when they sense trouble in someone else, she was quite ready to make excuses even for someone she disliked.

Or did she dislike him? Odd that something she had been so sure about only a short time ago should now become something rather uncertain, just because she had seen a look of loneliness on his face and had seen him turn away from his reflection in bitterness and self-contempt.

Of course it should not really matter to her, she told herself as she took down the dress she intended to wear that evening. Dennis was the man she loved, so she had only a detached interest in Andrew Dalwin, but it was still a pity that he should have that attitude and rather surprising that his aunt had not managed to do anything about it - although it was probably hard to "do anything about it" with a man of Andrew's type. She was quite unaware that she Tiad dismissed Dennis with only a passing thought or that her interest in Andrew Dalwin was far from being so detached as she believed, or he would not be occupying her mind so much.

When she had finished dressing, she surveyed herself, neatly and darkly clad, wondered if she would ever be called upon to have dinner with the master of the household and decided probably not. Just as she had decided that it was a million to one against, there was a knock at the door and Margaret came in to inform her that she was requested to take dinner in the dining room that evening and would she please see Andrew first in the afternoon room - Margaret did not, of course, call him by his Christian name, but Trina found that she was fast getting to the stage when she was thinking of him in that way, and decided that she would have to watch herself when she was

with him. She could just imagine the icy disdain if his name happened to slip out.

She surveyed her appearance critically, wishing she was a few inches taller, so that she could appear stately like her grandmother; then she went downstairs and tapped cm the door of the afternoon room, a long lounge room that ran along the front of the house. The familiar brusque voice bade her come in and she turned the handle with fingers that she was surprised to find were shaking. After all, he had not yet told her that she could stay, although surely it must not be bad news, or he would merely have sent a message that she was to pack her bags and depart elsewhere.

When she went in, Andrew was standing over by the cocktail cabinet. "Good evening," he said politely, just as if no heated words of dislike had passed between them that very morning.

"Good evening, Mr. Dalwin," she responded just as politely. "Margaret said you wanted to see me." That sounded very businesslike and formal, so he would not get any idea that she was placing a mistaken value on his invitation - invitation or order? - to dine with him. "I suppose it's about whether or not I'm to stay here."

"Of course," he said evenly.

Trina wondered how any human being could make his expression so absolutely inscrutable. What was going on behind that dark mask? Were those unreadable eyes deciding that she looked nothing like a schoolteacher? That she must be despatched from Barakee without further delay?

"Please sit down," his voice broke into her thoughts, just when she had got to the point of trying to find something to say to break the silence herself. "Sherry?"

"Thank you," she accepted, and a moment later found herself holding a crystal glass of pale amber liquid, which she regarded with solemn interest, so that he should not think she was waiting for his decision with tense expectancy -. which of course she was.

At that moment he frowned slightly and she concluded it must bode ill for her. "Have you decided I'm not to stay after all?" she enquired calmly, feeling it was best to get it over with.

"No," he said in the same even tone as she had used. "If you can carry out the job you were brought here to do, I see no reason why you shouldn't stay."

Very magnanimous, she thought with inner amusement, but she thanked him in a very businesslike manner and assured him that she felt quite confident of being able to bring the Campbell quartet up to standard. The conversation then dried up. What did one say to this man, who was so very prickly and who determinedly - consciously or unconsciously - always kept the scarred side of his face turned away from the person he was speaking to, unless he deliberately wanted to draw attention to it? The last subject to bring up would be a discussion on plastic surgery.

Lucidly she was saved from having to think up some innocuous remark that did not sound too inane by Mrs. Jamison's announcing that dinner was served, and they went into the adjoining dining room, dark panelled, with velvet drapes at the windows.

Trina spent a moment looking round interestedly until she discovered that her companion was watching her closely, but the dark face was as inscrutable as ever - and then she wondered why he turned quite suddenly - and deliberately too, she was sure - so that the scarred side of his face was towards her.

Her eyes were drawn to the long, jagged line. "How did it happen?" she asked involuntarily, and could have bitten out her tongue a moment later.

He stiffened, and for a moment she thought he was not going to answer, then:

"A car crash," he said abruptly.

She nodded gravely. "My parents were killed in a car crash."

"Sometimes it's better that way."

"Is it?"

For a moment a reflection of that twist of bitterness she bad seen in the hall hovered around his mouth.

"Would you have wanted them to live if they had been . . . disfigured?"

"Of course," she said, with the same gravity that had been in her voice when she told him of the death of her parents; no sickly sentimentality, just a quiet depth of feeling. "Surely if you love a person and they are injured, nothing else matters but the fact that they live."

That brought only a sardonic smile that was without a vestige of amusement If only he would smile properly. It would make such a difference. She had never seen him smile, except as he had a moment ago, that twisted grimace, but even so she would not have been at all surprised if it had made an astounding difference to his dark set face.

She half expected him to make some cutting comment about love and its devotees, but if he had been on the point of it he apparently changed his mind, and the next few minutes were spent in the

mundane but safe occupation of consuming very excellent soup, set out for them on a small table for two.

It was all very intimate - and cold. If only it had been Dennis facing her .. . Then she smiled wryly to herself. She was under no illusions about Dennis. The enigma of Andrew Dalwin might make her forget him somewhat, but that did not mean that it could prevent the old attraction springing up between them if they should meet again, as they most probably would when she returned to Sydney. If it at least helped her to see things in their true perspective again and nothing else, she could be grateful for that alone. She could not imagine Andrew Dalwin ever making love to a girl if he was already married to someone else - although at the moment she could not imagine him making love to anyone. Which was a pity, because beneath the armour he wore she sensed a deep, warm sincerity and integrity. Whatever had happened he should not have allowed it to affect him so much that he turned his back on love and a normal life. He must want those like everyone else or he would not be so bitter.

In the little silence that fell, he looked up and caught her glance on him, but she could not guess anything of what he was thinking because his whole expression was so aloof and closed up. Did he never allow anything or anyone to pass the barrier he had erected?

"How are the children getting on?" he asked in a level, clipped voice, for all the world as if he were asking for reports from one of his board meetings, Trina thought, restraining a desire to giggle childishly. She could imagine the reaction that would bring.

"They are getting on very well," she said. "I think they might have pretended to be more backward than they actually are. Rod and Julie are the ringleaders, of course. The younger two merely follow whatever they do. At the moment their pride is touched at the thought of being at the bottom of the class, so they are working really hard."

They were also working hard because they wanted to keep her at Barakee, and again she could not help feeling absurdly touched at the thought of the harum-scarum Campbells actually subjecting themselves to determined study for her sake.

"Have you had any trouble with them?"

Trina shook her head. "I think they regard me as a novelty," she said, and added deliberately, "probably because I'm not a professional teacher," which was most definitely taking the war into the enemy camp.

She thought his eyes narrowed slightly at that, but she met their dark glance with perfect composure.

"Just as a matter of interest," he asked after a moment, "what made you take that degree and then not make use of it?"

"I had no real intention of studying for it," she admitted frankly, "but when professors of this and doctors of that are in and out of the house all the time and your own grandfather teaches science and your grandmother teaches languages, it becomes more or less inevitable. The conversation was nearly always shop talk . . . and you hear things that catch your interest, but you can't understand. Naturally enough it would make anyone tend to want to find out more about whatever subject it was."

She broke off momentarily, glancing at him, but his expression was as unreadable as ever, so she gave a mental shrug and went on:

"I suppose it was partly self-defence and partly real interest when I settled down to study. I never meant to make a career of it. I was more interested in ballet right from the beginning .. . from very young, I mean."

Did he remember the wild war dance she had been performing when he entered the rumpus room? That could hardly be compared in any way with classical ballet. Apparently his thoughts were on something else. She actually saw his aloofness break enough to show a touch of curiosity.

"What was that you wrote on the blackboard?" he asked almost curdy, as if he was annoyed with himself for asking the question. At the same time Trina thought she detected an odd, puzzled look in his eyes, as if he already knew what it was, but was baffled by the idea of her being able to write such a thing.

"Part of Einstein's Relativity Theory," she told him coolly, and was sure that she saw confirmation flash into his eyes, even though they still had that baffled look.

"I thought it was," he said slowly.

"Well, of course, I don't understand it properly myself," Trina admitted apologetically, feeling as if her stock would probably sink at that, but as always refusing to be guilty of any kind of deception unless it was absolutely necessary - and that meant a matter of life and death. "A couple of us were playing a trick on one of the professors and we learned parts of it by heart."

"I see."

I suppose he thinks if he shows any real interest, I'll start batting my eyelashes at him, Trina thought with a mental sigh. "Grandfather often tried to get me to understand it properly," she said aloud, taking up the conversational gambit, "but he gave it up as a bad job after a time. The degree was different," she added with a light laugh, almost as if she had forgotten to whom she was speaking. "More down to my level of intelligence."

After she had said it, she hoped it did not sound as if she was fishing for compliments, because she had merely stated what she believed to be a plain fact, that any girl could have done just as well if given the chance of such an education.

Whether or not he did think she was fishing for compliments was impossible to guess, but a stony silence settled on the table at that moment, broken only by uncomfortable, almost monosyllabic comments, so that Trina was glad when she could escape and go to her own room.

Men! she thought with a touch of exasperation. They were like a lot of overgrown schoolboys, liable to turn sulky at the least thing - which would probably have made the scowl on Andrew's face even blacker.

V

Rod and Julie were out in the hall when she emerged, Rod with his black and white puppy tucked under his arm and regarding the world with bright, mischievous eyes. Both children pounced on her immediately and the puppy squirmed energetically under the boy's arm, as if he would like to join in.

"How'd it go?" Rod demanded.

"Did he eat you?" Julie wanted to know, apparently under the impression that an invitation to dine with Andrew meant that he had cannibalistic tendencies and one was expected to provide the main course personally. "Metaphorically speaking," she added with a grin, as if that absurd thought might have occurred to her as well as to Trina.

"I'm to stay," she told them solemnly, and then had to quieten them hastily as both whooped at the top of their powerful young lungs and

the puppy joined in enthusiastically. "Up to the rumpus room if you want to make that row," she added sternly. "That's what it's for."

"Yes, teacher," Julie said cheekily, and tiptoed across the hall towards the stairs with exaggerated silence, followed by Rod and puppy in the same attitude. Unfortunately, since Rod's attention was more on his twin than where he was going, he entirely missed the first step of the stairway and tipped on his face, dropping the puppy, who thought it was all great fun and scampered around everyone yapping at the top of its voice.

"What the devil ... !" demanded an irate voice, and Andrew appeared at the door just in time to see Miss Trina Meriton, who five minutes ago had been so calm and dignified, scampering up the stairs as fast as her long, slender legs would take her, accompanied by two giggling children and an excited puppy who was still giving tongue at the top of its own quite considerable lungs.

When they reached the rumpus room the twins collapsed into the nearest chairs, still giggling helplessly, and Trina, trying to be stern with them, found herself in much the same position and discovered that it was exceedingly difficult to hand out remonstrances while laughing weakly herself with a small black and white puppy energetically dancing around her.

"Come here, you little wretch!" she burst out, and snatched up the animal, who thereupon proceeded to make a determined attempt to wash her face for her.

After a while the pandemonium quietened, the twins' giggles having subsided to unrepentant grins and the puppy being tucked under Rod's arm again.

"Seriously, though," Trina said, "we'll have to be more careful. If your uncle ..." for want of a better term she called him that ". . . wants quiet and solitude, he should get it. After all, it's his house."

"Yes, I know," Julie said instantly, her vivid face sobering, and Trina felt she could have bitten out her tongue, because there was so much insecurity in the girl's expression now. Why did she have to remind them of the fact that they were none too welcome and were to be bundled off to boarding school as soon as possible? The poor pets would be feeling uncertain enough already about their future without her making it worse.

She put an arm around Julie's shoulders and the girl did not shake it off, as she half expected.

"Sorry, Julie," she said quietly. "This is your home too now."

"No, it isn't, not really," Julie denied with an adult seriousness that was heartwringing in its way. "It's not really home because we're not wanted here," and Rod nodded with stoic confirmation and acceptance of the situation.

"He's not really our uncle," he added to his twin's remark. "Really no relation at all."

"Pa must have been more drunk than usual when he made that will," Julie said casually, or at least she tried to sound casual. Trina caught a not too well hidden inflection of yearning.

She shook her head. "Perhaps he was stone cold sober," she suggested, deeming it wise to pass over the rightness or wrongness of discussing John Campbell's drunkenness for the moment. "Perhaps he realised he hadn't been able to give you a good home and knew you would get a better one with Andrew," allowing herself the licence of using his Christian name. After all, one could hardly say

"Mr. Dalwin" to the children, and they had already disclaimed that he was their uncle.

"Huh!" Julie grunted. "I reckon he hadn't seen Lord Zeus lately."

"Was he very different?" Trina asked, diverted in spite of herself.

Julie, who seemed to be the spokesman for the pair, shrugged. "We never saw him before the accident... but Pa used to talk about him sometimes and he didn't sound too bad."

"It was probably that Langley dame throwing him over," Rod asserted, with a twist of his mouth like some American gangster. When gently reproved for using such an expression, he looked quite surprised. "That's what Binns called her."

"You're not Binns," Trina told him sternly, which pronouncement, by some trick of childish logic, carried more weight than the severest reprimand. Binns was a teenager from Dalthorpe who came to Barakee now and again to do odd jobs or help the old gardener, and for a moment Trina frowned, wondering how the children had come to learn something like that. Probably overheard it by accident. Young Binns, for all his predilection for American gangster talk, was hardly likely to have discussed Andrew openly with the children.

Nevertheless, it did confirm what she had thought earlier. Somebody - and more than just a little likely this "Langley dame" - had made Andrew over-conscious of the scar on his face. It was becoming clearer every second. "Threw him over" would indicate that Miss Langley had been more than merely a friend, possibly even engaged to him, and if she had thrown him overeat the time of the accident that would explain everything. Nobody could make a man who normally was probably quite indifferent to whether or not he was good- looking quite so conscious of personal disfigurement as the woman he loved. In that case Miss Langley had certainly never loved

him in return, because no woman could do a thing like that to the man she loved.

Stupid, cruel and callous, Trina thought, getting quite indignant on Andrew's behalf.

Julie's blue, too-adult eyes watched her closely. "You think maybe it was because of that?" she asked, taking up Rod's remark.

Trina started slightly, turning to look down at her. "Maybe it is," she said gently. "Adults are funny people, Julie. When anybody hurts them, they sort of go behind a barrier, hoping that way nobody can hurt them again."

"Do they have to get rude and cross about it, though?" Rod demanded.

Trina appeared to consider the matter, as if giving it her whole attention.

"Let's consider it a different way," she suggested after a moment. "Suppose somebody hurt you. What would you do?"

"Tell them to go to . . ."

"Rod!" Her warning exclamation cut him off just in time, having no doubt at all as to the destination they would have been consigned to, mythical or not.

Rod grinned, quite unrepentant. "Well, they can go there anyway."

"Wouldn't that be cross and rude, though?"

"Yes, I suppose it would," he conceded after a moment's thought about it. "But we don't keep it up as long as he has."

"That's because we had Pa to get us out of it," Julie remarked wisely, again being very much older than her years. "But you couldn't use the same tactics on Andrew," she added.

"What sort of tactics?" Trina enquired, quite intrigued.

"Well, sometimes he would tweak our hair or give us a quick hug," Julie supplied quite seriously, "or if we were being really cranky he would knock our heads together," whereupon Trina agreed, although not aloud, that they were not the sort of tactics one could use on Mr. Andrew Dalwin, although he certainly needed them - both the affection and, on occasion, the headcracking. "Pa wasn't too bad when he was sober," Julie went on. "And he did try to stay sober. It's just that he was an alca . . . alco. . ."

"Alcoholic?" Trina finished for her as she hesitated.

"That's it," Julie confirmed. "The doctor told us about it and said we'd just have to make allowances and try to help him, as it was really a kind of disease."

"Then couldn't you try to make allowances for Andrew as well?"

"He doesn't drink ... or at least not so you'd notice," Rod pointed our practically, raising a sense of intrigued amusement in his coach at the thought of Andrew Dalwin being a secret tippler. "And if he didn't get drunk how could we have to put him to bed?" Rod added, and this time, beset by an involuntary vision of them carrying an inebriated Mr. Dalwin up to his room, Trina had hastily to suppress a smile.

"Yes, that does seem to put it into an altogether different category," she agreed in all seriousness. "Perhaps, though, you could make allowances for him in a different way. After all, he's not really used to having children about the house."

"I suppose not," Julie agreed slowly —and then suddenly words poured out of her in a burst of impetuous rebellion. "But he doesn't want us here, Trina. Oh, I know we should be grateful - he's spent quite a lot of money on us - and we are really," she added earnestly, "but it's just that there's always a feeling of cluttering up his house and being a nuisance. It was different with Pa," the impassioned young voice went on. "Everybody said he wasn't a good father and maybe he wasn't, but at least he loved us ... and he tried to be good to us. Andrew's wily doing what he thinks he should do, not what he wants to do. He probably wishes us all to perdition."

"Julie!" Trina protested again. She could not help feeling that the reprimand in her voice was rather weak, but it was hard to reprimand somebody for saying something one knew to be the truth. Yet at the same time she could not find it in her to condemn Andrew too harshly, because instinct told her that he had been entirely different before the accident had twisted his life into its present bitter path - and was still different underneath, however much he might fight against admitting it, even to himself. Hidden behind the forbidding facade he adopted towards the world was somebody sensitive and vulnerable, a man who had been deeply hurt and who still suffered from the agony of a wound that had left far deeper scan than the physical one on his cheek.

Well, it's no concern of yours, Trina Meriton, she told herself. In one month she would be gone from Barakee - but she knew that would not stop her thinking about him, even long after she had gone away, and wondering if he ever found happiness.

Having thus adjured herself to stop thinking about him, she sat down and wrote a long letter to Marda telling her all about Barakee and the childish quartet she was to coach ... at least one quarter of the letter was about them. The rest, she realised when she read it through afterwards, was about Andrew. It seemed she had not stopped

thinking about him after all, but at least' he had again very successfully diverted her mind from Dennis.

CHAPTER THREE

I

THE next day being Friday, there were of course more lessons, but the following day Trina called a halt. After all, she argued, they were getting on quite well and school did not normally extend over the week-end. She half expected some comment from Andrew, but to her surprise none eventuated, although she had a few calm and logical remarks already thought out to counter whatever he might say.

Once breakfast was over, she went up to her room, undecided what to do with the rest of the day. It was not really her job to look after the children beyond the teaching side of her work, but after lessons she quite often did stay with, them, sometimes playing simple games with them until it was time for the younger ones to go to bed. Then Rod and Julie would settle down with a book, or chatter to her, asking all the awkward, personal questions that children delight in, without being aware that they were personal. Both had their own likes and dislikes and crazes of the moment, Rod having fastened his own interest on the satellites everyone seemed to be shooting into space as quickly as they could. Julie, on the other hand, had evinced an interest in - of all things - chess, arising from Trina's mentioning that she had often played it with her grandfather. A half promise had been given that she would teach Julie to play, but at the moment they had no chess set.

As she came down the stairs she caught a glimpse of Andrew's tall figure disappearing into his study - the sanctum of sanctums that none might enter except on the invitation of Lord Zeus himself. She smiled to herself as she continued down the stairs and took the long passage down to the back of the house, which eventually led into the garden. The children had gone out there earlier, bent on playing some game of their own and warned not to be too noisy near the house. Beyond the orange orchard there was a wild tangle that was a child's

paradise, tall, gnarled trees and thick flowering shrubs, even an enchanted pool with a moss-grown stone surround. It was the children's favourite playground and far enough from the house for even the noisiest game to become muted to silence before it could reach Andrew's ears.

When she reached the wild garden it had apparently been turned into the Spanish Main, or the nearest thing to it. Rod, wearing an odd-looking hat made out of black paper, greeted her with a ferocious scowl and informed her gratuitously that he was Sir Henry Morgan. Julie, in a knotted headscarf, brandishing a cardboard cutlass, in turn tendered the information that she was Sir Francis Drake.

Deeming it wiser not to enquire whether Sir Henry and Sir Francis were antagonists or allies - in case she received too involved an explanation - Trina returned to the house, leaving them to their interminable make-believe. On another occasion she might have joined in, but she was aware of a strange restlessness this morning and she could find no reason for it, so she decided to go up to the schoolroom and prepare some lessons for Monday morning, changed her mind when she reached there and instead decided to go into Dalthorpe to see what the little town had to offer. It did not daunt her that she would have to walk.

"Sanders could take you in," Mrs. Jamison suggested, but Trina shook her head.

"It's not really necessary. I don't want anything in particular. Perhaps I'll just take a walk. It doesn't matter whether or not I get there."

There was the letter she had written to Marda yesterday, telling her all about Barakee - and its master; she could post that, if she got as far as Dalthorpe.

She smiled at Mrs. Jamison. "Is there anything you want, just in case I get that far?"

"Well, you could bring back some sultanas ... but it's not really urgent, cook tells me." She was a plump, homely woman, more Trina's idea of what the cook should have been, not thin and birdlike as Mrs. Pirie had turned out to be. Suddenly she fumbled nervously with something in her pocket. "There . . . there was something, Miss Meriton. It's about the concert they're going to hold at Dalthorpe."

Trina smiled slightly, half guessing what was coming.

"We were wondering ... I mean ... if you don't think it would be too . . ." She stopped, looking quite ridiculously nervous, then finished in a rush. "We wondered if you would do a dance there, Miss Meriton."

"I'd love to - but you know I'm not one of the best, don't you?" Trina added gently. "Only one of the chorus."

"Miss Julie says you dance beautifully."

Trina smiled. "Julie's not really much of a judge . . . but I would be glad to dance if you really want me to."

Mrs. Jamison heaved a sigh of relief, as if she was glad she had got the task over. "I wanted to leave it until a bit later . .. but the concert's not far off."

Having again assured Mrs. Jamison that she would be delighted to participate, Trina collected her letter to Marda and set off for Dalthorpe.

It was a bright day, warm and sunny, and even if the first part of the journey was uphill, she still enjoyed it, picking her way up the private road that led from Barakee's secluded little valley to the public road half a mile away. At the top of the hill she turned and looked back at

the house. It was still as she had first seen it, its soft grey stone mellowed by the years and its windows glittering like welcoming diamonds - only it did not really welcome. Andrew Dalwin did not want strangers there. A pity, she thought, for about the ninetieth time. He was good material wasted.

Well, it's no concern of yours, Trina, my girl, she told herself - again for about the ninetieth time - and marched off along the level road at the top of the valley.

She had been walking for about half an hour, taking her time, when there was the sound of a car behind her. Involuntarily, she drew into the side of the road for the car to pass her, expecting that in a few seconds she would see its back disappearing into the distance, but to her surprise it stopped just a few yards in front of her, and as she came nearer she saw that Andrew was in the driving seat.

He leaned across to open the door. "Mrs. Jamison said you were going into Dalthorpe."

"Well . . ." she began hesitantly, but he cut across her words quite curdy.

"Get in."

When she had seated herself, something in her obeying that terse command instinctively, she glanced unobtrusively at the dark profile at her side. As usual it was inscrutable, but she thought she could detect just a slight trace of amused contempt. For a moment she was startled, then some strange intuition told her that he thought she had set out to Dalthorpe knowing he was going in and had been hoping for a lift. It must look a little that way, after her having refused to allow Sanders to drive her in, and just for one moment she was aware of a twitch of annoyance, but it quickly died and she became

conscious instead of an odd sense of compassion. It must be horrible to have to suspect ulterior motives in everything and everyone.

It was a rather uncomfortable drive and she was glad to be able to thank him for the lift and leave the car at Dalthorpe's single shopping street.

As the long, powerful black car drove off, she looked after it thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to find the post office and send off her letter.

Dalthorpe was quite well blessed with shops, especially for its size, but all of them still retained the friendly, inquisitive air of village stores. When she entered the post office a small, plump woman looked up and eyed her with undisguised curiosity and interest, and tried unashamedly to see the address on the letter when Trina asked for stamps.

"You're from Barakee, aren't you?" she asked outright when the stamp was supplied, and Trina smiled.

"Yes," she confirmed without embellishment, knowing quite well that more questions were sure to follow.

"Thought you were." The grey head nodded sagely. "Mrs. Christie's Dora works there... told us what you looked like."

Trina repressed a smile of unoffended amusement. It seemed she had already been described to nearly all the inhabitants of Dalthorpe, but naturally enough the arrival of a girl at Barakee would excite a certain amount of speculation, when everybody knew Andrew's attitude towards the female sex.

"What's he like to work for?"

She met the bright, birdlike glance and smiled. "Quite considerate."

No names were used, both knew exactly who was being referred to, but she had no intention of discussing her employer, knowing how he would hate to be the subject of gossip and how easily even the most innocent remark could be embroidered and spread in a small town or village, Australian or English. Her companion, however, had no such scruples.

"It's not what anyone would have thought. Regular tartar, Dora said he was."

And a regular tartar he was. Trina, however, made no reply to that perfecdy true remark and merely contented herself with smiling noncommittally, about to make a polite, conventional remark about the weather and make for the door, but she was forestalled before she could get the first word out. "Don't let him worry you too much," she was told kindly. "He wasn't a bit like this before the accident. It was Jennifer Langley made him like it . . . screeched and ran out of the room when she saw his face, they said."

"They" seemed to know quite a bit about the matter, but again Trina refused to allow herself to enter too deeply into the conversation, even though she was curious to learn what had actually happened.

No wonder Andrew Dalwin looked at his reflection morosely and turned away in bitter self-contempt. It must be terrible to remember that the girl one loved had screamed and run out of the room. She should have dropped down at his side and put her lips to the scar, however unhygienic the medical staff might have thought it.

" 'Course, it was much worse then than it is now," her informant went on- uncontrollably.

"They usually are when it first happens," Trina agreed, and then firmly eased her way out of the place, not caring if she did acquire a reputation for being stand-offish. She could not afford to say too

much on the subject, knowing how it could be twisted and spread - innocently or otherwise - and probably eventually reach Geraldine or even Andrew himself. She was not going to allow him to have that against her also, even if he was convinced that she had deliberately set herself in his way this morning to get a lift into Dalthorpe.

After she left the post office, she wait to investigate the tiny teashop that was directly opposite the bus stop. Apparently some inhabitant of Dalthorpe, knowing the irregularity and rarity of the buses that went in to Myuna, had decided that people missing the bus might like to refresh themselves while they waited for the next one, or fortify themselves if, like Trina, they had to walk home. Whatever the reason for its being started in such a small shopping centre, it seemed to be a success. Trina, having decided that she did not need to fortify herself before she started on the trek back, found half a dozen people already seated at tables in the neat little cafe. The moment she entered with her long-legged dancer's grace she was aware that once again she was the cynosure of all eyes. It soon became apparent that the plump young waitress was going to evince the same curiosity as everyone else. She took Trina's order for tea and cakes, came back to lay a cup and saucer - and lingered.

"Are you the young lady from Barakee?" The question seemed to be quite inevitable.

Trina nodded. "That's right." Her expression was almost bland. "I've cane to teach the Campbell children for one month."

"Oh ... then you'll be going back after that?"

"Yes. I'm really a ballet dancer." She did not mind them gossiping about her, so long as they did not try to make her comment too personally on the subject of- her attractive but definitely unfriendly employer.

"Ooh!" The girl's eyes were wide with awe. "Then it was true what Dora Christie said."

Dora, it seemed, was an integral part of the Dalthorpe jungle drum system.

Trina assured her with the same friendly smile that it was true, and just at that moment a sharp call from the back of the shop cut short the questions she was sure were hovering on the waitress's lips. The girl, recalled to her duties, went off quickly, albeit with a reluctant expression.

When she had gone, Trina sat there thoughtfully regarding her teacup and thinking about Jennifer Langley, trying to form a picture of what such a girl would have looked like. Beautiful, of course . . . but not very sophisticated. Strange how she was so sure of that. Perhaps it had been only the cruelty of youth that had made her act like that and later she had regretted it. No, that could not be quite right, or she would have come back and tried to make up for what she had done - although she could already have done that and been coldly rebuffed. Trina had a quite certain feeling that Andrew was the type of man who would find it hard to forgive a mistake.

As she sat there looking pensively out of the window, a sleek grey convertible went by and, as its driver glanced idly towards the teashop, Trina met the glance of Geraldine Dalwin.

About five minutes later Geraldine entered, sitting down at Trina's table and brushing off the hovering waitress with polite but firm determination when she had given her order.

"I was coming over to see how you were getting on," she said. "I had Andrew to dinner last night, but men are never expansive on the subjects you want them to talk about." She smiled almost impishly. "I

gather he caught you in a rather unscholastic pose when he first saw you."

Trina laughed involuntarily, finding her liking for the older woman increasing by leaps and bounds. There was nothing of Andrew about this Dalwin, but of course she would only be a Dalwin by marriage.

"Yes, the children had been persuading me to do an Apache war dance," she replied. "I'm afraid your nephew was rather horrified."

"More furious than horrified, I'm afraid," Geraldine told her frankly. "He rang me up and asked me what the devil I meant foisting a chit of a dancer on him instead of a schoolteacher."

Trina laughed again, because she could so easily imagine him saying that.

"I expected he might have said something like that," she admitted, "but I think I've convinced him now that I really can teach the children."

"Good." Geraldine nodded approvingly. "How are the children behaving?"

"Like angels."

The dark brows went up quizzically. "You surprise me. I would have thought they would have been just the opposite."

"Well, I must admit that I used a little blackmail on them," Trina confessed. "I told than that if I couldn't teach them I would be sent away and, unless they wanted the dragon kind sent down to take charge of them, they had better do what I asked."

"Brilliant."

"Not very ethical though, I suppose."

"Even ethics can be elastic sometimes," Geraldine conceded briskly. "In this case, we'll say it is warranted, as you're not a real schoolteacher. If you had been, you would have had to find some other way of handling children, rather than bribery." The perceptive but friendly eyes regarded her closely. "Tell me - how do you get on with Andrew?" She smiled slightly. "Now that the storm and fury phase is past, I mean."

"I hardly see him," Trina replied carefully. "When we do have occasion to meet, we talk about the children." Not all the time, though. When they had dined together she had found herself telling him about her own background - and serve him right if he had been bored. He had brought up the subject himself. "He did drive me into Dalthorpe this morning, though," she added, just in case somebody else told Geraldine and embroidered on it. "I had started to walk..."

A look of surprised amusement crossed the elder woman's face. "You were starting to walk! Great heaven - you must be a glutton for punishment."

"Not really. I don't mind walking and I felt like the exercise."

Geraldine looked her over critically. "You don't look as if you need to lose any weight."

Trina laughed and shook her head. "Can you imagine an overweight dancer?"

"I suppose not." She gave the girl a quizzical glance. "By the way, you will probably receive a few tentative feelers about dancing in the concert."

"I've already received them." Trina shook her head a little ruefully. "I don't mind in the least - but I hope they're not expecting anything really first class. After all, I'm only one of the corps de ballet."

"They will love whatever you give them. You're too much of a novelty for anyone to be at all critical."

Trina laughed again. 'I've already found out I'm a novelty. Ever since I came in, I've felt like a monkey in a cage at the zoo."

"That's small town life," Geraldine said ruefully. "Do you mind?"

"Not in the least. As a matter of fact, it reminds me a little of the town I grew up in. The University wasn't actually in the town ... nearer to a little village, and our postmistress was almost identical with the one here."

"Oh!" Geraldine seemed to be grimly amused. "Then you've met Binty already?"

"Binty?"

"Mrs. Binterwell ... the postmistress."

"Yes, I went in to post a letter."

"And of course she tried to gossip. She's a pet but rather deadly. She loves to impart knowledge, but even more, she loves to receive it."

Trina shook her head gravely. "I didn't discuss your nephew with her, or anything else about Barakee, if that's what you mean."

Geraldine smiled. "I'm not accusing you of being a gossip, my child," she answered dryly. "Binty has probably let slip one or two remarks that have made you rather curious, though."

"Well . yes, I suppose so," Trina admitted reluctantly. "But I didn't lead her on to talk."

"You don't need to." There was a pause. "What did she tell you?"

"Not very much . . . just that somebody called Jennifer Langley had screamed and run out of the room when she saw And... your nephew's face."

If Geraldine noticed the little slip, she did not comment on it, did not even change expression.

"I suppose I'd better tell you the whole story," she said with a sigh. "Otherwise you'll be sure to hear a garbled version."

"You don't have to ..."

"Of course I don't," Geraldine agreed. "But it might be as well if I did. Jennifer Langley was my goddaughter," she added surprisingly. "I'm afraid I was not very fond of her, all the same. I always thought it was a mistake when Andrew became engaged to her. One can't do anything about that sort of situation, though ... they are just as likely to elope if they think anyone is trying to interfere," with which pronouncement Trina agreed wholeheartedly, although it was hard to think of Andrew eloping with anyone.

"Jennifer came to live with me when she was eight years old," Geraldine continued. "Her own parents lived up in the islands - her father was a doctor - and they both died within a week of each other, a little before her eighth birthday. He picked up some infection from a native and passed it on to his wife before either of them knew anything about it. Jennifer was luckily at school in Brisbane at the time. I had the job of breaking the news to her, and I must admit that I welcomed the idea of having her come to live with me. I had lost my own husband some years before and it is rather lonely rattling

round in a house all on one's own. I'm afraid I spoilt Jennifer quite a lot in those early days, so it's probably my own fault that she turned out to be so selfish."

Trina privately disagreed with her there. If a person was selfish at heart, upbringing did not really matter much. She would still be selfish.

"Andrew adored her, of course." Geraldine shrugged.

"Natural enough, I suppose. She was very beautiful. Then the . . . accident happened. One of those wretched drunken drivers you hear about and never think will affect your own family."

"You mean ... your nephew was drunk?" Trina asked blankly, having to hesitate slightly, because she had again been going to say his name.

Geraldine shook her head, looking more amused than annoyed at such a remark.

"Good heavens, no. He had just left me...as a matter of fact he had driven Jennifer home. On the way back to Barakee somebody swung a corner on the wrong side of the road and crashed right into him. There wasn't time to avoid the collision. Luckily Andrew wasn't seriously hurt, but the smashed windscreen had cut his face quite badly. The first time Jennifer came to see him, after the dressing was off, she screamed and ran out of the room. The wound was . . . rather ugly at the time." She hesitated, frowning to herself. "I went after her immediately, of course . . . but she was almost hysterical... said she couldn't possibly marry anyone who looked like that. She hated disfigurement of any kind."

Stupid, cruel girl, Trina thought crossly. If he had not been out to take her home he would never have been on the road when the

drunken driver smashed into him - and just when he needed her most she had turned away from him.

"She wouldn't go to see him in hospital after that," Geraldine went on. "Then, a week later, she ran away with someone else."

"And left you to break the news to ... to your nephew?"

Geraldine nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid she did. She doesn't show up in a very good light, does she?" She did not wait for Trina to answer that, possibly knowing that the girl could not do so in all truthfulness for fear of being rude. "She left me a note telling me why she had run away, because she was afraid of being persuaded to go on with the engagement, but of course I couldn't show that to Andrew. I think he guessed, nevertheless . . . even though I did try to make him believe that she had suddenly found out she had made a mistake and really loved someone else."

"What did Be say when you told him?"

"Nothing . .. just turned his head away. I tried to talk to him, but he pretended he was going to sleep, so I... well, I just went home. There was nothing else I could do at the time."

"Didn't they try plastic surgery?" she asked after a moment.

"They did all they could. He didn't talk about it much, so I don't know all the details." She shook her head almost exasperatedly. 'The silly boy doesn't seem to realise that it doesn't really disfigure him."

It seemed strange to hear Andrew referred to as a "silly boy" but, on the other hand, Trina could not entirely control her expression, and she knew that Geraldine had guessed that she had come to the same conclusion about the scar that most certainly did not disfigure him.

Geraldine glanced at her narrowly. "So you noticed that too."

Trina nodded, deeming it best to be quite open about it. "Yes, the first time I saw him." She caught something just a little quizzical in Geraldine's glance and added quickly, "I'm not forgetting your warning, of course - but a girl can't help noticing if a man is attractive or not, even if she is in love with someone else. It's nothing personal," she added, hoping that explained the matter clearly enough, while she wondered if what she had said was the whole truth. She was not so sure that it was quite impersonal now - and she was also not sure any longer that she loved Dennis. Strange how these things seemed to change all of a sudden.

"Of course not," Geraldine said, agreeing that it was nothing personal, but inside she was surprised to find herself wishing that Andrew would fall in love with this nice, intelligent child - and that the unknown admirer was also somehow put out of the picture in that case.

"As a matter of fact," Trina added diffidently, quite unaware of what her companion was thinking, "at a guess, I would say he probably looks better with the scar than without it. . . although, of course, I don't know what he looked like before."

Geraldine gave her an involuntary glance of approval. "You seem to be a girl of unusual perspicacity," she commented. "As a matter of fact, he is better-looking, although I don't suppose he will ever realise it for himself and one daren't mention it, because he will think it's just pretence," after which final remark on the subject of Mr. Nephew Andrew, she firmly changed the subject and began to talk to Trina about the scholastic background she had come from. It was far easier to talk to Geraldine than to Andrew, and so Trina found herself chattering volubly, ending by giving her companion an apologetic glance when she realised what she was doing.

"I'm sorry. I must be boring you."

"Not at all. You have a very unusual background, my dear. Just as a matter of interest - what trick did you play on the Professor?"

Trina laughed and told her.

"Maybe one day you'd better tell Andrew too," she suggested. Another sharp but friendly glance went over her. "Did you know he had a scientific background?"

"No, I didn't." She should have realised it, though, when he had apparently recognised the equation she had written on the blackboard. "I often wondered what he works at*" she added. •

"He doesn't do research himself, but he has a good grounding of scientific knowledge."

"Just what does he do?" Trina heard herself ask, quite unable to restrain her curiosity any longer.

"He owns a factory that makes electronic equipment."

"Oh!" Somehow she had never associated him with anything like that. Perhaps some rich city financier, or managing director of a large commercial firm.

"As a matter of fact, I believe he is thinking of building one down here at Myuna," Geraldine added. "There's a great call for scientific equipment nowadays."

"Yes, there would be." Trina laughed, remembering Rod's innumerable questions. "I've been up to my ears in satellites and sputniks lately. Rod has just discovered there's something up there other than little lights in the sky. He's decided he wants to know what they really are."

"I never did ask you how you like living over here," she remarked in change of subject.

"Very much," Trina told her. "I'll admit that at first I didn't want to come - I had a very good ballet teacher and I thought there wouldn't be much chance of continuing over here - but I soon changed my mind when we arrived." She laughed slightly, shaking her head. "It's funny, but before you get over here you learn more about Australia's past than the present." She paused again, her smile softening. "When ' we entered Sydney harbour, I didn't think I had ever seen anything so lovely. It was summer and all the colours seemed so brilliant. . . blue water and blue sky . . . and the span of the bridge looked like lacework. There was a regatta on at the time. I saw it from a distance first and the white sails of the yachts looked just like giant gulls on the water . . ." She broke off suddenly, giving Geraldine a shy glance. "I suppose that sounds as if I'm getting silly and poetic ..."

"Not at all," Geraldine broke in. She smiled across at the girl. "Hearing things like that makes us old Australians preen our feathers. We're proud of our country." Then she went on: "Where are you working ... or rather, where will you work when you return to Sydney?"

Trina stifled an odd little pang and quickly covered it with another smile.

"Actually I have a new job to go back to," she explained. "There's a new company just been formed - the International."

"Really international?"

"Very much so. There is just about every nationality under the sun."

Geraldine gave her a rather puzzling glance at that. "How do you get on with them?"

"Very well... although I haven't met many of them yet," Trina added hastily.

The older woman smiled and nodded, as if at some secret thought of her own.

"I'm glad you don't appear to have the insularity of so many people towards anyone not of their own race." There was a little pause before she added, "And what about this young man of yours? I suppose he is in the ballet company."

"No, he isn't in the ballet company," Trina told Geraldine.

"I suppose you will be giving up your career when you marry - or is he one of those very modern young men who will allow you to continue with it?"

"There isn't any question of that," Trina replied quietly. "He is already married and his wife won't give him a divorce." Odd that speaking of something that had once caused her agonising pain now hardly disturbed her at all. Being away from Dennis seemed to be doing more than just help her to regain a sense of perspective. It was showing up her infatuation for him as the passing madness it really was.

"I'm sorry," Geraldine said. "I hope you're not contemplating defying convention and living with him," she added quietly. "It's always a mistake for a girl of your kind."

Trina shook her head. "I don't think I could ever do that, however much I loved a man. The subterfuge and . . . and the deceit would ruin it somehow. There would be no self- respect."

"Quite right, my dear. I doubt if affairs of that kind ever really work out. Something would be lost. .. however much one loved a man, as

you said." She reached across the table and touched the girl's hand with gentle sympathy. "I hope things will come right for you in the end."

Trina looked at her with smiling eyes, wishing she could tell her how nice she was and wondering if, before the accident, Andrew had been anything like this too. Come to think of it - how would he take the idea of her dancing in the concert? Not that it was really any concern of his so long as she did not neglect her duty to the children.

With another flash of that same impish glee she wondered what sort of expression his face would wear if she performed the dance of the seven veils. Shock? Or pure indifference?

II

On arriving back at Barakee, Geraldine did not stay for any length of time, except to say hallo to the children, since Andrew had not yet returned. It seemed he had gone farther afield than Dalthorpe, probably to Myuna, on some business to do with the new factory that was to be erected there, and was not expected back until the evening.

Trina did not see him at dinner, but just after she had finished her own solitary meal and was on her way upstairs she heard a car draw up outside. A few minutes later, when she reached the gallery that overlooked the hall, she saw him enter, speaking crisply to Mrs. Jamison as the housekeeper came from the back of the house.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Jamison. I've already had dinner," he said in reply to her query, and then his tall, straight back disappeared into his study. The door closed behind him firmly and decisively, just as he shut everybody out of his life.

Trina sighed a little as she continued her journey to the room, without knowing why she should. After all, what did she have to sigh over?

There was Dennis, of course. But somehow she did not think it was Dennis who had caused the sigh this time.

Later that evening Julie came looking for her with a conspiratorial air. For once her ever-present twin was absent.

"I've got something to show you," she whispered and, amused and wondering, Trina followed her out into the garden. The mystery did not take long to solve. Perched up on a branch of one of the trees was a small, grey-furred animal with a bushy tail.

Trina smiled. "A possum!"

"There's a family of them in the hollow tree." Julie reached into her pocket and brought out a small package, unwrapped greaseproof paper and disclosed a bread and jam sandwich, while the big eyes watched her with what Trina was sure was interest. Julie's cheeky face grinned at her again. "Cook always gives me a snack for their supper. They love bread and jam."

She parted the sandwich and held out one half of it to the possum, who received it in eager little paws. Even though its natural diet was leaves, it seemed to enjoy its unorthodox snack, looking oddly human as it tore off a piece of the bread and jam and held the rest in the other paw. A tiny head poked its way out of the mother's pouch as a baby possum watched them curiously. It was a strangely touching little scenes but it was spoiled before long by a violent quarrel which broke out when a newcomer, who might have been papa possum, appeared. If he was papa, he certainly tried to act the heavy husband, without much effect, since the lady with the bread and jam seemed able to give as good as she received. A little later they disappeared into the darkness.

Trina and Julie went into the house together, but after a few minutes Julie disappeared in search of her twin. Trina did not follow her,

knowing that however much the children might like her there were moments when all children liked to be without adults. She went along to her room and read for a while, but she was aware of a strange restlessness and the book did not wholly hold her attention. When the time came to go and say goodnight to the children she was glad of the excuse to lay it aside.

As Geraldine had warned her when she first came to Barakee, she never made any attempt to enquire whether the elder twins wanted any assistance in preparing for bed, but she made a point of going upstairs to say goodnight to them when they were actually in bed.

After that was done, she was once again at a loose end. For a short time she stood at the top of the stairs, looking out of a window there, then on impulse she went to her room, threw a cardigan over her light summery dress and went downstairs, through to the back of the house, where a door led into the garden. Earlier she had noticed that built against the side of the house was a kind of high sun terrace, a modern addition that blended well with the rest of Barakee. Mrs. Jamison had mentioned that the sea could be seen from there on a clear day, and, standing at the foot of the outside staircase, Trina wondered if perhaps some glimpse of it would be visible in the brilliant moonlight.

On the same sort of impulse, she started to climb, her footsteps light and soft on the smooth, painted wood. The terrace was surrounded by a shoulder-high wall of painted wrought iron - and the view was everything that she had expected. The sleeping garden below was like a scene from fairyland, and as she had hoped, far off in the distance was what could have been the glint of moonlight on the sea. She drew a quick little breath of delight - and then abruptly became aware that she was not alone.

"Miss Meriton?" a man's voice enquired, and she turned slowly to see Andrew leaning against the parapet some yards farther along.

"Yes," she answered, almost reluctantly, wondering if she should turn and go down immediately, but decided that it would look rather odd if she did. It was only to be hoped that he did not think she had known he was there and followed him . . . especially after what he had been thinking this morning. "It . . . it's not out of bounds, is it?" she added, rather foolishly she thought a moment later, but it was by then impossible to withdraw the remark.

"Why should it be?" he countered calmly.

"I ... I didn't know whether . . ." She gave up and changed the subject, conscious that the tall, lean figure had straightened up from the parapet and was coming towards her. "It's rather lovely up here. I don't wonder that . . ."

She broke off abruptly - because she suddenly found herself gripped in ruthless arms, with a hard, contemptuous mouth bruising her own. As abruptly as he had caught hold of her, he released her, and Trina stood there as if frozen, one clenched hand pressed to her trembling mouth.

"That was what you wanted, wasn't it?" he asked harshly.

For a long moment there was silence, then he slowly lowered the hand to her side and unclenched the fingers. She bit her lip unconsciously and found that it hurt.

"Did you think I followed you up here?" she asked at last, very quietly.

"Didn't you?"

"No."

In the brilliant moonlight she saw him smile with sceptical, contemptuous amusement, and shook her head.

"Neither did I deliberately angle for a lift this morning. I didn't know you were going into Dalthorpe."

"Then..it seems I had better apologise."

Trina shook her head. "No. I would prefer not to have an apology that wasn't sincere." There was another short silence and then she added with the same quietness, suppressing all emotion from her voice, "Since you've chosen to insult me, though ... I think I'm entitled to a little plain speaking."

"Go ahead, then," he said curtly, and in the moonlight she saw his hand go up to touch the scar on his cheek in the involuntary gesture that was so revealing.

Without thinking, she reached up and caught his wrist, pulled his hand down.

"Don't do that!"

It was problematical who was the more surprised; then he removed his wrist from her grasp as if the touch burned.

"I beg your pardon!"

"That's just the trouble . . . that wretched scar." For just one moment she allowed herself to sound angry with him, but she at once regained her calm, even tone. "For a supposedly intelligent man, don't you think you're acting rather stupidly?" She gave him no time to reply to that, but went on quickly, "After all, it's only a scar and it doesn't even disfigure you." She shook her head, meeting an almost boyish, sulky disbelief on the dark face above her.. "I'm not making it up. It doesn't in the least disfigure you. In fact, you're probably the one man in a million who is better-looking with it. At a guess, I think you

would probably have even been a little insipidly good-looking before it happened. Now you're starting to pity yourself.. . ."

"Pity myself?" He sounded thunderstruck and none too pleased, which of course was quite natural.

"Well, aren't you?" Trina asked reasonably. "Do you think it's really logic or sense to allow it to mean so much? Do you like to pose as the monstrosity that everybody shudders to look at?"

For a moment she thought she had gone too far. Even in the moonlight it was possible to see that he whitened as if- she had struck him, and then the thin, strong hands came out to grip her arms, but he did not shake her as she had half expected. He did not do anything at all, merely stood there looking down at her as if, now that he had caught hold of her, he did not know how to follow up the involuntary movement.

She freed one hand and touched the scar with gentle fingers. "It's not really ugly," she assured him softly, and, freeing herself from his almost nerveless grip, she turned and ran lightly down the stairs.

When she reached her room it was, of course, even more impossible to settle down to any reading, even though the book had held her interest the previous evening, so she turned off the light and sat by her window for a time, looking out into the moonlight.

Was Andrew still standing up on the roof - no doubt cursing the impudent "chit of a dancer" who had dared to speak to him like that - or was he already on the way to his study to write a cheque for the rest of her wages in lieu of notice, accompanying it with a short note in his firm, decisive handwriting ordering her to leave the house by the first available train? Although, now that she came to think of it, he had not looked angry when she left him, only sort of stunned. But

that no doubt was pure shock, and when the trancelike stage had passed the fury would catch up with him.

In the morning, just as she had expected, there was a square envelope on the tray when her early morning tea was brought up. She waited until she was alone again and then, with fingers she was surprised to find were actually trembling, she tore it open and withdrew a single sheet of crisp, snow- white paper with more of that uncompromising writing on it.

"Please forgive me," he had written. "And this time I mean it sincerely."

This time it was Miss Trina Meriton who was held in the thraldom of pure shock. She had to read the note through twice, to make sure she was not imagining things, and then, experimentally, she pinched herself. The final outcome of these little experiments convinced her that she was quite awake and she leaned back against her pillows with a smile of delighted surprise and - had she known it - indulgent affection.

"Bless the man. He's human after all," she murmured, and read the note through again with the most pleasant sensations possible running through her at the thought that she did not have to leave Barakee after all.

She finished the tea quickly and jumped out of bed without any desire to linger, but conscious of an absurd shyness now at the thought of meeting Andrew. As the weather was still continuing to be fine and warm, she got into white shorts and a sports blouse, then after breakfast joined the children out in the wild garden. Both Julie and Rod were up a tree this time, with the younger girls sitting on a fallen log watching them solemnly, Gail clasping the puppy firmly around his fat little body. Trina was invited to join them cm their branch, but declined. Although she might have been quite a good

tree-climber some years ago, she was now careful not to take any unnecessary risks - such as climbing and maybe falling from a tree - in case she injured a leg or ankle.

After making sure that they were all right - even though it was not her task to watch over them out of school hours - she left them and walked on through the wild garden, to where a thin stream meandered into and filled a tiny pool, overflowed ,and continued on down a miniature waterfall to a larger pool, the one that was stone-walled and that, even though she had been at Barakee for only a few days, was already her favourite spot.

She sat down on the stone retaining wall, balancing on its narrow edge, idly picking up pebbles and throwing them into the pool, her eyes dreaming. A tall flowering tree moved languidly in the soft breeze, showering blue petals on to her hair and the surface of the pool.

It had been nice of Andrew to send that note, especially as she guessed he was a man who found it hard to humble his pride and apologise - really apologise this time. Did that mean her little homily had had some effect on him after all?

She tossed another pebble into the pool — and a second splash followed almost immediately on the first. She turned quickly and saw Andrew standing behind her.

"The children said you would probably be here," he said abruptly.

Trina looked up at him gravely, not quite knowing what to say, so decided to remain silent.

"I came to apologise in person," he went on with the same abruptness, as if he too found it difficult to speak. "It was . . . quite inexcusable of me."

"It's . . . quite all right," she assured him, her own voice halting a little, as his had done. "I know why you did it." She watched his hand rise to his cheek in that involuntary gesture. "Please don't do that."

He looked at his hand as if he had not seen it before, or as if he was wondering how it had found its way up to his face.

Trina nodded. "You do it quite unconsciously, don't you?"

"I suppose I do," he admitted. The dark eyes met hers suddenly in an almost sulky glance, but she read the hint of appeal in them before they slid away quickly to fasten their gaze on a clump of blue gums. His toe kicked absently at a patch of grass growing between the stones. "Did you really mean what you said last night . . . about it not being . . . ugly?"

"Of course." Her eyes met his quite frankly when he turned back to her. "If you hadn't made up your mind so firmly to the contrary you would be able to see it for yourself."

He looked away from her again, watching the maltreated bit of grass.

"Somebody else .. . made it up for me." His voice still had that sulky abruptness, as if he did not want to speak about what had happened, but somehow could not help himself.

"You mean your fiancee?" The sharp, dark glance came up to meet hers then and she shrugged apologetically. "It would be foolish of me to pretend not to know anything about it. If you know small towns, you should also know people would try to tell me the first moment they could."

"Yes, I suppose they would," he acknowledged reluctantly. "Did they tell you everything that happened?" he added, as if with sudden decision, and sat down at her side on the stone wall.

Trina nodded. "Actually it was your aunt who told me. Binty ... Mrs. Binterwell had already started on me and . . . and Mrs. Dalwin thought you would prefer it if I heard the . . the correct version, rather than any garbled one." Geraldine had not put it exactly like that, but it must have been her reason for recounting the story of the accident.

He made an abrupt little movement and kicked at the tuft of grass again. It was almost uprooted now.

"I suppose you would have heard it anyway. They love to gossip."

That seemed to require no answer and so she remained gravely silent.

"Do you think I'm a fool for allowing it to matter so much?"

"Yes, I do."

He turned to look at her again, as if stung, and the dark eyes were sullen and angry this time.

"You don't mince words, do you?"

"I think you gave me the right to speak plainly last night," she reminded him gently, and then wished she had not made the too personal comment as she felt the heat suddenly rise and burn in her face. To cover it, she slipped to her knees to rescue the piece of grass he had now completely uprooted. For some reason she had in that moment become acutely conscious of his tall, lean strength so near to her.

"Now look what you've done," she added almost chidingly, and tenderly pressed the root of grass back into its crevice. She had a sudden vision of him as a buccaneer - if only he would smile. That really would complete the picture - but it would need an audacious, devil-may-care smile, one with no bitterness or mockery in it. She looked up at last, when she was sure she was quite in control of

herself, and resumed her seat on the wall. "How long ago did it happen?"

"Nine years ago." He rose to his feet suddenly, and it amused her to see that he carefully avoided the replanted grass. "What do you suggest I should do, then?"

"Why not get to know the children for a start? After all, you've made yourself responsible for them, and children need more than just plenty of food and a comfortable home." She hesitated for a moment, but decided to risk what was in her mind. "They have the impression that they're not really wanted, you know - and that's bad for a child. They need security and affection above any bodily comforts."

"I'm not used to children," he muttered sulkily.

"Nobody is when they first have them around." She smiled, remembering the liking and affection she had already won from the Campbell quartet. "They're well worth bothering with. A child doesn't dissemble, you know. They always let you know whether you are liked or disliked."

"They've already made that plain enough."

"You told them to keep out of your way," she pointed out reasonably. "But they are still eager to be friendly."

"Even now?"

She nodded. "Even now."

"Then children are more forgiving than adults."

"Of course. But even some adults forgive just as generously."

"More fool them," he retorted brusquely.

"You mean you wouldn't forgive anyone who made a mistake? Even if it involved somebody else's happiness as well?" She had not meant to say quite what she had, but there was no altering it now.

His eyes narrowed and the glance that met her own was faintly derisive.

"Are you referring to my engagement to Jennifer Langley?" he asked deliberately.

Trina nodded. "I suppose I am," she admitted reluctantly. "Wouldn't you have forgiven her if she had found out she had made a mistake?"

"No."

The monosyllable was quite blunt and unembellished and the tone of his voice so harsh and uncompromising it was almost frightening.

"Not even if she was really sorry?"

"No."

Trina met his glance levelly, even a little sternly, not flinching away from the steely glint in their darkness.

"Then you can't expect to receive forgiveness for any mistakes you might make," she pointed out reprovingly.

"I'm quite prepared to abide by any mistakes I may make," he retorted harshly. "I shouldn't expect forgiveness."

"Then I hope you're never in the position when you really want it and find that the other person is as uncompromising as yourself," she said quietly. "To forgive and to want forgiveness is human."

"And you don't think I'm very human?"

"Oh yes, you're human - but you try to pretend you're not."

He was looking down at her almost angrily, but it was still a sulky anger, as if somehow she had managed to get under his guard and, while he might not like it, he did not know how to close up the cracks in his armour.

"I don't know why I'm allowing you to talk to me like this," he muttered after a moment.

"I don't either," Trina admitted frankly. "But I think it's about time somebody did," she added with a smile. "They're all dead scared of you."

"And you're not?" His brows lifted quizzically at that. He seemed to be more intrigued than annoyed. "No ... you made that quite clear the first time we met." Then the oddly boyish sulkiness came back to his face and he kicked at the maltreated clump of grass again. "Do you dislike me very much?"

"I don't dislike you at all . . . not now. I did when I first came here," she added with the same frankness of a moment ago, and then her heart gave a queer little skip when he smiled. She had always known it would make a difference to him, but never in her wildest dreams had she ever imagined it would make such a difference, illuminating the dark features and softening the hard line of the rather thin mouth.

"You should do that more often."

"You're an impertinent little baggage," he retorted, but he smiled again, so she . took it that he was not annoyed. "And just what trick did you play on the Professor?"

"You've been dying to know, haven't you?" she chuckled. "We made up a whole series of deliberate mistakes that led into some quite

impossible conclusions - then we detached the sheet with the mistakes on, as if it had come loose by mistake, and hid it. The poor old Professor found the rest of it lying around, as we intended. He did his best to find out who it belonged to, but we all denied knowledge of it. He thought he had come on something revolutionary and he worked like fury on it . . . trying to discover what the new 'secret' formula was that led to the final conclusions. We had apparently made it so convincing we had to' tell the poor old thing in the end. He was one of those people with a completely open mind ... no dogmas attached to him at all. He might have worked on it for ages if we hadn't told him the whole thing was based on a completely false premise and showed him the sheet with the fallacies on."

Andrew smiled. "What was his reaction?"

"He gave us all a lecture regarding using what brains we possessed for better things than trickery - then stood us all a party. He was a wonderful old thing. We all felt thoroughly ashamed of ourselves afterwards, because he was genuinely disappointed that there wasn't a new 'secret' equation." She mimicked a quaint little accent. "It is so much a pity . . . they were so interesting, those impossible things." Her vivid face sobered. "He's dead now."

There was a brief moment of silence. Trina sat looking down at the poor, misused clump of grass without really seeing it, again disturbingly conscious of Andrew's nearness to her, and then he suddenly moved away from her.

"It must be about time for lunch." He glanced at his watch and nodded, almost with relief it seemed to her. "We'd better get back to the house."

Trina jumped up. "I'll have to see that the children are cleaned up."

It was still some time to lunch, but she sensed that he wanted some excuse to get away and instantly fell in with what he said, yet at the same time she was conscious of a deliciously light-hearted feeling, as if both of them trembled on the brink of something wonderful... but delicate. Just at that moment his glance met hers - a long, dark, searching glance - and in some strange way it seemed to confirm what she felt, then he muttered something incomprehensible and swung away through the trees, leaving her standing there with a little smile on her lips and conscious of an absurd desire to hug herself as she had done when she was a child when something made her happy.

She sensed that the feeling of happy expectancy was in some way connected with Andrew, but she did not want to analyse what had caused it . . . not from any sense of fear. Perhaps she wanted just to wrap it around her like a shimmering spangled veil at the moment and let the feeling of something inevitable and wonderful take its course.

CHAPTER FOUR

I

ANDREW, of course, departed back to town early on Monday morning, and thereafter Trina found the week dragging most surprisingly. Half-way through the week a letter arrived from Marda. It started off with news from Sydney, but soon showed traces of the elder girl's deliberate attempts to shock people.

"Since you don't feel up to living in sin with Dennis, you had better marry your boss. He sounds most intriguing. Woman-haters are such fun to tame - and all that money too! Darling, if it wasn't for Piers I might ask for an introduction. On second thoughts, I won't poach on your preserves; it might ruin a lifelong friendship. It's about time you had a break, pet. If you can't have love, you might as well have money. Do write and let me know all the exciting details, and if you want any pointers to success, you know where to apply. The basic approach is to flatter them. They love to think they're the cat's whiskers."

As she finished reading, Trina was conscious of amusement mixed with a most unaccountable little pang of longing. She could just imagine Marda sitting down to write that letter, tongue in cheek and a glint of wicked amusement in her long, slanting green eyes, not meaning a single word of it.

The second part of the week seemed to go faster, perhaps because Rod and Julie decided to put on a performance and try to avoid lessons. Trina, surprising even herself by her sternness, won the day hands down and found them regarding her with respect and admiration. By Friday night - luckily - things were back to normal.

From her bedroom window she watched the long black car purr up the drive and slide to a stop at Barakee's front door. A moment later the tall figure of the driver appeared - and seemed to glance upwards almost instinctively.

Trina drew back quickly with a suddenly accelerated heartbeat and knew that he had seen her.

As she had last week, Margaret came to tell her that Andrew had asked her to join him for a sherry before dinner, but this time she was aware of vasdy different feelings as she dressed for dinner, wishing she had brought more of her wardrobe with her. It would have to be her tangerine dress again, but at least she had the satisfaction of knowing that the colour suited her and did not look garish, as it might have done on some people.

"Come in, Miss Meriton."

Trina passed him, pausing momentarily while he closed the door, then took the seat he indicated. He was not smiling and his dark face was so inscrutable she could tell nothing from his expression. He brought her a sherry, and when5 she looked up at him with unconscious enquiry smiled so suddenly that she was a little taken back.

"Did you think I was going to bite again?" he asked, with just a hint of mischievous amusement in his voice.

"Well, yes ... I did rather," she admitted, smiling back and again feeling that wonderful, happy expectancy.

He sat down opposite her in a deep leather armchair that was the pair to the one she occupied.

"How have the children been behaving?"

"Part angel . . . part demon . . . but they're thoroughly quelled now." She made no attempt to repress an impish smile as she added, "And I seem to have acquired the nickname 'Pocket Battleship'."

The dark eyes were dryly amused as they met hers. "I can't deny that it's appropriate. What did you do - knock their heads together?"

"Not quite, but I think they were afraid I might."

"Then it sounds as if the nickname is deserved."

Trina smiled again, with the impishness he was beginning to find characteristic of her.

"You ought to know what they call you," she chuckled.

A shade of grimness crossed his face. "I've no doubt that it's something uncomplimentary."

Her lips twitched as she recalled what they did call their uncle - Lord Zeus, king of the ancient Greek gods, also an abductor of sometimes unwilling maidens.

"Well ... yes and no," she said. "It depends which way you look at it."

"What is it—" he demanded with sudden imperiousness, but Trina shook her head.

"No," she refused firmly. "Not yet. Maybe one day they'll tell you themselves,'" and from that she would not be swayed, whatever he might think.

Even Mrs. Jamison seemed to notice the different atmosphere when she came to tell them that dinner was served. She beamed on Trina and then turned her smiling face on Andrew.

"Miss Meriton has promised to dance for us at the concert, sir. You'll be there, won't you?" she enquired, with the friendliness of long service, probably unconsciously slipping back into the attitude common to Barakee before the accident.

"Of course I shall." When the housekeeper had gone he glanced at her quizzically. "So they've roped you into their show, have they?"

Trina gave him a quick, almost anxious glance. "You don't mind, do you?"

"I'll demand a seat in the front row," he retorted instantly, and Triila shook her head as she looked at him, appearing to be quite puzzled.

"You're so .. . different now."

"Maybe I've taken your little homily to heart." He smiled across the table at her almost deliberately. "Do you realise I don't know your first name?"

"Trina."

"Short for anything?"

She smiled and shook her head. "No, just Trina."

"Just Trina," he repeated. "Very appropriate somehow."

"Why - do you know any battleships named Trina?" she asked impudently.

"Minx!"

The next course arrived at that stage and halted conversation for a time, but when they were on their own again, the brilliant dark glance came back to her.

"What do you do with yourself in the evenings?"

"All sorts of things . . . talk to the children or Mrs. Jamison .. . or sometimes Mrs. Pirie. We quite often have a cup of tea in the kitchen after the children have gone to bed." She shot him a quick glance to see if that was anything he disapproved of, but it seemed not, or if it was, nothing showed in his expression. "When the children are in bed I usually go back up to the rumpus room and practise."

"Practise?"

She nodded. "Dancing ... I usually make corrections and set the lessons for the next day earlier on," she added hastily, in case he should get the idea that she was neglecting her work.

He smiled as if he guessed what she had been thinking. "I'm not going to accuse you of shirking. By the way - when is this concert?"

"Saturday week." She gave him a bright, inquisitive glance. "Do many people go?"

"Nearly everybody around here . . . and it's always followed by the concert ball in the evening, held at Patanga."

"Oh, I didn't know that . . . about the ball, I mean." Nobody had thought to tell her that the concert was to be in the afternoon, and she wondered now whether she would be invited to attend the ball, or whether that was more for the elite of the neighbourhood. Patanga of course was Geraldine's home.

"Everybody from the concert goes," he said, as if he had again guessed what she was thinking - then he smiled across the table at her, that same almost deliberate smile. "Do you think you could stand me as a partner?"

"I .. . would like to have you for a partner," she accepted in some confusion, and was annoyed to feel a warmth in her cheeks that told her she must be blushing. She did not dare to look at Andrew at that moment, but the arrival of the coffee saved her.

What was happening? How had it become so different from when she had first arrived? She could not have believed then that she would actually be accepting an invitation to go to a ball with the dark-faced, cold-eyed man she had met that first day at Barakee.

There was a little silence after she had poured out the coffee, and, trying to think of some way to break it, she remembered that she had meant to mention about teaching Julie to play chess.

"By the way, is there a chess set in the house?" she asked. "Nothing valuable, I mean. I told Julie I would teach her to play."

The dark brows went up quizzically. "So you play chess too." When she nodded an amused smile hovered around his thinly cut mouth. "Who taught you? One of the doctors and professors who were always in and out of the house?"

She laughed and admitted that had been the case.

"I'll have to drive you over to meet a friend of mine," he commented. "I think you would like him. He is head of the scientific staff at the city works."

"I would love to meet him," she accepted straight away. "Your aunt told me you had a scientific background."

"Semi-scientific," he corrected.

"Enough to recognise part of the relativity theory anyway when chits of dancers write it on a blackboard," she said with a little chuckle of laughter.

"Did Geraldine tell you I called you that?"

"I think it just sort of . . . slipped out in the course of conversation," Trina told him a little apologetically, in case he thought that Geraldine might have been saying too much, or that she had been prying.

"That must have been quite a conversation," he said dryly, and she nodded, another mischievous smile springing so irrepressibly to her lips that she could make no attempt to suppress it.

"It was quite instructive."

He gave her a glance of that same dry amusement and went with her into the next room, where he opened a polished cabinet and took out a box containing a set of exquisitely carved chessmen.

"You can use these if you want to teach Julie - on one condition." He met her enquiring glance and smiled. "I like to play chess too."

A few minutes later found them sitting at the table with the chess set between them, and as the evening progressed both seemed surprised and pleased to find they were about evenly matched. Perhaps if Geraldine had been watching she would have given a smile of satisfaction.

II

The next morning Trina donned shorts and sandals and went out to join the children in the wild garden. There had been no sign of Andrew and she was not going to presume on last night's friendship by seeking him out.

"Hi!" Julie greeted her with a wide grin. The old tin bath was again in evidence and Gail and Lynette again its occupants, but this time with

a light piece of wood each, making rowing motions, while the always exuberant puppy tried to chew the ends of the "paddles".

"We've been cast adrift," Gail informed her with a wide, beatific smile that showed a gap where she had lost one of her milk teeth. The horrible prospect of being cast adrift on some great ocean did not seem to dismay her in the least, especially with the puppy making most energetic attempts to emulate a bloodthirstily attacking shark.

Trina glanced at Rod quizzically. "Who are you this morning? Sir Francis or Sir Henry?"

"Sir Henry," the boy grinned.

"Wrong colour hair," his teacher told him. "Sir Henry was a fair-haired Welshman." Some question of acquiring a bottle of peroxide then arose and had to be hastily vetoed. "You'll do nothing of the kind," she added firmly. "What would your uncle say if he found you with blond hair?"

Rod grinned. "Reach for his thunderbolts."

"What colour hair did Sir Francis Drake have?" Julie wanted to know, and Trina had to confess that she did not know.

"Well, maybe it was red," Julie said easily, running a hand through her own red mop. Red or not, that seemed to satisfy everyone and the subject of the colour of the famous sailor's hair was dropped.

Thereafter, by some mixture of magic and plain guile, Trina found herself conscripted as sail power and harnessed to the bathtub with a length of rope. While she tugged and pulled, Rod and Julie pelted each other with paper darts made industriously by all four of them the night before. It was into this scene that Andrew walked about five minutes later.

A look of amazement crossed his face. "What on earth . . .!"

"I'm the sail power," Trina told him breathlessly. "Look out for Sir Henry and Sir Francis . . . or you might be struck by a cannon ball!"

As she came to a standstill, a paper dart glided towards her and she ducked. It went on to hit Andrew lightly on the chest. He grinned as he bent to pick it up.

"Does that mean I'm sunk?" He looked down at the two small girls in the bathtub. "What are you two supposed to be?"

Lynette and Gail gave him a pair of seraphic smiles. "We're the treasure ship," Gail lisped, their status having once again undergone a swift change, "and Rod's the pirate. . . ."

"Though you'd make a better one," Lynette chimed in.

"Didn't pirates have a penchant for carrying off dark- haired Spanish beauties?" he asked, and the dark glance now had an almost provocative amusement as it rested meaningly on the girl's gleaming black coronet.

"Trina's not Spanish," Lynette told him practically.

"No, but she's got black hair," Julie added with a chuckle. "Maybe we should make Trina the treasure, then you can kidnap her and demand ransom."

"Shall "we?" Andrew asked, and he came towards her with such a challenging grin that Trina involuntarily backed a step. The next moment he swept her up into his arms and carried her off, to a background of cheers and laughter from the children and excited yapping from the puppy.

"Rescue squad - form up!" Rod ordered, and Gail and Lynette began to clamber out of the bathtub, holding their stubs of wood on their shoulders like rifles.

Julie shook her head. "The rescue ship's got damaged sails," she said blandly. There was a hint of adult satisfaction in her eyes. "I'm afraid we'll have to retreat in good order to make repairs."

"Huh . . .?" Rod looked at her with blank amazement. -

"Don't be such a numbskull!" his twin retorted, and slowly a look of glee broke over the boy's face.

"Well, I'll be doggoned!" he said in the parlance of his favourite western hero. "You mean Lord Zeus and Trina ...?"

"Shut up. The babies will hear you."

"Whoopee!" he yelled, mixing his war-cries. "I'll race you to the gate!"

"Done!"

Julie's long thin legs flashed as she raced for the gate that led into the orchard and thence towards Barakee's more formal gardens - in the opposite direction to that taken by Andrew and Trina. Rod's sturdy body flashed along not far behind her, the puppy yapping at their heels, and as a rearguard Lynette and Gail stumbled on as fast as they could, calling encouragement to their brother and sister. A few minutes later the . sound of their voices died away into the distance.

III

Andrew set Trina down on the ledge at the side of the pool, standing over her with one hand on his hip.

"Is this Port Royal?" she asked jokingly, to cover the excited confusion she had felt at being held so close to him; the sense of delicious helplessness against the strength that had held her.

He nodded, drawing a thin brown forefinger down her flushed cheek. "Consider yourself entirely in my power."

She shrank back in mock fright. "I'm suitably terrified."

"I doubt it." He grinned as he sat down at her side. "I have an idea you would have made even the notorious Sir Henry run for cover." One dark brow rose quizzically. "Is that the nickname they had for me?"

"No." She laughed teasingly, dipping one hand into the cool water of the pool. "Somebody much more omniscient than Sir Henry."

"You have me intrigued."

"And you can go on being intrigued," she retorted promptly. "I'm not talking."

"No?" He suddenly caught hold of her again and held her over the pool. "Talk - or else!"

After an involuntary, startled cry she started to laugh. Where most girls would have pretended to scream with fright, she just remained calmly quiescent, but with a rather mocking amusement in her expression.

"Drop me, then," she countered blandly. "It wouldn't be the first time I've been ducked."

His grip tightened. "You little demon!"

She was quite sure he would not really drop her in the water, because he was just not the sort of man to indulge in childish tricks of that kind, and after a moment, acknowledging defeat, he placed her on her feet- and stood looking down at her in some curiosity.

"Don't you ever give the conventional reaction?"

"Unconventional ones get the best results," she retorted with a triumphant chuckle, and turned to go back towards the orchard, until a hand caught her arm.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Back to the children."

The thin, strong fingers gripping her bare arm had such a strange, disturbing effect on her that she moved back involuntarily, freeing herself from his grip, but it brought her up against the rough bark of a wide-girthed tree and she could move back no farther.

The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile that was both teasing and alarming - but it was a delicious kind of alarm that quickened her heartbeats and made her aware of a quite ridiculous weakness.

"And what about the question of ransom?"

"Ransom?"

Was this what Geraldine had meant when she said he had been rather a handful? Rather a lovable handful, though ... and dangerous. She felt the breath catch in her throat slightly as she looked up at him, the sun shining on his hair and throwing shadows from the chiselled planes of his features, the column of his throat bronzed and firm rising from the open-necked silk shirt.

He moved towards her with a kind of slow, lithe grace that made her overwhelmingly and compellingly conscious of his sheer masculinity.

"I think we agreed that you were a prisoner in Port Royal - and I'm sure Sir Henry would never release a prisoner without ransom."

His voice had a slow, lilting drawl and, after one swift glance at his expression - at the dark eyes that held amusement and challenging purpose - Trina looked away with an almost hunted movement, but his hands came out on either side of her, pinning her against the tree, and the dark head bent until a firm mouth was set hard and deliberately against hers. The price of a ransom was heady delight, and she felt an impulse to put her arms around him and cling, plead with him to make the ransom last for all time, but somehow she managed to make herself say where she was, pressed against the tree with his arms preventing escape, although she did allow her lips to move tentatively under his in shy response, and when he lifted his head she smiled as if it was still a joke on a bright summer morning, even though she was beginning to realise that she had, all unknowingly, walked into a far more dangerous attraction than anything she had ever felt for Dennis.

"I suppose I shall have to let you leave Port Royal now." He spoke lightly, but there was a trace of huskiness in his voice. "Although I'm certain Sir Henry would have demanded a higher price."

"Lucky for me then that you're not really Sir Henry," she retorted, copying his own light, joking tone. If only he had made the ransom higher... demanded that she pay it all her life. She had no let-down feeling, though, no sharp pain of knowing her love was not returned, because she still had that warm, wonderful feeling of happy expectancy.

A booming "sound reached them distantly and he seemed to start, as if reality had intruded into some enchanted land.

"There goes the first lunch gong. I suppose we shall have to go back now."

They went back together, but the sense of enchantment was not altogether dispelled, and she was aware all the time of strong, warm fingers curled around her own, as if he had caught her hand unconsciously and then forgot to release it.

The next morning an excited Julie came racing into her room before breakfast, just as Trina had finished dressing.

"I've just seen Andrew. He said we can all go swimming ... soon's breakfast's over we're going to get the car ... it's only about an hour . . ."

"Stop for a moment and catch your breath," Trina instructed, as the girl paused, panting for breath, apparendy having run non-stop up the stairs.

Julie gulped air impatiently into her lungs. "Andrew's already downstairs. I saw him when I went to look at Micky's paw.. . ." The puppy had suffered a slightly injured paw in his race through the orchard the day before and was now being coddled as if he was dying - and thoroughly enjoying and taking every possible advantage of the situation. "Andrew said it looked as if it might be a good day for swimming," Julie rushed on, "so I said I thought it looked that way too and could we take the little car and drive down to the beach. I told him you're a fabulous driver," she added ingenuously, "so we would all be quite safe with you."

"Thank you," Trina smiled, but she was conscious of a sense of disappointment. "Then he isn't coming too?"

"Of course he is," Julie retorted. "You didn't let me finish."

"I'm sorry," Trina apologised meekly. "Then he is coming?"

Julie nodded with a child's importance at imparting news. "He's going to drive us down in his own car and we're going to take a picnic basket:and have lunch there - and he laughed like mad when I told him we called him Lord Zeus," she added startlingly.

Trina looked at her in dismay. "You told him that!"

"Well, he asked me point blank," the child told her practically, "so I couldn't very well refuse, could I, especially after he had just promised to take us to the beach."

"Blackmail," Trina muttered to herself.

"What did you say?"

She met Julie's curious glance and shook her head. "Nothing's important." There was a pause, then she smiled with a hint of impishness. "What did he say when he stopped laughing?"

"That he'd put away his thunderbolts, so I said we were glad he had, because we liked him much better this way." She tipped her head on one side thoughtfully. "You know, I think you were right when you said he was all mixed up and lonely."

"Why?"

"Well, when I said we like him now, he put his arm around me and hugged me - then I kissed him and the poor man almost blushed," she finished with a grin.

Trina felt something constrict her throat and she had to turn away from Julie for a moment. How right she had been when she thought

he had been badly hurt. If she had not seen that betraying movement of his in the hall, touching the scar that had been able to warp his life, she might have been furiously angry when he kissed her that night on the roof, instead of trying to break through the barrier the accident had left, and then it might have been altogether different. He would still have been hard and contemptuous, still lonely and hurt and shut away behind his barrier of scorn and distrust.

The run to the beach was made in hilarious and noisy companionship, with blue skies smiling on than from above and blue seas to greet them when they reached a long stretch of completely deserted beach. There was a good surf running and Andrew unlashed the surf-boards he had brought with them on Trina's admission that she had learned to use a surf-board in Sydney.

They took turns to undress in a cave that Andrew had found on a previous visit. When Trina came out in her neat yellow swimsuit - having given many mental thanks at her forethought in bringing it to Barakee with her - she was instantly aware of Andrew's glance on her, but it caused her no embarrassment. She knew she had a good figure and she was glad of it now .. . especially when she knew somehow that he lingered behind deliberately, so that he could watch her suppleness and her dancer's grace as she ran down to the sea.

After lunch they lay sun-baking for some time, then went down to the sea to swim again. For a time they surfed, allowing the waves to carry them in, until a "dumper" caught. Trina, lifted her up and then suddenly collapsed, dropping her in a most ungentle manner. She sat up spluttering and laughing ruefully, but a moment later struck out for a small, almost flat rock that reared itself from the water a short distance from the shore. Andrew passed her and hauled himself up on to the surface of the rock, reaching down a hand to catch her wrist. In one smooth movement she was pulled up beside him, feeling an effortless strength that gave her a little thrill of feminine delight that went right back to the old primeval times when a man's strength

protected the woman he chose - not that Andrew had chosen her. Not yet. It was those two little words - not yet - that made ha feel so happy.

They clambered farther up the rock to where the sea did not reach and it was warm to the touch, then they turned to look at each other in mutual satisfaction, a man who was tall and bronzed, as if he had already spent quite a time on the beach - was that how he had spent his lonely weekends? - and a girl who was trim and petite, her wet braided hair gleaming like the coat of a seal and her smooth, creamy skin not yet tanned by the summer sun.

Trina tore her glance away from his, aware that a peculiar little smile turned his lips. Trying to appear quite undisturbed, she threw herself down on the warm surface of the rock, closing her eyes against the brilliance of the sun.

"You look like something washed up by the sea," Andrew's voice murmured lazily.

"A piece of seaweed?" Her lips curved into a smile and she turned her head, opening her eyes to look at him, but there was something so disturbing in his gaze that she hastily looked away again, pretending to be interested in a gull that swooped overhead. With its brilliant white plumage, the wings dark-tipped, and red bill and bright scarlet legs, it was a beautiful creature.

"That's a silver gull, isn't it?" she said, realising that she was rushing too quickly into speech.

Andrew smiled again and nodded. "There are a lot of them around here ... in fact around the whole coastline."

"Is it right that Australia only h'as two kinds of gulls?"

He shrugged. "Could be."

"I was told the Pacific gull is the other land... the one that has a black and yellow bill."

Andrew grinned, and quite irrepressible devilment danced in his dark eyes. "Stop talking nonsense."

"It's not nonsense," she retorted indignantly. "I think they're very attractive. I've always liked gulls."

He raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her through half-closed eyes. Trina endured it for a moment, but the bright intent gaze became too much for her and she jumped to her feet, poised to dive off the rock.

"What are you running away from?" his soft voice drawled lazily.

She turned to face him, meeting the amusement in the dark eyes. "A feeling that you might be contemplating playing Sir Henry again.*

He watched her, still leaning on one elbow. "Would you mind?"

"Don't you think that's rather an unfair question?" Trina countered.

"Why?"

"Because even if I didn't mind, I would have to say I did."

"Why?" he demanded again.

"I know it's the modern way not to place too much value on kisses," she said with sudden seriousness, "and I suppose my grandmother belonged to a different generation altogether - but she always told me that a girl who allows indiscriminate kissing finds herself held cheaply."

He came to his feet suddenly, his own expression quite serious now, even frowning slightly.

"Nobody would ever regard you cheaply. If that was the impression you got when I kissed you yesterday ... I'm sorry. I don't regard you cheaply and I never could." He shrugged with a little deprecating movement. "I know that night on the roof . .."

"I understood about that," Trina put in softly.

"I'm beginning to realise how much I owe you." His hand went up to touch the scar, but he was smiling. "I might have allowed this to spoil my whole life."

"I'm glad I was able to help." She reached up to kiss his cheek, the scarred one, and then turned with a little laugh that was more challenging than she realised. "I'll race you for the shore."

She went off the rock in a graceful dive, like one of the gulls that were wheeling overhead, and Andrew quickly followed her. It was a quite unequal race and he was waiting for her when she climbed to her feet in the breaking surf. By the dancing laughter in his eyes she knew it was only the presence of the children that stopped him from kissing her - and much as she liked the Campbell quartet, at the moment she wished them elsewhere.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

THE week of course dragged quite unbearably slowly, and every night Trina found herself looking from her bedroom window, searching for a long black car to come purring up the drive, even though she knew it could not possibly appear there until Friday - but on Friday evening Andrew did not come home. Instead, at breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Jamison informed her casually that he had telephoned last night to say that he would not be down this week-end. It was like a slap in the face after the happiness of last weekend, and Trina found that her breakfast had suddenly become quite tasteless.

As she went upstairs to her room she wondered if it was deliberate. Perhaps it was a warning that there was really nothing between them except a light, meaningless kiss in the sunlight. She knew that she was attractive and this could be his way of pointing out that it had been nothing more cm his part than the impulse of a normal, healthy man reacting to a bright, sunny morning and a pretty girl near at hand.

If that was all it was she would just have to accept it as such. She tried to tell herself to be sensible about it, but a feeling of black depression still threatened to descend on her, so she changed into shorts and sandals and joined the children in the wild garden.

"Hi!" Julie greeted her with a wide grin. The old tin bath was again in evidence and Gail and Lynette again its occupants, Rod perched up on a branch of one of the trees, but before Trina could ask what was happening this morning Julie gave her an enquiring glance.

"Why didn't Andrew come down this week-end?" she asked.

Trina managed a careless little shrug. "Pressure of work, I expect," she said lightly, but felt nowhere near so casual as she sounded. Why hadn't he come down? "Do you miss him?" she added as she smiled at the girl.

Julie frowned in that far too adult manner she sometimes had. "Silly, isn't it, but I believe I do. He's been so different lately. I hope he isn't going back to what he was like before."

So do I, Trina thought to herself. Had something happened to upset him? When he came back would she see the old glacial contempt and scorn in his expression? It was such a horrible prospect that she had to leave the children in case they guessed something of what she was thinking, but once she reached her room again she realised that she would have to do something to keep her thoughts occupied, or they would persist in returning to Andrew, so she went along to the bathroom and washed her hair. That done, she again went out into the sunshine, to dry the gleaming mass that hung round her shoulders, but she avoided the children this time, taking another track that skirted the wild garden but still took her to the little pool. There she sat on the stone retaining wall, thinking of the last time she had been here, when Andrew had threatened to duck her in the water, but instead had kissed her - and she sighed thinking of it.

Why hadn't he come down this week-end? she thought again, threading slender fingers through her hair, so that the breeze could blow through it. Why hadn't he come down?

For a long while she sat there, not realising how time was passing until the soft dryness of her hair, now floating silkily in the breeze, and the stiffness of her limbs when she began to move told her how long she had been there. She sighed and put her hands to reduce her hair to some sort of order, starting to braid it - when suddenly strong, masculine hands caught her fingers.

"Leave it," a deep voice ordered huskily.

She looked round, starting to her feet, her eyes widening.

"Andrew!"

The next moment she was in his arms, his mouth hard on her own, bruising with passionate demand. No thought of resistance crossed her mind, she surrendered utterly, and in those moments knew exactly how false her infatuation for Dennis had been. That kiss seemed to go on and on, but it was still not long enough for either of them. When he lifted his head, the dark eyes looked down into hers, little lights dancing in their darkness, and then he bent his head, claiming her mouth again . . . again and again, until there was no thought in her mind except that she loved him ... loved him!

"Sir Hairy sails again," Andrew murmured when he at last lifted his head, but although the words were joking, his voice was even more husky and dark fire flickered in his eyes. "I think he will have to insist that you go on paying ransom for the rest of your life." He drew her dose again, his lips against the warm curve of neck and shoulder. "Do you think you could bear to marry me?"

"Andrew. ... Oh, darling!"

That seemed to be answer enough, because her halting voice was abruptly stifled as he kissed her again, her lips, her closed eyes, the pulse beating in her throat . . . burying his face in her silky hair, while she laughed huskily, with sheer unbelievable happiness.

"Why didn't you come down last night?" she asked a little later when coherent thought and speech were again possible.

Andrew frowned slightly, tightening the arm he still kept around her shoulders as they sat side by side on the stone wall.

"Something I'm ashamed of now." His fingers actually dug into her shoulders a little with the intensity of his grip. "During the week I finally became aware of what was happening to me . . . and I didn't want to fall in love again. I nearly came back to Barakee on Monday evening ... and that warned me of the danger of seeing you again." He touched his lips to her hair contritely. "I'm glad you didn't see me during those last few days, darling. I was unbearable. My office staff wondered what was wrong with me. I tried to persuade myself that I wasn't in love with you and if I kept out of your way it would pass."

"So that's why you didn't come down last night." She suddenly bit her lip, afraid in the midst of her happiness. "And you wouldn't have come next week-end either, would you?" Next week her time at Barakee expired. It did not seem a month since she had first come to the valley.

He nodded. "Only I found I couldn't fight it Last night was worse than the rest of the week. I had to come down. I couldn't let you go out of my life."

Wisely she did not say anything then, just put her arms around him, trying to convey without words that she understood. Some deep distrust still lingered subconsciously, because of what Jennifer had done to him. Even though he loved her, he was unconsciously frightened of being hurt again. He had tried to fight against it and found that it hurt more to think of giving Trina up. Those invisible, hidden scars were still there, and she knew that it would be some time before her love could erase them completely. He was like a child who, having once been hurt, feared it would happen again, even though he knew he was loved in return. There would probably be some difficult moments in their life, but she was not afraid to face them when they came. Somehow their love for each other would surmount them.

II

When they wait into the house, Andrew immediately telephoned his aunt, but she was out at the time. As it turned out later, she was already on the way ova to see them. Trina was the first one to meet her when she entered the hall, and as she ran down the stairs to greet the elder woman, Geraldine glanced up at her, smiling as she drew off white gloves.

"You look very happy this afternoon."

"Don't I always?" Trina enquired with a lilt of happiness in her voice.

"There's a kind of glow about you today." The girl was positively radiant, she thought.

"Perhaps it's because I'm so happy," Trina told her with a smile.

"That young man of yours free to marry you now?"

Trina gave an amused laugh at the thought that Dennis could have once meant so much to her.

"He doesn't mean a thing any more." She dismissed Dennis with unconscious contempt. "I haven't thought about him for ages."

Suddenly Geraldine's eyes widened in amazement. "Good heavens! It's not . . . Andrew, is it?" she asked in some stupefaction.

Trina's face sobered instantly. "You . . . you don't mind, do you?" she asked a little hesitantly.

At that moment Andrew himself appeared in the hall, glancing from his fiancee to his aunt with upraised brows.

"Has Trina been breaking the news to you?"

Geraldine looked from one to the other of them with an expression that was still mainly bewildered surprise, then guessing the rest of what Trina had been about to tell her, her face broke into what was undoubtedly unqualified delight.

"It's the pleasantest surprise you could have given me . .. both of you. It's about time somebody took him in hand," she said to Trina.

They went into one of the rooms at the front of the house, overlooking the arched verandahs, and when they had all laughingly drunk a toast to the new engagement, Geraldine glanced at Trina enquiringly.

"What do you intend to do when the children go to school? Go back to Sydney?"

"Certainly not," Andrew denied instantly, with a touch of possessiveness in his voice that brought a dry glance from Geraldine.

"I think it might be better if she came to stay with me," the elder woman suggested.

"It's very kind of you . . ," Trina was beginning, when Andrew broke in.

"What on earth for? She's quite adequately chaperoned here."

"I don't doubt it - but it's still a bachelor's household. It would be better if she came to Patanga ... that is, of course, if you would like to come, my dear," she added turning to Trina again.

"I'd love to. Your aunt is quite right. It would be better if I stayed with her," Trina agreed, as a scowl started to appear on Andrew's face.

"It's not thousands of miles away," Geraldine smiled. "You will be able to see nearly as much of her there as you would at Barakee. Besides, a girl likes to have someone she can talk over her trousseau with."

A sudden grin flickered across Andrew's dark face. "If you go on a trousseau-buying spree with her, see that she buys one of those filmy neglige things."

"Andrew!"

Trina felt a wave of hot colour sweeping up to her face because his dark eyes, narrowed and lazily amused, with tiny flames playing behind the amusement, said so many things that he could not speak aloud.

"He's deliberately trying to make you blush," Geraldine said, and added callously, "Kick his shins."

Trina did so under the table - hard.

"You little devil!" he said softly, and his eyes promised retribution when they were alone.

Trina chuckled, knowing what form the retribution would take, yet behind her light joking she was saying a fervent prayer of thankfulness for her happiness. It seemed strange, yet somehow inevitable and completely natural at the same time, that she should have fallen in love with the grim, embittered man he had been when she had first come to Barakee, yet that was when it must have started. Even beneath her antagonism, when they had faced each other in cold dislike, some subconscious instinct had been reaching out to him. What she had felt for Dennis seemed childish and false compared with the depth of her feelings for Andrew.

While he was speaking to his aunt, she let her eyes linger on his dark face, on the sharply defined aquiline features, the mouth that although still stern was far more relaxed than it had been a few short days ago even, and she felt a sense of wonder and humility that she could have made a change of such magnitude in him. At that moment he turned his head and their glances met and held involuntarily, while Geraldine watched them surreptitiously and she too said a little prayer of thankfulness, because she had known from the beginning that this girl would be so right for Andrew. When she went home it was in a completely happy state of mind, and she left behind her two people who felt exactly the same.

When Geraldine's car had purred down the drive and out of sight, Trina felt Andrew's arm about her, turning her into the room they had just left. He released her to close the door and then turned to face her, leaning against it for a moment and watching her with a smile of teasing warning, while devilment leaped in the very dark eyes, then slowly he straightened up and started to come towards her.

"Retribution?" Trina chuckled, and pretended to back away from him.

"Yes, retribution, you little demon," he retorted, and caught her with one quick movement, sweeping her into his arms and bending his dark head to claim her lips. Trina linked her arms around his neck with a little sigh of complete happiness, her lips parted and eager beneath his, feeling his fingers digging almost painfully into her back as his arms held her more closely as passion mounted.

"You're not going to insist on a long engagement?" he whispered when he at last lifted his head, and there was so much demand in his voice that she was not sure whether it was supposed to be a question or a statement.

"I've a feeling you might beat me if I did," she whispered back, smiling up at him.

"Within an inch of your life," he agreed jokingly, but still with the huskiness of passion underlying his tone. "Oh, darling ... !" and he bent his head to take her lips yet again.

After a little while he put her firmly away, although he seemed unable to keep from slipping an arm lightly about her shoulders as they sat side by side on the couch beneath the window.

"We have to talk seriously," he began. Trina looked up at him with wide, soft blue eyes and he smiled ruefully. "Stop looking at me like that or I shall start making love to you again."

She laughed, a little sound of thrilling happiness. "Who wants to be serious?"

"You behave yourself and obey your lord and master."

"Yes sir," Trina said, pretending to be cowed. , "Brat!" he retorted, and kissed the tip of her nose. "I want to talk about where we're going to live."

Trina gave him a slightly surprised glance. "Won't we be living at Barakee?"

"And what about your career?"

"I'll be giving that up, of course." Her eyes widened slightly. "You mean . . . you would have allowed me to continue with it?"

"You told me once that it meant more to you than anything else in the world."

"That was before I met you," Trina told him honestly. Even Dennis had not meant more to her than her love of dancing, because of course what she felt for him had not really been love.

"Thank you, darling," Andrew said quietly, and he leaned forward and lightly brushed her lips with his own. "But if you change your mind I want you to promise to tell me. We could live at the flat in town and cone down to Barakee for holidays."

"I never thought you would take it like this," Trina remarked a little wonderingly.

"Did you think I meant to keep you in purdah?" His smile was again teasing, but there was a hint of seriousness in his manner. "I don't think a man has any right to stop his wife having a career if she can give something to the world."

There was a silence during which Trina found her sense of wonder increasing. She had expected that Andrew would want his wife to belong to him entirely, to claim her every thought, and she would have been willing to give even that. This astounding generosity left her breathless.

"But I don't really have anything to give to the world," she said at last, very quietly. "I'll never be a great dancer. I know I can make a success of a career of dancing . . . but I shall always be just mediocre. I don't really have any illusions about myself . . . much as I love dancing. And being married won't necessarily stop me from dancing ... if one dances for the love of dancing alone." A touch of her mischievous smile crossed her face. "If I feel like it, I can always go and do a war dance up in the rumpus room."

A grin of reminiscence lightened Andrew's face. "You didn't look in the least like a schoolteacher," he remarked. "I was furious. . . ."

"You looked it," his fiancee told him.

Later, they wandered out into the garden together, talking in the desultory whispers of lovers, catching each other's glance and finding themselves in each other's arms again and again.

"When I saw you sitting there with your hair loose all around you .. . nothing at all like the poised little icicle you were when you first came here ..." he murmured against the hair which was now braided into a smooth, gleaming crown, "I ... I couldn't wait any longer."

"I'm glad you didn't," she whispered.

Eventually they found the pool with its stone wall and sat down. On a nearby tree a cheeky little wagtail watched them with bright, impudent eyes, then with a flirt of his tail flew off into the sunlight, perhaps seeking a mate of his own. Trina watched him go with a soft smile curving her lips. All the world seemed happy today. There was nothing to warn her of the horrible dark cloud waiting just over the horizon.

III

Andrew did not return to Sydney that week. Instead he drove Trina over to Myuna where the new factory was being erected. When it was finished there would be no need for him to live in Sydney during the week. A manager would be installed at the Sydney factory and Andrew would take charge of the Myuna works, living all the time at Barakee, an idea that had been in his mind for some time.

It was an ideal arrangement which suited them both, especially as Sydney was not too far away for those occasions when they would want to "do the town".

The week passed smoothly and happily. On Friday Andrew took Trina into Myuna again, where she intended to catch the train for Sydney while he attended to some further details about the factory. She would need a new dress for the ball on Saturday evening. Although she had at first thought of asking Marda to pack and send on her yellow chiffon evening dress, the ball at which her engagement to Andrew would be officially announced seemed to call for something new and special, so she intended to shop for the most glamorous gown she could find, even if it was more than she could really afford; not just because she wanted that type of dress, but because she was dressing specially for Andrew now, and everyone's eyes would be on the girl he was to marry. He was a well-known figure in the neighbourhood and there was probably quite a lot of speculation in the minds of the people who knew him.

Marda was to meet her at Central Station, and Trina wondered how she was going to react to the news of the engagement. She had not yet been told about it, since Trina had merely written that she was coming to town to buy a dress for a special occasion and intended to surprise her friend with the reason for it.

The train at last drew into the platform and Marda was on the other side of the barrier waiting for her, looking her over with critical approval in the heavily made-up green eyes.

"Well, living with the dragon certainly seems to agree with you." She grinned suddenly, the old wicked amusement in her eyes. "That sounds bad!"

Trina flushed, and that, of course, only increased her friend's look of devilment.

"Well.. ." The single word was long-drawn-out and spoke volumes. The green eyes danced even more wickedly. "Have you been living with him, my pet?"

"No, but I intend to," Trina told her roguishly, her own eyes dancing with laughter now. "We're engaged."

"You're what!"

For once Trina saw her friend momentarily thrown off balance, but the impishness soon came back.

"So you took Auntie Marda's advice. Congratulations!"

In spite of the levity of the words there was a look of deep sincerity in the elder girl's voice. There was also a tiny hint of anxiety in the brilliant green eyes. Trina, catching sight of it, realised instantly what it meant and shook her head.

"It's not just on the rebound from Dennis." Her voice softened. "I love Andrew very much."

Marda did not say anything at that, but her long, thin fingers closed on her friend's arm for a moment in unspoken understanding, because she was in love herself.

"Well, let's go and get this wonder dress," she said after that brief moment of silence. Her wide mouth curved up into a grin again. "It's for an engagement party, I take it?"

Trina nodded. "Well, sort of," she confirmed, and told Marda about the concert and the ball which was to follow.

Both of them, feminine to the core, spent some wonderful hours window gazing and shopping and finally found "the dress", a lovely thing of slim lines, in white silk, the low-cut bodice sewn with Mutation pearls. They were both jubilant when they went to have lunch, and Trina found herself chattering about Andrew with all the unconscious volubility of the newly engaged who looked out at the world through the proverbial rosy haze.

Marda gave her a teasing glance. "You've really got it bad."

"I suppose I have," Trina admitted. "I doubt if I'd be able to get over Andrew the way I did Dennis. This seems entirely different."

"Does he know about Dennis?"

"No ... I never mentioned him." She bit her lip, frowning slightly. "Do you think I should have told Andrew about him?"

Marda appeared to consider for a moment, then shrugged. "Doesn't seem any point in it . . . especially as it's all over and done with now."

Nevertheless, if the subject of her ever having loved someone else did come up, Trina resolved that she would just mention Dennis in passing. It seemed more honest. Geraldine knew, of course - and then it struck her as somehow dangerous. Andrew might think that she had deliberately kept it from him and she wanted nothing to mar their happiness. When the occasion arose, she would refer to it lightly, perhaps as a joke against herself for being taken in by someone like that. After all, people did imagine themselves in love before the real thing finally arrived and showed than how false and unreal the other had been.

After lunch she parted from Marda, who had a longstanding appointment she had not been able to break. It concerned valuable business contacts, and Trina would not hear of her breaking it in any case. She had a business matter to attend to herself, that of letting the ballet company know she would be giving up dancing when she married.

That duty accomplished, she started to make her way to the station, when a voice suddenly called her name. She stiffened, recognising it, and turned slowly. Standing almost directly in front of her now was a tall, dark-haired man, blue eyes glinting, his features, slightly fuller

than she remembered them from their last meeting, remarkably like those of a well-known film star.

"Dennis!"

Her voice sounded almost a whisper with surprise because, even though she knew he lived in Sydney and had been talking to Marda about him only a short time ago, he had still been the last person she had expected to run into. Nobody had been further from her thoughts just then, but Dennis quite obviously misconstrued it, because the familiar half triumphant, half complacent grin came over the too handsome features.

"So you haven't forgotten me."

"I'd be hardly likely to," Trina retorted a little dryly. "Especially considering the fact that you turned my life upside down for a time."

"Only for a time." He grinned again, but then it changed into a frown as he looked round at the crowded thoroughfare. "Look, we can't talk here. I know a little place where they serve quite good coffee just along here."

It was on the point of her tongue to retort that she had no desire to go to any "little place" with him, whether or not they served good coffee, but she decided instead to go with him. Once he knew of her engagement to Andrew he would not be likely to pester her or try to contact her any more.

A few minutes later they were facing each other across a table and he was smiling and shaking his head.

"You shouldn't have run away from me like that. I called at the flat, but that dragon friend wouldn't even give me your address to write to you."

"I told her not to," Trina replied evenly, regarding him with a critical glance and wondering how she could ever have imagined herself in love with him. True, he was good-looking enough, but people had so often remarked on his resemblance to a film star that he had become conceited about it, and she had always known that he lacked character. He liked to think he was irresistible to women, and the surprising thing was that quite a lot of them were taken in by him, as she herself had been in the beginning, but in her case the facade had already cracked by the time she met Andrew, and only a short time in his company had told her how false and not even well acted that charm of Dennis's really was. Andrew had character and a quite unconventional type of attraction that made Dennis's brand not even fifth rate. Andrew also had charm - when he cared to assert it - and she had already been caught up in his moments of audacity, such as when she had been his "prisoner" in Port Royal.

She smiled slightly to herself, remembering, and Dennis took it to be for himself. He laid his hand over hers on the table.

"It really was quite foolish of you to run away," he said softly. "You must have known we were bound to meet again."

Trina snatched her hand away indignantly. "If I'd had my way we wouldn't ever have met again."

"Really?" He smiled as if he was humouring her.

"Yes, really. Everything that needed to be said was gone over the last time we met."

"Except that we couldn't really do without each other."

"I assure you that I can quite easily do without you." She spoke coldly, because he was beginning to annoy her. "In fact - I'm engaged to be married."

She had the satisfaction of seeing him look almost blank with surprised shock.

"I don't believe it!"

Trina shrugged. "It's true enough. I'm not wearing a ring at the moment, but our engagement is to be announced officially tonight."

He scowled and gripped her hand across the table again. "I won't let you do it! You belong to me!"

"I do not belong to you . . . not any more," Trina stated with decisive firmness, and attempted to pull her hand free, found it held too hard for just a gentle pull and gave it a really hard tug.

"For heaven's sake - don't make a scene here!" he said curdy, as one or two people turned to glance at them.

"You're the one who is making the scene," Trina retorted. "Let go of my hand or I'll make it obvious that you're making a pest of yourself," knowing that he hated scenes in public.

He flushed angrily and released her hand, whereupon she stood up with a quick little movement.

"For the last time - I don't have a vestige of feeling for you, except contempt, and I'm very much in love with the man I'm going to marry. Don't try to contact me again," and with that she turned and left him, just as the waitress arrived with the coffee.

By the time she had reached the station her annoyance with him had disappeared and she was even smiling ruefully to herself. People like Dennis, she supposed, provided one of the arguments against marrying your first love. Sometimes it turned out all right, of course, if a person was clear-sighted enough to recognise love and not be fooled by mere infatuation, but the first time the emotions were

roused it must be hard for anyone - man or woman - to know whether it was the real thing, or just the attraction of a good-looking face and the glamour of perhaps even wanting to fall in love because it was part of growing up. She was glad now that Dennis had not been free, because she might have married him and found out too late that she had only been fooled by shadows.

IV

Andrew was waiting for her when she arrived back at Myuna, but she laughingly refused to let him see the dress she had bought. The rest of the day dreamed past with their happiness enfolding them like a tangible veil. Saturday morning dawned and wore on to the afternoon of the concert, which was pronounced by everyone to be an unqualified success. Trina, who had chosen to dance the part of the Bluebird of Happiness, felt as if she really lived the part. The happiness inside her was something leaping and alive, making her feel that she wanted to spread out wings and enfold the whole world.

After the concert Andrew drove her back to Barakee, accompanied by the children, who were almost breathless with admiration. Andrew smiled with very obvious amusement - but it was appreciation and undoubtedly possessive admiration she saw in his eyes when he first caught sight of her in the lovely white dress.

Trina went into his study - that holy of holies that she had Mice been told never to enter without an invitation - and a tiny little smile turned her lips as she saw the expression that flashed into his eyes. He made a quick, involuntary movement towards her, then stopped, his hands grasping her bare shoulders. A trace of quizzical humour came into his dark eyes.

"Does that creation crush easily?"

Trina smiled mischievously. "I've been told it's completely crush-proof - but I never take anybody's word for things like that."

Andrew caught her meaning immediately. "I agree. I think we should experiment for ourselves," and he swept her closely into his arms as he spoke.

The experiment was thorough and extremely satisfactory and the dress finally pronounced as uncrushable as its manufacturers had guaranteed, after which they departed for Patanga. When they arrived Geraldine met them in the hall wearing a beautifully cut dress of grey chiffon that admirably suited her mature good looks.

Her eyes smiled at them a little teasingly. "You two look as if you're floating on air."

Trina, laughing, glanced down at her feet, which were encased in stilt-heeled sandals that added to her height.

"I can't even see the ground," she replied jokingly.

When the music started and Andrew took her into his arms and drew her out cm to the dance floor, Trina found that their steps fitted perfectly, which did not surprise her in the least. They were so perfectly in accord in everything else, it seemed quite natural that their dancing should be the same.

"You're as light as thistledown," he whispered.

"Can you imagine a heavy-hoofed ballet dancer?" Trina whispered back. She had to joke, or she knew her voice would catch in her throat with sheer happiness. It was idiotic how a person could come near to tears through happiness as well as sadness.

After their first dance Andrew took her over to introduce her to a wizened little old man who had just arrived. His dinner suit fitted him

more carelessly than untidily and there was something about him that told Trina who he was even before Andrew introduced them.

She smiled as she met brown eyes that, although they might look just a little vague, had a look of searching intelligence about them.

"I guessed who you were even before Andrew introduced you."

"Is the absent-mindedness as obvious as all that?" the scientist asked with an almost boyish grin. Absent-minded or not, he seemed to have a very pronounced sense of humour if the twinkle in his deep-set eyes was anything to go by.

Trina shook her head laughingly. "No, but perhaps I recognised a certain atmosphere."

"She grew up with professors of this and doctors of that in and out of the house," Andrew put in, with a hint of teasing in his voice.'

"Meriton?" The old man seemed to consider the name. "I remember Paul Meriton. He was related to you?"

"He was my grandfather," Trina told him.

"Ah, a fine man. A very fine man." The grey head nodded approvingly. "I have read his paper on nuclear isomers," and right in the middle of the ball, as if completely forgetting his surroundings, he launched into a somewhat technical discussion in which both Andrew and Trina joined. It was Geraldine who finally put an end to it.

"That's enough," she said jokingly, overhearing something of what they were saying as she came near. "This isn't the time to start building atomic bombs."

The chief of the Dalwin scientific staff gave her his boyish grin. "Not atomic bombs - we were talking about nuclear isomers."

Geraldine grimaced. "Well, don't start talking about them to me. I wouldn't know a nuclear isomer from a headache pill."

Trina laughed. "You would soon know the difference if you swallowed a bit of radioactive material instead of a headache pill."

Geraldine joined in the laughter. "I suppose I would - but I'm surprised at you," she added, turning to Andrew. "I know Richard will start on a technical discussion at the drop of a hat, but you should be telling Trina how pretty she looks in her new dress."

Andrew grinned. "We've already discovered it's uncrush- able," he said wickedly.

"Andrew!" Trina protested, the flags of confusion and embarrassment flying in her cheeks.

Richard Marwell laughed. "Now science aids romance. Dresses may now be crushed and no one will notice."

"Stop it, you wretched pair!" Trina protested, her hands up to her flushed cheeks.

"That's the trouble with scientists," Geraldine said. "They reduce everything to basic details."

Richard Marwell laughed again. "Don't .make us sound so inhuman. We will notice when there is a pretty girl around." He gave Trina a glance that even though it might be joking was decidedly approving. "A very pretty girl," he added. "And intelligent too. She even understood what we were talking about. I think if I were thirty years younger I should take her away from you," he told Andrew.

"You wouldn't get the chance," Andrew retorted promptly, and he swept Trina off on to the dance floor on that parting shot.

Geraldine looked after them with such complacent satisfaction that her companion gave her a dry glance.

"You are looking almost smug, my dear Geraldine."

Geraldine smiled. "I don't care if I am. I can't help feeling extremely pleased at the way things have worked out. That girl is absolutely made for Andrew - and she even plays chess," as if that clinched the matter.

She was not the only one thinking like that. Andrew and Trina smiled into each other's eyes and unspokenly exchanged their thanks to fate for bringing them together like this. Their happiness was complete and perfect - too perfect to last.

CHAPTER SIX

I

TRINA spent Sunday in the many last details of getting the children ready for school and in packing her own things ready for transfer to Geraldine's home. There was no apprehension in her mind, no suspicion of disaster waiting near to strike at her - but it was there. Waiting. Such a little thing ... a moment of forgetfulness and a gust of wind....

She was in her own room, attending to the last few derails of her own departure ... her writing case lay open on the table beneath the window where she had been transferring to it letters from her handbag. There was .a call from below and the writing case was forgotten.

Twenty minutes later the first slight breeze ruffled the treetops. An hour later it was blowing quite strongly, gusts sweeping through the open window and scattering those letters in the writing case that had not been left in their envelopes. One blew across the room and almost under the bed; a second fluttered to the centre of the carpet, another was caught against a chair leg.

The fourth letter blew out of the window. All through the night it lay at the verge of the gravel drive, and at early morning a gust of wind picked it up and tangled it among the leaves and flowers of a shrub. A couple of hours later Andrew's long black car took the children to the station, where they departed to school with very little fuss.

Trina remained behind at Barakee, her temporary goodbyes already said, since they had both decided that it would be better that way. As it was, the younger set of twins had inclined to be a little tearful, even though in their case they were only going to day school and would be returning in the evening. On Trina's persuasion Andrew had changed

his former arrangements, and now Gail and Lynette were to go to day school in Myuna until they were old enough to go to the more advanced type of school that Rod and Julie attended. In their case it still had to be boarding school, as there were no really good schools in the neighbourhood.

As the car drew to a stop outside Barakee's colonnaded front portico, Andrew's eyes were caught by a piece of paper untidily caught in a large bush of pink oleander. He walked over, intending to screw it up and dispose of it in a waste bin inside the house, but as his fingers drew it free, inadvertently his eyes caught sight of a few words that seemed to leap out from the by now rather grubby surface:

"If you can't bring yourself to live in sin with Dennis, you'd better marry your boss. . . ."

For a moment he stiffened, his fingers closing on the single sheet of paper - then, quite deliberately, he smoothed it out and continued reading. As he did so, his face slowly whitened and, unconsciously, his hand went up to touch the scar on his cheek in the old gesture that had not been seen for weeks.

With slow footsteps, he continued his interrupted journey into the house, and an observer would have seen that his face was strained and white under its tan.

Trina, out at the back of the house, did not hear him arrive. When she went up to her room a little later, peering out of her window for any sign of his car, surprise came into her expression when she saw the familiar black vehicle parked down below on the drive. Then she smiled, thinking that she had probably just missed seeing him enter the house, and turned with quick footsteps to go downstairs again, meeting Mrs. Jamison on the stair.

"Mr.'Andrew wants to see you in the study, Miss Trina," the housekeeper told her. "He looked so odd ... I hope there's nothing wrong with the children." She shook her head, frowning to herself, and added with the easy familiarity of long service, "Though if that was the case he'd probably have told us when he first came in."

Trina paused in her quick run down the stairs. "I thought he had only just arrived."

Mrs. Jamison shook her head. "He came in about half an hour ago."

"Oh . . . !" She frowned to herself, then catching the housekeeper's curious glance hastily erased it with a conventional smile. "I'd better go and find out if there is anything wrong, then." She made her smile more natural. "Perhaps he is just upset at parting with the children. They have come to mean quite a lot to him."

There was no sign of shock or strain on Andrew's face when Trina entered - but what she did see there caused her to stand momentarily quite still after a shocked little gasp.

"Shut the door behind you," Andrew instructed, and there was such icy unfriendliness in his voice that she whitened.

"Andrew . ..?" She found her voice whispering away into silence, because his features seemed to have setded into their old hard lines, and the dark eyes were cold, the firm mouth derisive.

"I think this belongs to you," he said, and held out a crumpled sheet of paper.

Trina took it in nerveless fingers, wondering if it was hatred she heard in his voice, then, as she looked down at the paper in her hand, the colour flooded to her face and then receded, leaving her deathly white. In that moment she realised just how Marda's bohemian,

completely joking remarks would look to an outsider who did not thoroughly understand the other girl's pretence of being ultra-modern.

"Andrew ... I can explain . . ." she began haltingly, but he cut her off with a jeering smile.

"Is there any need to? I should imagine it speaks for itself." His lips twisted. "Did you write and tell her that you'd managed to pull it off?"

"She was only joking."

"I'm sure she was," he countered. "Such remarks are always meant to be joking - when they're found out."

"You've never met Marda ... she makes a habit of saying things like that, deliberately to shock people."

"And Dennis?" Again the derisive smile twisted his mouth. "Is he something else she made up as a joke?"

Trina found her glance falling before his. "No . . . Dennis exists," she whispered. "But.. . but he means nothing at all."

"Really?"

She looked up then, at the mocking , disbelief that showed in his expression, as it had been in his tone.

"And you haven't seen or heard anything of him since you came here," he said jibingly. "I'm sure you're about to assure me of that also."

On the point of denying it, Trina whitened as she remembered the meeting with Dennis in town and she wished, as she had never wished for anything in her life before, that it had never happened, so

that she could deny it in all truth. Andrew would never believe it was accidental now.

He laughed derisively as he read her expression. "So you have seen him again. When you went up to town a couple of days ago?"

Trina nodded. "It ... it was by accident. I swear it, Andrew. Dennis doesn't mean a thing to me any more. You've got to believe me."

"I'm afraid I had my rose-coloured spectacles destroyed long ago, darling," he retorted, and his tone made the endearment a jibing mockery of what it had once been. "Why didn't you mention him to me before?"

"It ... it never seemed important. He didn't count. . .."

"The man you love didn't count?"

"I don't love him," she denied with desperation in her voice as she began to realise that this was a real threat to their happiness, not just a small misunderstanding that could be cleared up. Jennifer Langley's defection bad left him over-sensitive. "It's you I love. You've got to believe me."

"Or is it my money you love?" he countered swiftly, a hard light glinting in the dark eyes. " 'Woman-haters are such fun to tame - and all that money too,'" he quoted, as if the words had engraved themselves on his memory. "Was it fun? And, of course, 'all that money' would have made the taming worthwhile."

"She was only joking. . . ."

"So? And you didn't take her advice? You didn't decide that if you couldn't have love you might as well have money? You didn't use flattery?"

All this was said in a tone of such derisive, mocking disbelief that she knew it was useless to say much more at the moment... at least until the shock of reading Marda's letter had passed. Surely in a little while he would realise how ridiculous it was to take it seriously. Then she saw his hand go up to the scar in the old unconscious gesture and she could not stop herself starting forward, catching his hand and pulling it down.

"You mustn't do that. You mustn't let the bitterness come back." She smiled pleadingly. "I meant every word I said. The scar doesn't disfigure you."

"I'm sure my money proves as effective as plastic surgery," he jibed.

"Is that what you really believe?"

For a moment the quietness of her voice seemed to hold him, then he shrugged.

"It's not much use your denying it, my dear. I don't happen to be a gullible fool that can be taken in twice."

"Then . . . then there doesn't seem much point in my going to Geraldine," she said in a very small voice, hoping desperately that he would say it was all a ghastly mistake and everything between them was not over. "I might as well go back to town ... as originally arranged."

"I don't see why that should be necessary," he said coolly, and when she looked up at him with incredulous hope in her eyes, he smiled and shook his head. "You needn't worry, my dear. The Dalwin money isn't going to get away from you. I happen to want you still - and as you can be bought, why shouldn't I buy you?" He reached out and gripped her shoulders with strong, cruel fingers, drawing her inexorably closer. "You will go to Geraldine just as we planned.

There's no need for her to know that things are any different between us."

Trina found herself quite unable to say anything, nor did she struggle to escape the close grip of the hands that were drawing her into his arms, even though already she could sense the difference in the way he held her, then his mouth came down on hers' in a kiss so bruising and insulting that, quite involuntarily, she found herself struggling to escape it. But the iron strength she had once gloried in now made her a prisoner and, even though she would have tried to stop it, she found passion rising to answer those brutal, loveless kisses. His hands, which had slipped from her shoulders as he drew her to him, were clamped around her back, but when he at last lifted his head they moved up to her shoulders again. He held her slightly away from him, looking down into her face with a taunting curve to the mouth that had just bruised hers.

"You're quite a good actress. At least you give good value. Maybe I won't regret my . . . purchase."

The deliberate insult of his tone kept her silent and he bent his head again, pressing his lips to the tanned curve of her shoulder. She was wearing a suntop dress and his hands suddenly slipped the straps off her shoulders in a gesture that was quite without respect, bending his head again to touch his lips to the creamy skin thus exposed. When she tried to stop him, he laughed in a way that actually frightened her.

"Oh no, my dear. IH give you my money and my name - but don't expect me to give you any respect."

While she endured more of those brutal, loveless kisses, she wondered desperately what she should do, yet she found herself still giving him her lips willingly, as if subconsciously she must hope that the message of love in them could somehow break through the hard

shell of disbelief he had drawn about him again. Surely he could not fail to realise how much she loved him.

But it was no use. She realised that when he lifted his head. She straightened her dress and he allowed her to do so, but she knew that he still did not believe her, because the dark eyes looked down at her with derision as well as desire.

Now was the time to make her choice. Should she leave him and hope that would bring him to his senses and prove that it was not his money she wanted - or would that make too definite a break? Should she remain behind and take his insults, hoping that when the first suspicion and distrust had passed he would begin to remember what they had meant to each other? He must surely realise that she could not do the things he had accused her of.

"Marda jokes like that," she whispered huskily, making another attempt to try to get him to understand.

"Does she?"

The two words were abrupt and uncompromising.

"I'm used to her ... so I don't take any notice of it. And ... and it is joking. I didn't lie to you."

"Didn't you?"

The same tone was used, and she did not need intuition to tell her that again he refused to believe her.

"I didn't. . . . Andrew, you've got to believe me." She grasped his arms, feeling them taut and hard. "I love you - you've got to believe that. Marda was only joking."

"O.K.," he said harshly. "We'll take it as a joke ... the biggest joke of the season," and with that he jerked her sharply into his arms and kissed her again. "Don't worry. Til play fair my end. You'll get all the diamonds you want."

"I don't want diamonds . . ." she was beginning, but he cut across her words derisively.

"All gold-diggers want diamonds."

"If you still feel like that about me, I can't understand your still wanting to marry me," Trina said quietly.

"Can't you?" One dark brow jerked up and he smiled unpleasantly, his hands on her shoulders gripping her almost cruelly. "I told you, I happen to want you. Realising what you are doesn't alter that - and you'll be clever enough to hold out for marriage. As I said before - if you're for sale, why shouldn't I buy you?"

For a moment, quick anger rising in her, Trina was tempted to retort that she was not for sale, but she restrained her natural indignation and hurt.

"Very well, I'll marry you on those terms," she said evenly.

That dark brow went up again, sardonically. "That's magnanimous of you," he drawled. "What would you like for a wedding present? - and you can make it expensive. I'm sure you've guessed by now that my bank balance can stand it."

"I'll make it a diamond necklace, then," Trina could not help retorting, but her swift anger died as quickly as it had arisen and she caught his arms again. "I don't want diamonds. I'd rather have . . . your love."

"Not very practical of you. Diamonds have more monetary value. I'll get you the diamond necklace." He freed himself from the touch of her pleading hands and glanced at his watch. "Geraldine is due at any moment. I'll bring your cases down for you."

"They're all packed and ready," she told him almost dully. She felt numb now, but she knew that state would not last. Pain would come later - and it would last for a long time. Unless Andrew believed her.

Andrew brought her cases down and stood them in the hall, turning to her with a warning glance as Geraldine's car came up the drive.

"Remember - there's no need for Geraldine to know anything about this. You played the part well enough before, so you can go on doing it."

"I wasn't playing a part..." She broke off, realising it was no use yet. He needed time before he could believe her. The old distrust and suspicion caused by the scar were probably intensified by black jealousy at the realisation that she had loved someone else when she first came to Barakee.

It was bitter pain to have to smile happily at Geraldine when she came into the house, bitter pain to know that beneath Andrew's smile lurked derision and contempt, yet somehow she kept up the pretence of happiness, even made herself chatter in her old happy way as she climbed into the open sports car and held up her face for Andrew to kiss her goodbye. He brushed her lips lightly with his, and even though the contempt was hidden, she knew it was 'still there.

"I'll be over in the morning," he said, and Geraldine laughed and waved a hand in farewell.

"I'll take care of her for you."

The engine started up and the wheels crunched on the gravel drive, yet Trina did not hear it, because she was still remembering the things Andrew had said - and hearing the contempt in his voice.

II

Andrew came over the next day as he had promised, and Trina made every effort to appear natural when Geraldine was with them. Andrew did the same, and she guessed it was because his pride was smarting under the belief of having been, as he thought, so gullible. They smiled at each other and joked, exchanged soft glances, but their jokes had a hidden barb and when they were alone the bitterness and distrust were quite open. Derision and scorn showed in Andrew's dark eyes, contempt on his lips as he kissed her. Again and again Trina asked herself if she was doing the right thing, and still could not decide whether it might have been better to have gone away.

Towards the end of the week Andrew went up to town and, in spite of the bitterness between them, Trina found that she missed his daily visit, wondering if he felt the same, even though for him it would be distorted by the distrust he felt towards her. That she could still feel like that, even after the things he had said to her, only proved that it was going to be very difficult - probably impossible - for her to get over her love for Andrew if it ever did come to a final and irrevocable parting.

When Andrew came back from Sydney and arrived at Patanga she was sitting on the terrace with Geraldine. The older woman looked up, recognised the car that was approaching and prepared to get up.

"I think maybe I had better see Martha about dinner," she remarked casually.

Trina recognised the tactfulness in the remark and half put her hand out to call Geraldine back, but before she could say anything she

found that she was alone (MI the terrace and Andrew was running lightly up the steps towards her.

In spite of herself a natural, involuntary smile broke across her face, because it was so good to see him, and for a moment it seemed that he forgot, because the old spontaneous smile came to his face, but the next second the horrible, derisive, jeering amusement was distorting it.

"That was quite well done," he drawled. "Is Geraldine within view?"

"No," Trina retorted, and there was a trace of sharpness in her voice. "Couldn't I have smiled at you because I wanted to?"

"Why not?" he said lightly. "Maybe you're still hoping for that diamond necklace."

"I don't want a diamond necklace!"

"Not very practical of you, darling," he retorted in that hateful drawl, and slipped an arm around her shoulders. "I said I would give good value in return." His expression changed as he looked down at her. The lazy derision went out of it and dark fire came to life in his eyes. "You beautiful, worthless little gold-digger," he said huskily, and at last bent to claim her lips, but Trina twisted her head aside.

"I won't let you call me that!"

"You can't stop me," he retorted, and this time he used his strength to stop her twisting away from him. Her slight, involuntary resistance which had come from instinctive distaste of the words he had used seemed to amuse and yet at the same time inflame him. He kissed her violently, still with that suggestion of insult, and if she had not been so unhappy she would have been ashamed that she could find pleasure even in kisses of that kind because they came from him. But

delight can be bitter-sweet, and at last she broke away from him, moving quickly back from the terrace and through long french windows into the room behind before he could stop her. He followed her quickly, but just then Geraldine entered the room and effectively cut short any other attempt he might have made to taunt her.

She smiled at them both. "Hallo, my dear," she greeted Andrew. "I hope you appreciated my tact in disappearing."

"I'm eternally grateful," Andrew joked, and anyone who did not know the real position would have taken him for a happy and contented man.

Geraldine laughed. "Dinner won't be long," she said. "Or has love affected your appetite?"

"I'm starving," Andrew replied. He directed a side glance at Trina that was full of lazy, affectionate reproach. "By the way, darling - you ran away a little too soon. I had something to give you." He drew a slim velvet case out of his pocket and Trina felt herself grow cold.

"I... I thought I heard somebody coming," she said confusedly, quite unaware of what words passed her lips, because she was watching Andrew slowly open the case he held.

"Don't tell me you felt shy because of me," Geraldine laughed as she sat down in a comfortable armchair. "Don't worry. I can still remember my own young days,"

Trina made some reply - she never knew afterwards what it was - her dilated eyes on Andrew. He couldn't. . . surely he hadn't. . . but he had. She saw the gleam of diamonds as the lid of the case came fully open. It was a beautiful necklace - and very expensive.

His movements seemed to have a slow deliberation as he took the necklace from its box and fastened it around her neck, where it lay glittering coldly . . . cold to the touch of her skin as well, as she stood trancelike, trying to persuade herself that it was not really happening ... remembering — hearing his voice:

"If you're for sale, why shouldn't I buy you?"

Geraldine looked at the necklace admiringly and then smiled at Trina again.

"Well, my dear - you certainly have him trained the right way."

"Yes, hasn't she?" Andrew drawled, and Trina read the underlying tone and what it implied. Geraldine, however, was quite deceived and shook her head at him chidingly.

"You should have given it to her in private. She can't thank you for it properly with me here - and I'm afraid I don't feel great-hearted enough to heave myself up from this comfortable chair and tactfully disappear again."

Somehow Trina forced a laugh. "I can ... thank him later. If he has to wait, that's his fault."

Thank him! Her first impulse had been to hurl it in his face. Even her love for him was not proof against insults like this one.

After dinner Geraldine settled down with some embroidery, with the radio softly playing some music from one of the latest shows. Andrew turned towards the french doors that led on to the terrace and down into the garden. His fingers were firm and inescapable as he caught Trina's arm.

"We'll see you later," he said over his shoulder to his aunt. "I think it's about time Trina thanked me for her present."

Geraldine laughed, but Trina did not say anything as she silently accompanied Andrew out on to the terrace and down the steps that led into the garden. It was a lovely night with a full moon above and under other circumstances it would have been perfect.

"Well - don't you think it's time you thanked me?" he asked in the drawl he seemed to have adopted lately.

For answer Trina reached up and unfastened the necklace. "I don't want it."

His dark brows went up mockingly. "Don't want it? I thought all girls liked diamond necklaces - and you said you wanted one."

"I... I wasn't serious."

Up went those dark brows again. "Another joke?"

"Not really ... it was just something I didn't mean. You expected me to say something like that . . . and so I did. I don't want it." She thrust it towards him with every appearance of revulsion. "Do you think I could get any pleasure out of it under the circumstances?"

His laugh had the derisive sound she expected. "You do it very well - but wasn't that a dangerous move? I might have taken it back."

"I want you to take it back."

He made a little sound of amused derision, then laughed again. "Don't worry, I won't call your bluff. You can keep it."

"I don't want it!" Trina repeated. "Take the damn thing or ... or do you want me to throw it out there?" - making a violent gesture towards the moon-bathed gardens.

He took it from her. "Let's put it back where it belongs, shall we?" and with slow deliberate movements he fastened it around her neck again.

Although she had stood motionless while he fastened it, a moment later the trance broke and she reached up to her throat with a movement that made it quite obvious that she was going to do as she had threatened.

Andrew's fingers caught her own in a cruel, ruthless grip. "I said leave it there."

Before she could say anything, before she could make any other move, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, again and again, until the contempt disappeared from his lips and only passion was left, joining them together in the white flame of belonging that transcended all suspicion and distrust. It dispelled Trina's impulse to tear off the necklace, again giving her new hope with thfe proof that there was still a slender link joining them.

"Oh, Andrew . . . Andrew ... !" she whispered, her head against his shoulder, feeling the strong beat of his heart against her.

"As I said before . . . you give good value."

The mockingly-drawled words were like a slap in the face. All colour drained away, leaving her deathly white, and the new hope died again.

"Must you . . . must you say things like that?" she asked brokenly.

"Why not give up the pretence? You won't lose anything by being truthful."

"What have I got to lose?" she said bitterly.

"Don't you know?" he countered, and it was, of course, quite deliberate that his glance rested on the necklace as she said it. The thin, strong hands came out to grip her shoul-

ders. "Well get one thing perfectly clear, though. Remember what your friend wrote - 'If you can't have love you might as well have money.' You can't have both."

"I . . . don't quite understand," Trina said slowly. Surely he could not mean the horrible thought that was slowly creeping into her mind.

He smiled slightly. "I think you do."

"You're not suggesting that I would ... would marry you for your money and then ... deceive you by meeting Dennis?"

"Hadn't it occurred to you?" he asked sceptically.

"No, it hadn't." She was surprised to hear that her voice was so calm and even - and then not so surprised, because a kind of cold numbing chill was gripping her heart, killing all feeling. "If that's the way you feel about it, there doesn't seem much use in going on with our marriage, does there?"

"I'm quite prepared to go ahead with it on those conditions," he said equably. "I merely want it understood that you can't have your cake and eat it - that's the old expression isn't it? Most apt sometimes."

Trina looked up at him in silence for fully a moment, hardly comprehending the things he was suggesting. It could not be Andrew speaking to her like this. Surely it was all a dreadful nightmare and she would wake up soon and breathe a sigh of relief that it had not been real.

"Well?" he asked curtly, and that proved it was real.

The single word galvanised her into movement. She tore off the necklace and threw it on the ground at his feet; then she turned and ran into the house, passing Geraldine without a word, ran up the stairs and started to pack with frantic fingers. It was no use. She simply could not go on, not when Andrew suggested that she could be thinking of marrying him and at the same time intending to go away for illicit week-ends with Dennis.

A few minutes later a diffident tap sounded on her door.

She did not answer.

"Trina, may I come in?" Geraldine's voice asked after a pause. Again there was silence from inside the room. "Please, my dear. I know there's something wrong. Perhaps I can help."

"There's nothing wrong," Trina said stonily.

"No? You rush by me like a tornado and a few minutes later Andrew drives away without saying goodbye - and there's still nothing wrong?"

For a moment Trina was tempted not to answer, to take refuge in silence, but at last she went over to the door with dragging footsteps and opened it.

Geraldine's quick, perceptive eyes took in the scene at a glance. "You're going away?" She shook her head. "Don't do it, my dear. No quarrel is that bad. These things happen. It's the tensions before marriage. The little differences always iron themselves out afterwards."

Little differences!

"This is different." She turned away with an almost hunted movement. "Things have been ... wrong between Andrew and myself for some time now."

"I hadn't noticed anything."

"We must be good actors, then," Trina retorted bitterly.

"If you can cover it up by acting, surely that proves it's nothing really serious."

"Nothing really serious!" Trina echoed her words with a wild little laugh that broke in the middle. "Oh no . . . it's nothing really serious. I just can't go on with it, that's all."

"Is it because of your ... your other young man?"

"In a way."

"But I thought that you had got over him . . . that you loved Andrew."

"Perhaps I thought so myself," Trina answered. That might be the best idea, she thought. There was no need for Geraldine to know everything that had happened; no need for her to know the dreadful things Andrew had said to her.

"And you find you can't marry Andrew after all, because you still love this . .. this . .. ?"

"Dennis," Trina finished automatically for her. "Dennis Lenyard."

"But, my dear ... you said he was married ... that nothing could ever cone of it."

Trina attempted to shrug. "I just can't marry Andrew. It wouldn't work."

There was silence for a long moment, then Geraldine quietly took her by the shoulders and looked at her.

"You're not telling me the truth, are you?" A faint sympathetic smile turned her lips. "You really do love Andrew, don't you?"

Trina nodded in defeat. "Yes, I love him. I'll always love him."

"Then why run away? I thought everything was going so wonderfully for you both."

"Well, it isn't," Trina answered bitterly. "It's that dreadful scar . . . and . . ." She broke off as she remembered that Jennifer Langley was the older woman's godchild.

"And Jennifer," Geraldine supplied quietly. "So it's that old affair interfering somehow. You think he's still in love with Jennifer. Is that the trouble?"

Trina shook her head mutely.

"Then what is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"It's always best to talk these things over," Geraldine suggested sofdy. "One can never think of the right solution oneself. Emotion blinds the judgment."

"It wouldn't be any use talking it over," Trina said wearily.

"Why not try? You can't say whether it will be any use or not until we at least try to straighten it out."

For a moment it seemed that Trina was going to refuse again, but suddenly she gave in and the whole story poured from her lips in a

fumbled spate of words. Sometimes Geraldine interrupted her to ask questions, but most of the time she listened with a quiet, serious intentness that showed she was trying to think sensibly about the problem and not indulge in a welter of sympathy, recriminations or any other emotional approach.

She nodded sagely when Trina finished. "I don't blame you for feeling the way you do about it, my dear - but nothing will be solved by running away. You've come so far, surely..."

"I can't take any more of it," Trina broke in. "That he could suggest I would go away with another man ... deceiving him about it ... He can't really love me or he wouldn't be able to say things like that."

"I think that's all the more reason to believe that he does love you, or he wouldn't be taking it quite like this. All people say things they don't really mean when they're angry or upset. He'll get over it. You can't throw everything away now."

"I can't go on," Trina said almost violently. "I'm not marrying him for his money. . . ."

"I know that, my dear," Geraldine interrupted soothingly. "And Andrew will realise it too when he comes to his senses. Just give him time."

"Time! It's been over a week. I could understand him being angry at first. . . but. . . but not as long as this." She fell silent, and when she went on again her voice was calm and quite emotionless. "I have to go away. It's the only way to show him that it's not his money I want. If I break it off quite voluntarily, he must believe it... and if he really loves me he will come after me." She drew her ring off and handed it to Geraldine, who took it reluctantly. "Perhaps you will give this to him and . . . and explain. I would write him a letter with it. .. but I don't think I could express myself too coherently at the moment."

She turned back to her packing, and Geraldine frowned. "You surely don't intend to go tonight?"

"I must." She straightened up, her hand to her head. "I'm sorry, hut I feel as if I have to get away . . . immediately. I ... I can't think* straight. I only know that I've had about all I can take at the moment."

"At least leave it until the morning."

"I can't. I've got to go now," Trina said wildly.

Perhaps Geraldine recognised that she was in a state that could not be argued with at the moment. Probably if she tried to keep Trina at Patanga even overnight the girl was so confused and unhappy she would be crazy enough to sneak out and try to walk to Myuna.

"I'll have the car drive you to the station," she said quietly, and went out, leaving Trina to the final stages of her packing.

Trina came downstairs about ten minutes later and Geraldine met her in the hall.

"I'm driving you myself."

"Please . . . it's not necessary."

"I'm driving you myself," Geraldine retorted shortly, and although she might be a Dalwin only by marriage, she looked remarkably like Andrew at that moment. "I telephoned to Barakee a few minutes ago," she remarked as she started up the car.

"You shouldn't have done . . ." Trina began, but Geraldine cut across her words.

"Don't you think Andrew has a right to know that you're leaving? He might want to come to the station and stop you going."

Trina's lips twisted bitterly, as if she thought that most unlikely. Nevertheless, she had to ask, "What did he say?"

"He hadn't arrived back at the time ... but I left a message."

Half an hour later they were in Myuna. She had never dreamed when she first saw the tall flame trees of Myuna that she would be returning like this. She had thought she would return, of course — but not like this, not in love with the owner of Barakee and barred from his heart because another girl had long ago made him ultra-sensitive about a scar. And Marda, who was her friend, had all unwittingly brought back that bitterness and magnified it a thousandfold.

"As you can be bought, why shouldn't I buy you?"

Those hateful words ringing again and again in her memory . . . the glitter of moonlight on a diamond necklace . . . all the cruel memories that hurt even more because things had once been so different between them.

But she was quite certain now that she could never have married Andrew under those conditions, believing the things he did about her. If he really loved her he would soon realise how untrue they were and he would come after her.

Geraldine watched her with worried eyes as she got out of the car at Myuna's attractive little railway station, but she did not say anything until they discovered that Trina would have to wait for a slow all-stations train and that was not expected for another hour and a quarter. They had been in no mood to think of looking up train time-tables when they left Patanga.

"Would you rather I remained with you until the train came, or . . . ?"

"I think I would rather be alone," Trina said as Geraldine paused. "If you don't mind," she added.

Geraldine frowned, quite obviously loath to leave her, and she said as much aloud.

"I don't like leaving you like this."

"It's the only way."

Geraldine frowned again, hesitated, and then caught the girl's arms in a gentle grip.

"I won't say goodbye, because I feel sure you will be coming back. Andrew will come after you as soon as he gets my message."

Trina's lips curved into a bitter little smile of disbelief, and Geraldine shook her head.

"Don't look like that. He'll come after you. If I didn't feel so sure of it, I wouldn't allow you to go away like this."

"And if he doesn't come after me . . . ?"

"He will," Geraldine assured her confidently. "So we'll say au revoir, shall we, not goodbye."

Au revoir, not goodbye, Trina told herself when Geraldine had gone. It must work out all right. Andrew must come after her. It had to be au revoir .. . not goodbye.

III

Trina watched the car drive away, then went slowly back into the station. It was a long while to wait, but she was glad of it, because it would give Andrew time to receive Geraldine's message and come after her - if he ever did.

For a few minutes she sat in the waiting room, then went to the station buffet for a cup of tea, but it could have been quite tasteless and she had drunk hardly half of it before she went out on to the platform again, along to the end where there was a gaily painted paling fence, brightly yellow under the station lights, that gave her a clear view of the street outside. Somehow she held on to her faith. In a few minutes now Andrew's car would come sliding to a stop there ... and he would jump out and she would see the lights glinting on the dark hair in the way she loved. Perhaps he would run on to the platform just as the train arrived and sweep her outside in the very nick of time . . . but he would come. However late it was, he would come.

He did not come. Slowly, reluctantly, as if the train itself protested at having to go back to Sydney, the "all-stations" ground into the station, she climbed aboard, still gazing towards the paling fence with helpless longing, but there was no black car there, no man with moonlight and street lamps glinting on his hair, and slowly the flower-beds slid past and the tall flame trees of Myuna receded behind them.

He had not come to Myuna in time, but he would come to Sydney. He must come to Sydney.

The slow train made the nightmare journey even worse, prolonging the agony of hope that she would see Andrew again, that he would be waiting for her when she arrived at Central. On those occasions when the rail track ran alongside the Sydney road she found herself

watching the headlights of the cars that went past, hoping that one of them would be the fast black car that would enable Andrew to reach Sydney ahead of the slow "all-stations", but it was of course quite impossible to recognise anything outside in the darkness . . . and there was nobody waiting for her when the train at last ground into Central Station and let out a great burst of steam, like a sigh of relief, as if it had not quite believed it would be able to make it. Not even Marda was waiting to meet her, because of course Marda was not expecting her and was probably, at this late hour, peacefully asleep. Marda still thought that Trina was to stay at Patanga until the wedding took place.

Wedding! She felt a sob rise to her throat and swallowed hard. Even so, a slight mist rose to her eyes and she brushed it away dully, then picked up her two suitcases and started to walk down the platform. They were fairly heavy because she had sent for more of her clothes when she had not expected to have to live at the flat again, but she did not even start to look for a porter. Struggling with their weight gave her something to occupy her mind and distract it from the dull misery of what had happened and the knowledge that Andrew had not come straight after her.

At the sound of her key in the flat lock Marda apparently awakened, and when Trina turned from depositing her suitcases inside the door the older girl was just coming out of the bedroom fastening the girdle of her dressing gown, There was a look on her face compounded of stunned surprise and a slight trace of dissipating alarm that had apparently come from the thought that some unauthorised visitor was breaking in.

She blinked, opened her mouth to say something, but after one quick look at Trina's expression closed it again and instead swooped on the suitcases and bore them off into the bedroom. When she came back she pushed her friend down into a chair and went to put the kettle on.

"There's a new packet of biscuits in there," she informed Trina, indicating a shopping bag that lay still unemptied on a chair. "Open it while I make the tea, will you, pet?"

Trina complied automatically, but when Marda came back with a tray set with teapot and cups and saucers she said abruptly:

"I've quarrelled with Andrew."

Marda shot her a quick glance. "There's no need to talk about it if you don't want to."

"I knew you would be wondering why I came back. . . ." She stopped, remembering suddenly that it had been Marda's letter that had caused the difference in Andrew. Marda must not be allowed to guess that, because the first thing she would do would be to blame herself, and even though it was quite true that, indirectly, she had been the cause of the break-up, a genuine desire to make trouble would have been so far from her mind that it would be unfair to let her know exactly what that letter had done. "Andrew is over-sensitive about some things," she said at last. "And I suppose I'm rather quicktempered. . . . Things just got out of hand."

Marda gave her a bracing smile. "Don't worry. Things will work out all right. You'll probably wake up to find him on the doorstep in the morning," and she pushed a cup of tea towards her friend, as if that panacea for all ills could cure even a broken heart. Yes, that was what she would have to believe, Trina told herself. The bond between Andrew and herself was too strong to be broken like this. As Marda said, he would probably come tomorrow - but she could not stop the coldness clutching at her heart as she realised what the future would be like if he did not come. Even Andrew thinking badly of her would have been better than nothing at all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I

CONTRARY to everything she had expected, Trina slept heavily and undisturbed. Perhaps it was emotional exhaustion that caused it, but at least she did not lie awake and dwell on memories and bitter thoughts. It was not until strong morning sunlight fell on her face that she awakened.

Throwing back the bedclothes, she slid her feet into heel- less slippers and stood up, wrapped her dressing gown around her and went along to the bathroom, turning on shower taps with almost automatic movements. Some time later, when she went out into the tiny little lounge, fully dressed and her hair impeccably braided, Marda was in the act of placing the familiar pot of tea on the table and the savoury smell of frying bacon came from the kitchen, although there had been no sign of her around when Trina had first got up.

"Hi . . . have a good sleep?" she greeted her friend. "I didn't disturb you after the journey you had last night. I know what a nightmare some of those slow trains can be."

"Marvellous sleep," Trina assured her, trying to appear natural herself. "Didn't wake up once."

"Good." She moved towards the kitchen. "I slipped out to replenish the bacon supply while you were snoozing. I won't be a jiff, must see it doesn't burn," and she disappeared from sight into the tiny kitchen.

They were fairly silent over the first part of breakfast, but when the plates were empty and the teapot was approaching the halfway mark, Marda looked up, her expression and voice carefully casual.

"Feel like talking about it now?"

Trina shrugged. "There's not really much to tell."

"It helps to get if off your chest, you know - and I won't gossip."

"I know that," Trina said instantly.

"I won't even offer advice if you want it that way."

Trina smiled slightly in spite of herself. "You make it sound very attractive, but I don't want to burden you with my cares."

Marda made a retort, half rude, telling her not to talk such nonsense, and then somehow Trina found herself telling Marda something of what had happened, not everything, of course - certainly not the fact that it was the letter which had started everything off.

"You knew about the scar, of course," she said carefully. "And . . . and the amount of importance he attaches to it."

"Yes, you mentioned that before," Marda said evenly. . "He can't quite get over the idea that it makes him look like some sort of monster, and when he heard about . . . about..."

"About Dennis?" Marda finished as her voice faltered slightly. "Is that what started it off?"

Trina nodded. "More or less. I can't tell you exactly what it was ... except that he got the wrong idea about something, and even when I swore it wasn't the truth, he wouldn't believe me."

"So you up and flung his ring in his face when that gorgeous little temper of yours got out of hand?" Marda asked quizzically.

"Well, not exactly ... not at that time. That happened a week later." And it had not been his ring she threw at him but that beautiful and insulting diamond necklace.

Marda raised her brows at that. "A week later!" Her tone seemed to imply that if things had been smoothed over for a week, surely they could have been kept simmering at a low level for a while longer until the misunderstanding died out altogether.

She said as much aloud, but Trina shook her head. "I . .. I tried that, but it didn't work. He still had the impression that I was marrying him for his money, then he ... he told me I had to make up my mind that I couldn't have my cake and eat it too." She winced, remembering his tone as he had said that. "He seemed to have the idea that I intended marrying him and then meeting Dennis secretly."

"The skunk." Marda said very forcefully.

Trina shook her head. "No ..."

Marda seemed about to enter on an argument about the little striped animal and its relation to mankind, but cut short whatever she had been about to say as Trina spoke.

"I couldn't stand it any longer. I thought if I broke the engagement voluntarily and went away he would see that I wasn't interested in his money. I thought he would come after me . . . but he hasn't," she finished, looking down.

"The day's only a pup yet," Marda said. "You'll see - he'll be here in no time at all now," although how anybody could want to have back a creature who could say things like that was quite beyond her, her tone seemed to add.

During the morning Trina had positive proof that time could pass at an entirely different rate from that evidenced on the clock face. Time and time again, convinced that about an hour had passed, she would glance at the clock, only to find that it was no more than a few minutes. The few hours until mid-day seemed as if they could have been months - and there was still no Andrew. The hours of the afternoon then did an about-face and simply flew past. There was still no Andrew, and night drew in quickly after the sun set in a glorious blaze of colours. He would not come now, she told herself - and he did not come. In the morning hope awoke again, but the day went as before. And the next day . . . and the next, until she lost all hope and slowly forced herself to accept that he was not craning ... that he was never coming ... yet she could still find no resentment in her heart, could still not force herself to hate him for the things he had said to her, because she knew they came out of his own deep hurt. Jennifer Langley had wounded him too deeply, and that letter had brought back all his distrust and suspicion of women.

Perhaps she should not have left Patanga as she had, but every time she tried to decide whether she had really done right it was impossible to know, only that to have gone on in the same manner as last week would have eventually destroyed everything she felt for him. Then she would tell herself that she had been right to leave, and if he ever found he could trust her again he would come after her, late as it was, knowing that she would forgive him anything. Hadn't she once said to him that she would forgive anything to the man she loved? He would remember that, and if he realised the mistake of what he had believed and still wanted her, he would come after her.

II

Life had to go on, though, and she went out looking for work and was lucky enough to get back her job in the International Ballet. She tried to assuage the hurt memory of Andrew by throwing herself into her work, and sometimes, while she danced, it was possible to forget,

but it always came back afterwards. Useless to tell herself that she would ever really forget him.

Once she had told herself that when he found he could trust her again he would remember that she had said she would forgive anything to the man she loved, and then he would come after her - but apparently he had not regained his trust and he did not want her, because as week passed week and grew into months there was no letter, not even a single line from him, and so at last she had to accept that he had been just an episode in her life, a painful and lasting episode on her side, but to him something that was over and done with. She was now classed with Jennifer Langley, and his mistrust and suspicion would never allow them to come together again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I

WITH her partner holding her with easy strength, Trina allowed her supple body to sway over backwards. Crashing chords broke around them and finally came lingering silence. For a few moments longer the spell of the music and the old legend she had been dancing still held her, but soon she began to come back to reality, to remember all those things she would rather forget. Then, as always, she would clamp down on those painful memories with firm mental fingers - even though they could never be properly controlled - and smile and talk to the others around her as rehearsals broke up.

As she went along to the dressing room, a crowd of chattering girls with her, Trina found herself glad of one thing at least, the fact that she seemed to be successfully hiding her longing for Andrew. It had been unavoidable that news of her broken engagement should be known to the people she worked with, since most of them knew that she had once resigned to be married, but most of them took very little notice and did not seem to pity her. Some of them even jokingly said that she must have thrown him over because she liked dancing better. Because pride was all she had left, she let them think that, but the restless nights that came to her time and again told her how wrong they were.

Days grew into weeks and another month passed. That made four months in all since she had left Barakee. Sometimes she hoped that chance would make Andrew's path cross her own - after all, they both worked in Sydney - but although she always told herself how slender that chance was, that out of all the many, many people in the city they should meet, she still went on hoping. After all, she had once met Dennis by accident. Even if they should meet, though, she did not know what that would accomplish, but perhaps it would give her some final indication whether everything really was all over between

Andrew and herself, or, miraculously, it might make everything come right.

There was no meeting, however, accidental or otherwise, and life went on from day to day. It was not that the pain grew any less, but she became more accustomed to it.

If one wanted to be thoroughly clinical and cold-blooded about it - as only an outsider could - she supposed people would say it was just as well that the lack of trust had been discovered before they were married, especially if there had been children of their own to complicate the matter, yet she bit her lips with a little sob she could not keep back at the thought of all that was irretrievably lost.

She would never have the happiness of bearing Andrew's children, never hold in her arms a child whose dark eyes would be an exact replica of his; never see a son or daughter of his come running towards her. But she must not think like that, must not let her thoughts dwell on something that was finished.

II

With the perversity of fate in such matters, now that she did not want him - had no use for him at all in fact - Trina suddenly discovered that Dennis was free.

It was a Saturday morning and she was humming to herself as she tidied the flat while Marda was out doing some shopping. Even though she was missing Andrew unbearably, there were still those moments when her spirits would lift unaccountably and she would find herself humming to herself or even singing.

When the doorbell rang she thought it was Marda. They each had a key, but there was always the possibility that the other girl had left

hers behind or, burdened with parcels, had not been able to get at it - but when she opened the door Dennis was revealed on the doorstep.

Her first instinctive reaction was to try to shut the door on him, but he was inside before she could stop him, smiling and shaking his head chidingly.

"That's no way to greet me."

"Why have you come here?"

"To see you, of course, darling."

In spite of her desire to push him outside and have nothing more to do with him, she could not help asking:

"How did you know I was back?"

"I didn't know until last night. I happened to be passing the International and I saw your photograph outside."

So that was how he had found out. When she had first seen her photograph outside as one of the solo dancers she had felt the thrill natural to anyone in such a position, but now she wished wholeheartedly that she had remained in obscurity.

"I made a few enquiries, said I had thought you had left to be married, and they told me your engagement had been broken off and you were back with them." He caught her hand, glancing at the ringless fingers with satisfaction. "So you couldn't go on with it."

Trina snatched her hand away, as she had that day in the cafe. "That has nothing to do with you."

"Hasn't it?"

For a moment she could not quite understand what that complacent, self-satisfied smile was hinting at - then suddenly the astounding truth struck her. He was actually conceited enough to think that she had broken off her engagement because of him.

"Are you seriously suggesting that I broke off my engagement to Andrew because I still love you?" she asked incredulously. Even now, hearing her voice speak the astounding thing aloud, she could not imagine that he really believed it, but apparently he did. His smile did not grow in the least undecided. If anything it was even more complacent.

"Didn't you?" he said, as if her evasion amused him. "Darling, I've got some wonderful news."

He tried to take her into his arms, but Trina evaded him with a quick movement.

"For heaven's sake ... !" she began indignantly. "We're just going round in circles. I told you the last time we met that I didn't want to have anything more to do with you."

Dennis smiled again. "I know all about those little scruples of yours, darling. They don't matter any more, though."

"Don't they? They matter to me," Trina retorted.

He smiled indulgently at that. "Aren't you going to ask me my good news?"

"I'm not interested in you or your good news - and I don't care if you've won the lottery or inherited the crown jewels. Get out of here and leave me alone!"

Her dark blue eyes had started to sparkle angrily and she even stamped one small foot.

"Temper," he said chidingly, as if he was humouring a child. That was how he treated women, as if they were playthings, to be teased and made love to, but never to be treated as responsible adults. He would be the sort of man who would always want his wife to be completely subservient to him and hang adoringly on his every word, becoming a bully if she did not. He would probably not like her to have ideas of her own and always insist on making up her mind for her. That was doubtless why he was finding it so bard to accept his dismissal.

"I must admit being angry suits you," he remarked, moving towards her and adding, "But for heaven's sake, darling, do stop playing tag," as she matched his move of coming towards her by immediately putting more distance between them.

"Then stop playing tag yourself," Trina snapped. She shrugged almost exaggeratedly, wondering how she could have been stupid enough to have once imagined herself in love with this conceited, thick-skinned egotist. "All right. Tell me your news," she added. Perhaps then she could get rid of him.

"Linda is dead."

"Oh . . . I'm sorry." It sounded lame, but she could not think of anything else to say.

"Sorry? Darling, don't be so idiotic."

"And don't you be so callous," Trina flashed back. She had never met Linda Lenyard and at one time she had even hated her, because she would not release Dennis, but now his unfeeling satisfaction made her dislike him more than ever.

He shrugged. "Do you want me to be hypocritical about it? Linda and I mutually disliked each other and recently I almost hated her

because she wouldn't give me my freedom. It hadn't mattered so much before I met you."

Some of her dislike and anger abated as she realised that, whatever he was, he really did love her in his own way.

"I'm afraid it's too late to make any difference now," she said in a more gentle tone. "I told you some time ago that everything was finished between us."

"Things were different then. Now we can get married."

"But I don't want to marry you." Her voice was still gentle. "Can't you understand, Dennis? I was lonely before ... I didn't know anything about men or love ... so I thought what I felt for you was love. Then I fell in love with somebody else. It didn't work out, but I still love him."

"I don't believe you. This is just a way to pay me out, isn't it?"

"Pay you out? Whatever for?"

"Because I tried to persuade you to come away with me. I didn't know you were spiteful, Trina."

"And would that make you decide I wasn't worth loving, if I was spiteful?" She hoped it might, but he shook his head.

"Of course not. Everyone has their faults."

"That's magnanimous of you." Really, he made it difficult to be gentle with him. His persistence was making her temper rise again and she almost snapped the words. "If you don't ..."

She broke off hearing with relief the sound of Marda's key in the lock. The elder girl came in, paused, her expression indicating that

she thought she smelt something bad, and exchanged a glance of mutual dislike with Dennis.

"You're just going, I hope," she said bluntly.

"Yes," Trina answered for him. "We've said all we need to."

He hesitated for a moment, shot another glance of acute dislike at Marda, turned to Trina and seemed about to say something else, then abruptly swung round and went out.

Marda closed the door. "I feel like opening all the windows," she remarked, turning back to Trina. "How long has that skunk been here?"

"Not very long. I didn't invite him . . ."

"Of course not," Marda interrupted. "I wasn't suggesting that for one moment. How did he find out you were back?" Trina explained about the photograph. "Trust him. What did he want this time? Same thing, I suppose."

"His wife has just died," Trina said quietly.

Marda's fly-away brows went up. "Did you offer condolences or congratulations?" She shrugged. "Excuse my acid tongue, but he rouses all that's bad in me. I suppose he came round to ask you to marry him."

"Yes."

Marda shot her a suddenly sharp look. "You weren't mad enough to say yes?"

"Of course not."

The older girl breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought he might have caught you in a bad moment, or something like that, and you decided to go back to your first so-called 'love' to forget the Dalwin man."

"I'm not likely ever to do that," Trina answered her quietly.

"I suppose even hankering after Andrew Dalwin is better than being married to somebody like Dennis Lenyard," Marda conceded reluctantly. "No woman would be able to call her life her own. He'd want to decide every single thing she should do. That would be bad enough even if you loved him. Some other poor creature will have that honour. Someone's sure to fall for that handsome face of his and regret it later."

She wandered over to switch on the radio and in listening to the news they dismissed Dennis from their minds. After lunch - she was not dancing that evening and had the whole week-end off - Trina decided to go out for a while, so they both collected their swimming things and went down to the beach, since the weather was still fairly warm, although mornings and evenings were beginning to sharpen with the coming of autumn. The next day, Sunday, Trina went out on her own. She had no real idea of where she was going and merely walked for a while, then happening to be near a tram stop when a tram came along, decided to go into the city.

It was very quiet in town, with none of the bustle of a weekday morning, and for a little while she wandered through Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens, but her appreciation of her lovely surroundings was a little absent- minded. After a time she walked down to Circular Quay and stood watching the ferries coming and going across the harbour, debating whether she might take a trip across to Manly, but decided, on some odd impulse, to go instead up to the look-out on the harbour bridge pylon. She told herself that she went because the view was well worth it, the whole of Sydney spread out around and below her, but after a few moments of self-deception

she acknowledged that she went up there because she wanted to pretend that somewhere down there among all those buildings, the old ones and the tall, new skyscrapers, was Andrew, when all the time common sense told her that he was many miles away at Barakee.

She came down to ground level at last and decided to follow out her previous half-formed thought of going across to Manly, purchased her little metal token and went through the turnstiles at the barrier and sat down to await the ferry's arrival. Because her mind once again wanted to dwell on memories of Andrew, she concentrated almost fiercely on watching the other shorter-distance ferries coming and going. At last the Manly ferry arrived and she picked her way up the gangplank, watching other people board. There were quite a few of them, even though it was still relatively early, because Manly was a very popular resort, set right out near the north head of the great harbour bay, with one beach on the harbour side and the other beach pounded by the rolling Pacific surf.

It was a pleasant journey, even though the large, oceangoing ferry pitched a little as it crossed the open stretch of water between the north and south heads, where the waves rolled in from the enormous Pacific distances; then they were in calm water again and drawing in towards the ferry wharf at Manly, with its great swimming beach entirely enclosed in shark-proof net.

When she left the ferry she spent a short while watching the people swimming, then turned and crossed the road towards the Corso, a wide but short street with large modern shops on either side and a row of palm trees in the centre, that led down to the other beach on the Pacific side of Manly.

For a while she sat down on a gaily painted seat, then got up and walked a short distance along the ocean beach road, where tall pines

grew in a narrow strip of green reserve, before she at last turned back to the ferry wharf.

A breeze had sprung up by then and the water was rather rough, so that the ferry rocked from side to side quite a bit, but a rough sea had never bothered her, even on the original journey to Australia when it had been very rough at one time, and so she hardly took any notice of it.

"Have a nice time?" Marda greeted her when she returned.

Trina nodded. "It made a change."

"I meant to tell you earlier, but the Lenyard creature put it out of my mind - Piers and I were talking about arranging a picnic for a few of us before the weather gets too chilly. We thought maybe somewhere up the Hawkesbury ... and make a whole week-end of it."

"Sounds good. I don't get another free week-end until the week after next, though."

In the end the week-end turned out to be different from what was at first expected - in more ways than one. They had intended to book into one of the hotels there, but as more and more people joined in the end-of-season outing a married couple turned up among them who owned a large holiday cottage actually on the Hawkesbury River.

If the arrangements were slightly different at the beginning, the end of that outing was far unlike what anyone could have imagined. When they first set out it was pouring with rain, but everyone remained hopeful, and when they had been on the road only about ten minutes it cleared up, which seemed quite a promising omen.

Before long they were leaving Sydney behind them, running through the outer suburbs, out to Hornsby, climbing all the way, with the first of the mountains appearing in deep rock- and bush-covered slopes, farther along the road that was the main highway to the north, through more of those valleys and low mountains that, even though they were so near to civilisation, always looked as if they were part of some primeval wilderness. From up high they caught their first glimpse of the broad and beautiful Hawkesbury River, the sun glinting on its shining waters, the bush and rock slopes reflected in its gleaming surface. As they crossed the road bridge they could see, farther along the river, a fast diesel train crossing the railway bridge, probably on the long journey to Brisbane. Once Andrew and herself had planned that they would go to Brisbane, Trina remembered wistfully, flying there, to go on to Surfers' Paradise for their honeymoon . . . and "She bit her lip with an involuntary wince and hoped that her companions did not notice.

Marda and Piers (he owned no car of his own) were in the back indulging in gay badinage, and Trina was seated beside the driver, endeavouring to talk to him like any other girl out on a gay picnic week-end. He was luckily the type to do the talking for both of them, so her end of the conversation was not hard to keep up. Ahead of them was the car owned by the married couple, who were leading the way, and behind them the third car of the cavalcade.

"Not much farther to go," Marda called out. "I've been here before. You'll love the place."

The house they were making for was not in any town or settlement, but one of the isolated holiday cottages scattered here and there along the river. The actual township of Hawkesbury River was some miles behind them new and they had started to climb up into the mountains again.

"We turn off soon on to a little dirt track that goes down towards the river," Marda told them, and the driver gave a dry laugh.

"That will be nice for my springs."

In spite of his gay, talkative air he was an extremely good driver, the type of person who inspired confidence, and Trina relaxed at his side, feeling none of the qualms she had had when she had occasionally driven with Dennis in the old days. All three passengers were relaxed and nobody had any premonition of disaster until it struck.

Recent attempts had been made to straighten out the twisting, turning road, as it wound its way between the mountains, but there were still many dangerous places and sharp turns - and a large freighter, obviously out of control, suddenly came around one of those turns on the wrong side of the road. It missed the leading car and careered straight towards them.

Trina had a split-second impression of the driver frantically wrenching at the wheel and knew he had a hideous choice to make. The road was narrow, a sheer drop on one side, cliff and careering lorry on the other side. He knew he could not pull up in time before the car would go over the edge, and so he chose to take the impact, throwing his body across Trina to shield her as the car struck the lorry head-on and both smashed into the cliff face. That much was all she remembered ... the sound of a scream, it could have been her own or Marda's, a terrible impact and glass shattering . . . then darkness.

III

Trina opened her eyes and saw a shielded light high up on the ceiling. Dark night showed behind the windows, city lights glittering in it. A white-clad figure swam into view. A nurse.

"I'm in hospital," she whispered to herself, and her shocked mind registered that fact.

The white-clad figure came nearer and a plain but very pleasant face smiled down at her, surrounded by a floating veil.

"Feeling better?"

"What happened?" Trina whispered, surprised to find that her voice would not rise to much more than a whisper.

"Don't worry about that," she was instructed.

"The others . . . ?"

A professional smile crossed the plain, pleasant features. "Don't worry about things now."

"But I must know!" In her weakened state it seemed absolutely imperative. She knew she would not be able to rest. "Marda and Piers . . . ?"

"They are quite all right. Merely bruises and abrasions, not even any bones broken. The back of the car wasn't badly damaged at all."

But what about the front? A sudden nightmare vision of the careering lorry came back to her, the almost unknown young man wrenching frantically at the wheel of the car.

"The driver?" Something in that professionally expressionless face told her, and she added almost in a whisper, which was all her voice could manage in any case, "He . . . he's dead, isn't he?"

"My dear .. . I'm sorry. There was nothing we could do."

Trina turned her head away, feeling the tears start to her eyes.

"He threw himself across me to save me." She bit her lip almost violently. "I hardly knew him ... and he did something like that... for me."

"Some men are like that. They make up for all the bad ones in the world." There was a little silence, then the soft voice added, "He must have died instantly. He couldn't have felt anything ... if that helps at all."

"Yes ... it does help," Trina whispered, and turned her head weakly into the pillow. Slowly the hot and burning tears welled from her eyes and rolled down into the spotless white of the pillow. She had not cried when Dennis made her so miserable, she had not cried - at least not very much - when she had lost Andrew, but now the brave self-sacrificing act of a man she had known for only a few hours seemed to unlock the floodgates. A little later she felt something prick her arm and she went quietly to sleep.

The next time she awoke there was a familiar face watching her anxiously.

"Marda," she whispered. "You're all right?"

Marda grinned crookedly and seemed unharmed except for a bandaged hand. "I'm the one that should be asking you that."

"They tell me I'll survive," she said with an attempt to joke. "But I... I probably wouldn't if it hadn't been for... for Peter."

Marda nodded, biting her lips. "He was a nice boy." Her face hardened slightly. "All the lorry driver has is a broken leg." She forced a smile. "I suppose we shouldn't really blame him too much, though. He didn't know his brakes would go suddenly like that."

"How is Piers?" Odd how hard it was to speak, how breathless it made her.

"Just a few scratches and bruises." Again her smile was a little forced. "It hasn't even spoilt his manly beauty."

Trina's thoughts flew involuntarily to Andrew. He had received the scar on his face in a car accident. Something of what she was thinking must have shown on her face, because Marda said abruptly:

"You're thinking of Andrew, aren't you?"

Whatever Trina might have said then, whether or not she intended to deny her increased need of him, the words were never spoken, because one of the sisters came along then to chase Marda out, telling her she could come again when the patient was a little stronger.

It was then, after Marda's departure, that Trina learned she was in a special ward, known as Recovery, where all patients were brought straight from the operating theatre and kept until the most dangerous period had passed, then they were transferred to the normal wards. Recovery Ward was entirely staffed with fully qualified nursing sisters, except for a couple of senior nurses. It was a ward that did not have much of the general routine and patients usually did not remain there for very long. When she herself was transferred towards late afternoon, Trina knew that although she might still feel terrible, the most dangerous period had passed.

To her surprise they did not transfer her to one of the large general wards, but to what was apparently called an Intermediate Ward, a long room that took two beds only. In the centre, running from one side of the room to the other, was a long chromium rod with a blue curtain attached to it by gleaming rings. For a while the curtain was left pulled across, but after a time a nurse came in and pulled the curtain aside, presumably deeming that Trina had now recovered

somewhat from the ordeal of being transferred from the Recovery Ward.

"Now you can look at each other," she remarked with a smile, and Trina discovered that the woman in the other bed was about fifty, smiling and grey-haired.

"Doesn't look very much wrong with me, does there?" she remarked cheerfully when the nurse had gone out and left them alone. "They're going to allow me to go home the day after tomorrow."

Trina managed a smile somehow or other. "I expect you're glad. My grandfather was in hospital once and he said that although they treat you wonderfully he was glad to get home."

The woman nodded. "He was quite right," and she went on to disclose that, like all other women in her position, she was wondering what was happening to her husband and family and worrying about how they were managing, although they assured her that they were doing quite well and that she was not to bother herself about it.

After a while silence fell between them, and Trina was rather glad of it, because she still did not feel in a state to carry on an extensive conversation. For some moments she lay with her head turned towards the large windows that overlooked the park, then she turned back to looking at the fittings of the room, the tabletop locker at her side, the wheeled trolley that fitted right over the bed, to take her meals on, or to be used for anything else when she felt fit enough, the bell right near her finger to summon the nurse, pale blue venetian blinds at the windows - and she began to wonder.

She was under no illusion that it would not be far more expensive than the Public Ward, and she wondered why they had put her there, but perhaps there had been no room anywhere else. Anyway, she did not intend to worry about it. That would only retard her recovery. She

had quite a bit of money saved up and it should be able to cover her hospital expenses easily and a holiday until she was ready to return to work. She had never touched the money that had come to her on her grandfather's death, and had spent very little of the generous salary that had been paid for her time at Barakee.

The thought of Barakee of course brought Andrew to mind but she almost fiercely made herself break away from the danger of falling into a bitter reverie and instead concentrated on trying to count the petals on the flowers which Marda had brought for her and which now stood on top of the locker. She must have concentrated so hard on counting that she fell asleep, because when she awoke again it was tea-time and she surprised herself by finding that she was able to eat with quite an appetite.

In the morning she was awakened about five o'clock by a tremendous clatter in the adjoining Public Ward. It seemed that nurses, after being as quiet as mice all night long, about that time in the day could make more noise than a horde of small boys as they went round with cups of tea, calling out cheerfully and very successfully waking everyone up.

Trina found a little round tray containing her own individual pot of tea set down on her trolley, and although she would rather have slept through, found that she thoroughly enjoyed the tea, even if it was at such an unearthly hour. Eventually, when the washing rounds had been done and beds straightened, she was allowed to settle down again until breakfast, and she lay back on her pillows feeling drowsily content, especially as a ray of weak morning sunlight slowly moved along until it found its way across her bed.

In the afternoon she had an unexpected visitor. For a moment she just stared as the door opened and Geraldine came in.

"Hallo, my dear." She smiled as she closed the door and came nearer. "You certainly do things the hard way."

Trina smiled slightly. "I'm told it's not wise to argue with runaway lorries."

"Nor cliffs." Then she touched the girl's hand lightly. "How are you, my dear? I should have asked that straight away."

"They tell me I shall recover perfectly all right," Trina replied. "No permanent damage. I shall be able to dance again too."

"Thank heaven for that! We ... I was worrying about that."

We? Did that include Andrew? That was too much to hope for though. Or if she had been permanently injured might Andrew have felt he had some responsibility towards her, because she had once been engaged to him? Her pride quickly refuted that. Even if it had been the case, she would not have wanted anything that was not given willingly.

"I suppose you read about it in the papers," she said, to take her mind off Andrew.

Geraldine nodded. "Yes . . . but your friend Marda telephoned me earlier . . . just after it happened."

"Marda telephoned you?"

"Yes." She did not add to that, but paused, frowning slightly, then went off on a different track. "That young man ... they said he shielded you with his own body. Was he ... had he come to mean a lot to you?"

Trina moved her head slightly, trying to shake it. "I'd only met him that morning."

Geraldine gave a sigh of relief, seemed about to say something, became silent for a moment, then said:

"The children wanted to come, but I told them to leave it until another time. I didn't think you would be up to seeing them yet."

"I'd love to see them ... if you're in town again before I leave hospital."

"Don't be silly," Geraldine retorted immediately. "Of course I shall be in town." She hesitated again, then said bluntly, "I suppose you're wondering why Andrew hasn't come."

Trina made herself pause for a moment, so that she could be sure her voice was perfectly even when she answered.

"There's really no reason why he should. After all .. . we don't mean anything to ... I mean our engagement was broken off. ..."

"Yes…"

The single word hung in the air, but it had a sort of tone about it, as if it should have been part of some longer remark.

"How is the new factory going?" Trina asked. At least that was an impersonal enough subject.

"Fairly well. There has been some slight delay to do with building materials, I believe, but apart from that everything is going smoothly." Geraldine paused and then added abruptly, "I suppose you didn't know that Andrew is in America?"

"No, I didn't know," Trina answered carefully. Something in her voice must have given her away, though, because Geraldine looked at her with a sympathetic smile.

"You still love him, don't you?"

On the point of allowing her pride to make her deny it, Trina nodded instead.

"Yes ... I suppose I do. Just one of those things you can't help."

Geraldine shook her head with a sigh. "And Andrew is so unreadable, of course. Sometimes I feel I could hit him, even if he is my nephew," she added with a touch of grim exasperation.

"It can't be helped," Trina said, endeavouring to smile and make light of it. "Just one of those things," she repeated.

There was another of those little silences, not really uncomfortable. "I suppose you've wondered why I haven't contacted you before," Geraldine said after a moment. "I thought it might be better this way," she added, giving Trina no time to reply. "You might forget all about us more easily if you had no contact with us at all."

Trina bit back the reply that she would not forget Andrew even if she never saw a Dalwin again in her whole life, and instead changed the subject and asked about the Campbell children. Geraldine fell in with her wishes immediately and told her that the children were now, after a notorious scholastic past, doing very well indeed. Julie was the top of her class and Rod claimed to have seen a "flying saucer". Optical illusion or not, it seemed to have once again aroused his interest in science and his teacher reported an avid interest in those particular lessons, although he had fallen from grace once when, with two other boys, he had annexed a piece of sodium, dropped it down the school laboratory sink and turned on the tap. The resultant explosion as the sodium reacted with the water had blown a hole in the pipe, for which all three had been in dire disgrace. Geraldine was smiling as she recounted this misdeed, however, and it was easy to see that, although Rod might have met with sternness all round, there was also

a certain amount of amusement - in certain quarters only. She was sure the school authorities would not have been amused. Trina could not help smiling herself.

"Little wretch," she said softly, and Geraldine agreed with her.

"Quite apart from boyish enthusiasms, I thought he might really have an inclination towards a scientific career," Geraldine commented. "Andrew has said that if it turns out that way, he'll see that he gets every chance to study, even to sending him overseas."

How like Andrew, Trina thought to herself. He could be so generous in some things. She was glad to find that even though he might have turned his back on women again, it had not altered his growing affection for the children.

The door opened and Marda breezed in. Trina had time only to whisper a quick warning to Geraldine that Marda knew nothing about what the letter had done and then Marda was standing by the bed, near enough to hear any other remark, but Trina knew by Geraldine's nod that the woman understood.

"I meant to get here earlier," Marda explained. "Especially as I won't be able to make it this evening or tomorrow afternoon - but the wretched tram caught fire. Yes - it really did," she added in reply to their looks of amazement. "You'd never believe the pantomime that went on. Of course it was only a little fire. Something must have gone the wrong way back down the line, because it crept along like a snail. By the time they ran it into the depot" - the depot on that particular route was just off the tram road - "smoke was actually coming up through the floorboards, and when they took the boards up to have a look the flames started sprouting." She broke off and grinned. "Nobody was in any danger from the look of it, though."

When asked how the fire had actually been put out she said that all sorts of tricks had been tried as it was in an awkward position, even throwing handfuls of sand on it, then one of the men had just bent down and blown it out.

"More brains than the lot of them put together," she said with a grin. A relief tram had then been put on and brought all the amused and interested passengers into town. Of course there had been a few testy ones among them who had complained about the delay.

Somewhat to Trina's surprise, Geraldine and Marda seemed to take to each other at once, when usually it took people some time to see beneath Marda's bohemian breeziness.

Geraldine must be a person of some perspicacity.

Geraldine departed early, and Trina guessed it was to give her a chance to talk to Marda on her own. Immediately she taxed the older girl with having telephoned Geraldine, and Marda shrugged and admitted that she had at first telephoned to Barakee, thinking that whatever her impression of Andrew, he should at least be given the chance to come. She had heard he was away and had then telephoned Geraldine. She had been about to tell Trina this in the Recovery Ward, but had been chased away by the sister. At this point the bell went for the departure of visitors and there was again no chance to discuss it, not that it really meant anything, because Andrew was away, and even if he did hear of the accident in America, he was hardly likely to come back specially.

When Marda had gone, Trina felt reaction set in and tiredness creep over her. It was lovely having visitors, but the excitement left her spent and weary. She was glad to sleep for the rest of the afternoon, until it was time to rouse herself for tea.

That evening Geraldine came to see her again and they talked generalities. The only approach to anything too personal was when she mentioned that Dalthorpe was still talking about the concert and Trina's dancing. The subject was delicately sheered away from before anything could be said as to whether or not Dalthorpe was still talking about the broken engagement.

Again alone after the sounding of the bell, Trina lay back and for once actually allowed her thoughts to go to Andrew.

"And Andrew is so unreadable . . ." Geraldine had said. That could only mean that he was still hard and bitter, and that being the case she must not hope for a miracle to happen. Surely she had given up hope long ago?

Yet how could she ever really forget him? There would always be too many strong and unfading memories . . . meeting first in antagonism, her discovery of the badly hurt sensitivity under the hard exterior he showed to the world ... the first contemptuous kiss that had strangely enough started the change in him . . . memories of glorious days by the little pool . . . memories of the corners of his mouth quirking up into a smile that was both teasing and alarming....

"And what about the question of ransom?"

"Ransom?"

And then his lips on hers claiming the ransom that he had later said should last for all time, but it had not lasted, because the distrust had still been there, and when its chance had come it had parted them, leaving her with memories of a beautiful but hateful diamond necklace glittering in the moonlight. With a kind of dull curiosity she wondered what he had done with the necklace after she threw it at him.

IV

The next day the woman in the other bed departed and Trina found herself on her own. Immediately the other bed was stripped and a little amusedly she decided it looked quite forlorn. There was no patient expected until the following day and so it remained empty. Towards afternoon visiting time she found herself wondering if Geraldine would call again. Marda would not be able to make it, and so when she heard the door open she presumed that it was Geraldine; she could not see, since the blue curtain had been left stretched across the room.

It turned out to be Dennis.

Trina looked across the room at him and her expression did not exactly show joy at his visit. Much as she might feel like company she certainly did not want to see Dennis Lenyard, especially if he expected to pick up where their last conversation had left off. It seemed that he did.

"This is what comes of gallivanting around with other men," he said with smiling aplomb. "I told you that you should have let me look after you."

Heavens above! Did the man have no sensitivity at all? He had spoken in a jocular manner, as one trying to make amusing remarks to an invalid, but she sensed a definitely serious undertone.

"It wasn't the fault of the driver," she retorted stiffly. After what Peter Carteris had done for her she was in no mood to listen to any derogatory remarks about him, however jokingly they might have been presented.

"Hey, hold on to that temper of yours," he said chidingly, but he was still smiling, as if any annoyance on her part was not to be taken seriously.

Perhaps it was just as well that the nurse should come in at that moment on the afternoon temperature rounds, and Trina was glad to be able to turn her attention from Dennis and present her wrist for her pulse to be noted and to be presented with a thermometer in return. The nurse noted the results down and then glanced at Trina with a smile as she prepared to pick up her little tray with thermometers in glasses of coloured disinfectant and the board .that had all the case notes dipped to it.

"I hear we're to offer you congratulations pretty soon now."

"Congratulations?" Trina queried, wondering if she had heard right.

"Yes, on your engagement. I hope you'll be very happy," and before Trina could say anything to refute it, she slipped behind the curtain and went out of the room.

There was an ominous little silence. Trina heard the door close behind the nurse and then she turned, very slowly, to Dennis, with a glint in her eyes.

"Did you tell her that we were about to become engaged?"

He shrugged, quite unrepentantly it seemed. "She was outside the ward when I arrived and told me where to find you. I just happened to mention that we were rather special friends."

"Of all the colossal nerve . . .!"

"Just anticipating things a little. You will eventually."

Neither of them heard the door open quietly at that moment and the curtain screened them from seeing whoever entered.

Trina actually found the strength to hitch herself up higher on her pillows. Her eyes sparkled and a flush came into her pale cheeks.

"For the last time, Dennis Lenyard - I do not want to marry you. If you were the last man on earth, I wouldn't want to marry you - and don't have the impertinence to say that I wouldn't get the chance then."

"Isn't that..." he began, but she cut him off sharply and almost rudely.

"Shut up and listen to me for a change. I know my own mind and just what I want. I don't need you to make it up for me. If I never see you again, I shall be quite satisfied. In fact that would suit me fine. You've caused me nothing but trouble ever since I met you. You went out of your way to make me infatuated with you, without giving me the slightest hint that you were already married until you were sure I'd become your willing slave. Well, I hadn't. I had that much sense left. I knew it wasn't the real thing - and when I did really fall in love you spoiled that too, even if it was only indirectly. I don't want to marry you, and I wouldn't change my mind in a thousand years. Now get out of here and leave me alone!"

"Trina, be reasonable. . . .!"

"I'm, beyond being reasonable," she flared weakly. "Get out before I throw the water jug at you!"

Her fingers were actually closing around the handle of the jug, and even though she would not really have thrown it, he seemed to recognise a certain amount of menace in her action - hut before anything else could happen the curtain was drawn slightly aside and

they both saw that somebody else was in the room, a man with dark hair and a thin white scar down one dark cheek.

"Andrew!" she said shakenly, and released her grip on the jug.

"I think you'd better go," he said to Dennis.

Trina was quite unaware of Dennis's reaction, whether or not he said anything, or even that he was gone, because she was staring at Andrew as if she could not believe her eyes.

"Andrew!" she said again, in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "I... I thought you were in America."

"I just got in," he said with an odd abruptness. He came nearer. "Would you rather I went too?"

"No ... no, of course not." She could not bear it if he went away, whatever had brought him here. She tried not to let herself hope for too much.

He sat down by the side of the bed. "How are you feeling now?"

"Weak, but getting on quite well. They tell me everything will be all right. I shall even be able to dance again eventually."

"Good." His voice still had the odd abruptness. "You told me once your dancing meant a lot to you."

"It does." She tried to make her voice light. "But if anything serious had happened in that direction, I suppose I could always have made my living as a teacher once I really settled down."

"The man who was killed . . ."

"He was only a friend. We met for the first time that morning. We were all going away for a week-end picnic."

"I see. I thought at first it might have been . . . someone yon were fond of." There was a peculiar undertone in his voice she could not place. "Geraldine sent me a telegram in New York. I caught the first plane I could."

"Oh." She did not know quite what to make of that, so she remained silent.

"I suppose she's already been to see you?"

"Yes. Haven't you seen her yet?" After the way they had parted, it seemed odd to be speaking these stilted, conventional phrases.

"No, I came straight from the airport."

"That was . . . good of you."

"Good of me!" he echoed with a sharp little laugh. "After the way I treated you?"

Suddenly his hand came out to grip her lax fingers as they lay against the bed-covers, and his face tightened in a strange manner.

"Believe me, I've paid for it ever since. And when that telegram arrived . ." He looked down, his fingers still grip-, ping hers. "However much you hate me now for the way I treated you ... I had to come."

"I don't hate you," Trina said quietly.

"Then you should . . . but I suppose hatred's better than not feeling anything at all for me," he added moodily. "I don't think I could stand

that. At least if you hate me, it shows there's still something . . . and maybe one day ... if you'll let me..."

He broke off, and Trina found herself held in a sort of numbed trance, while at the back of her mind an incredulous hope tried to break through.

"I suppose I shouldn't be talking to you like this ... on top of the accident, but . . . Oh, hell!" He broke off, those incongruously dark brows coming together in a frown of bitterness and self-contempt. "I haven't been able to forget . . . all the time. ..."

"Don't worry about the accident," Trina said almost impatiently, and it seemed that he intended to take her at her word, because whatever was in his mind could not be kept back any longer.

"I suppose it's not much use saying I'm sorry," he went on jerkily. "After the things I said to you that would be almost as insulting ... but I'll try to find some way to make you forgive me, if you'll only give me the chance, although I suppose that's too much to hope for after the way I behaved."

Was that a note of almost humble pleading she heard in his voice, or was she going crazy?

"Then you heard what I said to Dennis? You don't believe I was only marrying you for your money?"

He shook his head. "I knew how wrong I'd been ... the moment you left me."

"But why didn't you come after me?" She bit her lip suddenly to stop it trembling. "Oh, Andrew - if you only knew how much I longed for you to come after me. I looked for you ... all the way to town ... and for weeks and weeks afterwards."

"I didn't think it would be any use after the things I said to you." He lifted his head suddenly and looked at her, perhaps realisation dawning at last that it had certainly not been antipathy he had heard in her trembling voice. He searched her face with those brilliant dark eyes she loved and shook his head incredulously. "By heaven - I think you would actually be crazy enough to forgive me for it."

"Of course I would," she said with a little laugh, while tears sparkled on her lashes. "Oh, darling, don't you realise that when a woman loves a man she forgives him anything?" she told him, smiling and crying at the same time.

"Even the things I believed of you?"

"Much more than that - and gladly."

His fingers tightened almost painfully on hers and he made an abrupt little movement, then settled back on to his chair with a rueful grimace.

"After all this time - and I can't even kiss you."

Trina smiled almost mischievously. "I don't have anything infectious." He appeared to hesitate for a moment, then leaned over and laid his lips very gently against hers. It was only a light kiss, but in one second it took away all the pain of the past and it opened the door to a wonderful future.

CHAPTER NINE

THE waves whispered on the long stretch of golden beach, the sun shone down like a kiss of fire against her tanned skin, and at her side Andrew lay, relaxed and virile. She turned her head to glance at him, smiling slightly to herself.

It was almost six months now since the accident and a week since she had married Andrew. A wonderful, deliriously happy week. They called it Surfers' Paradise where they spent their honeymoon, but she knew that anywhere would have been paradise for her when she was with Andrew.

As she lay there she let her thoughts drift back. From the hospital she had gone to Patanga to recover from the final effects of the smash. The children had been at school when she first went there, but at the week-end they had descended on the house in force, driven over by Andrew. They had accepted him now as part of their life, giving him freely the affection he needed so much and had previously refused, and they made no secret of their satisfaction that Trina was to return to Barakee. In their estimation they could not have planned things better themselves.

It was about that time too that she had learned from Geraldine that it was the older woman who had arranged for her to have the best treatment available, apparently with the idea of coming to some arrangement with the hospital that she should be charged the lowest fees possible and not know anything about the rest of it, so that she would not feel under any obligation. Geraldine had also not mentioned the cable she had sent to Andrew - at least not at first - in case it had not brought him back.

Their wedding had been quiet, because she knew that he was still sensitive to a certain degree about the scar on his face, although it meant nothing like as much as it once had. Afterwards she had

whispered her new name to herself, hardly believing that it had actually happened.

Trina Dalwin. The name that would be hers for the rest of her life. The train wheels had echoed it all the time during the journey up to Sydney, where they had caught the plane for the north. Andrew had decided not to take his own car. It was a long journey and would be fairly tiring to motor all the way, although many people did do so. Instead they caught the express to Sydney, boarded a Constellation to Brisbane and there picked up the car he had previously arranged to hire for their stay in Queensland.

The journey from Brisbane out to Surfers' Paradise did not take long, and at any other time Trina would have found herself gasping with awe at the sight of the hotel where they were to stay, the Superlative luxury of their suite and everything else there, the palms and the tropical flowers that surrounded it, the tennis courts, private swimming pool and all those other things that made her realise she had married a rich man, but those things did not matter. It was Andrew himself who mattered ... Andrew who had come towards her with a faint smile on his lips and warmth in his very dark eyes as she stood waiting for him in a froth of filmy white.

"You're very lovely, Trina Dalwin."

She would always remember the tenderness beneath the husky passion and possessiveness in his voice.

They did not frequent the very lovely beach at the main part of Surfers' Paradise, but drove up to more lonely stretches, because like all newly married couples they preferred to be alone.

Andrew caught her glance on him and rolled over. A lazy hand picked up a fistful of sand and sprinkled it down on her.

"Happy?"

She smiled up into the dark eyes she loved so much. "You know I am."

Privately she thought it was a ridiculous question. How could she not be happy when she had everything she wanted from life? She had Andrew, and that was everything.

He frowned ^suddenly and she reached up a finger to smooth it out.

"Why the frown?"

"I was just thinking . . . you've been unlucky in your choice of men, haven't you? First Dennis Lenyard . . . then my black moods and distrust."

Trina reached out again with light fingers, touching them to the corners of the firm mouth, this time smoothing out the grimace of self-derision.

"I don't think I'm at all unlucky," she said quietly. "Just silly over Dennis at first ... but he didn't last, because he was only infatuation."

Dennis mattered, so little to her now that she wondered sometimes if he had every really existed, in spite of the trouble he had caused her. He had been egotistical and selfish, yet he had one saving grace. It was through him that she had met Andrew. If it had not been for the necessity of taking a job away from Sydney, she would just have taken her summer holiday in the usual way and there would have been no journey down to Barakee ... no Andrew.

"As for you . . ." she said, lifting herself on one elbow to smile down at him. "I couldn't do without you, black moods and all."

He kissed her almost fiercely in return, but for some reason he seemed to be in a mood of self-reproach at the moment, frowning to himself again.

"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night ... remembering the time I drove you away from me. . . ." He looked at her almost appealingly. "How could I have believed those things of you?"

"It was just . . . circumstances," she assured him. "Anybody who doesn't thoroughly know and understand Marda would have thought that letter of hers was rather . . . strange."

"I should still have known enough about you to realise you couldn't do what I accused you of."

He looked so uncharacteristically humble that it hurt. True to the feelings of every woman in love, she was quick to reassure him, throwing her arms around him and whispering all those things with which women have reassured their men that they are loved and wanted all through the ages. It was not like Andrew to be humble and she could not bear that he should appear so, but it did not take long to bring back the Andrew she knew. Her lips smiled as they responded to the imperious demand of his, but in the end she had to protest breathlessly, because he was apparently unaware of an elderly couple strolling towards them along the otherwise quite deserted beach.

"Andrew .. . they'll see!"

The couple exchanged an amused, reminiscent glance, as if they remembered days as golden and wonderful in their own youth.

"Let them," he retorted, and kissed her again, even more possessively, but by this time the couple had passed them. For a while neither spoke, content to luxuriate in the sun's warmth and their own nearness, fingers clasped together and spirits joined even more

closely, but after a while Andrew raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her.

"About the children .. ." he began hesitantly. "It seems a bit much to ask anyone to take on a houseful of brats like those four."

"I love them," Trina insisted. "You want them too now, don't you?"

"Yes, 1 do . . . now I've got used to them."

She shrugged. "Well, who's worrying? Barakee is a big place. Plenty of room there."

That led to another and very personal thought. She suddenly blushed, and Andrew must have guessed what it was, because he grinned teasingly.

"Room for plenty more?" he said with the same teasing laughter in his voice, and scooped her up into his arms, kissing her so thoroughly that she was glad the elderly couple were quite a long way from them by now.

She still blushed, but she smiled and nodded as well. "Room for plenty more," she whispered, and hoped that it would be like that.

Of course after that there was another little interlude completely satisfactory to both, but after a while Andrew for some reason reverted to his serious mood with its slight touch of self-derision.

"Now what?" Trina asked, noticing his change of expression immediately.

"I sometimes wonder whether I really deserve this . . . after the things I said to you."

"Forget about them. When they get angry people always say things they don't really mean. And you didn't know Marda then, so you couldn't really appreciate what she is like."

"You never did tell her, did you?" he said abruptly.

"That it was all over her letter, you mean?" She shook her head. "There was no reason to. It would only have upset her. She would have blamed herself, and she doesn't really mean any of the startling things she says. She would have been shocked and scandalised if I had really done any of the things she suggested in her letter," Trina finished with a faint smile.

"Maybe she doesn't," he retorted grimly. "But she could have parted us for good." Then he glanced at her quickly and shook his head. "Don't get the wrong idea, though. I'm not really putting the blame on her." His fingers dug in the sand sharply and clenched there. "The blame was mine alone. I should have listened to you."

Trina reached out to curl her fingers about the tense ones dug into the sand. Immediately they gripped her own. "You couldn't," she said softly. "The poison was still there," and she bent her head and pressed her lips gently to the scar on his cheek.

The thin white line that was strangely so far from being disfiguring, the scar that had once threatened to come between them ... it would always be there, but those inner scars, the really hurtful ones, had by now faded so completely that they could never cause trouble again, and with their fading had gone the suspicion and distrust that had so poisoned his life. There was no looking back for either of them now, only the future - a wonderful and glorious future where they had each other and nothing else mattered.