Free Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie Page A

hide from Stephen her own passion, her single-hearted devotion. She had loved him from the moment he came across the room to her that day at Kidderminster House, pretending to be shy, pretending not to know who she was.
    For he had known. She could not say when she had first accepted that fact. Some time after their marriage, the day when he was expounding some neat piece of political manipulation necessary to the passing of some Bill.
    The thought had flashed across her mind then: “This reminds me of something. What?” Later she realised that it was, in essence, the same tactics he had used that day at Kidderminster House. She accepted the knowledge without surprise, as though it were something of which she had had long been aware, but which had only just risen to the surface of her mind.
    From the day of their marriage she had realised that he did not love her in the same way as she loved him. But she thought it possible that he was actually incapable of such a love. That power of loving her was her own unhappy heritage. To care with a desperation, an intensity that was, she knew, unusual among women! She would have died for him willingly; she was ready to lie for him, scheme for him, suffer for him! Instead she accepted with pride and reserve the place he wanted her to fill. He wanted her co-operation, her sympathy, her active and intellectual help. He wanted of her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her.
    One thing she would never do, embarrass him by the expression of a devotion to which he could make no adequate return. And she did believe honestly that he liked her, that he took pleasure in her company. She foresaw a future in which her burden would be immeasurably lightened - a future of tenderness and friendship.
    In his way, she thought, he loved her.
    And then Rosemary came.
    She wondered sometimes, with a wry painful twist of the lips, how it was that he could imagine that she did not know. She had known from the first minute - up there at St Moritz - when she had first seen the way he looked at the woman.
    She had known the very day the woman became his mistress.
    She knew the scent the creature used...
    She could read in Stephen's polite face, with eyes abstracted, just what his memories were, what he was thinking about - that woman - the woman he had just left!
    It was difficult, she thought dispassionately, to assess the suffering she had been through. Enduring, day after day, the tortures of the damned, with nothing to carry her through but her belief in courage - her own natural pride. She would not show, she would never show, what she was feeling. She lost weight, grew thinner and paler, the bones of her head and shoulders showing more distinctly with the flesh stretched tightly over them. She forced herself to eat, but could not force herself to sleep. She lay long nights, with dry eyes, staring into darkness. She despised the taking of drugs as weakness. She would hang on. To show herself hurt, to plead, to protest - all these things were abhorrent to her.
    She had one crumb of comfort, a meagre one - Stephen did not wish to leave her.
    Granted that that was for the sake of his career, not out of fondness for her, still the fact remained. He did not want to leave her.
    Some day, perhaps, the infatuation would pass...
    What could he, after all, see in the girl? She was attractive, beautiful - but so were other women. What did he find in Rosemary Barton that infatuated him?
    She was brainless - silly - and not - she clung to this point especially - not even particularly amusing. If she had had wit, charm and provocation of manner - those were the things that held men. Sandra clung to the belief that the thing would end - that Stephen would tire of it.
    She was convinced that the main interest in his life was his work. He was marked out for great things and he knew it. He had a fine statesmanlike brain and he delighted in using it. It was his appointed task