Free I and My True Love by Helen MacInnes Page B

evening and told myself, ‘There’s danger. Jan, old boy, keep out of it. There’s a woman you could fall in love with. There’s a woman who could tie you to her for the rest of your life.’ But I went on seeing you, meeting you, watching you. Because I had been wrong.”
    She looked at him quickly.
    “Because,” he went on in his quiet voice, “I had already fallen in love with you.”
    She tried to rise.
    He put out his hand and grasped hers. “Don’t,” he said, “don’t keep running away from me.”
    For a moment, there was silence. She didn’t rise, after all. There was no strength in her body. She sat still, feeling the warmth of his hand encircling hers, the uneven beating of her heart. She tried to reach back to reality, back to Payton Pleydell and his wife and their ordered life. Reality? She looked down at her hand, caught in Jan’s, at the arm that had held her as they danced.
    “How many weeks since we first met?” he asked.
    “Seven.”
    “How many times have we been invited to the same party?”
    She looked at him.
    “Five dinners, three luncheons, and nine cocktail parties.” He laughed, and she found she was laughing too. “And how often have I seen you passing by, on the street? Or lunching with someone else? Or visited your house for an evening of talk and discussion? Do you think I came there to listen to a lot of men? I came to watch you.” He was serious now. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek. “And how often have I walked past your house, late at night, and looked at a lighted upstairs window and wondered if it were yours?”
    “Jan—this is madness—this is—”
    “Madness? It’s more real than that solid mass of bricks.” He looked at the distant house and its bright lights. Then he turned to face her. “And you’ve felt that, too,” he said.
    Yes, she had felt it. She met his eyes. She was no longer running away. She was coming to meet him.
    He put both arms around her, drawing her close to him. He waited for a moment, his eyes still searching her face, and then he kissed her.
    It was the test, and they were trapped. She had thought she would say when the kiss ended, “See, Jan—I’m just another woman. And your kiss is just another kiss.” But she could say nothing, nothing at all except “Jan, oh Jan!” And even then her voice was lost in the wonder of the moment, and his kisses silenced her surprise.
    The music from the terrace faded, the laughter from the garden’s shadows drifted away. The distant house vanished. There was only the perfume of roses, the soft cool earth beneath her shoulders, the dark blanket of trees shielding them from the bright-eyed inquisitive stars.
    This is the way all love should be, she had thought, this is the way all love should be.
    They didn’t return to the house. Jan had said, “I’ve a car somewhere around here. Let’s leave.”
    “Now?”
    “Why not?”
    She laughed. “Why not?”
    “We shan’t be missed,” he told her, leading her along a narrow path. They began to run, hand in hand. A couple of truants from school, she thought, and laughed again. She looked over her shoulder at the house, at the crowded terrace with its riot of happy voices and shimmering lights. Then she looked up at Jan. She stumbled and he caught her at once. He was smiling.
    “We’ve escaped,” he said, and his smile widened.
    * * *
    The telephone rang and ended the dream.
    She sat still, her arms clasped around her knees. Her fingers were tightly gripped. She unclenched them. She covered her ears. She closed her eyes and her head drooped. She blotted out everything—the roses, the telephone, even the memories that had quickened so treacherously.
    At last, she rose. The telephone was silent now. Silenced as the dream. She began to get ready for the day ahead.
    When she came out of the shower, she found Minna waiting for her with a message. There had been a call from Mr. Pleydell’s office.
    “From Mr. Pleydell?”
    “From that