Free The Other Linding Girl by Mary Burchell

yes, I suppose it would,” Rachel laughed. “And so you lunched with—a possibility?”
    “Very well put. I lunched with a possibility.” He laughed too then, and Rachel found herself wondering if one should be quite so gay, and almost flippant, over a very serious subject. But then she looked across at Nigel Seton, and somehow it was not possible to be grave, and she found herself hoping that he really was a worthwhile person with a gay exterior, and not—as her uncle so obviously thought—a lightweight person with a good line of talk.
    She wanted so much to be able to like him—even to approve of him Almost more than she had ever wanted anything in her life before. And if all this talk meant very little—
    At that points, Rachel made a discovery of profound significance. And that was that there was no question of being able or not able to like him. She just did like him, and that was all there was to it. Whether she had overestimated his worth or under-estimated his faults did not enter into it. She liked him.
    And at that moment he said, “Well, what’s the verdict?”
    “The—the verdict?”
    “Yes. Don’t tell me that all the time you were looking at me with those grave blue eyes you were simply thinking of that large cream bun you’ve been consuming.”
    “Oh—” she coloured slightly. “Was I looking at you?”
    “Unless you were looking through me,” he said gravely.
    “Oh, I wasn’t doing that!” Rachel hesitated a moment, then she said, “I suppose I was thinking how well one can come to know someone in little more than twenty-four hours.”
    “Me, for instance?”
    “All of you. This time yesterday, I was only just arriving in London. And now I’m deeply involved with my uncle—and Hester—and even a little with you, I suppose.”
    “I forgive you that ‘little,’ though with difficulty,” he told her. ‘Particularly as I realise that all of us must take a back place in favour of the one person you have significantly left out. What about Oliver Mayforth, and your deep involvement with him?” And his laughing eyes took on a very mocking glint.
    “Oh!” She flushed deeply then. “You mean that idiotic photograph!”
    “It was a very good photograph,” he said judicially. “Unmistakable of you both, and extraordinarily revealing.”
    “It’s not revealing! I wasn’t looking like that at all.”
    “Oh, my dear Rachel! The camera cannot lie.” He was enjoying himself quite unfairly.
    “Well, I wasn’t feeling like that, then,” she said crossly. He merely leant back in bis chair and smiled at her.
    “I wasn’t—really.” She longed to tell him about her silly agreement with Oliver Mayforth. But the secret was not really hers, and to give it away would have been mean. Besides, her own behaviour now seemed to her so foolish and forward that she was not anxious to discuss it. Instead, with a great effort, she said calmly,
    “It’s not important, anyway. Let’s talk about something else. You haven’t really told me how your luncheon appointment went. Do you think he was pretty well impressed, your possible—benefactor?”
    “Difficult to say, Rachel.” He sat forward then, with his aims on the table in front of him, and his manner more serious. “You never can tell, with these pedantic, rather humourless men. I was lucky to get the introduction to him, and I hope I told my tale well. But it remains to be seen.”
    “Then he wasn’t willing to give an immediate decision?”
    “He can’t He’s one member of a big discretionary Trust, left by his father for charitable purposes. Strictly speaking, my work doesn’t come under the heading of charity. But if McGrath—that’s his name—and his sister, who exercises equal powers on the Trust, decided in my favour, the rest would be plain sailing.”
    “Couldn’t you perhaps—interest the sister?” suggested Rachel, feeling that an elderly lady given to good works might surely find Nigel more compelling than