Free Love is for Ever by Barbara Rowan Page A

doing shopping on a morning of sweltering heat ...”
    "Quite right,” Jacqueline called back, as she ran lightly and quickly up the steps, and then she waved a careless hand down at them before she vanished.
    “But how will you get back?” Dominic called.
    She had the feeling that he stood watching her for some little while before she really vanished, although she did not look back, and that Martine said something rather sharply to him before his attention finally returned to her.
    Then Jacqueline started climbing up the steep rise which led to the town, and she decided that as it was so warm she would pick up a taxi when she had completed her shopping to take her back to the Cortina villa. But in the meantime there was the strange lure of the little town ahead of her, with its square and its shops overlooking the harbor, and its atmosphere of believing strongly in the past. Most of the houses which surrounded the square had curly wrought-iron balconies painted bright green against a white or color-washed background, and there were low arches and little alleyways which provided glimpses of gay gardens behind, almost always enclosed by a high stucco wall. The shops had a good deal of variety about them, and in the window of one, which was a chemist's, there were some huge carboys full of red, green and yellow water which presented a wonderful sight at night, when lit from behind. Another was a flower shop, and another sold rich pastries and served coffees and fruit drinks as well, under an awning in front of it.
    Jacqueline paused for an orange squash, and then made the discovery that the hairdresser’s was closed for the day, and decided that she would have to keep her too-long locks a little longer. She bought stamps at the post office, paused to admire a vivid poster in a travel agents’ window, and then decided to explore some of the narrow lanes which looked so shadow-filled and enticing.
    The shadows cut across the narrow streets like knives now that the mist was lifting, and the power of the sun was growing stronger. There was a delicious cool, earthy sweetness which came at Jacqueline like a welcome caress, and an old woman in a cottage doorway bunching yellow roses nodded and beamed at her as she passed by.
    She stood before a house which looked tall, and shut-in and secret, with a coat-of-arms over the impressive entrance porch, and many balconies dripping with ivy geraniums. There were one or two other houses not unlike it, giving the impression of a street where knights-at-arms had once lived, and perhaps ridden their horses over the rough cobbles, with their squires in attendance, while their ladies had peeped at them from the high balconies and narrow windows of the houses. And in the silence and emptiness of such a secluded thoroughfare Jacqueline had the feeling that their ghosts peeped at her, and that womenfolk still watched from behind narrow grilles and cascades of blossom.
    She plunged into other lanes like this, into a labyrinth where the houses were not so well preserved, and the atmosphere was a little more sinister, and given up to neglect; and when she finally emerged she found herself back in the main square of the town she knew that she had thoroughly enjoyed her experience.
    But a familiar car was occupying a prominent position in the very centre of the square, and beside it a tall man in immaculate flannels, with a silk scarf wound about a bronzed column of a throat under an open-necked shirt, and hair that glinted both black and bronze in the sunshine, stood looking about him with noticeably frowning brows. When he caught sight of Jacqueline, in her white shorts and yellow blouse, the frown instantly vanished, but there was a highly displeased look in his blue eyes as he moved to meet her.
    “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been waiting here nearly twenty minutes,” consulting the watch on his wrist, “and the woman in the cafe said she was sure you hadn’t left the