Free Dear Tiberius; (aka Nurse Nolan) by Susan Barrie

toasting in front of the sitting-room fire, that Lucy told herself almost fiercely that of course everything was going to be all right for her again one day. It had to be!
    Lucy went down to give Lynette Harling her massage treatment just before dinner, but although the ballerina submitted to her ministrations, she had nothing to say to her, preferring instead to peruse a fashion magazine, and to issue occasional languid instructions to her maid concerning what she was going to wear that evening. Only when Lucy advised a few daily exercises that Miss Harling could carry out herself without supervision, and which she explained carefully, did Lynette reply to her in a distant sort of way, and as soon as the instructions were over she dismissed her in very much the same manner as she would dismiss her maid.
    Lucy withdrew from the lovely white room biting her lip, and later she heard Lynette go tripping lightly downstairs to the drawing room as if there was nothing in the least wrong with her ankle. Lucy, who was on her way back from her bath to her bedroom, leaned over the balustrade that followed the graceful sweep of the stairs down into the deep well of the hall below, and saw the tall figure of Sir John, black and white and elegant, emerge with the impulsiveness of a boy—or so it seemed to her—from the doorway of the drawing room, and greet her with both hands outstretched. Lynette was wearing the white dress with the golden roses, and tonight Lucy felt sure she was the Princess Aurora awaiting the kindling kiss of her lover—perhaps not so much awaiting it, as expecting it!
    Two nights later quite an impressive dinner party was given by Sir John, and among the guests were several of his neighbors who did not normally see very much of him. Lucy received a summons, couched in polite phrases, to make a fourth at bridge, and she changed hastily into the only dress she had that she thought was really suitable, and went down to the drawing room.
    It reminded her of a stage set with its lights and its flowers, but it was an extremely elegant stage set, and the one figure in the room who instantly compelled attention was Lynette, with her vivid, flame - like hair. She was behaving with kittenish playfulness and receiving all the attention of Sir John, who was standing close beside her chair and regarding her with obvious admiration, while the remainder of his guests formed themselves into little groups, and the man called Francis Burke stood rather noticeably alone before one of the tall windows, looking out into the night.
    Lucy spared him a quick, rather surprised look, for he was not precisely a young man, and yet Lynette seemed to favor him when she was not bestowing more important favors on her host. Lucy was inclined to wonder a little about their relationship, and why he had formed one of the house p a rty at Ketterings—and, if it came to that, why Sir John had allowed him to be included when it was quite plain that his feelings for Lynette were most decided. But when Lynette was otherwise occupied he had a lonely air about him—almost a neglected air—and Lucy felt vaguely sorry for him.
    She herself was asked to join a bridge four with the vicar as her partner, and his wife and a prominent local landowner opposing them. Lynette had no interest in bridge, and did not even pretend that she had, and her mother sat on a striped regency couch and knitted away indefatigably at the heliotrope sweater.
    Sir John was called away after a time to the telephone, and very shortly after that Lucy noticed that both Lynette and Francis Burke were missing. Lucy went on playing bridge, finding it very heavy going, until at last the dinner guests began to break up. Sir John returned just in time to receive their farewells and thanks. Lucy h erself stole thankfully away, but suddenly remembered that she had left a book she was reading in the chair that took Miranda on her trips about the grounds. This chair was kept for convenience