Free Roman Summer by Jane Arbor

been picking up the bills, shouldn’t I?’
    ‘You wouldn’t have sanctioned haute couture models for me.’
    ‘That’s beside the point. You’d have bought some things on my account—or if you want to split hairs, on Mrs . Mordaunt’s account. And if I choose to order a model gown for you for a special occasion, what’s so improper about that? And for me tonight happens to be a special occasion. I’m well known in Sienese musical circles, and I’d like my womenfolk to do me proud. And so—will you bury that stiff pride of yours and wear the dress tonight?’
    Ru th saw that she must give in. ‘You make it very difficult to refuse,’ she said.
    ‘Good. And now the pipe of peace in the shape of a drink?’
    But Ruth, who had had a sudden resolve, excused herself. In her room again she rang the hotel hairdresser to get an immediate set and evening styling, and when that had been done to her satisfaction she set about as exotic a toilette as she had ever achieved. If he wanted her to do him credit, she would do just that or die in the attempt!
    Eyebrow pencil and mascara; a touch of green shadow to emphasise the green of the eyes which were the complement of her russet hair; colour, no more than the faintest blush for the cheeks; pale lipstick; no jewellery but pendant earrings—and the dress, its corsage caped, its skirt tiered, its graceful fall entirely flattering.
    She was giving herself a final appraisal at her mirror when the pageboy knocked again. This time he brought a square perspex box containing a spray of orchids tinged with green at the petal-tips. With it was a card —‘This for a peace-offering. If your conscience needs salving in accepting it, note that I am sending one to Cicely too.’ The signature was ‘ Erle ’.
    Ruth couldn’t remember when she had last had a gift of flowers from a man. Certainly not since she had been widowed, and these were the first orchids she had ever been given. They were the final touch the lovely dress needed. Pinning them on, she went out to meet her Cinderella evening.
    It was long past midnight when she was again in her room. First she had gone with Cicely to her room to talk over the dinner, the concert, and the party of Erle ’s friends afterwards. But now she was at her own dressing-table, her reflection looking back at her as her thoughts ranged over all that the evening had done for her ... to her.
    It had begun with a look in Erle ’s eyes which, turned upon her, she had never chanced upon before. She had seen them laughing, coolly appraising, mocking, reflective, but never wide with admiration of her, as they had been at his first sight of her tonight.
    And in the instant of meeting them with her own and having to look away, she had learned something about herself. She hadn’t gone to all her trouble to create an effect of which he would approve, out of bravado or pique. She had done it in the hope of earning just that unstinted look, wanting it to say more than she knew it could, wanting him to know how dearly she valued it.
    That meant his admiration was important to her— that he had become important, too important, to her life. She could remember the glow of first knowing that she was in love with Alec; that he loved her in return and that if he asked her to marry him their life together would have the makings of a happily fitted jigsaw puzzle. Tonight there had been no such confident glow. Instead there had been a heady, nervous excitement to her awareness of Erle as another man she could love (had once loved in an immature, adoring way?). It was an extension of that woman-to-man response to him which she had exp eri e nced in the Gardens. It was a magnetism, working only one way, which for her peace of mind she ought to resist, and could not. For on his own admission, for Erle Nash there wasn’t a consummate love for any woman; only the ‘jam’ of a passing pleasure in the company of many of them; that, and the expedience of cultivating