Free Hotel Mirador by Rosalind Brett

colorful vocabulary.”
    “It doesn’t matter how it’s said, if it’s true.” She paused, and added clearly, “I’d like to come and see you with the doctor. Is that all right?”
    “No.”
    “Will you allow me to give you some ordinary hand massage?”
    “What’s the good? I’ve tried it myself and it doesn’t to a thing.”
    Sally sat very still. This was die first indication that he really wanted to help himself and she knew, intuitively, that he had never mentioned it to anyone else. One had to be casual with him, casual to the point of uncaringness.
    “I’ll send you some massage oil and you can try again. And, if you like, I’ll show you some exercises to keep the rest of you in trim.”
    He sounded quite nasty as he said, ‘Trying to earn your keep?”
    She stood up. “Don’t blame me, do you? As a matter of fact, you aren’t the only reason I came to Morocco. I’m trying to get in touch with an old friend of mine, and when I do, I shall probably fade out of Shiran. I only wish I knew more about die country.”
    Mike said morosely, “I’ve been around. What part of it interests you?”
    ‘Tangier.”
    “It’s a sprawling, complex city. Have you got your friend’s address?”
    She nodded. “I’ll tell you about it some time—if you’ll let me come again, that is. If not, I’ll batt l e through on my own.”
    His glance flickered over her. He rea c hed out and stubbed his cigarette in the bowl. “Are you thinking of going to Tangier?”
    “Not yet. If I do decide to go, I’ll find out more about It. May I come again, Mr. Ritchie?”
    “It’s a waste of time, but please yourself,” he said ungraciously.
    “Very well, I will. Tomorrow at ten—and please don’t try to fob me off with mint tea!”
    “That’s the servant’s idea. Don’t you like mint tea?”
    “It could grow on one, I suppose. It reminds me of tea in an English cottage—it’s so different.” She moved towards the door, and then turned. “I read an article of yours last night, and found myself smiling more than once. For a man with a sense of humor you’re horribly grim in the flesh, Mr. Ritchie ... or may I call you Mike?”
    “Call me what you like,” he muttered, and closed his eyes.
    Sally looked down at him with compassion, but knew better than to touch him or the chair. He had lived with his defeat for so long that even the smallest battle was exhausting. Still, he had to fight, and she knew that the first onslaughts were the worst; once past them he would smile again and gather courage.
    “Goodbye,” she said softly, and went out into the blinding sunshine.
    As the driver set the car moving away from the house, Sally tried to gauge whether she had accomplished anything. Very little, she decided, but Mike was stirred and that went to the credit side. He gave so little away that it was difficult to pin-point the things which would really get under his skin.
    Yet she was sure that before his accident Mike had been a normally high-spirited and gregarious young man, inventive, lively and full of fun. It was going to be quite a task, though, to convince him that he could be his normal self again. The loss of the power to walk and drive had stripped him of self-confidence, and the girl in whom he had been interested at the time had let him down so badly that he imagined himself as being unattractive to women for the rest of his life; it ha d n’t been that particular girl who mattered—only the fact that she had abandoned him in his most sensitive moment. And there was his job. He was the type to have loved the dashing about in North Africa, the interviewing spiced with danger.
    Sally vowed to do all she could for Mike. Physiotherapy, die thought, would be the least of it!
    At the hotel she went upstairs and washed, looked out upon the now deserted swimming pool and told herself that she would swim before dinner tonight, in the dark. Though it was so hot she hadn’t yet bathed at all, simply because the