Free Mine for a Day by Mary Burchell

even the nicest men can be!”
    “Well, in spite of our protestations, she thinks that I—that—I mean a lot to you. She doesn’t imagine you would enter into a conspiracy like this with me unless I did. She’s very fond of you, in her way.
    “I assure you, you’re mistaken.” He smiled slightly. “As I’ve told you—we don’t really get on at all well together.”
    “Yes. And you can tell me the same thing a dozen times over, and it can be true every time, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still fond of you in her way,” Leila retorted.
    “Sure?” He looked doubtful.
    “Quite sure. She probably feels angry and possessive about you, and bitterly resents any other influence on you. I imagine there’s a good deal of difference in your ages, and you’ve probably been the wonderful elder brother to her at some time in her life. I’m really rather sorry for her, now I come to think of it,” Leila added, without rancour. “Or I should be if she wouldn’t be quite so trying at the moment.”
    He laughed incredulously.
    “You extraordinary girl. Why should you be sorry for her?”
    “Because I know myself that it isn’t easy to love someone, without owning it, and h ave to watch another girl—”
    She broke off suddenly, astonished and dismayed that she could have been trapped into saying so much to him. So she added quickly:
    “But that’s neither here nor there. Anyone knows that a jealous girl—even a jealous sister—can suffer a good deal. You had better accept the fact in future, Simon, that you can hurt Frances rather easily, and take some pains not to do so.”
    He smiled sceptically.
    “Well, I don ’ t know that I accept your theory, though I admit it explains a certain number of things.” She saw, from his reflective air, that he was reaching back into the family past, and recalling some events which surprised, and faintly disturbed, him. “But, if Frances is—jealous, as you say, of anyone who means a lot to me, why did she accept you in such a friendly manner when she thought you were Rosemary, and reject you so angrily and unreasonably when she found you were yourself?”
    Leila frowned consideringly.
    “I know. I wondered about that, too. But I suppose she knew it was no good fighting against the girl you—she thought you—had actually married. Any jealousy she had regarding Rosemary was over and done with. She probably experienced that when you—when you first became engaged.” She glanced at him a little anxiously, to see if it were painful to him to discuss these early stages with Rosemary. But his dark, thoughtful face gave no hint that he was disliking this discussion.
    “Yes. Probably you’re right.” He seemed less inclined to reject her original theory now. “And, having once accepted the inevitable, she was determined to make the best of it by being on specially good terms with my—with my wife, you mean?”
    “I imagine so. It’s all rather childish, really, of course.” Leila smiled slightly. “But then jealousy is childish. That’s what makes it so difficult to deal with.”
    Again that look of reflective interest was turned upon her. “You’re an amazingly acute and understanding person, Leila,” he said. “But then, I suppose if one has—suffered a good deal oneself—”
    “What makes you think I have suffered?” she challenged him quickly, and a trifle defensively.
    “I’m sorry—I wasn’t ‘fishing,’ ” he assured her earnestly. “I thought you said something just now about personally appreciating how much Frances might be hurt, and I assumed that you were recalling some specific occasion when you, too, had been very unhappy.”
    “Oh—that.” She smiled rather nervously. “Forget about that.”
    “Very well,” he said gravely, apparently taking her injunction quite literally. “Only I hope we, as a family, are not going to cause you any more unhappiness.”
    “No—of course not,” she assured him hastily.
    “Which reminds