Free Across the Counter by Mary Burchell Page A

let me say hello to them!” cried Katherine, for she adored her ten-year-old brother and sister.
    But the receiver had already been hastily replaced, and Mrs. Renner laughed and told Katherine she would have to wait until Sunday.
    “Have a good time on Saturday, dear. We shall expect a full account on Sunday,” her mother declared before she hung up. And as Katherine replaced her receiver she thought how good it was to be near one’s loving, interested family once more.
    She wished her mother had not made that odd observation about Malcolm. But then—she was quite right—newspaper photographs often gave a wrong impression of people.
    For the next two days Katherine was very fully occupied. At the store there was a great deal to study; facts had to be collated and schemes worked out. While in her personal life there was the transfer to be made to the Fallodens’ home.
    In a sense there was little time to linger over the disaster that had so completely changed her life. But always at the back of her mind—and often at the front, too—there was a perpetual sense of less and pain.
    The worst time was when she woke up in the morning. And the very fact that she now woke in a charming room to an instinctive sense of well-being made it all the more unbearable when her spirits plummeted with the fresh realization that never, never, never again would she share either pleasures or troubles with Malcolm. It was a misery that had to be faced every morning, and every morning reaccepted.
    On the Friday afternoon, Katherine was sitting in what Aileen Lester undoubtedly considered her office when in came Miss Lester herself, accompanied by a lovely fair-haired girl whom Katherine immediately recognized as the girl who had been photographed with Malcolm at the inaugural dinner.
    As she pushed aside the departmental returns that she had been studying, she felt her heart begin to beat uncomfortably fast, and it was really no surprise to her when Miss Lester said, “This is Miss Kendale. She would like to me e t you.”
    Perhaps it was as good a way as any of achieving the first inevitable meeting with the girl who had supplanted her. But Katherine felt that her smile must be stiff and her handshake limp as she somehow contrived to bring out the conventional words necessary to the occasion.
    Geraldine Kendale was a lively, charming creature, evide n tly used to being liked and to having her own way. She smiled at Katherine with frank, not unfriendly curiosity, and almost immediately launched into the real purpose of her visit.
    “You must come to dinner with us tomorrow before the ball, Miss Renner,” she said a little as though stating a decision rather than issuing an invitation. “Paul seemed to have some idea that you might feel shy among strangers and prefer to dine quietly with him at some hotel. But that’s ridiculous, of course.
    “There’ll only be about a dozen of us. Myself and my fiancé —whom you know anyway, I hear—Paul and you, my father and an old crony or two of his, and then Aileen and Jeremy Peel, one of the directors. All quite informal. You will come, won’t you?”
    There was no question of refusing—though Katherine silently paid tribute to Paul Kendale’s efforts to save her from the ordeal of having to watch Malcolm and her rival together at an intimate party. With only the faintest pause first, she heard herself accepting the invitation gracefully. And then Aileen Lester said thoughtfully, “I don’t know why Paul thought you would be shy. You don’t strike me as at all a shy person, Miss Renner.”
    “No? Well, it was kind of him to consider the possibility. What time would you like me to come, Miss Kendale?”
    “Six-thirty? We’ll dine at seven. Although the ball starts at eight, we usually don’t get there until it’s well under way. I’m so glad you’re coming. It will be nice for you to meet Malcolm again, won’t it?”
    Katherine said it would. And then Geraldine Kendale went away,