Free Rose in the Bud by Susan Barrie Page A

when Edouard called for her she had barely had time to make herself as presentable as she wished. She would have liked to have had time to pay a visit to the hotel hairdresser, but as that was not possible she gave her hair a quick wash herself and set it while her bath taps were running.
    Then she manicured her nails, agonised over the contents of her wardrobe—which suddenly seemed to her to be horribly limited in view of the fact that she was leading such a social life—finally selected a lemon-yellow dress with a little jacket that went with it, white shoes a white handbag, and was in the act of putting mascara on her lashes when the telephone beside her bed rang and she was informed that Monsieur Moroc was awaiting her in the hotel vestibule.
    Monsieur Moroc, she repeated to herself. Of course. He must have thought her a trifle crude when she insisted on addressing him as Mr. Moroc, although for the last forty-eight hours it had been Edouard.
    When she joined him, looking a little breathless after her rush, he, by contrast, struck her as completely relaxed and composed, and as if he had slept well. For once he was wearing a light silk shirt open at the neck, and he looked almost as careless and casual as the Count looked while he was splashing paint on his many canvases that never afterwards saw the light of day, because they were stacked away in a cupboard.
    “Come!” Edouard exclaimed, as he caught Cathleen by the wrist and drew her towards the entrance. “Giovanni is waiting, and I don’t want to waste any time. I thought we would do something quite different this afternoon, and I would permit you a glimpse of my private life. It is private in so far as I do not normally entertain visitors in the place where I live, perhaps because I look upon it as an intrusion ... or an opportunity to get to know me a little better than I wish to be known !” His white teeth flashed as he grinned at her. “But you—you are different! You shall see my palazzo , and if you do not fall in love with it I shall be surprised.”
    “Then you live in a palazzo ? ” She did not know why she was surprised, but she was.
    “Yes; and it is all mine.” The white teeth flashed again. “I told you I had a little Italian blood in my veins. My grandfather, as a matter of fact, on the maternal side, was pure Italian, and it was he who left me my palace. It is not perhaps as large as the Palazzo di Rini, but I think it is more desirable, and it is certainly in better condition. Many quite famous people have stayed there on various occasions ... Browning amongst them. It is a little more tucked away than the Palazzo di Rini, and therefore more inaccessible.”
    No wonder he had a fast motor-boat, she thought, when they were on their way to the palazzo. Even in that it took some time to reach their destination, and shortly before they reached it she wondered whether she was being altogether wise in allowing him to whisk her off like this.
    She glanced at him. He was smiling, bronzed, and it struck her that he was curiously content ... and in the golden light of the Venetian afternoon her qualms were banished.
    The whole of the Adriatic was a shimmering blaze of blue. The surface of the water suggested that a million diamonds had been ground into powder and scattered all over it ... in fact, many millions of diamonds. The canals, that were such dark, mysterious waterways at night, were almost as blue as the sea, and the sky overhead was so brazenly blue that it hurt the eyes. Cathleen put on her dark glasses, but Edouard instantly removed them.
    “No,” he said, “you shall not conceal the expressions that come and go in your eyes from me even for a moment.” Giovanni was attending to his engine, the motor-launch was sending up showers of spray as it sliced through the water, and Edouard bent forward and touched a bright end of hair that lay close to Cathleen’s cheek. “Do you know,” he said, very, very softly, “I have done nothing