Free Seducer by Fletcher Flora Page A

and you’ll have something there.”
    “That’s true,” he admitted. “I’d forgotten about the party. To tell the truth, I would prefer to go right on forgetting it. Those damn backyard affairs of old Norton’s are terrible bores. Besides, it’s getting too late in the year for outside parties. We’ll all freeze our tails.”
    “I hardly think so. The temperature’s mild enough, even in the evening, and there will be a fire. Anyhow, most guests appear to enjoy Dr. Norton’s backyard parties. I rather enjoy them myself.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of your pleasure. We’ll go of course.”
    “I should hope so. You can hardly afford to be cavalier with the head of your department,” she reminded him tartly.
    “You think not? I doubt that old Norton has much influence left where it counts. No matter, though. I’ll have the tea, as you suggested.”
    “If you prefer the cocktail, I’ll mix it. A Martini?”
    “No. You’re quite right about it. I’d better have the tea.”
    “All right. I’ll have to make it myself. The maid is off this afternoon.”
    She turned away from the window against which she had been standing and crossed the room to a door opening into a hall that led back to the kitchen.
    Watching her go, Brad gave due credit to her fine figure and the practiced grace of her movements, which had been learned early and never lost. The dress she was wearing was very expensive, he thought, far more expensive than she could have worn if they were living on his salary. But he did not resent this. On the contrary, he fully approved it.
    A man of his own appearance and position needed an impressive wife at any cost, and it surely made matters much easier if he didn’t have to pay the cost himself. It was a pity, really, and perhaps not entirely her fault, that she was, like old Norton’s backyard brawls, such a bore. Actually, his feeling for her nowadays was somewhat more positive than mere boredom. It had in it a core of animus that might easily, sufficiently incited, become hatred.
    He got up and walked over to the window that Madelaine had left, holding his book folded upon an index finger. Looking across the side yard to the box hedge that separated them from their neighbor, a botanist of considerable repute, he wondered what in the devil he was to do about Cornelia, for it was certain that something had to be done as quickly and quietly as possible.
    Well, he wasn’t seriously worried about her, so far as that went. He was positive that she wouldn’t kick up a public fuss and ruin her own career at Peermont, as well as his. But it was possible that she might do something covertly that was calculated to smear him in some way while leaving her untouched. He wondered if she would. Or if she could, if she would. He doubted it. She was, after all, a mature woman, much too sophisticated and intelligent to create a sticky mess over an affair that had been mutually conceived and, until recently, rather pleasantly conducted.
    Oh, she would certainly make things difficult when it came to a break. She had already demonstrated that. After a while, however, she would accept it amiably enough, and later on she would probably even convince herself that it was she who had decided to make the break for her own good.
    Reassured, aware of a vacancy that Cornelia, in his mind, had already left, he began to think of Maggie. Thinking of her caused his lips to slip into the shape of a slight smile, developing dimples.
    She was an odd and intriguing little devil, he thought. She possessed, somehow, a unique quality that made her different from anyone he had ever known before. Puzzling and exciting and somewhat disturbing. What was it?
    He stood and tried to think what it was until Madelaine returned, carrying a silver service, and then he turned away, walking back to his chair and pulling it a little forward so that he could reach, sitting, the low table on which the service sat.
    “Did you watch the