Free Mountain Magic by Susan Barrie

we met before?”
    Kurt Antoine strolled along the terrace towards them, and Toni bolted like a startled rabbit at the first hint of his coming.
    Gresham regarded him as if he disliked him personally, and then strode off along the terrace in the opposite direction.
    Toni was making a disastrous business of filling a glass with Vichy water, when her employer appeared at her elbow and said in a quiet undertone that he would like a few words with her as soon as she was free.
    “Come along to my office, wi ll you? I’ ll be waiting for you.”
    Toni could only think that she had committed some enormous crime to be thus ordered to report to his office; and the customer who had ordered the Vichy water looked openly surprised when she slopped so much of it over the table that she had to fetch a cl oth and mop it up. Then, with her heart knocking as if it was attached to a string inside her, she made her way to Kurt Antoine’s office.
    She had no need to knock on the door. He must have been listening for her footste p s, for he called out at once:
    “Come in!”
    Feeling about as noticeable as a tropical bird amongst a gathering of starlings, Toni accepted the invitation, and then accepted another inv i tation to be seated.
    She found it quite impossible to cover her knees with her bri ef lilac skirt once she had accepted a chair, and she could almost fed Antoine’s eyes staring at the shapeliness of her legs. Then he lifted them to her face, and he asked quie tl y:
    “I want you to tell me something truthfully, Miss Darcy.” The fact that he didn’t call her Toinette filled her with apprehension. “I was amazed when I heard that, in pr ef erence to accepting a position in the office, you had decided to step in and fill the breach l ef t by the departure of Trudi, one of our terrace waitresses. I don’t mind admitting I was so amazed that I could hardly believe it at first! But Marianne assures me that it is true. Apparently glamour appeals to you more than assisting with the routine work of an office!”
    If he was amazed by what he had heard Toni was so amazed that she could hardly speak. Then she realised what had happened ... Marianne, fearing that he might be slightly critical of the niche she had found for his prot é g é e , had decided to proffer her explanations before she was asked for them. And in doing so sh e had made it impossible for Toni to complain, and certainly she had made it impossible for her to state bluntly and baldly that Mademoiselle Raveaux was a distorter of the truth.
    “Well?” Antoine was looking at her, frowning at her as if there was just a chance he would have believed her if she had told the truth about Marianne. But it was such a flimsy chance Toni couldn’t take it.
    He would probably be so furious with her for destroying—or attempting to destroy—the character of his manageress, that he would sack her, Toni, on the spot.
    Toni took a deep breath, and then sacrificed any good opinion of her he might possibly have held.
    “I don’t know anything about office work,” she said quietly. “It seemed to me that I should be a— a sort of square peg in a round hole.”
    “But you do know something about serving drinks to men who can seize the opportunity to admire your legs ? ” in such a tone of icy displeasure that she would rather he had accused her of robbing the office safe.
    “Of course not.”
    “Then shall we say you thought it was an excellent opportunity to acquire that knowledge?”
    She swallowed. Her face was so red that she felt as if it was literally on fire.
    “I’m disappointed in you,” he remarked. “I thought you would jump at the office job, particularly as I created it especially for you, and in time it might have led to something worth while. However, if you prefer that frilly apron, and that ridiculous flower in your hair...!” He stood up and started to pace about the room, and then came back to her and stared down at her with dark and hostile eyes.