Free Choose the One You'll Marry by Mary Burchell Page B

was connected with Ruth in an almost family way. While Angus said, almost disagreeably, that he was discussing the program with Ruth, while enjoying the hospitality of her aunt and—reluctantly he included Michael—“her ci-devant cousin, as one might say.”
    “How nice for you all,” drawled Charmian. And she smiled a little vaguely at both the men, still more vaguely at Aunt Henrietta, and not at all at Ruth. Then she passed on, followed by her escort, who seemed to have taken remarkably little interest in all this.
    “Who was that with Miss Deal?” inquired Ruth, when it seemed there was some difficulty in getting the conversation restarted.
    “Chanley Meredith, the playwright,” said Angus gloomily. “He’s supposed to be writing a play for her.”
    “He doesn’t look capable of it,” remarked Ruth naively, which made Angus laugh so heartily that his good humor was apparently completely restored.
    “Perhaps you’re right. It’s a welcome thought,” he said. “Anyway, here’s to his ignominious failure.” And he cheerfully drained his glass.
    But in spite of this lighter episode, the mood of the evening was not an easy one. And Ruth was profoundly relieved when, after dinner, Aunt Henrietta said that she was tired and would like to go home, but that there was no need for the others to follow suit.
    “I’ll take you home, Aunt Henrietta,” Michael offered quickly.
    “And I’ll take you dancing, my sweet,” Angus told Ruth. “You aren’t tired, I take it?”
    “No, of course not. May I go, Aunt Henrietta, please?”
    “Why, of course, my dear.” Aunt Henrietta looked somewhat touched at being appealed to for permission. “Your time is your own while you are here.”
    “I just thought you might not like to have me coming in late.”
    “You can do exactly as you like.” Aunt Henrietta smiled. “Give her one of the keys, Michael.”
    So Michael gave her a key to the apartment—not very willingly, Ruth thought—and then he and Aunt Henrietta went home while Angus hailed a taxi, to drive them to what he called one of the few places left where one could dance in comfort and with some possibility of displaying one’s skill.
    That Angus was a very skillful dancer indeed Ruth discovered in the first few minutes on the dance floor, and at this point she began to enjoy her evening immensely. She still felt slightly apprehensive about the program he had mapped out for her. But she had great faith in Angus’s powers of inspiration and production, and she was not really afraid that she would prove unequal to whatever he required of her.
    They danced until nearly midnight, and just as Ruth was about to say she thought she should go home, Angus exclaimed, “ Come and let’s have a drink or an ice cream or something. I want to ask you some more about your Aunt Henrietta.”
    So, nothing loath, Ruth allowed herself to be conducted to a table at the side of the dance floor, and here, over the most delicious ice cream she had ever tasted, she told Angus what she knew of Aunt Henrietta.
    “Then she isn’t really a relative at all?”
    “Oh, no. Just an old family friend.”
    “And you’d never heard of her until a week or so ago?”
    “Well, not quite that,” Ruth explained. “I’ve heard mother speak of her from time to time over the years—just as one’s parents do speak of people from the past. But she wasn’t a—what shall I say—a known personality to me.”
    “And then she just turned up from New Zealand, without warning?”
    “From Australia. She emigrated to New Zealand, but went to Australia later, I gather. She sent a letter first. Mother herself hadn’t seen her since just after her own marriage.”
    “And she recognized her at once?”
    “I wonder why you say that,” Ruth said curiously. “The odd thing was that mother didn’t recognize her. At least, I mean—she wasn’t absolutely satisfied that it was Aunt Henrietta. But then, though my mother is a darling and very