Free Gates of Dawn by Susan Barrie

figure, and the calm purpose of her shapely mouth and resolute chin, there was a certain air of fragility about her which had a right to be protected. And with those fawn-like eyes and pale, smooth, oval face it was unlikely that she would find it necessary to work— for long! Scarcely any time at all if he was any judge of a woman ’ s potentialities! “ Well, it ’ s an unpredic t able world, ” he said; “ but certainly, in your case, you should have no qualms about the future. ”
    They looked at one another for a moment in silence, and she thought that he was regarding her speculatively, and there was a curious little quirk of a smile on his lips. And then suddenly he put out a hand and laid it firmly on her shoulder.
    “ All right, ” he said, “ you win! But we ’ ll think up a suitable bonus for you when you leave—that is to say, when my niece no longer requires you. And by the look of her at the moment she is going to require you for some time yet! ”
    “ She ’ s very far from strong, ” she said seriously . “ I hope Murchester will do her good. ”
    “ So do I, ” soberly. “ She had, I ’ m afraid, a bad beginning, and there is a certain inherited weakness there. If Murchester fails we shall have to think of something else. But for the meantime I feel that I can rely upon you to watch her carefully, to do your best to give her confidence, and to let me know if you are not satisfied with her progress. I am anxious to do the best I can for her, for she is after all my brother ’ s child. ”
    “ Is she at all like her mother? ” Melanie questioned him suddenly, without quite understanding why she asked.
    He shook his head.
    “ No—apart from her fairness. But her mother ’ s coloring was far richer. She— ” He stared into the fire, something like a shadow creeping over his face, and his voice went curiously flat. “ Actually someone else resembles her mother much more closely. ”
    “ Miss Gaythorpe? ” Melanie suggested quietly.
    “ How did you know? ”
    “ Noel told me Miss Gaythorpe is some sort of connection of her mother ’ s, and that she. is rather strikingly like her. That ’ s why I wondered whether Noel is perhaps rather more like her father? ”
    “ It ’ s quite possible that she is—in a way, ” he agreed, but he sounded a trifle curt. He turned from her and strode out into the hall, picked up his light raincoat and threw it over his shoulder. “ Good night, Miss Brooks. I hope you won ’ t be too lonely at the Wold House. You must let me know if there is anything you want. ”
    “ I will, ” she promised.
    “ I shall be visiting you soon—before Christmas . ” Suddenly he held out his hand and she placed hers in it. She suddenly longed intensely to know whether, having fulfilled one obligation this evening, he was now going to taste the reward of virtue by joining the party which contained Miss Gaythorpe. It was early yet—there was plenty of time for him to do so.
    He looked down at her slim fingers lying almost confidingly in his hold. He gave them a little squeeze, and lightly caught her other hand as well.
    “ The hands of a world ’ s worker! ” he observed, and looked up at her with a curious blend of laughter and something quite inexplicable in his gaze. “ I don ’ t want them to toil too hard in my service! ”
    That afternoon she might not have existed so far as he was concerned, but this evening she was made all at once most acutely aware that he exercised, when he felt like it, quite a powerful charm. It was in his voice, and his look, and his baffling smile. It was in the faint, attractive odor of pipe tobacco and shaving-cream which clung to him. It was in some way connected with the magnetic contact his fingers were maintaining with her own, and which made her want to snatch hers rather hastily away because she was being overcome by a sort of confusion ... She even dropped her eyes, when he persisted in looking at her, and saw the