Free Flower for a Bride by Barbara Rowan Page B

home the day after tomorrow,” Lois replied, and she thought the Portuguese girl’s eyebrows ascended a little.
    Although she must have been somewhere in her middle thirties, to be a contemporary of Dom Julyan, she really looked little more than a girl. She was as slender as a willow wand, and every movement she made was one of infinite grace. There was no true beauty in her face, but it had something much more than beauty, for it was alive and alight with all sorts of constantly changing moods and expressions, and the tawny eyes were so clear that they were disconcerting. She had black, sleek hair that reminded Lois of a wet seal on a rock, and she was so beautifully made-up that irregularities in the contours of her face didn’t seem to matter. Her mouth was wide and generous, the lips curving swiftly into a smile, and her upward glance—even when it was directed at no one of greater importance in her scheme of things than Miss Mattie— had something tenderly caressing about it.
    Lois felt, with a strange sinking of the heart, that she was a woman with so much warmth in her personality that, to a man who was starved of warmth, even to sit near her was like basking in the friendliness of a room filled with sunshine. A room that would tempt him to relax and be himself.
    The conversation at tea was light and pleasant, and Jamie divided his attention between the two female visitors. But when Lois, during a lull in the talk, said rather awkwardly that she thought she had intruded long enough, and if Dom Julyan would be good enough to either drive or send or send her home—and as she knew he employed a chauffeur, and had more than one car, that, she decided was a good enough ‘let out’ if he needed it, and excuse not to desert the attractive widow—she would be most grateful, the small boy did not look so pleased.
    “But, it is early!” he protested, catching at her arm. “Miss Mattie promised that you would stay, perhaps, for dinner!”
    Lois smiled into the child’s eyes.
    "But you will be in bed long before dinner time, and I have had a wonderful time as it is. I must go now.”
    Dom Julyan leaned forward.
    “Why?” he enquired, politely. "Is there some reason why you should be back early?”
    “I—why, no, but. . . .” She didn’t quite know what to say, aware of tawny eyes watching her—of something bright and, perhaps, faintly amused, in those eyes—of Miss Mattie looking a little uncertain, and her determination strengthened itself. “But it was extremely good of you to bring me here for lunch, I have had, as I said, a delicious afternoon, and it would be unreasonable to expect anything more. Besides, I—”
    “Yes?” insistently.
    “I feel that I should go. . . .”
    “You are perhaps tired?” he suggested.
    “Y—yes!” She seized upon the suggestion quickly. “I haven’t slept very well for the last three nights, and—and I think I am a bit tired! I shall go to bed very early tonight.” “Very well,” he said, quietly, and rose. “I will bring the car round to the side of the house, and in the meantime sit still and rest your ankle.”
    When he had gone, striding away across the lawn, Lois felt as if emotion that wanted to spill over into actual tears was rising up inside her like a well, and when she caught Miss Mattie looking at her with something that was undoubtedly sympathetic in her old but still very shrewd grey eyes, that emotion threatened for a moment to get out of hand. Miss Mattie leaned across to her and patted her on the knee, and:
    “If I don’t see you again,” she said, “I do hope you have a good journey home to England—and that everything goes well with you, my dear! Perhaps some time you might write to me.”
    “Yes,” Lois answered eagerly, “I will.”
    Donna Colares said:
    “If I don’t see you again, I hope your ankle will soon cease to give you any trouble, Miss Fairchild. But
    somehow I think I will see you again!”
    Lois stared at her, and her