Free The Blue Rose by Esther Wyndham Page B

again.”
    “Oh, Rose, Rose, how much longer have I got to wait for you?” He drew her head down on to his shoulder and stroked her hair with his wonderfully tender but powerful hands.
    “Oh, to be able to stay in your arms like this always. You don’t know what the peace of it is.”
    “How am I going to wait for you another nine days?” he asked. “If I were a magician I’d turn you into a little doll and keep you in my pocket all day—in my inside pocket right next to my heart. A little, tiny, warm, living you to comfort me all day ...” Quite suddenly he sat upright and pushed her away from him. “I’m going to take you home,” he said. “There are some things more than a man can bear.”
    “I don’t want to leave you yet,” she protested. “Nevertheless, that is just what you are going to do,” he said firmly. “Come on.”
    There was no going against him. He drove her home rapidly and in silence. “You won’t come up?” she asked when they got to the door of the flats.
    “No.”
    “You’re not angry with me about anything?”
    “Of course I’m not angry.”
    “I’ll see you to-morrow evening? You remember, it’s the opening of the shop? I shall have to be there early.”
    “Yes, so it is. I’d forgotten. All right, I’ll meet you there.” He kissed her good-night but it was a brief kiss. She only half understood his sudden change of mood, but as she undressed and got into bed she wondered whether she had done right in not consenting to slip away with him next day to be married. “But no,” she consoled herself. “He said himself that we mustn’t hurt Francie.”

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    THE next day Rose had lunch with Clare. She was looking forward to it as she knew that she would be able to talk to Clare about Stephen, and the next best thing to being with him was talking about him. Clare, looking as elegant as usual, was waiting for her and greeted her most cordially and they went straight in to lunch. Every table in the club dining-room was occupied but the tables were so spaced that one could talk in a normal voice without any danger of being overheard. After they had agreed to have the set lunch they began to talk of the opening of the coffee bar, and Clare said how much she hoped that it would be a success because Francie and Derek had put so much into it—so much of their hearts as well as every penny of their capital. “We must just pray for them,” she said.
    “But I’m sure it will be a success,” Rose replied. “They are so certain of it themselves. It has never even occurred to them that it might fail.”
    Clare smiled and gave a little shrug of her well-tailored shoulders. “Do you think confidence is the only thing necessary for success?” she asked.
    “Well, it’s a very important thing, isn’t it?” Rose asked.
    “I should feel more sanguine if they had had more experience,” Clare said. “To my mind experience is the greatest asset in any undertaking ... Have you ever noticed how often a second marriage turns out better than a first? A failure in one marriage, far from making another failure likely, seems to be the best possible augury for a second. Marriage is a strange business, my dear—I might almost say that it is an art that has to be learnt. A successful marriage doesn’t come about merely by two people falling in love and deciding that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. It’s not as simple, unfortunately, as all that.”
    Rose’s interest was captured. “What is the secret of a successful marriage then, do you think ?" she asked.
    “The secret? If only it were a secret, because secrets can be passed on. If I had the secret I would so willingly give it to you,” Clare said with a smile.
    “But your marriage is a very happy one?”
    “Yes, a wonderfully happy one, but I have had to put a great deal of very hard work into it to make it a success, I promise you. It hasn’t come about just by accident or by repeating some