Free There Will Come A Stranger by Dorothy Rivers Page B

question and the kindness in his voice, made her say impulsively “I ’ m terrified—that ’ s why!”
    “ Terrified? What—of me?” He sounded horrified.
    “No—oh, no! Of course not! Just of—oh, everything! It ’ s all so new to me, you see — ”
    “I don ’ t see. Tell me!”
    So her story tumbled out: the tale of the secluded life that she had led since she left school, her inexperience, the feeling of inadequacy that overwhelmed her. “I ’ m a provincial nitwit—I can ’ t talk, except about silly, unimportant things — ”
    “Who wants you to? The people who can talk about ‘ important ’ things would far rather have you listening while they do the holding forth. You listen very nicely, if I may say so! And anyway, what are the really important things in life? I expect you know as much about them as anybody else.”
    Valerie felt comforted, and told him so. “But I can ’ t dance!” she said sadly.
    “You cou l dn ’ t, to begin with—you were trying too hard. Quite fatal! But while you ’ ve been telling me all this, you ’ ve been dancing like a butterfly, simply because you forgot to think about it! Anxiety neurosis, that ’ s what wrong with you , my girl! Relax, and leave it to the music. Stop trying. Let it happen!”
    Gratefully she thought how kind he was, how understanding, under his lighthearted banter. Tension once more released its grip. Effortless and pliant she responded to the pressure of his guiding hand, moving with him at last in easy harmony on the rhythmic tides of music.
    Presently a couple caught her eye: a man whose smooth, dark head, well-set on his lean flat shoulders, was bent above the fair one of his partner, who was small and slim. The smoky chiffon of her skirts, sparkling like raindrops on a misty night, floated out about her as they danced. She thought how nice they looked, how well they danced together: thought that there was something curiously familiar about them . .. Only as they disappeared she realized that she was looking at their own reflection in a mirror.
    “I told you so!” said Rory when the last encore had whispered to its close and they were returning to their table, “You can dance—and dance well, too!”
    Rather a poppet, he was thinking, with her big, appealing eyes, and the dimple that kept flickering in her cheek. Something endearing, too, about her need for reassurance. Something really rather pleasant about a girl who hadn ’ t got all the answers at her fingertips! ... But it was Hilary he asked for the next dance.
    People who had had dinner in their own hotels were drifting in to dance, among them friends of Rory ’ s and the Prescotts and the Fraynes, whom they had met here last year, so the party grew as snowballs do. Valerie danced with Harry and with Gordon Frayne, whom she found supercilious and difficult to dance with; with a tall fair young man they all called Robin, who asked if she would meet him here for tea tomorrow, and a short square cheerful one who answered to the name of Buster, and told her that her frock was quite the prettiest in the room. A charming woman with white hair and a youthful face said that she was getting up a party to dine and dance here on Thursday evening, to celebrate her son ’ s twenty-first birthday; the Prescotts would be of the party—would Valerie come too?
    And through it all, because the tension of her mind and body had relaxed, her diffidence and shyness disappeared; she chaffed and laughed as easily as any of them.
    Later she heard the others making plans for a long expedition in the morning, but it had ceased to matter that she would still be floundering ignominiously on the nursery slopes while all the rest of them were far afield—for thanks to Rory she had found her feet in other ways: the ways that counted!

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    It was John Ainslie ’ s last evening in Varlet-sur - Montagne. The Prescotts had gone home on the date originally arranged, several days ago, but at