Free This Merry Bond by Sara Seale Page B

You’re not the first, you know,” she said. At least she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. But to her surprise the anger went out of his face and he said gently:
    “You’ve never had a lover, Nicky Bredon. I knew that when you slapped my face for me.”
    Suddenly the fight went out of her. She covered her face with her hands and she could feel the hot shamed tears running through her fingers. She was aware of Simon standing over her and presently he began to speak.
    “Nicky—would you marry me, my dear? That would suit me just as well,” he said, and there was a hint of laughter in his voice.
    She looked up then, and stared at him with dazed eyes while the tears ran down her face unheeded.
    “What did you say?” she asked stupidly.
    “I w a s asking you to marry me.”
    Suspicion leaped into her eyes.
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Why do you imagine?”
    “The only possible reason I should think,” she said, all her hurt humiliation in her voice as she spoke. “Your money and my name.”
    The kindliness went out of his face.
    “You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “I happened to fall in love with you, you little fool. God knows why, for you’ve little enough kindness. Good night. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to play my part better.”
    For a moment she almost called him back, for when he went he took with him truth and integrity and a promise of something better. But she heard the front door swing to with its familiar echoing thud, and she slipped to the floor and wept afresh.
    For a week, Nicky went no place where she was likely to meet Simon. She developed an unreasoning dread of meeting him and for the first time began to think seriously of accompanying Charles abroad. She didn’t understand her reaction to that evening. She only knew that Simon had routed her again, and that she felt ashamed. She wanted to swear at Charles for having put her in such a position, to talk to him for the first time in her life as child to parent, to seek solace from him somehow. But Charles wasn’t there to curse, and if he had been he would never have fulfilled the role of parent.
    So Nicky went off for long walks alone and in the evening played the piano for hours on end in the big, unfamiliar drawing room. She felt, childishly, that had she been able to laugh at this proposal she would get back some of her self respect. But Simon wasn’t the kind of man you dismissed that easily. There was something about him. Nicky suddenly realized with unconceited simplicity that although in her travels with her father, many men had tried to make love to her, Simon was the first to tell her that he loved her.
    The knowledge did something unexpected to her. She was conscious of an odd kind of gratitude to him for loving her, and an added humiliation in that, although he loved her, he had little respect for her.
    Mouse watched her a little anxiously. It was plain to her sharp and experienced eyes that the girl was unhappy, and she had little difficulty in tracing that unhappiness to young Mr. Shand. Mouse was puzzled. For although Nicky had made it very plain that she had no interest in Simon, it was evident that something had passed between them.
    One evening, helping Nicky to dress for a party at Liza Coleman’s, Mouse asked her straight out what the matter was.
    “Matter?” echoed Nicky with an effort. “Nothing’s the matter.”
    “Rubbish!” Mouse retorted promptly. “You don’t deceive me, my girl. Are you ill?”
    “No.” Nicky tried to laugh.
    “In love, then?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Why are you mooning around the place like a lost puppy dog, then?”
    Nicky, seated on the bed stretched out one long lovely leg and regarded her painted toenails reflectively.
    “A lost puppy dog,” she repeated slowly. “Perhaps that’s what I am. I never thought of that.”
    “Then the sooner you find a master the better it’ll be for us all,” said Mouse decisively. “I don’t hold with all this modern