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him. “Please don’t!” she protested.
    But she was too late. He held her very close and kissed her cheek and then her lips. Sarah struggled against a sharp desire to slap him. Instead she flung open the door on her side of the car and slid out, angrily smoothing down her dress and wiping her face on the back of her hand.
    “You’d better take a taxi to Canterbury!” she said furiously.
    Alec sat and watched her, his expression enigmatic.
    “Okay, Sarah,” he said. “You can get back in. I won't touch you again. I haven’t the time anyway, as you pointed out, if I don’t want to miss my train. Oh, for heaven’s sake, girl, don’t make such a big thing of it! Anyone would think—”
    “I asked you not to!” she exclaimed, very near to tears.
    “So do they all! Another time, my pet, and I’ll prove to you that you didn’t mean it either. Now get in, there’s a good girl, and drive me to Canterbury, and we’ll say no more about it.”
    Sarah stared back at him. She couldn’t believe that he really thought he had only to persevere to overcome her reluctance to play at love with him. Perhaps he had reason to think so. She was sure that there would be many girls who would be flattered by his attentions, only she was surprised that he was obtuse enough to believe that she was one of them.
    Slowly she got back into the car, grinding the gears as she flung the car on to the road, her anger getting the better of her driving. It was a good thing that it wasn’t far to Canterbury, she thought, as she narrowly missed hitting a lorry that was thundering along the A2. She took a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on what she was doing and in a few minutes she felt calmer and more in control of the situation.
    In silence they drove through Canterbury to the railway station, and in silence she waited for him to get out of the car.
    “Look, Sarah—”
    “I’m sorry, Alec. I’m not casual about that sort of thing and that’s all there is to it. There’s your train coming in now.”
    Alec hesitated, thought better of whatever it was he had been going to say, and walked slowly away from her. Sarah grasped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles shone white and she realised that she was afraid that he would turn back and say something further, something that she couldn’t either forget or forgive. She liked Alec, she thought, and she didn’t want an open breach between them, especially not over something so trivial as a kiss that meant nothing to him and even less to her.
    But he did not come back and, as soon as he was out of sight, she let in the clutch and drove carefully back through Canterbury and out along the A2. The roads were crowded as the shops and offices emptied and people took to their cars to get home and she was glad to turn off the main road and start the last short distance into the village. She drove slowly along the road until the watermill caught her attention and she found herself going back over the incident with Alec. Why should he want to kiss her ? she wondered. He knew many prettier women than herself, women who would be only too willing to fall into his arms when they knew who he was and what he had to offer. If she had been a different kind of person, she supposed she would have been flattered by his attentions. Why then should she feel only, sick at heart and shamed by the embrace?
    She looked at the watermill with disfavour, allowing the car to slide almost on to the wrong side of the road. With a bang, she pulled herself just in time to avoid hitting Robert who was walking along the road in the opposite direction. She had a vivid picture of his furious face as he stood in front of her bonnet, glaring at her, with his hands on his hips and the light of battle in his eye. With a comprehensive gesture, he wrenched open her door and motioned to her to move over into the passenger seat. Too frightened to speak, she watched him set the car in motion again and drive in