Air Ticket (4 page)

“It was not a visit remotely connected with anything like enjoyment,” Dr. Andreas replied, his expression softening as he studied that rising tide of color in her cheeks. “And it took up more of my time than I anticipated. I really was afraid you might have flown by the time I got back, in spite of your promise to remain here.”

She lifted her clear eyes and looked at him. “But I promised, and therefore I stayed.”

Suddenly Caro felt her curiosity overcoming her. “Dr. Andreas,” she began hesitantly, “I find myself wondering quite a lot about you. Do you realize that I don’t even know whether you’re married?”

“I’m not,” he answered a little curtly.

“And you never have been?”

“Yes. My wife died,” he told her in clipped accents, “and the daughter I very nearly possessed died, also!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed at once, with instant sympathy, but his frowning brows told her that he had no desire to pursue the subject, and she cast about in her mind for a fresh topic to introduce. And once again all she could think of was his trip to Vienna.

“Tell me about Vienna,” she requested rather quietly. “I’ve never been there, but I’d love to go one day. Is it really as gay as all the waltz tunes make one think it is?”

'“Yes, Vienna is quite gay nowadays,” he responded, and she felt he was watching her with something uncertain in his expression. There was even a trace of uncertainty in his voice. “If you’ve never been there you certainly must go one day—it’s quite unlike any other capital in Europe.”

He went on talking about Vienna for quite a while, and Caro listened to him with a feeling of flatness because since her unhappy attempt to pry into his affairs a certain amount of the pleasure of the evening had vanished for her. And she was not sorry when at last he stood up and she found herself outside again and in his car.

The night was dark, and there were few stars reflected in the surface of the lake, but the roads were beautifully clear. He was very quiet as he drove, and she thought drearily that in a few minutes they would be back at her hotel, and she would have to thank him for a pleasant evening and say goodnight.

“Have you made up your mind when you’re going back to London?”

She was a little startled by the question, and disturbed by the cool, blunt way in which he posed it.

“No,” she admitted, “no,
I
haven’t really made up my mind—but I think it will be quite soon. Probably the day after tomorrow.”

She suddenly realized that it was his house and not her hotel outside which they were stopping. He switched off the engine. “If you’re not in a hurry I’d like you to come in for a while. I’d like to talk to you.” He led the way to the room in which they had had tea, and there he switched on the lights and also an electric fire. Caro moved to the piano and ran the fingers of one hand lightly over the keys.

“You have a nice touch,” he said. “Play something from memory.”

“I’m not very good at playing from memory.”

“Then sit down, and I’ll play something for you.” She was not surprised to make the discovery that he was a far, far better player than she was. The room became filled with melody—a Chopin waltz, Debussy’s
Clair de Lune.
Then, with a ripple of final chords, he stood up and left the piano and came toward her. He looked at her with a faint smile in his eyes.

“That was in the nature of a sedative—something to make you forget that our evening has not been an entire success,” he said, astounding her because she realized he knew exactly how she had been feeling. “And now I’m going to provide you with a drink and then we’ll have our talk, shall we?”

“What
...
do
you want to talk about?” she asked.

“Oh, all sorts of things—you and me among them!” Once again his eyes sent that queer half
-
smiling look in her direction.

He sat down near to her, and all at once she knew she was feeling nervous—a kind of excited nervousness. She wanted to pick up her drink, but she knew that her hand would shake, and once again he anticipated her wish and placed it in her hand for her.

He looked at her more thoughtfully, more gravely.

“I want to apologize,” he said, “for biting your head off when you asked me about my marriage! I knew all about your marriage and you naturally had a right to find out a few things about me. But it’s—something I haven’t discussed with anyone for years.”

“I see,” she said, and stared down at the liquid in her glass.

“Unlike you, I did marry for love, and it didn’t last very long.”

Once again she told him that she was sorry. She meant it. She meant it so sincerely that her eyes, when she lifted them to his face, were almost limpid with her sympathy, and they were quite definitely his undoing. An overpowering desire to kiss her and hold her overcame him. She looked so small and slight in the warm glow of the shaded lights. She had a little polished head that reflected the light, and her skin was as pale and smooth as a camellia. Her eyes could hardly have been more attractive, and the soft vividness of her mouth was a temptation.

He set down his drink, removed hers from her hand and then stood up and pulled her almost roughly out of her chair and into his arms.

“Oh, Caro!” he whispered as his mouth found hers.

CHAPTER FIVE

Caro watched the stars.
She realized that she ought to go to bed, but she knew she would not be likely to sleep. She could still feel a man’s arms around her, and a man’s hard, demanding mouth taking toll of her own. He had kissed her eyes lingeringly many times and told her that he had wanted to do so almost from the moment he first saw her. He wished that instead of resisting the temptation he had kept her in his car when he offered her a lift at the Zurich airport, and whisked her off somewhere to marry her.

“But you don’t
really
want to marry me? You hardly know me.”

“I know all I want to know about you,” he had informed her. But he had not told her he loved her. He’d told her that she was enchanting, that he knew he could not let her go out of his life, that she had bewitched him and that because she was small and very feminine he wanted to look after her.

“And the only way I can do that is by marrying you,” he had added. “So whether you like it or not, you’ll have to marry me! Do you think you could bear it?”

“Bear
it...?”
Even as she had clung t
o
him, and
his lips had moved softly, gently, in her hair, she had wondered whether he would be horrified if he knew what a tempest of feeling he had aroused at the heart of her being. She who was normally so cool and contained, and thought of little else but painting miniatures! And was the mother of a daughter like Beverley! She had wondered if he fully realized that she was not a young woman, though it was true she was only thirty-eight. She felt that she ought to warn him of the things he might be missing.

Lucien had laughed and held her rather more closely when she tried to put her thoughts into words. She wondered, as she looked at him adoringly, whether any man in the world ever had such perfect white teeth when he smiled, or such an intriguing cleft in his firm chin, or eyebrows that were so beautifully marked.

“Do you realize,
Liebling
,” he had said to her softly, “that I have been a widower now for ten years, and as I am forty-one, and my period of married life was very short—not even as long as yours—a little arithmetic will inform you that I was always cautious about marriage even when I was young. So I don’t honestly think your warning that I may possibly be making a mistake is necessary.”

“All the same—” she suddenly drew in her breath “—I am thirty-eight! And I never intended to marry again.”

“You may be thirty-eight, but there are moments when you look about eighteen,” he had told her, studying her as if she amused him. “And what is
there about me that has caused you to change your mind about risking a second husband?”

Her eyes as they gazed at him were transparent pools. “Everything,” she had answered simply.

His expression had grown more grave. “Are you quite sure about that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Caro,” he had asked her almost abruptly, “do you love me?”

She’d drawn another long breath. “I could hardly love you more than I do,” she admitted at last.

“Then, my darling, we will be married without any delay whatsoever,” he’d told her, causing something inside her to quiver like a live thing. “
I
will not even allow you time to inform that precious daughter of yours that we are going to be married. You can send her a telegram as soon as you’re my wife, and if she and her husband are in Italy they can break their journey by stopping in Switzerland on their way back to England and see you and wish you well personally.”

And now here she
was on her balcony, wondering how she was going to live through the hours until she saw Lucien again. As soon as it was light enough, she sat down to write to Beverley. She had to tell something to someone of all that had happened to her since she’d left England. But she would hold back the letter for a few days. If it reached Beverley hard on the heels of her telegram that would be the ideal time.

Several hours later
Fraulein Neiger sat dealing with the morning’s post. She had half promised to spend the weekend at the house of an admirer, and his parents were somewhat critical. Not that she encouraged the attentions of that particular admirer with any seriousness. When you lived with the essence of masculine perfection for several hours each day, it was a little difficult to feel interested in any lesser man.

Suddenly Dr. Andreas made his appearance.

“Good morning, Liesel,” he greeted her. “Do you know anything about getting married?”

“Getting—married?” Liesel was so astonished that she was quite unable to conceal the fact.

“Yes.” The doctor took a seat on the edge of her desk and swung a leg carelessly. “Without any delay, I mean. A civil ceremony, of course. The lady in question is English, and that might occasion some delay. Will you find out? Get onto the appropriate people and let me know what you can get out of them.”

“
Yes, doctor.”

She wondered whether perhaps she had made a mistake. It might be for a friend that he wished the inquiries made.

“You
...
you aren’t thinking of getting married yourself, are you, doctor?” she asked after swallowing hard.

“Yes, Liesel, I am.” His smile at her was gay and challenging. “Does that stagger you? You’ve probably thought of me as crawling toward middle age without any of the softening influences of a feminine presence near me, but I’ve changed my mind about preferring a bachelor existence and very soon I hope I shall have a wife! You’ve already met Mrs. Yorke.
You’ll remember I brought her here the other afternoon.”

Liesel could not believe her ears.

“You’re going to marry
... Mrs. Yorke, doctor?”

“Yes, Liesel.”

He turned over some of the letters on the desk. “Anything interesting?”

“Nothing,” Fraulein Neiger replied in a stiff, unnatural voice. “Fraulein Spiro telephoned and said that she would be calling to see you at eleven. She asked me to let you know that she would not take up more than a few minutes, but she does particularly wish to see you.”

“Does she?” He folded a letter he had glanced at and put it back in its envelope. “Well, you’ll have to explain to Fraulein Spiro that I can’t see her, because
I
shan’t be here at eleven o’clock. I’ve got to go out this morning, Liesel, and you must make as many excuses for me as you can. Say that I’ve had an urgent summons, if you like.”

“But what about Madame Vannier?” Liesel inquired. “She is due at a quarter past eleven, and if you are not here—”

“If I’m not here I can’t possibly see her, Liesel,” Dr. Andreas pointed out to her patiently, “and you can prevent her from coming by simply getting on the telephone to her right away.” Madame Vannier was the wife of a wealthy jeweler, with nothing particularly serious affecting her at the moment. “I must go, Liesel. I shall be back before one o’clock, and I hope you’ll have good news for me.”

At a quarter to eleven Olga Spiro arrived. Liesel had not attempted to put her off, for the excellent reason that she knew Fraulein Spiro had a right to be one of the first people to be informed of the rather shattering piece of news.

But Fraulein Spiro was as taken aback, when she first heard the news, as Liesel had been. Only since she had been trained not to display emotion of any sort if it could possibly be avoided, it was a little difficult to judge what her immediate reaction was.

Olga Spiro might have been somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. She was immensely chic, but she was not a beauty. The thing she lacked was color, and what little she had seemed to leave her once she had heard Liesel’s news.

“Tell me, Liesel,” Olga said after a rather long moment of silence, “have you met this Mrs.—Yorke, is that her name?”

Liesel admitted that she had. “The doctor brought her here for tea one afternoon.”

“And is she—would you say that she is unusually attractive?”

“Well, no,” Liesel answered, rather more slowly. “She is not unattractive—she is dark, and
petite
, and perhaps also rather pretty. I would say that she is very English,
”
she ended.

“And young.”

“Yes—quite young.”

“Barbara was dark and
petite
,” Olga murmured, as if to herself, “but she was much more than pretty. It is extraordinary!” she exclaimed. Then she seemed to recover her poise. “As Dr. Andreas is marrying at last, Fraulein Neiger, it is up to us to give a proper
welcome to his wife, and I hope you will let him know how delighted
I
was to hear the news today.”

“Certainly, Fraulein Spiro,” Liesel answered.

“I’ll go now,” said Olga, “and you needn’t bother to leave your work to let me out.”

Once back in her own flat she told her maid that she did not wish to be disturbed by callers, but she would answer the telephone if it rang. And it did ring, about six o’clock that night.

“Olga,” Lucien said, “I know you’re thinking the worst of me, but all this is very sudden. I got back from Vienna only yesterday—”

“And today,” Olga interrupted him brightly, “I learn that you are engaged to be married to a charming Englishwoman! It was a surprise, Lucien, but all your friends will be made very happy by this news— you have lived alone too long!”

Lucien was silent for several seconds, and then she heard him say in a voice that gave away as little as her own, “There are worse things than living alone, Olga—but there are some things that do seem to be more or less inevitable! Caro and I met in an airliner. I believe you will like her. How soon would you care to meet her?”

“How soon would you care for me to meet her?”

“
I
think you will be good for her, so the sooner the better. Why not lunch with us both tomorrow?”

“That will be lovely,” she declared smoothly.

“
I
will call for you about one o’clock.”