I and My True Love by Helen MacInnes

apology, and another yawn seized that chance to make its appearance. “It’s just that I’ve spent the last three nights on a train,” she explained.
    “Three nights?” Miriam Hugenberg asked.
    “Darling, I quite forgot,” Sylvia said.
    “This room’s rather warm,” Payton remarked. “We’d better open more windows, don’t you think?”
    “Three nights!” Miriam Hugenberg repeated.
    “Well, it’s all of three thousand miles,” Bob Turner said. He added, so that she could really grasp the length of the journey, “As if you travelled from Paris to Constantinople and then back again.”
    Miriam looked on him blankly.
    “Why on earth didn’t you fly?” Stewart Hallis asked.
    “Oh,” said Kate and looked uncertainly around. Let anyone smile who wants to, she thought. “It was my first trip east. So I got instructions from Father to take a train and look at the differences in trees and mountains and towns and people.”
    “My dear, you must be exhausted,” Miriam said.
    “We really have to go.” Amy Clark rose to her feet. She had been searching for an excuse ever since Payton Pleydell had arrived on the scene. It was odd how over-polite you felt you had to be, when you had a guilty conscience. Now, as she shook hands with Payton, she wondered how he would look if he knew she had once advised his wife to run away with another man. “Do come and see us,” she told Kate. “I’ll get in touch with you.”
    “Yes, do,” Clark echoed his wife. He gave Kate a surprisingly warm handshake.
    Bob Turner glanced at his watch. “I’ll have to leave,” he said, and proceeded to waste no time on any protracted good nights. Except when he came to Kate, he said, “Do you like the Marx brothers? Good. There’s a revival of A Night at the Opera in town, this week. Would you care to see it? I’ll call you.”
    Miriam Hugenberg also had to leave. She had had three nights of dinner parties in a row, with two more to follow. And at her age, she admitted in a weak moment, it all added up.
    To what? Sylvia buried that thought and made the correct goodbyes.
    “I didn’t mean to break up the party,” Kate said worriedly, looking at the emptying room.
    Sylvia murmured, “It was time to break it up.”
    But neither Mr. Whiteshaw nor Mr. Minlow evidently thought so. Nor did Hallis. The three of them and their host looked as if the evening was just beginning. But Hallis stepped out of the all-men-together role for just one moment as Kate said good night. “When you’re recovered tomorrow,” he said, holding her hand, “perhaps you’ll let me show you around. I’ve a car, and we can see all the sights very comfortably. I suppose you have to go sight-seeing?”
    “Stewart—” Sylvia began in amazement.
    “No, Sylvia. I insist. Besides, after twelve years in Washington I really ought to see Mount Vernon. Kate’s going to complete my neglected education. Aren’t you, Kate?”
    Kate could only feel that annoying colour mount to her cheeks again as she said she’d be delighted only perhaps Sylvia had plans—
    “Oh no,” Hallis said, “tomorrow’s the day that Sylvia attends her Civil Defence class. I can’t imagine her in a tin helmet or blowing a whistle, but she insists. She has a most surprising sense of duty.”
    “Or is it my form of hysteria, Stewart? But you’d better treat it with more respect, or I’ll find a neat little notice saying shelter and point the arrow straight at your house.”
    “Yes,” Payton said, answering Hallis, “Sylvia has a sense of duty, thank God.” There was a note of pride in his voice, a touch of affection in the hand laid on his wife’s shoulder. And then, as if regretting such a display of emotion, he wanted to know if anyone needed more ice in his drink.
    Kate imagined that her half-sleeping eyes were playing tricks. For Sylvia seemed to flinch at her husband’s praise, and the look in her eyes, as she watched him for a brief moment, was almost strained. Then