Island in the Dawn by Averil Ives Page B

some of it behind each of her ears, and at her delicate, blue-veined temples. The whole room became filled with the fragrance of the toilet water, which was expensive, and exquisitely refreshing. “Cassand r a, I’ll understand perfectly if you don’t want to pay for me at hotels, and would like me to go home. But, naturally, you don’t want to go home—and I don’t see how you can very well stay on here!”
    Her employer smiled round her inscrutably.
    “Don’t you?” she said. “Why not?”
    Felicity made a little gesture with her shoulders. “Well, for one thing, this is the house of a bachelor, and — well, wouldn’t mos t people think it a little odd?”
    “Not when the ste amer calls only once a fortnight! ”
    “But if we miss the next steamer! ...”
    “If I miss the next steamer, you mean, darling! You don’t think I could stay on here without you! — That would be rather unconventional, I’ll admit! But if we both miss it there could always be some reason found for it!”
    “But how do you know that Mr. Halloran wants us to stay?” Felicity looked shocked.
    Cassandra r egarded her with a faintly pitying air, and she also looked as if something had displeased her a little — in fact, considerably.
    “My dear Felicity,” she told the girl she employed rather sharply, “Mr. Halloran is no longer blind ... He may not be able to see yet as well as he will in a few week’s time, when his eyes have grown that much stronger, but even if he only sees me through a kind of a haze — and I know that’s not true — I don’t honestly think he wants to be left alone again quite so soon! That would be too unflattering! ... To me, not to you! For although you’re very sweet in your way you’re hardly the type to detract from my limelight! And Mr. Halloran has had the world at his feet, remember! I should imagine he’s rather selective.”
    Felicity was silent.
    Cassandra regarded her disdainfully.
    “You should know by this time that men don’t normally wish to be rid of me,” she added coldly, “and in spite of his disastrous accident I don’t think Mr. Halloran is in the least abnormal. He may ignore you ... If you feel that he ignores you you mustn’t mind, because in some ways you’re such an odd, shy little thing, and you go about here as if you are by no means certain of your welcome, and would like to apologize for your intrusion at every possible moment!”
    This was so true that Felicity knew she couldn't dispute it, but as Cassandra herself was the one who was much more responsible than her host, for making her feel shy and awkward, and an intruder, she could have said something on that point.
    But she didn’t do so. By this time she was used to Cassandra — coldly venomous at one moment, surprisingly generous the next, and she knew it would be useless to tax her with causing her to feel so self-conscious and awkward sometimes that she was afraid her host was becoming aware of it.
    If was not true that he ignored her, and there were even moments when Felicity would have been much happier if he had done so when Cassandra was around. At meal times he seemed to make a point of being attentive to her, and she could sometimes feel Cassandra silently gnashing her beautifully cared for teeth when be ordered Michael to remove her empty plate, or provide her with something — such as some special dish concocted by Moses — that he felt sure she would enjoy.
    Whether he was wearing his dark glasses or not he knew when Felicity was neglected, and he saw to it that the neglect was made up for by prompt and individual attention. More than once he drew forth her chair himself at the table, and he saw to it that a subject of conversation that seemed likely to exclude her was abandoned before she could even begin to feel out of it. Cassandra was fond of introducing topics that she knew beforehand would have Felicity out of her depth, either because she lacked the experience — as when Cassandra