Mountain Magic by Susan Barrie Page B

she had. And then she remembered the iron-bound rules and regulations of the Hotel Rosenhorn so far as the staff were concerned, at any rate—and she knew that she ought to have listened to Pierre’s warning, and made it cl ear when she started to have her beauty treatment that a car was picking her up at four o’clock. And that four o’clock meant four o’clock in the case of this particular car!
    She f el t very conspicuous standing with her arms full of parcels, and her brand-new hair-style, wondering what in the world she was going to do. She supposed she could take a taxi ... but a taxi would cost a lot of money, and she knew nothing about the local train services.
    She was peering around her and looking complet el y dismayed when a car approached her at a considerable rate of speed, and then slowed and came to a standstill. She bli nk ed at it in wonderment, and then recognised Kurt Antoine’s pale cream car with the scarlet leather upholstery. Kurt Antoine himself was at the wheel, and beside him—all delicate cream and dark-eyed loveliness—was Mademoiselle Marianne Raveaux.
    It was Mademoiselle Raveaux who spoke first to Toni.
    “We hardly recognised you,” she said.
    Kurt Antoine was staring rather strangely at Toni. But without offering any comment he reached behind him and opened the rear door.
    “Get in,” he said.
    “I suppose you missed the staff car,” Marianne remarked, with great brittleness.
    Toni was abject in her apologies.
    “I had a lot of shopping to do, and I also went to the hairdresser, and I didn’t realise that time was passing — ” She felt her face begin to bu rn as Marianne looked back at her and smiled faintly. The smile was so unpleasant, and so full of meaning ... it made the English girl feel as if she had developed into a tawdry doll in the course of a morning, and part of an afternoon.
    “Which hairdresser did you go to?” Marianne asked.
    Toni told her, and Marianne smiled again and nodded her head meaningly.
    “You’ll have to be more careful in future, won’t you?” she said. “You’re hardly the type for such drastic transformations, although I must admit the new dress is pretty. I expect it was cheap, and you were tempted, weren’t you? If you had consulted me before setting out on this shopping spree of yours I could have given you some useful information as to the kind of shops to avoid!”
    “Marianne!” Kurt Antoine spoke so sternly and sharply that she glanced at him in surprise. But he was staring through the windscreen at the road ahead, and the thickness and darkness of his puckered brows was very noticeable.
    Marianne shrugged her shapely shoulders.
    “I was merely pointing out to Miss Darcy that there is a possibility she has been a little impulsive. Money hardly earned should be hoarded carefully, not dissipated in one wild burst dining the course of a morning.” She glanced over her shoulder again at Toni. “I don’t suppose you have very much left of the advance of salary you received this morning, have you ? ” she enquired.
    Toni admitted she had made rather a hole in it.
    “But I have a little money of my own,” she said huskily.
    Marianne smiled really unpleasantly this time.
    “That is, perhaps, fortunate,” she observed. “For if we have to sack you before eight weeks are up you may have to return some of the money you received this morning!”
    After that they proceeded in silence, and when they reached the Hotel Rosenhorn Antoine handed Marianne out of the car, and then walked round to the back to open the door for Toni. But she had it open herself long before he could touch the handle, and together with her parcels she prepared to disappear inside the hotel.
    But he laid a quiet hand on her shoulder.
    “Did you have a good day, Toinette?” he asked, smiling down into her face in a way he had never smiled at her before.
    “A very good day, thank you,” she answered. She stammered slightly. “I’m so sorry I missed