The Blue Rose by Esther Wyndham Page B

me.”
    Rose said that of course she didn’t mind, but she did secretly wonder, in spite of herself, why it was that they could not all three have lunched together. It was just a very tiny cloud on her horizon. A much bigger cloud was having to break to Tony back at her old home that she was going to be married. It was all very well to refuse him by saying that she did not feel ready yet for marriage, but extremely difficult to tell him that she had agreed to marry a man after seeing him only three times. She had postponed writing the letter as long as possible but that morning she had told herself firmly that it could not be delayed any longer, so she had sat down to do it there and then and had posted it before lunch.
    The thought of his receiving her letter next morning was weighing on her that evening, which was perhaps the reason why she felt this slight depression when Stephen told her that he was taking Clare Frenton out to lunch the next day. It wasn’t as if she really very much enjoyed seeing Stephen at lunch-time on weekdays. There was a slight air of remoteness about him on these occasions, as if his mind was preoccupied with business affairs, which disconcerted her. He did not seem to be completely hers any longer. She sensed that there was a side to him which she knew very little about. For all his marvellous wooing of her there was still something slightly mysterious about him. She couldn’t possibly have said that she really knew him in spite of what she had told Francie that time at three o’clock in the morning. But on their honeymoon, when she had him all to herself, she would have a chance to get to know him really well.
    The next morning, just as she was going out, a telegram came for her. It was from Tony and it read: “Coming up this morning. Please meet me one-thirty at the Trocadero. Very important.”
    She groaned in spirit. The last thing she wanted was to see him. She had an impulse to send a message to the Trocadero to say that she was very sorry but she was engaged for lunch, but she resisted it. It would be cowardly. She could not deny him an interview, painful for both of them as she imagined it must be. There was nothing for it but to go and meet him.
    However, she did not intend to see him without Stephen’s knowledge, so she rang him up right away at the bank to tell him what had happened; but he was out and his secretary could not say where he was nor when he was expected back. “I’ve got to go out now,” Rose said, “but I’ll ring him again in an hour or so.”
    She tried twice more but could not get hold of him. He had been in but had had to go out again. She did think of ringing up Clare and asking where they were lunching but she didn’t like to do that in case it looked as if she was intruding on them.
    In the end she had to go and meet Tony without letting Stephen know.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    TONY was waiting for Rose in the vestibule of the Trocadero. He was a tall, fair young man with the kind of pleasant open face that made one trust him instinctively. The moment she saw him she felt a pang of compunction because he looked so unhappy. Her own happiness in comparison seemed almost heartless.
    “It was good of you to come,” he said.
    “But of course I’d come if I possibly could.”
    “Let’s go and have some lunch in the Grill Room, shall we? I’m afraid it’s rather late, but I couldn’t get up before. Even as it is I’m playing hookey.”
    Rose, who could hardly eat anything from excitement whenever she was with Stephen, was ravenously hungry now, but poor Tony had no appetite, so she felt that she must curb her own in sympathy with him. It was a wretchedly unhappy meal. He had come up to beg her not to marry in a hurry. “You hardly know this chap,” he argued, “whereas we’ve known each other for years ... Give me a chance. Please don’t marry him, anyhow, for six months.”
    “I can’t promise you that,” Rose said unhappily. “It’s all fixed