The Dark Shore by Susan Howatch

would be destroyed; the knowledge would tear away the foundations of her secure, stable world and once her world had collapsed she would be exposed to the great flaming beacon of reality with nothing to shield her from the flames.
    He walked down Piccadilly to Berkeley Street, and still the traffic roared in his ears and pedestrians thronged the pavements. He was conscious of loneliness again, and the bleakness of the emotion was at once accentuated by his worries. It would have been different in Canada. There he could have absorbed himself in his work or played the piano until the mood passed, but here there was nothing except the conventional ways of finding comfort in a foreign city. And he hated the adolescent futility of getting drunk and would have despised himself for having a woman within days of his coming marriage. It would have meant nothing, of course, but he would still have felt ashamed afterwards, full of guilt because he had done something which would hurt Sarah if she knew. Sarah wouldn’t understand that the act with an unknown woman meant nothing and less than nothing, and if she ever found out, her eyes would be full of grief and bewilderment and pain ...
    He couldn’t bear the thought of hurting Sarah.
    But the loneliness was hard to bear too.
    If only he could find Marijohn. There must be some way of finding her. He would advertise. Surely someone knew where she was ...
    His thoughts swam and veered in steep sharp patterns, and then he had reached the Ritz and was turning off into Berkeley Street. Ten yards down the road he paused listening, but there was nothing, only a sense of unrest and distress which was too vague to be identified. He walked on slowly, and two minutes later was entering the lobby of the hotel.
    As he crossed the floor to the desk to ask for his key, he was conscious of someone watching him. With the key in his hand a moment later he swung round to look at the occupants of the open lounge directly behind him, and as he moved, the tall blonde with the faintly disdainful expression stubbed out her cigarette and looked across at him with a slight, cool smile.
    H recognized her at once. He had never had any difficulty in remembering faces, and suddenly he was b ack at Clougy long ago and listening lo Sophia say languidly, “I wonder who on earth Max will turn up with this time?”
    And Max had arrived an hour later in a hot-rod open Bentley with this elegant, very fastidious blonde on the front seat beside him.
    Jon slipped the key of his room into his pocket and crossed the lobby towards her.
    “Well, well,” she said wryly when he was near enough. “It’s been a long time.”
    “A very long time.” He stood before her casually, his hands in his pockets, the fingers of his right hand playing with the key to his room. Presently he said, “After I’d spoken to Max on the phone this evening, I realized I should get in touch with you.”
    She raised her eyebrows a fraction, almost as if she didn’t understand him. It was cleverly done, he thought. “Just because I phone Max out of interest and tell him you’re back in town,” she said, “and just because Max later tells you that I phoned him, why does it automatically follow that you should get in touch with me?”
    The lobby was sprinkled with people; there was one group only a few feet away from them seated on the leather chairs of the open lounge.
    “If we’re going to talk,” he said, “you’d better come upstairs. There’s not enough privacy here.”
    She still looked slightly bewildered, but now the bewilderment was mingled with a cautious tinge of pleasure, as if events had taken an unexpected but not unwelcome turn. “Fine,” she said, her smile still wary but slightly less cool as she rose to her feet to stand beside him. “Lead the way.”
    They crossed the wide lobby to the elevator, the girl walking with a quick smooth grace which she had acquired since he had last seen her. Her mouth was slim beneath