White Heat by Pamela Kent

like the architecture? Most people think those buildings are attractive.’
    ‘I wasn’t referring either to the social set-up or the buildings,’ she admitted. ‘I was thinking of that moment when you made me aware I was being stared at ... and I don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about it since,’ with an uncontrollable shudder.
    He tapped the end of his cigarette on the teak handrail.
    ‘Then stop thinking about it,’ he advised. ‘After all, you’re a sight for sore eyes, you know. You can’t blame a few coloured men for staring at you.’
    ‘I wasn’t thinking about colour.’
    ‘You just don’t like being stared at?’
    ‘Not in that way. Not by men!’
    He tossed the cigarette he had just lighted over the rail, and the blackness of the sea extinguished it at once. He laid a hand lightly — very lightly — on her shoulder.
    ‘Oh, come now!’ he said, in a humouring tone, ‘you don’t honestly expect me to believe that women stare at one another? Not in admiration? And those were admiring looks. Besides,’ on a note of censure, ‘I’ve already told you it was your own fault. The next time you go ashore you will not be permitted to go alone. ’
    ‘No?’ and she dimpled at him through the dusk.
    Her hand was resting lightly on the rail, and a baby ray of starlight picked out the stone in the ring on one of her fingers. His eye alighted on it.
    ‘That’s a pretty ring you wear,’ he remarked. ‘I’ve noticed you seem to wear it all the time. Has it any special significance?’
    ‘What, this?’ She sounded surprised. It was the ring that had belonged to Ian Maxton’s mother, and which he had insisted on her accepting. ‘Well, not really. ’
    ‘You mean it does have a particular significance? ’
    She thought for a minute, and then she shook her head. Her hesitation was due to the fact that she had been fond of Ian’s mother.
    ‘A friend gave it to me,’ she said.
    'A man friend?’
    ‘Yes. ’
    ‘I see.’ He turned away, and for one second she thought he was going to leave her. And then he obviously changed his mind and turned back to her again. ‘Ah, well,’ he observed, with a kind of resigned sigh in the words, ‘I told you just now that you were a sight for sore eyes, didn’t I? And obviously the young man is taking no chances. ’
    ‘But it wasn ’ t a young man ... I mean, it isn’t a young man ,’ she objected.
    ‘But it was a man? ’
    ‘A man gave it to me — a young man — but the ring belonged to his mother. He felt she would like me to wear it — have it as a keepsake.’
    ‘Because you and she were friends?’
    ‘We were very good friends.’
    ‘And you don’t plan to marry the son in order to gratify a wish of the mother? Perhaps an unspoken wish before she died?’
    ‘ No, no, no! I do not plan to marry the son in order to gratify an unspoken wish of his mother,’ she enunciated with great distinctness.
    Suddenly he put back his head and laughed. It was the most natural, genuinely amused l ighthearted laugh she had yet heard from him, and it surprised her ... particularly on top of the grating harshness that had just been in his voice.
    ‘Do you know,’ he confessed, leaning against the rail and gazing up at the sky, ‘I feel more carefree tonight than I’ve felt for a long time ... a very long time! I even feel, at this moment, as if I haven’t a care in the world!’ and he lowered his green glance and smiled at her. ‘Do you suppose it can have anything to do with the fact that we’re in solitary occupation of the boat-deck?’
    She studied him for a moment with serious eyes, and then shook her head.
    ‘I shouldn’t think so.’
    ‘You lack conceit, child,’ he told her, and then once more put back his shapely head with the hint of red in the hair. ‘Do you know anything about astronomy?’ he asked. ‘It’s a fascinating subject when you get down to it ... or so I’m told. All I know is that I like looking at stars, but I’m