White Heat by Pamela Kent Page A

never very good at picking out constellations like the plough, and so forth. When we get into the Indian Ocean you might, if you’re lucky, see the Southern Cross. I’ll show you.’
    ‘Oh, I’d like that!’ she exclaimed, on a note of excitement. ‘Would you?’ Despite the smoothness — even glassiness — of the water through which they were ploughing their way, the ship gave a slight lurch which seemed to coincide with a little burst of energy on the part of its engines, and Karin staggered slightly and was prevented from hurting herself by coming up against Kent Willoughby. His arm went round her instantly, and she could feel him supporting her strongly.
    ‘It’s surprising how quickly one loses one’s sea-legs,’ he remarked.
    He did not remove his arm, and she stood there under cover of the velvety night with her hair blowing softly against his face and the delicate perfume she used making a direct assault upon his nostrils. She could feel him stiffen slightly after a minute, but she still did not detach herself.
    Instead she looked round and up at him, and the rising moon showed h er the sudden grimness of his face.
    ‘You don’t like women, do you?’ she said softly.
    He looked down at her. She could feel his hand bruising her bare arm, but his eyes were as withdrawn as the far-away stars.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You don’t — really — like women! Or did one woman disappoint you so badly that you can’t get over it?’
    ‘Even if she did, it’s nothing to do with you,’ he told her curtly.
    ‘But the fact that I’m wearing a ring given to me by a friend is nothing to do with you. Yet you’ve asked me a lot of questions about my ring!’
    ‘ Touché !’ he exclaimed grudgingly, and then he put her from him and walked to the rail. He stood staring out at the blackness that was rapidly giving place to the magic of moonlight, and a moon-bathed sea, and he spoke with a kind of angry impetuosity. ‘However, I don’t intend to let you into the secrets of my murky past, my sweet, so I must ask you to curb your curiosity. You’re pretty and appealing, and I’m willing to believe you’re more or less what you seem to be, but when I want a shoulder to cry on it won’t be your somewhat inadequate one, my child!’
    She stiffened instantly. She was angry with herself for having fallen into a trap.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ she returned, with a feminine waspishness she would never up till now have believed herself capable of, ‘my inadequate shoulder is unlikely to be available for your extremely adult confessions! And when I said you didn’t like women I wasn’t asking you to reveal how much you dislike them. I was simply letting you know that I do know !’
    His anger had spent itself, and he turned and laughed at her gently.
    ‘You’re an infant,’ he said.
    ‘Then in that case you’re not in any danger, are you?’ she said, and her retort was so prompt that it amused him still more ... and gave him pause for a moment.
    ‘No, I’m not,’ he replied at last. ‘Not in the least!’
    They were dancing on the lower deck, and strains of dance music came up to them. Normally, Karin loved to dance, and she loved the exciting rhythms that fitted in so well with the palpitating beauty of such a night as this; but having heard herself described as an infant by the only man on board who could have kept her chained to his side for as long as five seconds, let alone a full minute and a half, and who was the one man on board with whom every woman would have wished to dance if she had been consulted about the matter beforehand, and then heard herself dismissed lightly as completely innocuous — sweet and appealing, but absolutely safe from a rich man’s point of view! — she experienced an overwhelming and extraordinary reaction. The dance music, the tap-tapping of feet on the deck below them, the beat of the drums, actually seemed an offence. The purple beauty of the night was an offence, too,