car and lunching somewhere in the country?'
'If it's a fine day, I'd love to,' she replied at once.
'Splendid!' he grinned. 'I'll pick you up then. Shall we say half-past eleven?'
Getting out her latch-key, she nodded. 'I expect I'll come to about ten; so that should be all right. Goodnight, my dear.'
'Margot, you're a honey! But it's 'good-morning', and we're all set now for a happy day together. Happy dreams!'
By mid-morning the weather prospects had worsened and, although it was not actually raining, grey clouds obscured the sky; but they decided to risk the weather and drive down to the Hut, at Wisley.
Just as he felt certain that she had been lying to him about what went on in Ratnadatta's circle, she felt sure that he had lied to her about his being Lord Larne, and that his story of being in England only on a visit from Kenya was a wily stratagem put out in advance, which would provide him with the excuse that he had to return there should he wish to terminate any love affair that looked like becoming troublesome for him. So on their way down into Surrey, she amused herself by asking him, with apparent innocence, a number of awkward questions.
Although unsuspicious of her motive, he was far too old a hand at posing under a false identity to let himself be caught out easily, and by now he had had ample time to get used to thinking of himself, when with her, as a titled visitor from Kenya. About his having a car, he said, he had hired it for his stay; about the length of his visit, that it would depend on how long it took to complete the tie-ups for his travel agency, and that would take another month, at least; about where he was staying, that he was lucky in having many friends who were willing to put him up for a few nights at a time, so he moved around from one to another; about his home in Kenya, that he had a house in one of the better suburbs of Nairobi, but not a very large one as he was not particularly well off; about his parents, that both of them had died while he was still young, which was the truth; and he was able to keep her amused for quite a time by improvising on an imaginary upbringing.
She scored only one hit, and that was when she asked him to tell her where he was staying at the moment, in case she wanted to get in touch with him. In reply he had to give her the address of his flat in Warwick Square, but he said that it had been temporarily lent to him by a friend of his and, as he was a stranger there, any message for him should be sent care of Mr. Sullivan.
Having pushed him into using his own name and, as she saw it, as good as admitting that he had no right to a title, gave her a quiet laugh; but afterwards she wondered a little grimly how many young women he had led up the garden path by the idea that he might make them the Countess of Lame.
They lunched at the Hut hotel and the rain held off until they were half way through the meal, but then for about half-an-hour it came down hard. Barney had been hoping that during the afternoon they would be able to go for a walk in the woods, and find some pleasant spot suitable for improving their relationship from the point it had reached in the early hours of that morning, but as the rain had made mossy banks and fallen tree-trunks too wet to sit on he had, for the time being, to confine his amorous intentions to getting closer to Mary mentally, in a long talk.
They discussed many things and found they had many tastes in common so, by the time they returned to the Hut for tea, a much greater degree of intimacy had been established between them, and he felt that his afternoon had been far from wasted. Unfortunately, however, he was debarred from following it up. That evening he had to attend a subscription concert got up by some of his Communist contacts at which one of their number was to receive a presentation on retirement from office; so he had to excuse himself to Mary for not asking her out to dinner by saying that he had a long-standing date, that he could not break, to dine with friends whom he had entertained when they were on a visit to Kenya.
Throughout the day he had purposely refrained from mentioning Ratnadatta, but he had every intention of doing so before they parted; so he was pleased when, on their way back to London, she raised the subject herself by remarking: 'I take it that you will be going to Mrs. Wardeel's on Tuesday and that I shall see you next there?'
He looked at her in feigned surprise. 'Yes, I'm going. But surely you don't mean to change your mind? You can't let me down like that?'
'Let you down?' she frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'Why, you promised me only last Tuesday that you would keep clear of Ratnadatta?for a while, anyway.'
She hesitated for a second, then took refuge in a prevarication. 'I didn't go out with him last night.'
'No, bless you. But that's all the more reason for avoiding him on Tuesday. You'll escape having to make excuses, then, perhaps being wheedled into promising to go to his circle with him this coming Saturday.'
'I ought to apologize to him for not turning up,' she prevaricated again.
'To hell with that! He's up to no good, and you promised me to have no more to do with him for the time being.'
'By that I thought you meant not going to his circle.'
'I did, as I am sure that doing so is really dangerous for you. But I also think that when you talk to him he exerts a dangerous influence over you. So I really meant for you to keep away from him altogether.'
'He couldn't do me any harm at Mrs. Wardeel's, especially if you are there with me.'
'I don't agree. You've refused to cut him out for good; so even talking to him again might tempt you into attending another of his meetings sooner than you otherwise would.'
As she did not reply, he put out a hand, took hers, and went on: 'Forgive me if I am making a nuisance of myself, my sweet; but I'm becoming terribly fond of you, and I can't bear the thought of your being led into the sort of filthy business that I believe is Ratnadatta's real game. Give me a little time to find out a bit about him. If he turns out to be only an honest practitioner of Yoga, we'll go to his parties together and learn to keep ourselves warm by rhythmic breathing, or whatever they do. But if you won't agree to keep clear of him for a few weeks, you are going to be the cause of my having an awful lot of sleepless nights.'
Mary had been thinking furiously. Ten days ago it would have given her considerable pleasure to picture Barney twisting and turning in his bed, a prey to agonizing thoughts of her being raped by Satanists; but that was so no longer. Her naturally generous nature made her feel that it would be horribly unkind to inflict such torture by imagination on anyone who was striving to protect her. But what would happen if she disobeyed Ratnadatta's order, and failed to appear at Mrs. Wardeel's on Tuesday? Would he descend upon her, demand an explanation and, if he did not consider it satisfactory, ill-wish her? It was a frightening thought. She had herself witnessed examples of the
