Child Friday by Sara Seale Page A

addressed him quite naturally by his surname and he began to laugh.
    “You musn’t let me drive you too hard,” he said. “After all, I owe you something more than barking at you like a disgruntled employer.”
    “You don’t bark,” she said, laughing with him. “But I do find it hard to remember sometimes. Mr. Merritt seems to come out more naturally than Dane.”
    “That’s bad. It means you must still feel like an employee.”
    “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
    She asked the question in all innocence, but the amusement died out of his face.
    “No,” he answered brusquely. “If I’ve made you feel I that then I’ve failed in what I set out to do. There can be friendship, I hope, in our relationship—friendship and equality. I’m not such an egocentric boor that I consider my wife no better than a paid servant.”
    She closed the reference book in which she had been searching for a chemical combination he wanted and sat with it in her lap.
    “You’ve never made me feel that, Dane,” she said gently. “It’s just that sometimes I forget I am your wife.”
    “Yes—yes, I suppose so,” he said, and suddenly decided to abandon the morning’s work and take Bella for a walk.
    Emily had learnt not to ask to accompany him on these o ccasions, but this time he made the request himself. As she walked beside him he put a hand under her elbow and felt the light buoyancy of her movements.
    “You’re too young,” he said abruptly. “You need fun, young companions . Who can tell you when you look pretty and appreciate a new frock or hair-style.”
    “I’m not pretty, and I’ve never had much fun,” she said.
    “Well, fun is what you make it, I suppose, but as for looks—well, you remember what Alice said the first time she saw you.”
    “Children aren’t to be relied on. They have queer, unconventional ideas about beauty,” she said.
    “On the contrary,” he retorted, “children frequently recognize the truth. Besides, there’s nothing conventional about beauty.”
    She w as silent. Let him see her through Alice’s eyes, she thought humbly; it was strange that the first time she should be made aware of a beauty she did not possess was through a man who did not care for her.
    After that morning he would take the trouble to enquire how she would like to spend the rest of the day. Once he suggested that they should take the car and make an expedition round Dartmoor so that she might get to know the famous beauty spots, but this, as Shorty had foretold, was hardly a success. Emily had not driven Dane in the car yet and, already nervous, she committed every fault from crashing her gears to stalling her engine.
    He sat beside her in a silence which grew grimmer with every mile. When they reached the group of tors which could be seen from the windows of Pennyleat, he ordered her to stop.
    “Where are we?” he asked, and she replied nervously that the last signpost had read Tavistock one way and Princeton the other.
    “Turn back and go home,” he said, adding unkindly: “I suppose you can reverse?”
    She turned the car with difficulty, almost in tears, and drove back the way they had come. When they reached the house he told her to leave the car outside and let Shorty put it away. The little cockney came out of the garage in time to hear this last remark and grinned complacently.
    “Couldn’t get on without me, after all, could you, sir?” he said cockily, then catching sight of Emily’s dejected face, added: “Still and all, Miss Moon—I mean Mrs. Merritt—ain’t had much practice with motors, and this ’ere car’s tricky for a lady, see?”
    “I daresay,” retorted Dane, feeling for the handle of the door. “Then the less she drives it the better for all concerned.”
    Shorty shrugged and took Emily’s place behind the wheel.
    “I’ll take you out on the quiet and give you a few ‘ints- l ike, see?” he told her in a hoarse whisper. “It’s worse for ’im on account of