Reprise by Joan Smith Page B

gave them to her friends. I did not give one to Seville.”
    “Nice chap, Seville. He and the baroness are coming to us at Finefields. He will be there when you are, Miss Mallow. You know him I take it?” Malvern asked, in all his naive innocence of the man’s former relationship with her.
    “We are old friends. I look forward to having the pleasure of the baroness’s acquaintance,” she replied very civilly.
    She noticed Dammler’s shoulders tense, and waited for what outrage he would come out with. “You won’t find his equal elsewhere. Constance need not fear having a duplicate of him on her hands,” was all he said.
    “He outclasses us all in gold,” Malvern said, misunderstanding the remark, and assuming it referred to the man’s wealth, one of the few things Malvern knew of him. “We won’t have another baroness in her own right there, either. His wife holds the title herself, quite a rare thing. It was the gold that attracted her to Seville, I expect.”
    This was a perfect opportunity for Prudence to remind Dammler that despite his digs she had meant to marry him for money, she had spurned an offer from the golden Seville, sought after by a titled lady. She toyed with the wording of it, but decided in the end to let it pass as it would sound so odd to Malvern. Dammler looked at her, and was surprised at the resignation on her face. Why was she not goading him, reminding him she had rejected Seville. They looked at each other, some question in the air, but Malvern, unaware of it, spoke on.
    “Ah, there is Seville now. I’ll just say how do you do to him--remind him he is to come to us.” He arose and walked away, and Dammler had either to go, too, or find himself alone, face to face with Prudence. He regarded her warily, and she looked back with the same careful expression. She was the first to divert her eyes. He took the empty seat beside her.
    Dammler had been arguing with himself the past days that he had been too hard on Prudence. She had said she was sorry, and after he had said some pretty vile things to her, too. The book wasn’t really so bad. Everyone was saying the villain was the best character in it. He was tired of making up to girls he didn’t care a peg for, just to make her jealous, and Constance was beginning to take the notion he was serious about her. He had no desire to fall into her clutches, but most of all he missed Prue’s company. Her desk was waiting in the study. For hours a day he sat at his own, pretending to write, but more often than not looking at the empty chair across from him, wishing she were in it.
    When at last he spoke, he used an avuncular tone, to show his lessened hostility without giving a hint of any continued passion. “You’re running with a pretty fast crowd, the Malverns.”
    “Yes, your old set in fact.”
    " I am better able to deal with them.”
    “I know it well, but my uncle will be there to protect me.”
    “Clarence will be busy painting Harold.”
    “That’s a relief.”
    It was no relief to Dammler. “Leaving you free to continue your à suivre flirtation with the Nabob.”
    “That flirtation was terminated when he got married. Unlike some people, I do not consider other peoples’ spouses fair game.”
    “Malvern likes you to make up to his wife--insists on it, in fact.”
    “I trust that even in the Malvern ménage adultery is not demanded of unmarried females. I shall be safe enough.”
    “You have no conception what goes on there! That is no real marriage between Seville and the baroness, for example. He’ll be hanging out for a girl.”
    “You don’t have to feel responsible for me. We’re nothing to each other now. I’m twenty-five years old, and can look after myself."
    "Nothing to each other? No residue of hatred and disgust remains?”
    “I was speaking for myself. Apparently you feel differently.”
    “I do feel differently!”
    He wouldn’t be sick with apprehension inside to think of her going to Finefields