The House of the Laird by Susan Barrie Page B

longer interested, had she decided to make her re-entry into Iain’s life? It should have been embarrassing for them both, especially as she had treated him so shabbily. But apparently it was not. They met and talked with one another as if they were old and well-tried friends, and were quite at ease in one another’s company. Iain had been distant at first—perhaps cautious. But he had rapidly thawed, as any man must thaw beneath the a ppeal of those golden eyes; and Fiona’s desire to be friendly. And if sometimes the golden eyes rested on him, when neither he nor anyone else appeared to be aware of them, with a s trange slumbrous, brooding quality that had set a w arning telegraph working in Karen’s brains, because she had observed it, it was really nothing whatever to do with Karen, as she realized.
    But although it was nothing to do with her there was one thing she would have avoided for Iain if she could, and that was that he should once again become a victim of a woman who had already badly let him down.
    When the fourth week-end arrived and, as usual, he made his appearance at Auch e nwiel, Karen made up her mind that this was the occasion to come to a clear understanding with him. To tell him that the time had come to stop pretending, and for them to part. She simply couldn’t go on accepting hospitality and kindness from his aunt and wilfully deceiving her at the same time, and he had to be made to see it. And perhaps once she pointed it out to him he would be glad to agree that the thing had gone on rather too long. He might even meet her half-way and suggest some manner in which they could terminate the affair without making it appear too obvious that from the very beginning it had been nothing more than a hollow pretence.
    But Karen was glad she was going to have this weekend—it would be something to hug to herself in after days, and re-live wistfully when she could bear to do so.
    On Sunday morning they all went to church in the big Daimler, and then after lunch she and Iain set off for their usual walk. At least, for the past two Sundays she had walked with him on the moor, and she found it an exhilarating experience.
    He looked so well in his tweeds, and he never tried her beyond her strength. And he seemed to know just how much strength she had. It was not as much as she liked to pretend to herself, and the most disconcerting thing about her recovery so far was that moments of sudden exhaustion had not been altogether left behind. Those were the moments when he saw to it that she rested, and when, after a glance at her face he decided to turn for home. Those were the moments, too, when she felt that he had not given up protecting her, and thinking for her. They were the moments that were going to be the bitterest of all to recall when their paths had permanently divided.

 
    CHAPTER ELEVEN
    T his Sunday afternoon t he sun shone, and a lark sang high in the air. They trod briskly over the new green grass that w as forcing its way through the dead bracken, and occasionally Iain looked sideways at Karen. She was wearing the new tweed coat Aunt Horatia had had made for her, and her shining curls were free to the wind and sun.
    Whenever Karen also turned impulsively sideways and met the faintly perplexed, faintly amused grey eyes that were resting on her, she wondered whether he had recognized that the coat was new and that it was definitely not in the same class as her own cheap tweed, and whether perhaps she ought to tell him about his aunt’s generosity. Then she decided that that could come later, when she made her appeal for a return to normality : and all the appalling dullness that normality would inevitably mean for her.
    Just for the moment, while they swung together side by side across the crisp turf, her courage failed her, and she was glad to give way to weakness and postpone the serious conversation that she herself had scheduled for that afternoon.
    When they came to rough or uneven bits of