Love in High Places Read Free Page B

difficult to do was talk about herself, and Lou’s curiosity about her was aroused at regular intervals. She tapped impatiently with her scarlet-tipped fingers on the fid of her delicate toy of a platinum and diamond-encrusted cigarette-case while she waited for some diversion for her thoughts, and Valentine was saved by the tall Englishman somewhat diffidently approaching their table.
    He accorded them each a diffident little bow, and then addressed himself to Lou.
    “I was wondering whether you would be so very kind as to have coffee and a liqueur with me ... both of you, of course!” he added hastily. “In one of the lounges, or the ballroom if you would prefer it.”
    Lou regarded him without very much interest or appreciation.
    “That’s sweet of you, Mr. Haversham,” she murmured languidly. Then she introduced Valentine. “This is Miss Brown. Val, Mr. Giles Haversham, writer of thrilling detective stories.”
    “I love detective stories,” Valentine told him, as she gazed at him shyly.
    He had very white teeth, and eyes that were reassuringly grey and kind. Why was it, she wondered, that grey eyes were nearly always kind ... unless they were a certain steely type of grey. Compared with lustrous dark ones, that had the power to confound you, the fact that you could trust them came right out at you.
    She did not know that inwardly he smiled as he thought that, if she had been born plain “Miss Brown ,” then his powers of detection were decidedly at fault.
    Lou rose and smiled at them both dismissingly.
    “I don’t think I feel like staying down here any longer,” she said. “You two can go off and dance if you like, and I’ll go straight up to my room. After all, you’re both English, so you’ll probably have a lot to talk about while you dance!”
    Valentine looked at her uncertainly, but Lou touched her cheek in a condescending manner.
    “Go off and enjoy yourself, my child. I’ll put myself to bed!”
    Giles Haversham stood politely staring after her as she whirled away from them in a cloud of green-flecked draperies and French perfume, and then he said a little bewilderedly to Valentine.
    “Do you normally put her to bed ? ”
    Valentine laughed.
    “I’m her personal maid, so of course I do.”
    “You don’t look like a personal maid to me,” he remarked, as he regarded her gravely; “but, then, I didn’t think many people had them nowadays, so I wouldn’t honestly know how much a rapidly disappearing species looks when it actually exists.” He placed a hand lightly under her elbow and guided her towards the ballroom. “Apparently it’s quite permissible for red hair and golden eyes to enter into the picture!”
    She glanced up at him with a smile in her eyes.
    “Auburn hair, Mr. Haversham, if you please! It was red in my schooldays, but those happened a long time ago.”
    “Or it seems a long time ago, is that it?” he asked gently, as he placed her in a chair that was companionably arranged alongside another, with a table between them, on the fringe of the dance floor. He ordered coffee, and although he couldn’t tempt her with a liqueur — “Not even something colourful and innocuous, like crème de merit he?” — he toasted their better acquaintance in brandy that looked rather lonely at the bottom of a huge glass, and continued to regard her with thoughtful interest. “I take it your ‘employer’ — is that the correct term ?— has other uses for you, apart from those involved with assisting her to retire, since you appear to be on fairly good terms with one another ? Very friendly terms!”
    She nodded.
    “Miss Morgan is an American, and the Americans are not sticklers for formality. Also I believe she quite likes me.”
    “I haven’t a doubt of it,” he assured her, “since she asks you to dine with her.” He offered her his cigarette case and lighted one for her. “Miss Morgan is the daughter of Martin C. Morgan, the oil man, isn’t she? An almost painfully