Next Door to Romance Read Free Page B

have a companion who was as nice as Tom but who, in addition, made one feel—well,
special
! As if absolutely no one else could take one's place. For a few moments her thoughts ran rosily on. She could put neither name nor face to this visionary lover, yet she felt she knew so much about him.
    Tall and dark and athletic. Not perhaps conventionally handsome, but with the sort of face made one want to look at it a second—and a third time. And above all, a man who
did
something—who was on the way to making his mark in the world.
    'In fact, just exactly the sort of man who wouldn't look twice at me!' Lisa thought ruefully.
    'Damn!' Tom exclaimed so loudly that Lisa jumped. Tom was sitting up, vigorously mopping his face with his handkerchief. 'Dew off the tree,' he explained. 'It hit me right in the eye!'
    Lisa, forgetting her dreams, chuckled enjoyably.
    ' "
The hillside's dew-pearled",
' she commented, capping his earlier quotation.
    Tom grunted, looked at his watch and jumped to his feet.
    'Great Scott, is that the time!' he exclaimed. 'You shouldn't have let me sleep on like that!'
    'Why not?' Lisa asked carelessly. 'It's early yet, and anyway, you weren't snoring. Otherwise I might—'
    'I don't snore,' Tom said indignantly. 'But I want to drop in at Bourne Farm before I start my ordinary day's work. Come on, let's get moving!'
    He held out a hand, and Lisa, taking it, was hauled to her feet.
    Just for a moment, Tom held on for what, to Lisa, seemed an unnecessarily long time.
    'Yes, Tom?' she asked breathlessly.
    Abruptly he let her hand go.
    'I thought you'd lost your balance,' he explained gruffly.
    'No,' Lisa said lightly, 'I didn't lose my balance— you didn't give me a chance to!'
    And before he had time to reply, she turned her back on the little river and began walking back the way they had come. She had not gone far before he caught her up.
    'I say, Lisa, nothing wrong, is there?' he asked anxiously.
    'Good gracious, no,' she assured him, limpid-eyed. 'How could there be?'
    'Well—'
    He was interrupted by someone sounding a motor horn —sounding it rather impatiently, in fact.
    'Now what?' Tom asked with a sudden ill humour unusual in him. 'In the deuce of a hurry, isn't he? I wonder who he thinks he is?'
    Lisa didn't reply. Drawn up at the side of the road was a car. Its cream paint and metal work gleamed in the sunshine. It had beautiful lines and the lavish finish which told even Lisa's inexperienced eyes that it had cost a great deal of money. Then, as quickly as the idea occurred to her, she forgot all about it because it simply didn't matter. What was important was that here, out of the blue, as if the Fates themselves had been listening, was the very man she had dreamed of so short a while ago!
    Tall and dark and with the leanness of an athlete. Not handsome—or was he? It was difficult to know for sure because he was smiling—a smile that produced two puck-like lines from his eyes to the corners of his mouth—and he was smiling directly at her.
    'I say, I'm frightfully sorry to make a pest of myself, but could you possibly tell me where the deuce I am?'
    Blue
eyes! If she had given it a thought, Lisa would have guessed that with that dark hair, they would be dark eyes. But no! Blue! And how much more intriguing—more disturbing—
    'You're in Addingly,' Tom said shortly.
    'That's fine!' the young man said cheerfully. 'But where's Addingly?' He peered at the map he had spread across the wheel. 'It doesn't seem to be here—'
    'If you'll tell me where you want to go—' Tom suggested with a shortness that annoyed Lisa. For goodness' sake, why get upset because someone had lost themselves? It was so unlike Tom—
    'What a brain!' the young man said very gravely but with a twinkle in his eyes for Lisa. 'A really practical notion! Well, I'm looking for Bardley Manor, and a more elusive place I've never come across—and that's just the trouble. I haven't come across it. It eludes me!'
    There was a