Air Ticket Read Online Free Page B

seemed to be regarding them critically. “That is not good.”
    She smiled with a sudden touch of impishness.
    “But I left the glasses behind in my flat.”
    “Then you ought to send for them.”
    “I don’t think it’s worth it, because I shan’t be here long enough.”
    “How long do you intend to remain?”
    “Oh, perhaps another week.”
    “And then you will go back to London?”
    “Yes.”
    He stood up suddenly.
    “I must be going, but I’ll look in to see you tomorrow. If you should want me you know where to contact me?”
    “No.”
    He penciled a telephone number on the back of Beverley’s letter and handed it to her.
    “That will always find me. And don’t hesitate if you do want me!”
    He looked in as he had promised the following afternoon, but his visit was very brief, and the next day it was even briefer. The day after that she did not see him at all, and she decided that possibly he had no intention of calling at the hotel anymore, and that she might not see him again. She hoped he would not omit to send her a bill for professional attendance, and was wondering what she should do about it if he did not, when he arrived outside the hotel driving a car and without his chauffeur.
    The telephone beside her bed rang and the reception bureau inf o rmed her that Dr. Andreas would like to see her if it was convenient.
    “I’ve got to visit the clinic,” he said, “and although it’s only a short drive I wondered whether you would like to come with me? I’d like to take you at least a part of the way up into the mountains, but I’m afraid I haven’t got time. However, we might do that another day.”
    “Oh,” she exclaimed, “that would be lovely!” And she was afraid that her eyes gave away the fact that she was extremely pleased.
    When she had fetched a coat and her handbag, he helped her into the car. He slowed the car after they had been driving for only a few minutes and brought it to rest outside a dignified house with a neat brass plate beside the door, and when she looked up at it she realized that it was his own house.
    “ I must pass on a message to my secretary,” he said. “Will you come in? I won’t keep you waiting very long.”
    ' Fraulein Neiger was emerging from her office when he opened the door with his key. She looked in some surprise at Caro, and Caro received a swift impression of an extremely good-looking young woman in a neat and admirably tailored dress with white collar and cuffs.
    “This is Mrs. Yorke, Fraulein Neiger. She and I flew out together from England a week ago.” He opened the door of a room on his right and smiled at Caro as he stood aside for her to enter. “I expect you’d like some tea while you’re waiting, wouldn’t you?” he said. “I’ll get my housekeeper to bring you some.”
    And then Caro found herself alone in a room that instantly aroused all her admiration. She was admiring one of the Dutch flower pieces when the door opened and an elderly woman came in with a tea tray.
    Whatever the instructions Dr. Andreas had had to pass on to his secretary, they had occupied very little of his time. He lay back comfortably in his chair and asked her whether she played the piano.
    “I used to do so quite well,” she admitted.
    “Which means that you still do,” he said, “but you don’t play by ear, and you haven’t got your glasses so you can’t read music!”
    A dimple appeared at one corner of her mouth. “I’m on holiday from my glasses,” she said.
    “I would like to see one of your miniatures.”
    “Perhaps you will one day,” she replied with a touch of awkwardness, and she was glad when he suggested that they go on to the clinic, if she had quite finished her tea. By that time the light on the lake was blinding and beautiful, the snow on the distant mountain peaks almost as dazzling, and there was no need to search for topics for conversation.
    He took a very roundabout route to the clinic, so that she saw many of the