Mine for a Day Read Online Free Page A

to feel very angry with her cousin. Indeed, she did feel very angry with her when she thought of the hurt she was inflicting on Simon. But she also felt pity and alarm for her. What sort of mistake might she not have made over this Jeremy? “If I hadn’t been so absorbed in my own affairs—”
    But she had been absorbed in them. .And there was no reproach to her in that. There was her life to live, as well as Rosemary’s.
    And suddenly it came fully home to Leila, with all the force of a delayed shock, how vitally this action of her cousin’s would affect her own affairs.
    Simon was not to be married tomorrow after all. But—and the second realization was more than enough to check any wild uprush of happiness she might have experienced—he was to receive the kind of blow that would make him regard with distaste, and even repulsion, everyone connected with it.
    “I can’t tell him—I won’t,” Leila exclaimed. She was beginning to dress now, almost without knowing it. “Aunt Hester will h ave to do it. I’ll tell Aunt Hester, and then she must tell him. I’m sorry, and it’s a horrible task for her, too. But I can’t do it. Why should I? It’s not fair. Why should I make him hate me?”
    She knew she was not arguing very coherently with herself. But she didn’t feel very coherent. It was g oing to be bad enough to have to tell her uncle and aunt. But tell Simon she would not.
    Not until she was dressed and ready to go downstairs did Leila realize that she had got up an hour earlier than usual.
    In the kitchen, Doris, Aunt Hester’s maid, was already at work, singing “I’m in love with you” in a rather subdued way and with a certain disregard for key.
    She looked surprised as Leila came in, and broke off her somewhat doleful statement of love to say: “You’re early, Miss Leila.”
    “Yes. I—I woke early. It seemed too beautiful a day to stay in bed.”
    Doris nodded.
    “If it’s like this tomorrow, Miss Rosemary won’t have cause to complain. Happy the bride that the sun shines on,” quoted Doris with relish.
    “Ye-es,” Leila agreed, feeling a fraud, but not quite knowing how to deal with this small initial difficulty. “Can I help you, Doris?”
    “No, thank you, miss. I have my method,” explained Doris, who had. “But you might go and cut some flowers, if you like. We’ll need some for the sitting-room.”
    So Leila went into the garden, where the dew was already drying from the grass and flowers, and she wandered about and picked a few flowers at random, and wondered how she was going to break the news to Aunt Hester.
    Then she experienced sudden panic in case her aunt should go to Rosemary’s room for any reason and discover signs of the night before she had been prepared. She turned to retrace her steps.
    As she did so, Doris opened the side door which led into the garden and called:
    “Here’s an early visitor, Miss Leila. I’ve told him you’re the only one up.”
    Then she stood aside, and Simon came out of the doorway and along the garden path towards Leila.

 
    CHAPTER II
    LEILA was ashamed to remember afterwards that, in a moment of unreasoning panic, she quite literally turned to run away. But common sense reasserted itself almost at once, and she knew she could not do anything so foolish.
    So she stood there, waiting for him to come up to her. And as he came, she saw suddenly how tired and strained he looked, and she remembered that she was not the only one with troubles.
    “Oh, Simon,” she exclaimed impulsively, “is it bad news?”
    “It isn’t good,” he replied briefly. “Where’s Rosemary?”
    She stared at him in silent dismay. But he was too preoccupied to see that anything was wrong, and almost immediately answered his own question.
    “Of course—Doris told me. You’re the only one who is up. I’m glad, Leila. I want a word with you first. You’re so practical and understanding.”
    She allowed herself a modified glow of pleasure over that, in