The Dangerous Years Read Online Free Page B

aged nine and seven. They would not add to the comfort of visitors. I fear we are negligent parents. But their uncle, who has been here for some time, is licking them into shape with army discipline.”
    The colonel chuckled, and took the suitcase from Mary, to stow it into the boot of the car. She saw his face clearly as he laughed, the scar down one cheek, the slightly drawn lip that side, the grey eyes and slight expression of bewilderment. Joan saw him too, but she diagnosed the expression as shiftiness.
    The colonel drove, timing himself expertly with the Paris traffic, so that the passengers’ terror was gradually lulled, as he tore down the Boulevard de Sébastopol, past the front of the Palais de Justice, up the Boulevard St. Michel, to draw up at a small hotel close to the Raspail Métro station.
    â€œWhile you get yourselves installed,” said the doctor, “we will put the car away and my brother will come back for you. Take your time. We dine at all hours, but to-night the meal is planned for eight o’clock. That gives you an hour.”
    Mother and daughter found themselves in two small, communicating rooms at the side, overlooking the large Cimetière du Sud. They could hear the traffic rumbling along the Boulevard Raspail past the front of the hotel, the noise rushing up the side road, the Rue Edgar Quinet, in momentary bursts of activity.
    â€œThis will do, won’t it?” said Joan, who liked being high up, and in a new building where everything was clean. “The colonel’s not very communicative, is he?”
    They began to unpack and hang up their clothes, coming and going between the two rooms as they changed into dinner dresses and coats. A maid interrupted, and offered her services most pleasantly. They purred with a sense of comfort in the super-heated atmosphere.
    â€œMonsieur is below,” said the maid, adding, to their amusement, “but it isn’t important,” as she filled the wardrobes and stacked the suitcases on top of them.
    Joan spoke French readily, for her research work had brought her over to Paris frequently since she had taken her degree and married. Mary, after eleven years, was quite at a loss.
    â€œI’ve become a rustic, Joan,” she said. “It will keep you busy, shepherding me around.”
    â€œUnless the colonel relieves me of the task,” said Joan.
    They both laughed, and went down by the lift to the lounge, where Colonel Batten sat reading the Paris
Daily Mail
, horn-rimmed spectacles half-way down his nose.
    It was a sensitive nose, with finely-cut nostrils over a trim moustache, as Mrs. Winterbourne noticed. She saw, too, his neat figure when he jumped up and lowered thenewspaper. His grey hair was cut short. The only odd thing about him was the scar down his right cheek, and the point where it just touched the lip, to rob his mouth of expression, and thus adding to the slightly enigmatic character of his grey eyes.
    There was nothing enigmatic, however, about his glance of admiration, and his quiet courtesy, as he looked at Mary, and bowed slightly, as though he had caught something of French ceremony as between man and woman.
    â€œHave I hurried you?” he asked. And she realised that this was the first opportunity he had given them to hear his voice. Or so it seemed. It was a pleasing voice, more that of an actor than a soldier; modulated and touched with an overtone of emotional promise. It caught Mary’s interest instantly. She smiled without replying.
    â€œThere’s no hurry really. I’m at a loose end to-day—resting a bit, you know. Actually, I’m staying in the hotel here. Luke’s flat is no place for selfish comfort lovers. He’s something of an oracle, or a witch-doctor, here in Paris. All the local hospitals overflow into his quarters, for he’s a consultant to most of them, when it’s a question of chest troubles. He started this special interest during