The Silver Dragon Read Online Free Page B

took out his road map and spread it on the table as they lingered over some excellent coffee.
    “We’re not going to make it in one day,” he decided. “We got off to rather a late start with all those goodbyes at the clinic. If we make Brian c on, or somewhere near there, you’ll have done pretty well for one day.” He looked at her closely. “How do you feel?”
    “Disgustingly replete!” She tried not to let him see her anxiety. “I really could go on, if you think that would be the best way,” she offered.
    “I don’t.” His decision was unhesitating. “Besides,” he added, “this is a holiday as far as I’m concerned. I’d like to see something of Savoie without rushing madly along the main arterial roads to the south and seeing nothing but advertisements for oil and tires!”
    “I’m willing,” she capitulated. “I’m guiltily conscious of spoiling your pleasure as it is!”
    He did not answer, and if the truth were told, she was not so desperately anxious to reach the Mediterranean now. This protracted journey was proving very pleasant, and for a mile or two she had even been able to thrust her personal problems into the background while she listened to what John called “the unexciting story of my life.”
    “I always had a yen for medicine,” he confessed, guiding the car out along the road to St. Gervais-les-Bains. “It was traditional, I suppose. Both my father and my grandfather were in the profession. The old man retired a year ago and, as I told you, went off to Canada on a protracted holiday. The professor and my old man were colleagues years ago in Geneva and so I got the invitation to study under him. It was a wonderful chance and I seized it with both hands, knowing that I ought to profit by it in the future. I haven’t made any definite plans,” he mused, keeping his eyes fixed on the dangerous windings of the road. “I suppose I considered there was plenty of time for making decisions once I got back to London. I’ve done my hospital stint and this postgraduate course, and I’m pretty interested in the respiratory diseases, so I guess I’ll probably end up at some remote little sanatorium in the country somewhere, where I can live out my days in peace!”
    “I don’t think you will,” she said, watching his strong purposeful hands on the steering wheel. “You’re much too vital to stagnate in a backwater, even though you might be doing good there. I feel sure I shall hear of you again, in some famous hospital, perhaps, covering your name with glory!”
    “You’re being much too generous,” he grinned. “But so long as you do expect to hear, I won’t quarrel with your forecast.” Suddenly he took one hand from the wheel to lay it over hers. “I don’t think we’re going to say goodbye when we reach Cap Ferrat,” he added decisively.
    She couldn’t find anything to say to that. All her uncertainty, all the inexplicable doubts that had beset her from the beginning came back to torment her so that even the breathtaking beauty of the Haute Savoie was lost to her. The high mountains with their sparkling snow-encrusted crests were once more the sinister trap for her memory, and she could not look on their sun-kissed faces without fear.
    Her tiredness began to show long before they had reached Brian c on. For the past half hour John Ordley had watched the rearview mirror under cover of their conversation, and what he saw made him turn the car off the main highway into a secondary road that wandered back into the mountains.
    “Why did you do that?” she asked, looking through the mirror at the small car that had turned in their tracks but now seemed to be hesitating about passing them. “You ... don’t think we’re being followed, do you?”
    He laughed abruptly.
    “Hardly!”
    His tone did not quite hold conviction, and the car behind them slackened speed when they did.
    “Do you think he wants to pass?” Adele asked.
    “I’m not sure.” John was frowning