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beneficial. In addition he had wanted a new look at Irene's case, with which he was all too familiar. He asked deliberately, 'Have you met Ruth, Adam's sister, by the way?'
    Emma looked surprised and flashed Adam a startled look.
    'Why, no,' she said a trifle awkwardly. Why ever should she?
    Adam saw an ideal opening and said, 'You must do so. I'm temporarily living with Ruth at King's Road.'
    'By the Long Walk,' Emma said, not wanting to commit herself. So, she thought, Adam wasn't just the bachelor living alone with a devoted housekeeper. She wondered what circumstances had prompted the arrangement.
    As though reading her thoughts, Adam volunteered, 'Ruth amicably divorced her husband, and as I moved from London to Windsor, our joining forces seemed an excellent solution. We do not cramp each other's style. You must join us one evening.' He spoke deliberately, challenging her. There seemed no obstacle to her meeting Ruth and, he argued, it would be a step in the right direction for dinner a deux.
    Emma didn't deceive herself: she did not want to be drawn into any social life with this man who seemed to challenge the fabric of her existence. She murmured a few inarticulate words and emphasised that she must be going. She was aware of Edmund's almost paternal observation and wished that she could be alone with him.
    But he glanced at his watch and said, 'I've a consultation at Heatherwood.' Heatherwood Hospital was at Ascot, about eight miles away. He took Emma's hands in a little intimate gesture of farewell. 'I'll be along to see you and Irene,' he promised and, nodding to Adam, was gone.
    'I'm glad Edmund mentioned Ruth,' Adam said in the tone of one who wanted to keep the conversation going and prolong Emma's stay. 'I'd like you to meet her.' His voice had a commanding note in its persuasion.
    Emma was adamant. 'I don't make plans, Adam. My life and your sister's must be worlds apart.'
    'Only if you see them as such. The divorce was without rancour and her ex-husband has married again. Ruth also has a friend—Paul Knight—who would like her to be his wife.'
    Emma didn't know why she wanted to be so resistant as she said smoothly, 'All very civilised.'
    He shot at her, 'Do you prefer disharmony and ill-feeling?'
    She countered immediately, 'Not having been married, or divorced, I'm not in a position to judge. ' It was, she knew, a foolish remark and she took a step towards the door.
    He stopped her with a disturbing look.
    'If I said white, you'd say black.'
    She didn't flinch as she replied, 'I think that is a good summing-up of the gulf that separates us.' Her voice was cool and decisive.
    He challenged, 'But at least identifies us in the divergence of our opinions.'
    She turned a steady gaze upon him, telling herself that he would never cease to irritate her. Without thinking, and with a sudden change of mood, she said, 'If you can use your professional skill to help my sister, that is all I ask; but as I see it now, you will have to change your opinions in order to bring that about.'
    'I rather think time will tell. . . At least I have gone some way towards winning her confidence. I'd like to believe that she now sees me as a friend.'
    Emma could not contradict him and remained silent.
    'And do you see me as an enemy?' His question came unexpectedly and lingered on in the silence, in which tension mounted as they looked at each other.
    Emma's pulse quickened and it annoyed her to face the fact that he disturbed her, prompting her to fight and never to compromise.
    'Don't you think that is giving the relationship too great an importance?' she flashed.
    His eyes darkened; his expression unnerved her.
    'I'm consoled that you use the word "relationship", Emma. . . It identifies us.'
    Emma felt she was being drawn into a web from which she could not extricate herself. There was an implacable calm about him as he stood there that defied contradiction, but she said hastily, 'You are my sister's doctor—that is all the