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three months and I think she was genuinely interested. In fact, she asked me to make an appointment for you to see her next week.”
    "Why me?” Ruth Hastings asked sharply. “Why not you, since you made the contact?”
    “Because she’s the sort of person that doesn’t think she’s getting her money’s worth if she isn’t looked after by the head of a firm,” Rosamund explained, and instantly wondered if that didn’t sound too glib.
    But Ruth accepted it without question, gave a few details of her own activities since she had left home and then asked suddenly—almost suspiciously:
    “What are you going to do tomorrow with the salon closed?”
    ‘I've been thinking about taking a run into the country,” Rosamund replied. “I could do with a breath of fresh air. It’s stifling in London.”
    All of which had been absolutely true—but it wasn’t the whole truth. She had said nothing about the shabby second-hand car she had bought or of the cheap clothes so different from the ones she usually wore. And most important of all, she had said nothing of her determination never to live or work with her aunt again. There was no point in doing so. She had tried so often to make her aunt understand how much she hated the life she was leading with all its cloying luxury, the over-heated, over-perfumed salon and the shallow, greedy women who patronised it, but without success. Aunt Ruth simply couldn’t or wouldn’t believe it.
    To Ruth Hastings, her achievements in the world of fashion were all-satisfying. She revelled in success and the knowledge that she had fulfilled the ambitions which at one time had seemed so out of reach. She really enjoyed the work, too, and was completely blind to the fact that not all people are made in the same way. Of course Rosamund must feel as she did, and into the bargain, think herself lucky to benefit by someone else’s efforts instead of having to drudge through all those years of alternate hope and despair.
    Rosamund sighed. You couldn’t convince a person like that that you wanted to make a personal effort, wanted, most desperately, to do your own thing even if you weren’t quite sure what that was. So, in the end, she’d decided that there was only one thing to do—go away and stay away until Aunt Ruth had to accept her decision.
    The most important thing, of course, was to avoid a confrontation, and in order to do that, she had gone to extreme lengths. She had drawn quite a large sum of money from her bank account, sufficient to last long enough not to need to draw any more until Aunt Ruth was convinced. Even though it was most unlikely that the bank would divulge to her aunt where a cheque had been drawn, she wasn’t going to take even that small risk!
    And now all her plans were wrecked by her own stupid carelessness. Without money what could she do except crawl back abjectly, convinced of her own stupidity and probably never again finding the courage to make the break.
    She was not sorry when Miss Coates came back with an attractively laid tea-tray. For a little while she could try to forget her troubles and respond to the kindness that she was receiving.
    Over the teacups Miss Coates did her best to put her visitor at her ease. She described life on the long boat with enthusiasm and not a little humour, poking fun at herself for the mistakes she had made at first. To her own surprise, Rosamund found herself compelled to smile and even laugh once or twice.
    It was not until the tray was carried back to the galley and between them the washing up was done that her hostess asked what Rosamund had realised must be the inevitable question.
    “Now, my dear, will you tell me all that you care to about yourself?”
    Put that way, Rosamund found it easier to explain what had happened than she had when John Lindsay had crossed-questioned her. She was franker, too.
    “Mr. Lindsay accused me of being a runaway. He thought—” she smiled faintly, “that it might be from