Outside their door, she leaned for a moment against the wall. Rain loved her. But when she tried to phone his room the operator informed her he had checked out, returned to Bonn.

No matter. It might be better to wait until London to see him, anyway. A contrite apology via the mail, and an invitation to dinner next time he was in England. There were many things she didn’t know about Rain, but of one characteristic she had no doubt at all; he would come, because he hadn’t a grudging bone in his body. Since foreign affairs had become his forte, England was one of his most regular ports of call.

“You wait and see, my lad,” she said, staring into her mirror and seeing his face instead of her own. “I’m going to make England your most important foreign affair, or my name isn’t Justine O’Neill.”

It had not occurred to her that perhaps as far as Rain was concerned, her name was indeed the crux of the matter. Her patterns of behavior were set, and marriage was no part of them. That Rain might want to make her over into Justine Hartheim never even crossed her mind. She was too busy remembering the quality of his kiss, and dreaming of more.

There remained only the task of telling Dane she couldn’t go to Greece with him, but about this she was untroubled. Dane would understand, he always did. Only somehow she didn’t think she’d tell him all the reasons why she wasn’t able to go. Much as she loved her brother, she didn’t feel like listening to what would be one of his sternest homilies ever. He wanted her to marry Rain, so if she told him what her plans for Rain were, he’d cart her off to Greece with him if it meant forcible abduction. What Dane’s ears didn’t hear, his heart couldn’t grieve about.

* * *

“Dear Rain,” the note said. “Sorry I ran like a hairy goat the other night, can’t think what got into me. The hectic day and everything, I suppose. Please forgive me for behaving like an utter prawn. I’m ashamed of myself for making so much fuss about a trifle. And I daresay the day had got to you, too, words of love and all, I mean. So I tell you what—you forgive me, and I’ll forgive you. Let’s be friends, please. I can’t bear to be at outs with you. Next time you’re in London, come to dinner at my place and we’ll formally draft out a peace treaty.”

As usual it was signed plain “Justine.” No words even of affection; she never used them. Frowning, he studied the artlessly casual phrases as if he could see through them to what was really in her mind as she wrote. It was certainly an overture of friendship, but what else? Sighing, he was forced to admit probably very little. He had frightened her badly; that she wanted to retain his friendship spoke of how much he meant to her, but he very much doubted whether she understood exactly what she felt for him. After all, now she knew he loved her; if she had sorted herself out sufficiently to realize she loved him too, she would have come straight out with it in her letter. Yet why had she returned to London instead of going to Greece with Dane? He knew he shouldn’t hope it was because of him, but despite his misgivings, hope began to color his thoughts so cheerfully he buzzed his secretary. It was 10 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time, the best hour to find her at home.

“Get me Miss O’Neill’s London flat,” he instructed, and waited the intervening seconds with a frown pulling at the inner corners of his brows.

“Rain!” Justine said, apparently delighted. “Did you get my letter?”

“This minute.”

After a delicate pause she said. “And will you come to dinner soon?”

“I’m going to be in England this coming Friday and Saturday. Is the notice too short?”

“Not if Saturday evening is all right with you. I’m in rehearsal for Desdemona, so Friday’s out.”

“Desdemona?”

“That’s right, you don’t know! Clyde wrote to me in Rome and offered me the part. Marc Simpson as Othello, Clyde directing personally. Isn’t it wonderful? I came back to London on the first plane.”

He shielded his eyes with his hand, thankful his secretary was safely in her outer office, not sitting where she could see his face. “Justine, Herzchen, that’s marvelous news!” he managed to say enthusiastically. “I was wondering what brought you back to London.”

“Oh, Dane understood,” she said lightly, “and in a way I think he was quite glad to be alone. He had concocted a story about needing me to bitch at him to go home, but I think it was all more for his second reason, that he doesn’t want me to feel excluded from his life now he’s a priest.”

“Probably,” he agreed politely.

“Saturday evening, then,” she said. “Around six, then we can have a leisurely peace treaty session with the aid of a bottle or two, and I’ll feed you after we’ve reached a satisfactory compromise. All right?”

“Yes, of course. Goodbye, Herzchen.”

Contact was cut off abruptly by the sound of her receiver going down; he sat for a moment with his still in his hand, then shrugged and replaced it on its cradle. Damn Justine! She was beginning to come between him and his work.

She continued to come between him and his work during the succeeding days, though it was doubtful if anyone suspected. And on Saturday evening a little after six he presented himself at her apartment, empty-handed as usual because she was a difficult person to bring gifts. She was indifferent to flowers, never ate candy and would have thrown a more expensive offering carelessly in some corner, then forgotten it. The only gifts Justine seemed to prize were those Dane had given her.

“Champagne before dinner?” he asked, looking at her in surprise.

“Well, I think the occasion calls for it, don’t you? It was our first-ever breaking of relations, and this is our first-ever reconciliation,” she answered plausibly, indicating a comfortable chair for him and settling herself on the tawny kangaroo-fur rug, lips parted as if she had already rehearsed replies to anything he might say next.

But conversation was beyond him, at least until he was better able to assess her mood, so he watched her in silence. Until he had kissed her it had been easy to keep himself partially aloof, but now, seeing her again for the first time since, he admitted that it was going to be a great deal harder in the future.

Probably even when she was a very old woman she would still retain something not quite fully mature about face and bearing; as though essential womanliness would always pass her by. That cool, self-centered, logical brain seemed to dominate her completely, yet for him she owned a fascination so potent he doubted if he would ever be able to replace her with any other woman. Never once had he questioned whether she was worth the long struggle. Possibly from a philosophical standpoint she wasn’t. Did it matter? She was a goal, an aspiration.

“You’re looking very nice tonight, Herzchen,” he said at last, tipping his champagne glass to her in a gesture half toast, half acknowledgment of an adversary.

A coal fire simmered unshielded in the small Victorian grate, but Justine didn’t seem to mind the heat, huddled close to it with her eyes fixed on him. Then she put her glass on the hearth with a ringing snap and sat forward, her arms linked about her knees, bare feet hidden by folds of densely black gown.

“I can’t stand beating around the bush,” she said. “Did you mean it, Rain?”

Suddenly relaxing deeply, he lay back in his chair. “Mean what?”

“What you said in Rome… That you loved me.”

“Is that what this is all about, Herzchen?”

She looked away, shrugged, looked back at him and nodded.

“Well, of course.”

“But why bring it up again? You told me what you thought, and I had gathered tonight’s invitation wasn’t extended to bring up the past, only plan a future.”

“Oh, Rain! You’re acting as if I’m making a fuss! Even if I was, surely you can see why.”

“No, I can’t.” He put his glass down and bent forward to watch her more closely. “You gave me to understand most emphatically that you wanted no part of my love, and I had hoped you’d at least have the decency to refrain from discussing it.”

It had not occurred to her that this meeting, no matter what its outcome, would be so uncomfortable; after all, he had put himself in the position of a suppliant, and ought to be waiting humbly for her to reverse her decision. Instead he seemed to have turned the tables neatly. Here she was feeling like a naughty schoolgirl called upon to answer for some idiotic prank.

“Look, sport, you’re the one who changed the status quo, not me! I didn’t ask you to come tonight so I could beg forgiveness for having wounded the great Hartheim ego!”

“On the defensive, Justine?”

She wriggled impatiently. “Yes, dammit! How do you manage to do that to me, Rain? Oh, I wish just once you’d let me enjoy having the upper hand!”

“If I did, you’d throw me out like a smelly old rag,” he said, smiling.

“I can do that yet, mate!”

“Nonsense! If you haven’t done it by now you never will. You’ll go on seeing me because I keep you on the hop—you never know what to expect from me.”

“Is that why you said you loved me?” she asked painfully. “Was it only a ploy to keep me on the hop?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re a prize bastard!” she said through her teeth, and marched across the rug on her knees until she was close enough to give him the full benefit of her anger. “Say you love me again, you big Kraut prawn, and watch me spit in your eye!”

He was angry, too. “No, I’m not going to say it again! That isn’t why you asked me to come, is it? My feelings don’t concern you one bit, Justine. You asked me to come so you could experiment with your own feelings, and it didn’t enter your mind to consider whether that was being fair to me.”