Read Online Choice of Evils by E.X. Ferrars - Free Book Online Page A

age can fall passionately in love. Professor?’
    ‘I seem to remember having been through a phase of it myself,’ Andrew answered. ‘But I was rather faithless. I remember a girl for whom I thought I would be ready to die went down with measles, and by the time she came out of quarantine I'd attached myself to someone quite different.’
    ‘All the same, you understand what I'm talking about,’ she said. ‘Desmond won't believe I was ever in love with Simon. He doesn't like to think I was in love with him during my adolescence, which I was, as I said - desperately. That's just jealousy, of course. He doesn't like tothink I was really in love with anyone till I met him/
    ‘Oh, for God's sake!’ Desmond Nicholl muttered in a tone of disgust. 'The trouble with you is that you've never been in love with anyone. Now, shall we go through to lunch?’
    They finished their drinks and went through to the dining-room.
    Edward Clarke was very silent throughout the meal, as indeed it was difficult not to be since Magda Braile kept up an incessant chatter. But he looked as if he had something on his mind.
    In one of the pauses in the actress's talk, Andrew asked him, ‘Are you worrying about the show this evening?’
    'Somewhat, yes,’ Clarke replied. ‘A kind of stage fright perhaps. But everything's gone so well so far, I don't see why we shouldn't have a success with this too.’
    ‘Oh, he's dead scared that I'm not the right person for the Duchess,’ Magda said with a titter. She reached out a hand and laid it on one of Clarke's. ‘You poor dear, you really needn't be frightened. When I get to work, I'm very disciplined. But talking of being frightened, I did scare Simon, didn't I? I didn't mean to in the least, but I could see it in his eyes when he first saw me, he was dead scared.’
    ‘And how you enjoyed it,’ Nicholl said sourly. ‘But you needn't worry, Clarke. She'll pull herself together this evening. She tends to put on this sort of show before a performance. Nerves, I suppose. But sometimes she'll do the opposite and go dead silent. I'm not sure which is the harder to put up with.’
    ‘How horrid you can be!’ Magda exclaimed. ‘I don't know why I put up with you.’
    She went on with her chatter, mostly about Simon and how he had gone to Oxford and later broken her heart by falling in love with a woman whom he had insisted on marrying. She did not make it quite clear whether or notshe had ever met the woman. Andrew found it a relief when coffee had been drunk and the party had broken up.
    He went up to his room, intending to start reading the book that he had bought that morning, but making the mistake of lying down on his bed instead of sitting in his armchair, he was sound asleep in a few minutes. The sea and the unwonted exercise had made him very drowsy. He slept until nearly five o'clock when he was woken by the telephone ringing. Peter again, he presumed.
    He was right, but he was startled by the tone of Peter's voice. It sounded high and excited, and he spoke very hurriedly, as if he were afraid of being caught at the telephone.
    ‘Andrew, please come here as quickly as you can!’ Peter said. ‘At once! Please!’
    ‘But why?’ Andrew asked. ‘What's happened?’
    ‘I can't explain now,’ Peter said. 'Someone else wants the telephone. But come- ’
    He stopped abruptly, and the dialling tone rang in Andrew's ears.
    He put the telephone down and stood for a moment, looking at it in a perplexed way. He was quite ready to respond to Peter's anxious demand, but there were several matters to be solved before he could do so. First of all he had to discover Simon Amory's address. When Peter had driven him up to the house the evening before it had not occurred to him to mention its name or the name of the road where it stood. Now, if there was really a need for haste, the obvious thing would be to get a taxi, rather than to walk, though he remembered the distance as not very great. That the