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For a start, he thinks you're the most wonderful person
he's ever- known."
"Jolly nice of him," she said nervously.
"You may well dither, my girl. Firland's never been
quite that way about a woman before and he's finding it
inconvenient. It's my guess that he had decided to fall for
old Niall Denman's niece when she turns up."
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"Oh," she said faintly.
"Damned silly spot tor him to find himself in, isn't it?"
he said callously. "Even if he restrains himself where
you're concerned, you've put him off his plan to marry the
Denman girl, so he's in a mess over the farm either
way."
Lucie's mind skittered, came to rest in an uneasy world.
A little thinly, she said, "The niece is really in a horrid
position, isn't she? Norman desperately wants to keep the
farm . , ."
"Because he .prefers a soft billet and lacks the grit to
start on his own."
"Perhaps, but one has to accept people's natures. He
wants to keep the farm but only owns half of it. You, on
the other hand, are willing to buy outright at a figure which
is half as much again as the valuation. The girl will be in
a frightful quandary."
"Why should she be?" He leaned forward slightly so that
he was again close to her head, but he sounded thought^
ful. "D'you know what I'd do in her place? I'd have a
fairly good idea of whether or not I wished to sell before
I came. On arrival, I'd decline to have anything to do
with Firland or with Matt Leverson, socially that is. I'd
turn Firland out of the house for a month and meet him
only on the farm itself, in business hours, and during the
month I'd weigh up the advantages and otherwise to '
myself."'
"But that wouldn't fit in with the conditions of. the
will. The niece and Norman have to get to know each
other."
'"They would on the farm. For her own sake the girl
should be very level-headed and one-track, so that she
could weigh up how she'd come off best. Romance is
death to common sense."
She smiled. "Is it? Your way, of course, she'd choose
to sell, and you'd get your wish."
He took a last pull at his cigarette and threw it into the
fire, took hers from her fingers and flipped that among
.the embers, too. "I like the place and I think it could
be put on a far more prosperous footing, but I'm offering
to buy only because I promised. I would. Old Denman
felt he had to get hold of someone who would let out
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Firland and the niece if they couldn't get together, and
yet take care of the farm. It was clever of him to pick on
me; he knew that I feel too strongly about the land to let
the place slide further. I'm not a fruit man, though, and
he knew that as well."
"You'd have to put in a manager," she said. "Would
you choose Norman?"
"That," said Matt rather condescendingly, "is the crux
of the whole matter. Hadn't you gone that far? If Firland
could remain more or less as he has been for the j»ast
few years, yet be the richer in pocket by half the pur-
chase price, he'd sell like a shot. But I wouldn't have him
as manager, and he knows it. I know several men who'd
put more into the farm in a month than he does in a
year."
"But surely he could get the same sort of position else-
where?"
"I doubt it. Niall Denman was pretty well unique. It's
no use, redhead. Unless you have stronger feelings for our
Norman than I think you have, your sympathy for him is
misplaced." He paused, and tacked on casually, "I thought
you ought to know the way he feels about you. It would
be too silly to let your compassion for the chap- delude you
into some foolish situation from which, the chances are,
you'd wake up too late. Your best bet would be to invent
an affection for someone else."
She smiled down at her locked fingers. "Would Rex do?"
"Possibly, though if he came to hear about it he'd
demand the privileges. You like Rex, don't you?"
"Quite a lot, but we don't see him these days."
He shrugged. "It seems that Dinah was appallingly
frank to his people one day when they met near the lake,
and they hastily found a reason why he must spend a
week or so in Vancouver. No doubt they're hoping you
apple-picking wenches will have passed on before he
returns."
"Dinah's people are every bit as good as they are;"
retorted Lucie. "Her father's head of the . . ." She broke
off suddenly, confused and mortified. "Dinah doesn't
care, anyway," she ended lamely.
Mart's voice came over softly with a note of persistence.
"What were you about to say, my child? I'd already
^80
gathered that Dinah's background is heavily gilded . . .
but what were you about to say?"
"It doesn't matter. This . . . this place is insidious. You
shouldn't have brought me here!"
"Because it's threatening your defences? Don't you know
that it's wrong to clam up on your friends?"
"Sometimes it's necessary." Her throat was painful as
she went on, "It's only two weeks since we came to Red
Deer Valley, but it's already as if we'd been here for ever.
It seems as if we've made close friends in that time, but
we can't have."
He didn't answer this; perhaps he let the atmosphere in
the room answer for him. It was quiet; the logs fell to-
gether with a drowsy sound, sending white flakes up the
black throat of the chimney. Her hair shone in the dusky
light with a fire of its own and it was very close to his
knee. He appeared to be relaxed but watchful. Lucie
wondered, tremulously, if he was as conscious of the
delicate and disturbing element in the room as she was.
She sat limply in the stool, her eyes burning with the
heat that came from a fire which hadn't a flame left in
it. He had said that emotionally she was asleep, but she
knew better. This thing that kept choking at her heart
and throat had awakened her, and it kept on hurting,
however often she repeated to herself the words she had
spoken aloud. You can't get close to people in two
brief weeks, and you have to be very close to a man
before you fall in love with him. But was that true? Didn't
the beginning of love sometimes happen in the very first
meeting? It stole into the mind like a pale gleam, became
brighter and more obsessive.
Lueie saw, with devastating clarity, that she had made
an outsize mess of everything. She had intended to work
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