Read Dorothy Eden for Free Online Page B

grave.”
    But she was talking to herself, for Jeremy had already gone. As she walked into his living-room, brightly lighted, and with his drawing board prominently placed, she could hear his quick footsteps, growing more muffled as he reached the top of the house. In a very short time he was down again.
    He looked at Cressida a moment, the expressive eyebrow almost in his hair. Then he said, quite calmly,
    “The door wasn’t locked. There isn’t even a key.”
    “Oh, but it was! I swear—” She was aware of his completely sceptical gaze. Her quick temper sprang out. “Jeremy Winter, do you stand there thinking I made that excuse to come down the fire escape in my dressing-gown just to see you? Oh no, surely you couldn’t flatter yourself that much.”
    “Too bad,” Jeremy murmured.
    “I won’t stand it!” Cressida cried. “I expect the truth is that you went up just now and unlocked the door. After all I did hear Mimosa on the stairs when I was in Lucy’s room.”
    “Mimosa!” Jeremy said accusingly. “Did you lock the lady in? Naughty creature!”
    “Don’t be idiotic!” Cressida was nearly beside herself with anger, and that humiliating lingering fear. “I was locked in that room tonight, and if I hadn’t come down the fire escape I would have had to spend the night there. Somebody pretended not to hear me calling, and then, I suppose, seeing or hearing me go down the fire escape, rushed upstairs to unlock the door and pretend nothing had happened.”
    “Sit down,” said Jeremy. “You’re still shivering.”
    “No, I won’t sit down. This isn’t a social call. Thank you for letting me in, and now I’ll go.”
    Jeremy made no move to go and open the door.
    “You’re very attractive when you’re angry. Does Tom think so?”
    “Please leave Tom’s name out of this.”
    “I can’t very well, because at this moment I’m wondering if you wouldn’t be wise to go home to him after all, pride or no pride.”
    Mimosa suddenly rubbed insinuatingly round Cressida’s ankles. Cressida looked down at his broad golden back, and then up at the tall young man in front of her. He was not laughing now. He was looking at her quizzically, even with something like seriousness. She found her anger leaving her.
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Because here, whatever else you may be, I’m afraid you’re going to be someone come back from the grave. And already, you see, it isn’t particularly healthy.”
    “You don’t mean—Arabia?” Cressida was almost whispering. She had a sudden vision of being a prisoner forever in that charming lifeless room, her only visitor the old woman in her outlandish clothes.
    Jeremy looked genuinely puzzled. “Actually I can’t believe she would do a crazy thing like that. I know she thoroughly enjoys romancing, and being amusing, and shocking, if possible, but I always thought she was quite sane. Look here, you’d better go to bed and convince yourself you dreamed the thing. I’ll take you upstairs.”
    “I didn’t dream it,” Cressida said soberly. “And I don’t intend to go home to Tom either. At least, not yet. Getting locked in either accidentally or on purpose doesn’t frighten me. Lucy’s story is just the kind of thing I have been looking for and I intend to find out more of it. I’m sure there’s more to find out. Who was Monty in her diary, for instance?”
    “Just debutante stuff,” Jeremy said.
    “Perhaps. But Arabia gets a look in her eye. I don’t think she’s telling me everything. And as for you”—she turned on him suddenly—“what are you doing up at this hour of the night?”
    “Working,” said Jeremy mildly. “I do a strip cartoon featuring Mimosa. Like to see it?”
    He indicated his drawing-board, and Cressida looked with amusement at the rows of plump cats, walking stiffly on their hind legs, holding animated conversations.
    “Mimosa is a bit slow in providing me with a plot sometimes,” Jeremy complained. “He’s a lazy