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it could wait till Nicky was older and could enjoy
    it with her. Well, there seemed little point in delaying any longer, she
    thought, with a kind of unhappy resolution.
    She cooked Nicky's favourite food for lunch—fish fingers, baked
    beans and oven chips. Manda, who believed in wholefoods and a
    balanced diet, would have frowned a little, but Nicky was jubilant and
    ate every scrap, including the ice cream which followed.
    Harriet tried to explain to him that he was going to have a little
    holiday with his uncle, but wasn't sure how much she'd got through to
    him, because he seemed far more interested in his toy cars than in the
    fact that she was packing his night things and the best of his clothes in
    a small case.
    He's only a baby, she thought as she watched him play, quite
    oblivious to her own mental and emotional turmoil. He's too little to
    be taken from all the security he knows, and be made to speak Greek,
    and all the other things he'll have .to learn.
    Yet on the other hand there was the very real danger that out of love
    and inexperience she might keep him a baby too long, might try too
    hard to protect him from the world which he was as much a part of as
    she was herself. A man's influence in his life was probably essential,
    Harriet thought—but what would be the effect of someone like Alex
    Marcos, wealthy, cynical and amoral, on the mind of an
    impressionable child?
    It was inevitable that when she sat down with the newspaper and a
    cup of coffee while Nicky played on the carpet at her feet, Alex's
    picture should be the first to leap out at her. And, again, inevitably, it
    was the gossip column, and he wasn't alone. He was sitting at a table
    in a restaurant or a night club—Harriet didn't recognise the name
    anyway—and the girl beside him, smiling radiantly at the camera had
    her arm through his and her head on his shoulder.
    Her red head on his shoulder, Harriet discovered asshe read through
    the piece that accompanied the photograph. Alex, it said, was in
    London on business and lovely model Vicky Hanlon was just the girl
    to help him unwind from his busy schedule.
    After an unctuous dwelling on Vicky Hanlon's physical attributes
    which would have had even the mildest Women's Libber spitting
    carpet tacks and reaching for the telephone, the columnist quoted her
    as saying, 'Poor Alex leads such a hectic life. I just want to help him
    relax as much as possible.'
    'Yuck!' said Harriet violently, dropping the paper as if it had bitten
    her. She marched down the passage to the bathroom and washed her
    face and cleaned her teeth thoroughly which, while a relatively futile
    gesture, nevertheless made her feel better.
    She was increasingly on edge as three o'clock approached. Nicky had
    grown tired of his toys and demanded a story, and she was just
    following The Little Gingerbread Man with the Three Billy Goats
    Gruff when she heard the sound of a car door slam in the street below.
    Her voice hesitated and died away right in the middle of the troll's
    threat, and her whole body tensed. Nicky bounced plaintively and
    said, 'Troll.'
    She hugged him fiercely. 'Another time, darling. Your—your uncle's
    come to fetch you, and you're going to have a wonderful time.'
    She remembered what Alex had said the previous day about her
    sheltering arms and was careful to let Nicky walk beside her to the
    door as the buzzer sounded imperatively.
    Her palms were damp, and her mouth was dry. She had brushed her
    hair until it shone, and the dress she was wearing, although simple
    and sleeveless, was the most becoming in her wardrobe, its cool blues
    and greens accentuating her fairness, and the very fact that she had
    chosen to wear it was evidence enough that she was on the verge of
    making a complete and utter fool of herself.
    She made herself reach out and release the Yale knob and turn the
    handle.
    There was a man outside, stockily built and swarthy in a chauffeur's
    uniform, his cap under one arm, and accompanied