Air Ticket by Susan Barrie Read Free Book Online

meeting them both. Has it struck you,” he remarked after a long moment of silence, “that she might present you with your first grandchild at almost the same time that you present her with a sister or brother?”
    “Oh, don’t!” Caro exclaimed, and blushed vivid ly.
    He laughed with faintly wicked amusement, and studied her blush appreciatively.
    “You are so easy to tease,” he informed her, “and you color so delightfully that it’s not easy to resist the temptation. But all the same, it isn’t a possibility that one can rule out altogether, is it?”
    Then, as he saw how embarrassed her eyes were, he took pity on her and lifted her hands and kissed them tenderly, turning them over so that his lips were embedded in the soft palms. Then he drew her into his arms and kissed her hot face, also.
    “Tell me,” he said softly, “what were you thinking about just now while I was lying staring up at the sky?”
    “I was wondering how soon you are going to regret marrying me in this somewhat impulsive fashion.”
    But she softened the words by putting up a hand and running it gently over a crisp wave in his hair.
    “That’s a nice thought for a bride of less than forty-eight hours,” he remarked. “How soon are you going to regret marrying me?”
    “Never,” she assured him softly.
    “ Liebling !” he murmured, and held her very close. “Then why should it occur to you that regrets might one day be possible for me?”
    She sighed suddenly. “Oh, I don’t know ... Only, you know so little of me. We don’t even speak the same language—at least, you speak mine without any effort at all, but I can’t even manage a word of yours.”
    “Then it’s high time you started to learn. I’ll get someone to instruct you.”
    “And I might upset your daily life. You’ve been accustomed to living like a bachelor for so long—and I don’t know any of your friends...”
    “You know Olga.”
    “Oh, yes—Fraulein Spiro!” She was not at all sure how she had been impressed by Fraulein Spiro when she met her for the first time at the luncheon Lucien had arranged two days before they were married. At first Caro had thought her plain, but halfway through the lunch she had decided that she was far from plain, and that her eyes were quite wonderful and her clothes breathtaking.
    Olga had reached a hand across the table and touched hers lightly.
    “You and I must be friends,” she had declared. “You will feel a little strange here at first, being quite unused to us and our ways, but in time the strangeness will pass, and I hope that you and I will become very good friends.”
    “I hope so, too,” Caro had answered, forcing her lips into a warm and responsive smile.
    But she was not sure even now whether she liked Olga Spiro, and she wondered whether the day would ever dawn when they would be really close friends.
    “Olga is the very person to help you with your language problem,” Lucien declared suddenly with enthusiasm. “ I will ask her to get to work on you without delay as soon as we are back. ”
    “How long have you known Fraulein Spiro?” Caro asked, not echoing his enthusiasm.
    “Oh, a long time—for a year or two even before my first marriage.”
    “Then she knew your ... your first wife?”
    “Yes. Barbara and Olga were quite good friends.”
    “Your first wife was English, like me, wasn’t she?”
    “Yes. How did you know?”
    “I didn’t know—I just had a feeling, somehow.”
    He stood up rather abruptly.
    “Don’t worry,” he said as he held out a hand to her. “You’ll soon know all my friends and acquaintances, recognize most of my patients by sight if nothing else, and be perfectly familiar with my daily routine. And if sometimes I haven’t as much time to devote to you as I’d like don’t think it’s because I don’t want to! As soon as I can make time we’ll have a lengthier honeymoon than this—we’ll slip away to Paris, or somewhere like that for a week or a