Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online Page A

jealous?” he asked.
    “Delighted,” she said. But she was as surprised as he was by his emotion. She caught his hand and coaxed him toward the room. “I need hardly say he’s the one in uniform,” she added in a low voice.
    “I’ll have a drink first,” Scott said, catching sight of the uniform beside Mary Fyne’s red hair. “And I’ll have to say hello to Dad, too.” He looked away from the uniform: that was a hell of a way to come dressed to a party, proud of the ribbons no doubt. “Sorry about having to miss lunch, Rona. Just one of those awful days when your life isn’t your own.” He pushed a soft curl behind her ear and admired the effect.
    “Why didn’t you tell me last night?” she asked, half-puzzled.
    “I meant to. But I forgot. I always forget the unpleasant things.” He pressed her hand, gave her a smile that made her happy, and then went toward the tray of drinks, saying hello to their friends, making the usual comments. His father, he noted, was over by the window talking earnestly to Peggy Tyson. Scott waved and smiled, and then poured himself a drink. Rona was talking now to a dark-haired man in a blue suit—something in television, he remembered. Another of her “old friends,” but more harmless than Haydn. Rona had been at the impressionable age when she met Haydn; after that, there had been several men hanging around her, but nothing definite, not until Scott had found her. I’ll have a second drink, Scott told himself, before I go and shake Haydn by his hand; or perhaps I’ll be honest and knock his teeth in.
    * * *
    Over by the window, Peggy Tyson was saying to William Ettley, “I think Paul Haydn needs rescuing. He is getting that slightly glazed look, just like Jon when he is trapped.”
    But William Ettley, still watching Scott and Rona talking together at the door, said, “They look so happy together. I can’t make out why she doesn’t fix the date. When Rona invited me to this party. I was hoping they’d choose this day to announce the wedding.”
    Peggy’s attention came back to William Ettley, and she looked at his seemingly placid face. His quiet eyes behind their round glasses were worried. He was a man nearly sixty, short, energetic, heavily built, white-faced, white-haired. He was quick to smile, and his voice was deep, decided, pleasant. Most people, meeting him for the first time, were amazed that this mild-mannered man was William Ettley. Not the William Ettley? Not the man who had built up the Clarion to be one of the best-informed, most reliable, and completely trustworthy newspapers on the Eastern seaboard? True, the Clarion was a small paper, a country newspaper, but it carried both punch and weight. Ettley was the Republican who voted for Roosevelt when his conscience told him to. Ettley was the man who fought ward politics at home, despised pressure groups, believed in bipartisan policy abroad. You could trust his editorials. However you might disagree at the moment, you’d find yourself amazed some months later by the solid good sense that had kept him from jumping to false conclusions.
    Peggy said, “Shall I bring Paul Haydn over here? He’s been doing counter-propaganda in Germany or something like that.”
    “I’d like to meet him,” William Ettley said. His eyes watched her face. “Peggy, why isn’t Rona marrying Scott?”
    “But she is!” Peggy stared at him in amazement. “She’d marry him tomorrow if only he could manage it.”
    “I lunched with Scott last week. I got the impression...” William Ettley didn’t finish his sentence. He looked around the room a little unhappily. Rona was successful, Scott had said gloomily: how could he ask her to give up her career and only offer her the salary he had? “Why don’t they just get married, anyway?” William Ettley asked irritably.
    “That’s what I’d like to know,” Peggy said. Then, recalling his affection for Rona, she restrained her own annoyance. “But Rona can’t arrange