The Young Nightingales by Mary Whistler Read Free Book Online Page B

might be a more suitable word. She had lived in Switzerland for years, and in St. Vaizey where her villa was situated for at least half of that length of time. She had an English housekeeper and an English chauffeur, and maintained a certain amount of rather comfortable state on an income which had been left to her by her second husband, another Roger Bowman, who had been a City merchant, and accumulated quite a fortune in his day.
    The young man behind the reception desk was suddenly inspired.
    “You are a relative of Madame Bowman, mademoiselle ? You have come to Switzerland to visit her?” he suggested.
    Jane thought it best to put him right at the outset.
    “No, no, I am not a relative of Madame Bowman,” she answered. “But I am going to be employed by her, and tomorrow I must leave here for the Villa Magnolia. That is why I want to know whether it is very far from here, and if it is whether I can hire a car to take me there?”
    The young man was obviously intrigued.
    “It is no distance at all, mademoiselle ,” he assured her. “And a taxi will take you there...”
    He broke off as a man came in swiftly through the main entrance and started to cross the vestibule to the dining-room. He was a youngish man of medium height, with well-held shoulders and a curious, cat-like grace as he moved, who looked extraordinarily fit and brown and was dressed with care in the full regalia of white tie and tails, which most certainly became him because by any standards he was an attractive man, and if the impeccability of his linen was any thing to go by an exceptionally fastidious one.
    “Ah, there is someone-—!” the desk clerk exclaimed; and then broke off as the man paused in his swinging stride and quite obviously recognised Jane.
    “Well, well,” he exclaimed. “Miss Nightingale!”
    J ane stared unbelievingly.
    The bronzed man smiled.
    “Yes, I’ve had an opportunity to clean up a bit, he admitted, “and I hope I’m a little more presentable now. Are you settling in ? I do hope they’ve given you a room on the lake side. If not I shall have to use my influence and persuade them to shift you !”

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    JANE suddenly became aware of the fact that she was staring, quite literally, open-mouthed.
    This elegant man so correctly attired for an evening’s formal festivities could not be the man in the da rn ed khaki shirt and thick woollen stockings and clumsy boots who had shared her taxi as far as the Continental ? And yet there was so little doubt of it that she started to blush almost painfully with embarrassment, particularly when he railled her on the obviousness of her surprise.
    “I must take greater care with my appearance next time I go climbing in the mountains,” he said. “But the truth is, I rather enjoy a little informality now and then ... and it’s good to escape sometimes.”
    “Y-yes,” she stammered, wondering quite what it was that he found it good to escape from. “I suppose it is.”
    He smiled at her a trifle whimsically.
    “Have you dined ? An attractive young woman like you should not be dining alone on holiday. But no doubt in the course of the next few days you will make several new friends who will be delighted to show you the sights of St. Vaizey.”
    There was an unmistakable gleam of admiration in his eyes as they travelled over the slenderness of her figure in the cloudy black dress, and then returned to study her face in that open and rather disturbing way he had which she had already noticed. “If you like sailing you can get some here, you know, and if you’re a tennis player there’s a very good club to which visitors are admitted. And when you’ve nothing better to do I strongly recommend a trip up into the mountains.”
    The desk-clerk had been endeavouring to attract his attention for some reason, but a very stout lady with a purposeful air had sailed up to the reception desk and the young man who would have dearly loved to be of assistance to Miss