An Angel Runs Away Read Online Free PDF Page A

but you did ask me – and actually it is a – compliment that they think you are so – important.”
    “It is a compliment I can do without!” the Marquis retorted. “Now, let’s get back to you.”
    “But you cannot be – serious,” Ula said. “How could I possibly appear as someone – beautiful. Even if you were kind enough to pretend that you – thought I was, people would – just laugh.”
    “I pride myself,” the Marquis said, “on having a very discerning eye. If I saw an uncut unpolished stone lying in the gutter, I hope, because I am an expert on such matters, I would know it was a diamond.”
    He knew Ula was listening intently and he went on,
    “The same applies to a picture that is dirty or damaged and has been allowed to deteriorate. I should still recognise it as a Rembrandt or a Rubens, however blackened it might have become with neglect.”
    “But – that is quite different,” Ula objected.
    “Not really and I consider myself an expert on beautiful women. What you need, Ula, is a frame which will exhibit you to the best advantage and also, like an actress on the stage, you need a producer.”
    Ula clasped her fingers together.
    “You make it – sound just possible – but I find it hard to – believe you.”
    “I think what you have to do is to trust me. As I have already said, if you achieve what you desire, you will also help me to achieve what I want.”
    There was a hard expression in his eyes as he remembered how Sarah had spoken about him and he added,
    “With my reputation, my authority and my wealth, if we cannot make Social London accept you at my valuation, then all I can say is that I shall consider myself a failure and that will be something that has never happened to me before.”
    “You have never failed at anything,” Ula said. “Your horses win all the big races and I have heard Uncle Lionel talk enviously of the magnificence of your house in the country, which even the Prince Regent described as having an ‘inconceivable perfection’.”
    The Marquis gave a short laugh.
    “So that story has been repeated in your hearing!”
    “I have already said that everybody talks about you and everybody admires you.”
    “And do you?”
    “That is a silly question! How could I not admire anyone who has been clever enough to find four horses as perfectly matched – as these you are driving now?”
    The Marquis thought with a slight twist of his lips that it was rather a different compliment from those he usually received, but he merely said,
    “In which case, I must ask you again to trust me and to do exactly what I tell you to do.”
    “And suppose I – fail you and you are – very angry with me?”
    “I may be angry,” the Marquis replied, “but I promise I will not beat you. In fact, if you do fail, it will be my failure too, which I shall find extremely humiliating.
    “That is something – which must – not happen,” Ula said passionately. “I could not imagine you – humiliated or anything but an autocrat sitting on top of the world – eclipsing everybody else – below you.”
    “Thank you, Ula, and just remember that you have to maintain me in that position and not let me, like Humpty Dumpty, have a great fall!”
    Ula gave a spontaneous little laugh and, picking up the reins, the Marquis drove on.
    It was only as they came in sight of an attractive stone house with a porticoed front door and long windows looking out over a garden brilliant with flowers that Ula was nervous.
    The Marquis did not comment upon it.
    He was, however, aware of the tension in her slim body and that her hands in her lap were clasped together so tightly that the knuckles showed white.
    It struck him for the first time that she had run away without gloves, in fact, without taking anything at all with her.
    She was dressed in a plain gingham gown and she had over her shoulders a woollen shawl that looked as though it had been through innumerable washings.
    He was aware also