Deceptions Read Online Free PDF Page B

amiable dictatorship of Professor L. E. Bossard, wealthy young women became cultured, superbly trained in sports and educated to the entrance standards of any French, American or English university. Its rules were strict, its students closely super-

    vised. Professor Bossard would make sure that no scandal would attach to Juliette - or the parents of its girls.
    Gordon would take up his new post in the spring, Laura told Sabrina and Stephanie. She would stay with them in Paris until the school year ended. Then Gordon would join them and they would drive to Switzerland to see the girls safely ensconced under Professor Bossard's wing.
    Sabrina looked somberly at her parents. This was what her mother had worked for all these years: Gordon as an ambassador. And now that she had succeeded, she was sending them away. 'It's not Algeria/ she said. 'It's because Daddy's an ambassador and you're sort of one, too, and you don't want to worry about us maybe doing something embarrassing to such very important people.'
    Laura slapped her face. It was the only time she had ever hit her, and she was ashamed inunediately afterward. 'Forgive me,' she said to Sabrina. 'But for you to talk to me that way—'
    'She didn't mean it,' Stephanie said quickly. 'It's just that we don't want to go away.'
    'I meant it,' Sabrina said. 'And I do want to go away. I don't want to be with people who don't want me.'
    Laura's eyes flashed, but she said smoothly and emotionally, 'Of course we want you; we'll miss you both terribly. But we can't turn down this appointment because of you. Algiers is a city still in turmoil, the schools are not—'
    'It's all right,' Sabrina said. 'I understand.' Her stomach was churning and she hated her mother, and her father, too - looking out the window as if he weren't involved at all. 'It sounds like a wonderful school. We'll have a wonderful time, won't v/e, Stephanie? I guess we ought to practise our French some more; it is a French school, isn't it? We ought to start now, I guess. Stephanie, do you want to come upstairs with me and begin to practise our French?'
    There was a long silence. The Hartwell family sat unmoving around the dinner table in the beautiful home that Laura had made for them in Paris. They were suspended on a breath of air, waiting to be carried in different directions.

    Then Sabrina stood, followed by Stephanie, and the two of them went upstairs, to be together.
    Chapter 3
    At exactly 10:00 pm, the mahogany doors of the grand ballroom in the Hotel Geneva swung open on a Venetian palace of papiermSch6 and paint. Marbled columns supported a vaulted ceiling, and arched windows looked out on painted canals with gondolas and poling boatmen. The varnished ballroom floor was surrounded by a hundred round tables, each set with an orchid centerpiece and china and silver for four. As the doors opened the room became a kaleidoscope of four hundred young men and women in tuxedos and ball gowns crowding in for their graduation ball.
    They came from ten select men's and women's schools on the shore of Lake Geneva, and they knew each other from years of chaperoned social events, trips to the great cities of Europe and sports competitions. Only that morning, they had competed in the annual Lake Geneva Sports Festival, their last chance before graduation to win trophies for their schools, their names etched impressively in brass or silver for victories in archery, sailing, fencing, swimming, horsemanship and soccer. From early morning until mid-afternoon, they struggled, hair slicked back, skin streaked with sweat and dust, muscles taut with the lust for victory. Now, polished and sophisticated, they mingled in the other kind of sports festival sponsored by their schools: finding a suitable partner for marriage.
    Stephanie, in a froth of lemon yellow chiffon, her hair falling in heavy waves down her back, sat with Dena and Annie in the gilt armchairs at their table and watched for Sabrina to come in. She had to talk