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what she really wanted. Yet now, unaccountably, she was aware that some part of her was drawing back. She even began to wonder if she had been a fool to write that impulsive letter to the unknown man her cousin had jilted so callously. After all, she really hadn't the least idea what he was like. Her mental picture of him was purely imaginary. She wondered too if she had indiscreetly bared some part of her soul in what she had written in those sleepless hours of the early morning.
    Her footsteps had slowed, but now with a slight shock she realised she was standing outside the door of his suite. She very nearly turned on her heel and went silently away, mad images floating through her mind of herself telling Jake she had decided against the job after all. That would mean she'd have to go to Adelaide, and once she was there, would Jake use his wiles to persuade her to continue the idle life? And how would she get on with Pat? After all, the marriage hadn't taken place yet. Pat might decide it wasn't for her if there was an—unofficial stepdaughter around.
    Ellis braced herself, and with a feeling that fate was pushing her on, she raised her hand and knocked, and in the very instant that she did so she realised in a flash .what was at the back of her reluctance—why she was -feeling so churned up.
    That voice on the telephone ! Of course—it had reminded her of the voice of the—the green-eyed monster! Yet it couldn't be his. No way in the world could
     
    she persuade herself that that man was her nice sheep farmer. The very thought was ludicrous.
    But when a second later the door was opened to her, her fears were realised. It was the man with the cynical green eyes.
     

 
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CHAPTER TWO
     
    QUITE obviously he was nothing like as surprised—or shocked—as she was, and his hard green gaze moved deliberately over her, from the black scarf confining her hair to the tips of her high-heeled black sandals. By the time it returned to her face, so innocently devoid of make-up, the rose colour that had come into her cheeks had subsided, leaving them pale.
    She licked her lips and swallowed on a dry throat.
    `Are you—are you Mr Gascoyne?' she asked, and crazily she willed him to say no, that she'd come to the wrong suite, or that Mr Gascoyne was waiting for her inside.
    `That's right,' he agreed, reaching out to take hold of her arm and draw her into the room. 'And you, of course, are Ellis Lincoln. I thought I recognised your voice over the telephone, though I doubted my ears. You're hardly the heartbroken little creature I'd been expecting from the tone of your letter, but then you've been consoling yourself already, haven't you?'
    Ellis slid away from his hands. All the thoughts she had harboured of somehow making amends for Jan's behaviour now seemed quite absurd. She couldn't even imagine this man needing help, let alone having a broken heart. He was nothing like the man she had envisaged herself working for-the simple countryman her cousin had treated so cruelly—and she was already well aware of his opinion of her.
    `Look, Mr Gascoyne,' she said, trying to keep her voice calm and even, 'we needn't go on with this, need we? I—I know you're not interested—'
    `Then you know wrong. I'm very interested,' he said smoothly. The door clicked shut, and helplessly, Ellis took a few more steps into the room, then sank into the armchair he indicated mainly because suddenly her legs felt in danger of giving way. She had just remembered she'd told him she was engaged to a man on Flinders Island. That was going to take some explaining, and all she really wanted was to get out of here quickly. She kept her lashes lowered defensively, acutely aware that he was once more scrutinising her.
    `You're quite a new proposition this evening, aren't you?' he pronounced after what seemed an endless time. 'Now you've scrubbed off your make-up and got into some—lamb's clothing. It's lucky we'd already met last night.'
    `Lucky?' she