Sleeping Tiger Read Online Free PDF Page B

hesitated. “Yes, I have.”
    â€œLet me see it.”
    â€œYou’ll … give it back…?”
    A slight tinge of irritation crept into Rodney’s voice. “My dear child, what do you take me for?”
    She was immediately ashamed, for Rodney would never stoop to an underhand action. She went for her bag, took out the precious photograph, and handed it across the Rodney. He carried it to the light of the window and Selina followed to stand beside him.
    â€œYou probably won’t remember the photograph on the back of the book, but it is the same person, I’d swear to it. Everything is the same. The cleft in the chin. And the eyes … and the way the ears are set.”
    â€œWhat did Agnes say?”
    â€œShe wouldn’t commit herself, but I’m sure she thinks it’s my father.”
    Rodney did not reply. Frowning down at the dark, amused face in the photograph he was visited by a number of anxieties. The first was the possibility of losing Selina. A painfully honest man, Rodney had never deluded himself that he was in love with her, but she had become, almost without his realising it, a pleasant part of his life. Her appearance, with her satin, fawn-colored hair and skin and her sapphire-blue eyes, he found beguiling, and although her interests were not perhaps as esoteric as Rodney’s own, she showed a charming willingness to learn.
    And then, there was the question of her business affairs. Since her grandmother’s death Selina was a girl of some property, a ripe fruit, if ever there was one, to fall into the hands of a possibly unscrupulous man. At the moment, Rodney and Mr. Arthurstone, in complete accord, were handling her stocks and trusts, and in another six months Selina would be twenty-one, and after that any final decisions would be her own. The thought of the control of all that money passing out of his hands gave Rodney the shivers.
    He looked down, over his shoulder, and met Selina’s eyes. He had never known any girl with such blue whites to her eyes. Like detergent advertisements. She smelt vaguely of fresh lemons … verbena. Out of the past he seemed to hear Mrs. Bruce’s voice, and some of the biting things she had had to say about Gerry Dawson. Shiftless was the word that stuck in Rodney’s mind. Further epithets presented themselves to him. Irresponsible. Unreliable. Financially unsound.
    He held the photograph by the corner and tapped it into the palm of his left hand. He said, at last, in a small burst of annoyance, finding it necessary to blame somebody for the situation in which he found himself, “Of course, it’s all your grandmother’s fault. She should never have kept you in the dark about your father. This web of secrecy, never mentioning his name … was a ridiculous mistake.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Selina, interested.
    â€œBecause it’s given you an obsession about him!” Rodney shot at her. Selina stared, obviously deeply hurt, her mouth hanging slightly open like an astounded child’s. Rodney plunged ruthlessly on.
    â€œYou have an obsession about fathers, and families and family life in general. The fact that you found this photograph, and kept it—hidden—is a typical symptom.”
    â€œYou talk as if I had measles.”
    â€œI’m trying to make you understand that you have a complex about your dead father.”
    â€œPerhaps he isn’t dead,” said Selina. “And if I have got a complex about him, you’ve just admitted that it isn’t my fault. What’s so wrong about having a complex? It isn’t like a squint, or a wall eye. It doesn’t show.”
    â€œSelina, this isn’t funny.”
    â€œI don’t think it’s funny either.”
    She was regarding him with a bright gaze that he told himself could be described as a glare. They were quarreling. They had never quarrelled, and this was surely not the time to