Such is love Read Online Free PDF Page A

began to dress leisurely for

    dinner. She put on the cream wool with the great cornflower-blue flowers splashed over it. It was not a new dress, but Van hked it. He said the blue was the colour of her eyes, and the cream the colour of her throat. Van didn't often make such remarks, and she treasured this one all the more for that.
    In her ears she put small pearl drop earrings. She had not worn earrings in the days when Aunt Eleanor had known her before, and she hoped, with half-humorous regret, that they would not evoke any disapproval. In any case, they were in keeping with her older, more sophisticated style now, and gave her a touch of authority and dignity which one might reasonably expect to find in Evander Onslie's wife.
    With little of the misgiving which would have assailed her once, Gwyneth hoped that she was going to fit well into that rather responsible position. To be the wife of one of the biggest industrialists in the country was a responsibility, she supposed. But if Van, at thirty-five, was not overwhelmed by his position as head of the great Onslie Steel Works, she, at twenty-three, must not fear her position as his wife.
    Van's wife! The very phrase gave her an exquisite sense of happiness, and slowly the last shadows of the past seemed to give way before the sunshine of the future. Van's wife —she was marrying him in two days' time—and there hung her wedding dress as tangible proof of the fact.
    It was hard to believe that six months ago she had not even met him. When she had seen him at the Courtenays' New Year party that first week-end, he had seemed familiar to her, probably from some half-remembered newspaper photograph. But until he was introduced, she had not been able to identify him. Then, when she had heard his name, she had thought.:
    "Evander Onslie! One of those big businessmen. Not my sort at all. Much too grim and serious."
    But if Van were serious and—^yes, even quite often grim, he certainly had his own way of unbending at times.
    He unbent for her. There was no question about it, No one else in the room seemed to interest him after he had bowed over her hand.

    Sceptical and a little cynical now where masculine admiration was concerned, Gwyneth had not been encouraging. She had resolutely kept things on a light and careless basis.
    He was puzzled, she saw, and not a little angry, but quite undismayed. He invited himself down to the Court-enays' place the next week-end—and again, the next. Then he proposed to her—and she refused him.
    She had supposed he would accept that, but she was much mistaken. He took a week-end cottage of his own in the neighbourhood, and proposed again.
    "I've told you 'no'," Gwyneth pointed out with her cool smile. "Perhaps you've never met the word before?"
    "At any rate, I don't know its meaning in connection with you." He brushed her protest aside without even a smile. "Any man who takes 'no' from the woman he loves doesn't deserve to win her. In any case, I never take 'no' when I'm determined."
    "Really? Well, I'm not a steel contract, you know." Gwyneth had told him. "I don't know that business methods are going to assist here."
    He had taken her in his arms then, whether she liked it or not, and said:
    "No, you're not a steel contract. You're a golden dream. But I don't take 'no' all the same. I've moved too quickly —I see that now. But I'U wait. There is such a thing as siege as well as attack."
    That hadn't been the end, of course, but it had been the beginning of the end, and a month later she had been wearing Van's diamond on her engagement finger.
    Only then had she wondered how much of the past she ought to tell him. And, after a night of tormenting uncertainty and self-questioning, she had decided definitely— nothing, nothing, nothing.
    Perhaps it was difficult to say now how much or how little she had been to blame in that horrible episode of her youth. But one thing was quite certain— nothing^ could make it sound anything but sordid