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her.'
    Sven swept an amused glance over the young man. 'So nice to find a modern youth with a sense of responsibility,' he purred, and Derek bristled indignantly. Sonya took his arm.
    'Derek's quite right, I must go,' she told Sven.
    'Then I must say goodnight. But you will persuade your father to see me, will you not? I will give you a ring tomorrow to learn when I may call.'
    Not if but when, she noticed.
    'I'm sure Mr Vincent will be honoured to receive you,' Mr Wylie declared unctuously.
    'The honour will be mine,' Sven assured him, and with another bow towards Sonya, moved on, Thomasina instantly tripping to his side. He inclined his head towards her golden one and laughed at some pert remark she had made. Evidently she had forgiven his rebuff and had returned to the attack.
    Derek escorted Sonya out to her car looking annoyed.
    'Will your father really see him?' he asked.
    'I don't know. I hope not.'
    'Need you mention his request?'
    Sonya debated that while she unlocked the car. It was a clear starlight night and still quite warm, as it was only September, with the skating season only just begun. Months of arduous endeavour lay ahead of her. Her father expected her to compete in an international sports meeting in Canada in the spring and next year was Olympic year; according to her performance in Canada was her chance of being selected for the Olympic team, a chance which she feared was negligible. Could Sven really help her to prepare for the ordeals ahead? She did not see how.
    'I think I'd better,' she told Derek. 'If I don't and somehow it gets round to him, he'd be furious that I hadn't told him. It isn't good for him to be angry.' She sighed.
    Derek took his place beside her in the car, declining her offer to let him drive. He preferred not to drive other people's cars, he told her. As she drove away towards Hampstead, she was reflecting that a life spent in perfecting one sport could become very tedious. She supposed she did not possess her father's singleness of purpose which made it such a bind, nor his talent either, she feared. Yet dedicated as he was, he had spared time to woo and wed her mother, though he had told her very firmly that she could not afford a similar indulgence, at least not for some time, because love and marriage were more distracting to a woman than they had been to him.
    'Penny for them,' Derek said.
    Off guard, she told him, 'I was wishing my father wasn't an ex-skating champion.'
    'You couldn't wish it more than I do.'
    'If I didn't come to skate we wouldn't have met,' she countered swiftly.
    'It doesn't follow, you would have done it for a recreation. Don't tell me you don't like skating.'
    'I might like it if I didn't have so much of it. Derek, one night I will go to the theatre with you whatever Daddy says. I'm getting so stale without any fun.'
    'That's the spirit!' Derek was delighted by this show of independence. 'You stand up to the old tyrant.'
    Which was an unfortunate way to describe him, because Sonya instantly flew to his defence. They were still arguing when they reached her home, and she said coldly:
    'Sorry I can't ask you in, but you know the "old tyrant's" rules.'
    'Only too well. Goodnight, darling. I'm sorry I was rude about him, but he does rub me the wrong way.'
    He went off to find transport home and after garaging the car, Sonya stood in the garden watching the moon rising over the trees. Its pale lemon colour reminded her of Sven Petersen's hair. There was a man who, if the gossip about him did not lie, did not deny himself amorous adventures for the sake of his career. That was what Derek had meant when he called him a heel. Sonya had read a snide little paragraph about the skating champion and his girl-friends. But then he had arrived and could afford to relax when so inclined, but she was still climbing with only her father's fame to back her and no assurance of success.
    She sighed again and went into the house. This was a Victorian edifice which had only