死亡约会 Part I Chapter 2（3）（在线收听）

Sarah shrugged an impatient shoulder. Frenchmen were all alike, she thought, obsessed by sex!

Though, of course, as a conscientious psychologist she herself was bound to admit that there wasalways an underlying basis of sex to most phenomena. Sarah’s thoughts ran along a familiarpsychological track.

She came out of her meditations with a start. Raymond Boynton was crossing the room to thecentre table. He selected a magazine. As he passed her chair on his return journey she looked athim and spoke.

‘Have you been busy sightseeing today?’

She selected her words at random, her real interest was to see how they would be received.

Raymond half stopped, flushed, shied like a nervous horse and his eyes went apprehensively tothe centre of his family group. He muttered: ‘Oh—oh, yes—why, yes, certainly. I—’

Then, as suddenly as though he had received the prick of a spur, he hurried back to his family,holding out the magazine.

The grotesque Buddha-like figure held out a fat hand for it, but as she took it her eyes, DrGerard noticed, were on the boy’s face. She gave a grunt, certainly no audible thanks. The positionof her head shifted very slightly. The doctor saw that she was now looking hard at Sarah. Her facewas quite impassive, it had no expression in it. Impossible to tell what was passing in the woman’smind.

Sarah looked at her watch and uttered an exclamation.

‘It’s much later than I thought.’ She got up. ‘Thank you so much, Dr Gerard, for standing mecoffee. I must write some letters now.’

He rose and took her hand.

‘We shall meet again, I hope,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes! Perhaps you will come to Petra?’

‘I shall certainly try to do so.’

Sarah smiled at him and turned away. Her way out of the room led her past the Boynton family.

Dr Gerard, watching, saw Mrs Boynton’s gaze shift to her son’s face. He saw the boy’s eyesmeet hers. As Sarah passed, Raymond Boynton half turned his head—not towards her, but awayfrom her…It was a slow, unwilling motion and conveyed the idea that old Mrs Boynton had pulledan invisible string.

Sarah King noticed the avoidance, and was young enough and human enough to be annoyed byit. They had had such a friendly talk together in the swaying corridor of the wagons-lits. They hadcompared notes on Egypt, had laughed at the ridiculous language of the donkey boys and streettouts. Sarah had described how a camel man when he had started hopefully and impudently, ‘YouEnglish lady or American?’ had received the answer: ‘No, Chinese.’ And her pleasure in seeingthe man’s complete bewilderment as he stared at her. The boy had been, she thought, like a niceeager schoolboy—there had been, perhaps, something almost pathetic about his eagerness. Andnow, for no reason at all, he was shy, boorish—positively rude.

‘I shan’t take any more trouble with him,’ said Sarah indignantly.

For Sarah, without being unduly conceited, had a fairly good opinion of herself. She knewherself to be definitely attractive to the opposite sex, and she was not one to take a snubbing lyingdown!

She had been, perhaps, a shade over-friendly to this boy because, for some obscure reason, shehad felt sorry for him.

But now, it was apparent, he was merely a rude, stuck-up, boorish young American!

Instead of writing the letters she had mentioned, Sarah King sat down in front of her dressing-table, combed the hair back from her forehead, looked into a pair of troubled hazel eyes in theglass, and took stock of her situation in life.

She had just passed through a difficult emotional crisis. A month ago she had broken off herengagement to a young doctor some four years her senior. They had been very much attracted toeach other, but had been too much alike in temperament. Disagreements and quarrels had been ofcommon occurrence. Sarah was of too imperious a temperament herself to brook a calm assertionof autocracy. Like many high-spirited women, Sarah believed herself to admire strength. She hadalways told herself that she wanted to be mastered. When she met a man capable of mastering hershe found that she did not like it at all! To break off her engagement had cost her a good deal ofheart-burning, but she was clear-sighted enough to realize that mere mutual attraction was not asufficient basis on which to build a lifetime of happiness. She had treated herself deliberately to aninteresting holiday abroad in order to help on forgetfulness before she went back to start workingin earnest.

Sarah’s thoughts came back from the past to the present.

‘I wonder,’ she thought, ‘if Dr Gerard will let me talk to him about his work. He’s done suchmarvelous work. If only he’ll take me seriously…Perhaps—if he comes to Petra—’

Then she thought again of the strange boorish young American.

She had no doubt that it was the presence of his family which had caused him to react in such apeculiar manner, but she felt slightly scornful of him, nevertheless. To be under the thumb ofone’s family like that—it was really rather ridiculous—especially for a man!

And yet…

A queer feeling passed over her. Surely there was something a little odd about it all?

She said suddenly out loud: ‘That boy wants rescuing! I’m going to see to it!’