Windlestraws

Jean Arbuthnot stood on the steps of Claridge's Hotel, feeling uncomfortably small.She hadn't minded the mysterious Turk who had suggested himself as a pupil desiring to master the English language by travelling abroad with her. It wasn't poor Miss Pratt the agent's fault that foreigners were often fishy.A cool English manner and a History First had easily disposed of the Turk's olive complexion and melting chocolate eyes.Jean had simply looked along her nose and dropped ice into her voice and the thing was over. But Lady Margaret Hamilton, whose daughter was a leading society beauty, and who would be sure to know how much Jean's clothes had cost, would be a sterner ordeal.'She can't eat me,' Jean told herself doubtfully, feeling as she did so that cannibalism would be the lesser evil.'And if I've got to go back to Carrie, I've got to--I'd rather sleep in a barrel, of course. But Diogenes had a different sort of climate.'