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He shook his head. 'The break was final.'

Womanlike she was curious about the girl he had refused.

'What was she like? The girl you didn't want to marry.'

He smiled, finding her naivety amusing.

'I am no good at describing women. She was not beautiful, nor was she very young. She had no sex appeal. I was sorry for her, especially as her father was having difficulty in finding a husband for her. I was much younger than she was.'

'But didn't you feel terrible about rejecting her? I mean ... if you owed her father so much?'

'You think I should have wed her out of gratitude? I do not believe that would have made for happiness for either of us.'

'She would have been so proud of you.' Sonya's sympathy went out to the unknown girl. 'It must have been a cruel disappointment for her.'

Sven regarded her earnest face, still smiling, but now his smile was a little crooked. Her pity for the plain young woman seemed a little unnecessary. He did not know that Sonya was identifying herself with the discarded bride. He must have seemed like Prince Charming to her, a being from the pages of romance.

'She fancied being the wife of a glamorous skating star,' he said drily. 'She did not care for me personally. Actually she became bored by my obsession with skating. Women expect to come first. I did not break her heart if that is what you are thinking, and I have heard since she has found a more suitable mate.'

'I'm glad. I hope he loves her.'

Sven smiled cynically. 'There are always men who can be bought, but I was not for sale.'

'Don't you ever want to marry, Sven?' she asked wonderingly.

'Not someone like her,' he returned firmly. 'Perhaps some day, when I am past skating ...' he shrugged his shoulders. 'But she would have to be an exceptional girl to put up with me.'

'At least she would never find you dull,' Sonya said lightly, aware of a sudden depression. No one could call her an exceptional girl, and Sven would never consider her as a possible mate. But did she want him to? Could he ever be to her all her father was? She knew he attracted her sexually, but that was only a small part of it, and she had no reason to suppose he was drawn to her as a man is to a woman; he considered she was a rather backward adolescent. If the unknown girl had been too old for him, she was too young. Determined to make the most of his expansive mood, she put the question which interested her most.

'Have you ever been in love?'

'Love? Ah, that is a different matter,' he said flippantly. 'I have loved many times since I was sixteen. My first serious affair was with an opera diva three times my age. She thought I was a charming boy and she taught me a lot.'

'Oh!' Sonya shied away from the implication of that last phrase. Sven, she knew, could be brutally frank. But an opera singer while he was still in his teens! No wonder he looked experienced.

'You are shocked?' he asked with faint surprise. 'But I am forgetting. Your father has kept you cloistered, you know nothing of the way of the world.'

'I'm not ignorant,' she informed him. 'I read a lot.'

'But you are innocent, of course. That is well. Young girls are like an enclosed garden and should be kept so until they marry. If they learn too much too soon they lose their fragrance.'

This flowery description annoyed Sonya exceedingly, since she was sensitive about her lack of sophistication.

'That's Victorian,' she objected. 'Nowadays young people don't want to be enclosed in anything. I know I've been kept very much alone, but that was to facilitate my training.' She sighed. 'I wish very much my father had let me mix with other young people.'

'So that you could become as corrupted as Thomasina? Believe me, Sonya, it has added to your charm being kept as it were in a nunnery. You have
a
sweetness and simplicity—and yes, I will add it, a purity that is rare among modern youth. Do not be in haste to learn the wicked trends of our present generation.'

His words, though they might be considered complimentary, were far from pleasing to her. He seemed to see her as an old-fashioned virgin in a glass case, or else the ice maiden Derek had once called her, and she had a growing hunger for life, to be free and modern.

'Why should
I be cherished like
a hothouse plant while you tasted life at sixteen?' she demanded indignantly. 'Girls are as human as boys, and from what we hear your countrywomen don't treasure their innocence.'

'Ah, the arguments of Women's Liberation, an organisation I deplore.'

Sonya giggled. 'They would term you a chauvinist Pig-'

'Such an appellation cannot hurt me nor change my views,' he returned imperturbably. 'As for Swedish girls, they are very different from you. They become independent even in childhood, and manage their lives with a cold, hard efficiency, and yet ...' he paused and looked at her significantly, 'the suicide rate is very high in Sweden.'

'That is probably the result of the long dark winters.'

'That might have something to do with it, but it is more a matter of temperament. The Swedes are reserved and introspective. You are impulsive, sometimes dangerously so; acting upon impulse results in regrets.'

'I'd rather be so than be cold and calculating,' Sonya cried, fearing he was both. It seemed to her that he made use of his acquaintances and dropped them when they had served their purpose. She would have served hers when he won his pairs competition, and he had not been above exploiting Thomasina's passion for him until he feared she was becoming too expensive. She looked searchingly at his handsome, aristocratic face, in which the narrow eyes so often appeared full of mockery, the cynical twist of his well shaped mouth. She must never, never allow herself to succumb to his magnetism, because to him she was only a means to an end.

'So you think I am cold and calculating?' he challenged her.

'I ... I didn't say so.'

'You implied it. I admit I am not impulsive, and I do calculate the effects of my actions before I embark upon them. But this is only common sense.'

'Oh, I'm sure you're exceeding sensible, though you
may have made a mistake by coercing me into partnering you.'

'I did not coerce you. If there was any coercion it was on your father's part,' he corrected her. 'I merely made an offer, which you accepted.'

Sonya was silent, swirling the dregs of wine in her glass. What he said was the truth, but she should never have allowed herself to be persuaded. Her instinct had been to avoid Sven Petersen, but now she was so closely involved with him, she could not break away from him without disaster. If he could so strongly influence her skating, she would be wax in his hands before they arrived in Canada. Her safeguard was that he did not desire her, but that did not console her at all, for perversely she wanted him to be aware of her womanhood, instead of setting her up as a sort of plaster image.

Sven regarded her downcast face for a few moments in silence. His eyes held a question, but she did not look up. Then he sighed and sat back in his chair.

'We seem to have gone awry somewhere,' he observed pleasantly. 'I brought you here to relax, and here we are trying to knock sparks off each other.'

Sonya shook off her forebodings, thinking she was being over-dramatic.

'We hold contrary views,' she said in her most grown up manner, which caused him to smile. 'But I've learned quite a lot about you, Sven, and now I'll understand you better.'

'Good, but be careful you do not leap to the wrong conclusions,' he warned her.

He drove her back through the fading afternoon light, but they exchanged only commonplaces.

*

A skating gala was being organised for early in the New Year and Sven had been asked to contribute to the entertainment. Since it was for charity, he agreed to give an exhibition of pair skating.

'It will be an opportunity to try out our routine and prevent us from becoming stale,' he told Sonya.

Mr Vincent was enthusiastic about it and said he would make an effort to attend; it was time he saw Sonya skate. A while back she would have panicked at this suggestion, but now she was sublimely confident that Sven would see her through.

Sven and Jan had worked out their programme which would be used for the gala with the highlights interspersing the speed skating. About halfway through the five minutes they would be on the ice, they would execute the Devil's Spiral, a spectacular movement in which the man pivots on the ice with a bent knee and his partner leans away so that her head is nearly touching it, while holding the man's right hand, with one leg off the ice. The final pose was to be the overhead Axel lift in which the lady turns completely over the man's head. Throughout Jan insisted that style and poise were more important than elaborate stunts, and with every detail polished would win more marks. Sonya did all she was told, completely under Sven's domination. Sometimes it seemed to her that they had become a single entity, and her body's movements were controlled not by her own will but by his. This unison was reflected in their skating, and Jan was delighted by her expertise. Off the rink she saw little of Sven. He did not ask her to come out with him again, and though he visited her father every week as promised, he was always gone by the time she returned.

Meanwhile, a change had come over Thomasina Reed. Having tried to provoke Sven's interest by every trick in her repertoire, including flirting with other men during his brief visits to the canteen, she changed her tactics. No longer did she flaunt revealing clothing. When she changed after skating or other sports, she appeared in a modest pleated skirt. She used little make-up and abandoned her false eyelashes. She cut off a lot of her hair and wore the remainder simply styled. The result was surprising. Always striking, she emerged as a beautiful woman with a new dignity which became her.

'I hardly recognise Tom nowadays,' Derek said to Sonya. 'What's come over her?'

'Sven,' Sonya replied tartly. 'He likes his women sweet, simple and clinging.' She did not really know about the clinging, but she deduced it from what he had said to her.

Derek whistled. 'So she hasn't given him up?'

'To Tom indifference is a challenge,' Sonya told him, and recalled that Sven had said the same of herself, but now she had become utterly compliant where skating was concerned she had ceased to be one.

That Thomasina was succeeding along different lines seemed apparent when Sonya overheard her say to him:

'My flatmate will be away for the weekend. Wouldn't you like to spend a quiet relaxed evening with me? I've some good records you might like to hear.'

'Sorry, Tom, but my Saturdays are engaged.'

A flash of impatience showed in her eyes. 'Oh yes, that old ...' She checked herself, remembering her new image. 'So sweet of you to give up your leisure to that poor old fellow,' she purred. 'He must appreciate it. What about Sunday then, you'll be free?'

'I would be charmed ...'

Sonya turned away, unwilling to hear any more. A vision of a dimly lit comfortable room swam before her eyes, with Tom and Sven sitting together listening to soft seductive music in cosy intimacy. There could be only one sequel to that. If only she were a little older, more sophisticated, so that he saw her as an attractive woman, not merely Eliot Vincent's kid daughter, who had to be respected and protected because she was an innocent given into his charge. Evenings in Thomasina's flat would be no drain upon his pocket, she thought bitterly; Tom was not seeking to exploit him, she did not want entertainment or presents, only his body, and that she would get. Sven had admitted he was no monk. But why did these images so wound her? Did she want him to make love to herself? The mere thought set her trembling. It was only that their close skating association had given her a feeling of possession, and she resented Thomasina's claims as trespassing. It was something she must suppress, because she had no claim to his affections, did not even want one.

Just before Christmas there was a club dance. It was not on a Saturday but a Friday, so Sonya did not intend to come to it, but evidently Sven must have mentioned it to her father, for Eliot said to her:

'You must go to this function to represent me, since I can't go myself.'

'I don't really care about it, Daddy.'

'But I do. I've a special interest in the club, your mother's memorial, so there should be a Vincent present.'

There was no accounting for her father's whims, Sonya thought. The dance was held every year and he had never previously suggested she should attend it. , She supposed Sven had put the idea into his head, thinking she would enjoy it.

She bought a new dress in tangerine colour, which went well with her dark hair and turned her eyes to violet. Since Thomasina had chosen to eclipse herself in neutral colours, she would flame. The dress was long and flowing and with it she wore a topaz necklace and gold bangles, gilt slippers on her feet. Thomasina came in slinky black trimmed with diamante. The gown was not cut too low and had long transparent sleeves. She looked superbly stylish, and Sonya felt her own outfit was a little tawdry, but Derek was enthusiastic. He had attached himself to her as soon as she appeared.

'You look wonderful, Sonya, and how your eyes sparkle! No one could call you frozen now. You seem to be lit with an inner flame.'

But the fire had not been kindled by him, in fact she was still unaware of it, although she had only one thought. Would Sven dance with her? He was there, elegant and debonair in evening clothes. Most of the company were formally dressed, though not all. Derek was in a dark suit, but some of the younger members were clad in sports clothes. Mr Wylie actually wore tails and a white tie. The dance was held in the big gymnasium which was hung with paper chains and Chinese lanterns. There was a buffet supper in the canteen.

Jan van Goort asked Sonya for
a waltz, and also Mr Wylie, very much aware of his importance as club manager. Derek tried to monopolise her, but as some of the younger men, attracted by this more approachable Sonya, clustered round her, she refused to allow him to, even trying to flirt a little. She laughed a lot and seemed in a reckless mood, for all the while she was conscious of the two dark figures, their fair heads close together entwined in the dance. Thomasina had got her man.