PART ONE
CHAPTER I
I
A TALL slim blonde in a white summer frock, walking just ahead of him, caught Ken Holland’s eye. He studied her, watching her gentle undulations as she walked. He quickly shifted his eyes. He hadn’t looked at a woman like this since he had first met Ann.
What’s the matter with me? he asked himself. I’m getting as bad as Parker.
He looked again at the blonde. An evening out with her, he thought, would be sensational.
What the eye doesn’t see, Parker was always saying, the heart doesn’t grieve about. That was true. Ann would never know. After all’, other married men did it. Why shouldn’t he?
But when the girl crossed the road and he lost sight of her, he jerked his mind back with an effort to the letter he had received that morning from Ann.
She had been away now for five weeks, and she wrote to say her mother was no better, and she had no idea when she was coming back.
Why did her mother have to live miles away from anywhere and be so cussedly independent ? Ken asked himself as he walked briskly towards the bank. No one over seventy should be allowed to live alone. When they got ill, their long-suffering daughters had to go and look after them, and their still more long-suffering sons-in-law had to fend for themselves.