A Gem Of A Girl by Betty Neels

Author:Betty Neels [NEELS, BETTY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction
Published: 2011-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

To HER surprise, Gemma slept at once and dreamlessly, to wake at her usual time feeling quite refreshed. Rienieta was already awake when she went along to see how she was, and they whiled away half an hour talking about the ball, Gemma doing her best to answer her companion’s eager questions. Fortunately she had a good memory; she was able to give detailed descriptions of a number of the dresses there, the food she had eaten and the people she had met, and even a few of their names.

`And Bart?’ asked Rienieta. `Was he waiting for you? Papa said you looked so pretty that he would have liked to stay and dance with you-he joked, of course,’ she added seriously. `He would never go anywhere without Mama.’

`No, of course he wouldn’t,’ Gemma agreed, `but how nice of him to say that.’ She launched into an account of Bart’s prowess as a dancer, and mentioned casually that Leo had been there too.

Her patient was examining her tongue in a hand mirror. She put it back in to say: `I We are not surprised. Mama said yesterday that she was afraid that he would be there too-he and his friends. Were they there, Gemma?’

Gemma charted her patient’s temperature with a steady hand. `Oh, yes-rather silly I thought, not quite my cup of tea. The girls wore those lovely impossible dresses you see in Vogue.’ She smiled at Rienieta as she shook down the thermometer. `Your mother doesn’t like Leo?”

‘She understands that he is great fun…’

‘But she would prefer me not to go out with him. Well, I can understand that-we haven’t the same background. I’m middle class, you know, and neither clever nor smart.’ She hesitated. `I hadn’t thought of it before, but I can see now that if I had someone like me working for me, I wouldn’t want me to go tearing off with the upper crust.’

Rienieta’s blue eyes grew round, but it was the professor’s voice that answered her. He was standing in the doorway watching her and smiling a little. `What a very muddled way of putting it, Gemma, but you don’t do yourself justice; such an idea would never enter Mama’s head and certainly not my father’s-nor anyone else in the family, for that matter. It’s no use telling you that you are far too good for de Vos, but if he has been lucky enough to win your regard then none of us, I can promise you, will lift a finger to prevent you seeing him as often as it can be arranged.’

Gemma’s eyes were as round as her patient’s, her face remarkably flushed. She tried to think of something to say and found that her usually sensible head was quite empty, but as it turned out there was no need to say anything at all, for he came wandering into the room, saying easily: `I thought you might like to know that Bart is more or less himself-he looks washed out, but that can be put down to too much dancing.

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