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Susan couldn’t take any part in the filming now, not even as a stand-in, and Max, it seemed, had also bowed out He went to London for a week, returning to redouble his efforts at the Fetterburn mill, although their loss, as far as the tweeds were concerned, was not nearly so great as the loss of Susan’s designs.

When it came to modelling her latest brain-children for the new catalogue she shied away from the idea of employing Lilias.

“Try Grisell,” Evelyn advised. “She’s got the right sort of figure.”

They were in the library, where Susan had been working, and she turned sharply at her stepmother’s suggestion.

“Why Grisell ?”

“I think she would like the idea. She’s eager to help in any way she can. She’s worked very hard recently,” Evelyn pointed out.

“A bad conscience, would you say?”

“I don’t know, Sue. Sometimes I can’t fathom that child at all.”

“I can! She’s dead wilful.” Susan laid her sketches aside. “Well, she can’t do anything with this lot. I’ve lived with them, night and day. They’ve never once been out of my sight. The Crown Jewels can have nothing on them!”

“You’ve won through,” Evelyn said. “Max will be delighted.”

“I didn’t do it for Max!”

“No, you did it for Denham’s,” Evelyn agreed, “but it’s much the same thing, and he’ll appreciate it.”

“I don’t need his appreciation! “ Susan’s voice was sharp with hurt. “He still suspects me. He’ll go on believing I sold out to Ewing and Haverford for sheer spite. He despises me now, Evelyn. I know it, and I could go on shedding useless tears over the fact for ever for all Max cares!”

“Don’t misjudge him.” Evelyn rose to go. “He doesn’t apportion blame or anything else without a great deal of thought.”

“But I got off to a bad start with this one, didn’t I?” Susan challenged. “We’ve been against each other from the very beginning. Constantly at war!”

“That might be entirely your fault,” Evelyn stopped to say.

Susan bit her lip.

“Oh, I don’t mean to get in people’s hair,” she exclaimed, “but Max is always so
right
!”

“He has his failings, like most men,” Evelyn said.

“Can you name me a few I don’t already know?”

“He’s proud, for one thing, and he’s no fool.”

" ‘Till pride be quelled and love be free’,” Susan murmured.

“What did you say?” Evelyn was already half-way through the doorway.

“Oh—nothing! It was only an odd couplet I heard quoted by Grisell when she first came to the Carse.”

“Grisell,” Evelyn murmured, but that was all.

Susan returned to her work. The second lot of designs were good enough, but they seemed to lack the inspiration of her original effort and she hesitated about showing them to Max. All the same, he had to be consulted, and with that in mind she drove the short distance to Fetterburn the following morning. At the foot of the office stairs, however, she lost the small amount of courage with which she had set out and stood trying to think of some other way of letting him see her second effort on the firm’s behalf. She could leave the sketches in the outer office, but she didn’t want to take the risk. Even at such a late hour as this, something else could go wrong.

Footsteps on the terrazzo flooring behind her sent her quickly up the stairs, but it had been Max crossing the entrance hall and he followed her into the office.

“Can I help you, Susan?” he asked briefly.

“Yes. I—came about these.” She thrust the bulky portfolio towards him. “Will you let me have them back as quickly as possible, if you approve?”

He opened the door of his private sanctum.

“I can let you have them now, if you have a minute to spare,” he said.

Miss Jackson, his secretary, had glanced up from her typewriter, conscious of the air of restraint between them, no doubt, and Susan darted towards the inner office to save the lady too much speculation.

“They’re not nearly so good as the original ones,” she said as Max turned over sketch after sketch, “but I’m afraid they’ll have to do.”

He glanced at her from under his dark brows.

“This must have been a mammoth task,” he commented. “They seem to me to be every bit as good as the others. You’ll want Lilias and the photographer down straight away, I suppose?”

“Not Lilias,” Susan decided far too quickly. “I— thought we could keep it in the family,” she added lamely.

He glanced up from the final sketch.

“Why not Lilias?” he asked.

“I don’t really know.” The colour deepened in her cheeks. “I thought she would be far too busy filming.”

“So it wasn’t just prejudice?”

She drew in a deep breath.

“You could believe anything of me, Max, couldn’t you?”

“Anything!” He flicked through the designs again with a twisted smile. “You are, after all, something of a genius. But back to business! Failing Lilias, whom do you suggest?”

“I wondered about Grisell.”

He frowned.

“Has she helped with these designs?” he asked.

“Not very much. They were done in a tremendous hurry,” she pointed out.

“Yes,” He seemed to be considering her proposition. “What about you? Modelling the suits,” he added when she didn’t appear to grasp his meaning. “We could use one of Steenie’s photographers and save time while we’re at it.”

She was forced to laugh.

“Max, you think of everything!”

“It’s my job, as far as the firm’s concerned,” he reminded her. “Do you wish me to speak to Steenie?”

“I suppose so, though if you would rather we had Lilias—”

“We can manage without Lilias, for the present,” he decided.

“It was Evelyn’s idea,” Susan told him as they bent over the sketches again. “To ask Grisell.”

“I can quite imagine!” A smile lifted the corners of his stern mouth. “Evelyn has a finger in every pie!”

“We couldn’t very well do without her,” Susan said.

They worked together for an hour, matching patterns and colours until, in the end, the new catalogue was compiled. She thought that Max might compare it unfavourably with the original one and her cheeks burned at the humiliation of having to accept his censure without being able to tell him the truth, but she still couldn’t be certain of Grisell's guilt and Max wasn’t the sort of person to credit a supposition.

The hour had passed more quickly than she realized. He shot up his cuff to look at his watch.

“Time for lunch,” he said. “I take mine in the canteen with Richard. Will you join us?”

She hesitated.

“I ought to get back to Yairborough—”

He came round from behind his desk.

“If work is so essential, we can talk while we eat,” he suggested.

Richard was already seated at one of the canteen tables when they went in. It was all new to Susan and beautifully planned, she had to admit. As she selected an attractive meal from the self-service counter and laid it out on one of the brightly-patterned trays she was aware of Max’s keen scrutiny, but he went on to choose his own meal without comment.

“We need something like this at Denham’s,” she admitted, glancing round the big, air-conditioned room with its high windows and bright decor. “Was it your idea, Max?”

“No, Richard’s. He’s given to that sort of thing, and I believe Evelyn helped with the colours.” Max took both trays to carry them back to the table. “We could be quite a team,” he mused.

Except for me, Susan thought. Max will never, never accept me now!

“Susan thinks that Denham’s could do with a facelift,” he told his brother when they were settled in their respective chairs. “She likes what you’ve done, Rick, and she’s absolutely right about the mill. We can’t start rebuilding yet awhile, but we could certainly improve the existing facilities for the staff and the workers.” The buildings were Richard’s province and this was something he really cared about. He plunged into plans for future improvements as if he had all the time in the world to see them implemented, as if, indeed, his sentence of death had been completely forgotten, and all of a sudden Susan knew why Max was so keen to keep him happy and free from disillusionment about Grisell.

“I’ll start on Denham’s right away,” he promised. “There’s no time like the present” When he rose to go he bent over the table to pat Susan’s hand. “Thanks for all you’ve done for my girl,” he added. “You’re going to make a designer out of her one of these days!”

“I hope so.” Susan’s eyes were clear and steady on his. “She’s got what it takes, Mr. Elliott.”

“ ‘Richard’, surely?” His eyes crinkled in a smile. “It makes us sound more like one big, happy family. Eh, Max?”

Max did not reply. His gaze followed his brother’s tall, lean figure down the room as Richard Elliott paused at table after table for a cheerful word with his mill workers and there was an expression in his eyes which defied description. Compassion, yes, but so much more. Envy, too, perhaps, because Richard had become universally beloved in so short a time. Beloved by everybody.

GRISELL came to Denham House two days later. She rode over from the Carse on Hope’s Star and let her loose in the paddock, as if she meant to stay for some time. Perhaps, Susan thought, as she watched from the centre window of the library, Evelyn had invited her to lunch.

It was Saturday afternoon and filming had been curtailed at the tower because of a thin mist of rain which hovered over the fells and was now descending into the dale. Steenie Armstrong, who had agreed to lend them a cameraman, had suggested an afternoon session at the mill, and Susan was preparing to go down there immediately after lunch. She wondered if Grisell had come to seek her advice about the modelling job she had accepted or just to call on Evelyn.

A hesitant tap on the library door convinced her that Grisell wished to see her alone.

“Come in!” she called. “I’m almost through.”

‘‘You work all the time, don’t you?” Grisell fingered a bale of fine cashmere as she stood beside the table. “You haven’t missed me.”

“I have, as a matter of fact,” Susan returned truthfully, “but I realised you were very keen on the filming job, and it certainly is much nicer working out of doors.”

Grisell moved to the window.

“Not today,” she observed. “I suppose you think me unbearably selfish?” There was a tentative note in her voice. “I seem to consider nobody but myself.”

“We all do, in one way or another.” This was awkward ground. “It’s a common failing.”

“I do it all the time,” Grisell declared. “That’s the difference. I don’t really care what happens so long as I get my own way.”

“Is that a statement, or is it something that has just occurred to you, Grisell?”

“It’s what Evelyn thinks.” Grisell looked uneasy. “She didn’t say so in so many words, of course, but she let me see that she believed it.”

“Is it true?”

“It has been true.” Grisell flushed scarlet. “I didn’t care a hang about your designs, did I?”

Susan drew in a deep breath.

“So you
did
take them?”

“Yes, I gave them to Lilias.”

Susan stared at her in utter confusion.

“To Lilias? What, in heaven’s name, made you do a thing like that?” she demanded.

Grisell shrugged.

“She asked me to get them for her. You know Lilias!”

“Do you?”

Some of the colour faded out of Grisell’s cheeks.

“I think I do—now,” she confessed. “I’ve been an absolute idiot, admiring her so much. I would have done anything she asked, even to defying Max.” She looked contrite. "What I did with your designs was utterly despicable. I realise that.”

“I’m glad you do,” Susan said unsteadily. “The damage is done, of course.”

“Max said you’d compiled another catalogue and some of the original coats were so classic in design that they could be used, after all, because of our exclusive colouring,” Grisell suggested.

"Yes, that’s true enough.” Susan hadn’t been thinking about the damage to their autumn trade as much as the damage to her own standing with Max. "You haven’t told him, of course?”

“No.” Grisell looked suddenly forlorn. “He would never forgive me.”

“I suppose not.”

“How do you feel?”

Susan hesitated.

“It will take me some time to forget about it,” she answered honestly.

“I thought it would,” Grisell sighed. “I’m not much good to anyone, am I?”

“Your father has a good deal of faith in you,” Susan pointed out. “You could make it up to him.”

“Do you mean
tell
him?”

“No, I suppose not. It would be a terrible shock to him, but you could stay here and work, Grisell. That’s what he wants,” Susan hurried on. “To have you near him and keep you happy.”

“He’s very ill.”

“Yes.”

“They think I don’t know about it, but I do.” Tears filled the wide blue eyes. “That’s why I feel so dreadful —such a fraud! If he married Evelyn I’d be happy.”

“He would still need you,” Susan said. “Both you and Evelyn.”

Grisell didn’t answer. Instead, she walked about the room as Susan tidied up, fingering the fine tweeds and automatically matching their colours to the new yams on the desk, a job which Susan had been hoping to do before she left for the mill in an hour’s time.

Over lunch they spoke mainly about the progress of the film, but Susan noticed Evelyn studying their guest from time to time, as if she were debating some form of action in her fertile mind which might involve Grisell.

The photographic session took longer than they expected. Susan put Grisell in the knitted suits because she was taller and could show them off to greater advantage, but she modelled some of the cardigans herself because Max had asked her to do so. Strange, she thought, how eagerly she wanted to please him now!

In the end they decided to leave the cashmere coats as Lilias had modelled them. As Max had pointed out, the designs were too classic to be condemned as copies by their rivals and the Elliott colours would set them apart.

When the catalogue saw the light of day, therefore, Lilias, Susan and Grisell all appeared in it.