He never lost his temper, he never stormed and raged as Valda remembered her father doing, but he was relentless and sooner or later the defences against him crumbled and without much apparent effort he was the winner.
‘He will wear me down,’ Valda told herself. ‘The man he chooses for a husband will be brought to the house. I will be persuaded to talk to him and almost before I realise what is happening I shall be married!’
She felt herself shiver at the thought of the unknown eligible bachelor who began to loom as a menace, like an evil bird of prey, from whom she could not escape.
She moved from the window and lit the candles that stood on a table by her bed.
In Paris their house had electric light, but in Provence there were lamps and candles, which were somehow so much more approp
