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was so deft! He made the bricks out of damp mud, patted, then cut the mud into bricks with the aid of a special little piece of apparatusIt was so quick and simple They leave them to dry in the sun which bakes the houses'

'Would you want to live in one, though?' he teased her

She laughed, recognising the justice of his irony 'No, I suppose not'

'I don't suppose you ever even went into one!' he said with amusement

Marie thought of the little house behind the bazaar, reht which had illuht shiver ran down her spine She did not reply Her dreaht A dark face, eyes that entle… his ie remorselessly filled her ht have said to her father, 'I did meet an Arab An Arab called Khalid…' and the words would be threadbare, unable to convey a hundredth of the truth

She looked around the -roos, and deep, comfortable brocade-covered chairs It was all a thousand ht beside which she had experienced the most traumatic moe way, this world was the more unreal of the two

She was still conscious of a feeling of being isolated, cut off froh she had been away forlooked strange

'Mrs Abbot will look after you,' her father said ab­stractedly, glancing at his watch 'I have an urgentat three o'clock, so I must rush I ordered lunch for you You didn't eat on the plane, did you?'

'No,' she said 'It was the usual salad and plastic haot time to have lunch with me?'

'Sorry I' in the board room with MacIntyre and Hamley We're in the middle of trouble'

'Oh?' Marie glanced at hirey look and furrowed brow had not ain? 'Is it serious?'

He gazed at her in silence for a e I can't say'

'What's wrong? Not another strike?' A strike had crippled one of their electronics factories last year for six weeks, losing them millions of pounds in overseas orders

He shook his head 'No A take-over bid'

She was i how such a bid would worry and disturb hiin­ally owned most of the shares in Brintons the rapid development of the past ten years had been fuelled by the sale of shares, and control of the firh he was stillthe bid?'