LITMIR.BIZ

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Drax on that last hand at Blades? No. Not quite. There was something else there. Tenderness? Regret?

      She looked over his shoulder.

      Bond turned round. A hundred yards away there was the tall figure of a young man with fair hair trimmed short. His back was towards them and he was idling along, killing time.

      Bond turned back and Gala's eyes met his squarely.

      "I'm going to marry that man," she said quietly. "Tomorrow afternoon." And then, as if no other explanation was needed, "His name's Detective-Inspector Vivian."

      "Oh," said Bond. He smiled stiffly. "I see."

      There was a moment of silence during which their eyes slid away from each other.

      And yet why should he have expected anything else? A kiss. The contact of two frightened bodies clinging together in the midst of danger. There had been nothing more. And there had been the engagement ring to tell him. Why had he automatically assumed that it had only been worn to keep Drax at bay? Why had he imagined that she shared his desires, his plans?

      And now what? wondered Bond. He shrugged his shoulders to shift the pain of failure--the pain of failure that is so much greater than the pleasure of success. The exit line. He must get out of these two young lives and take his cold heart elsewhere. There must be no regrets. No false sentiment. He must play the role which she expected of him. The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette.

      She was looking at him rather nervously, waiting to be relieved of the stranger who had tried to get his foot in the door of her heart.

      Bond smiled warmly at her. "I'm jealous," he said. "I had other plans for you tomorrow night."

      She smiled back at him, grateful that the silence had been broken. "What were they?" she asked.

      "I was going to take you off to a farmhouse in France," he said. "And after a wonderful dinner I was going to see if it's true what they say about the scream of a rose."

      She laughed. "I'm sorry I can't oblige. But there are plenty of others waiting to be picked."

      "Yes, I suppose so," said Bond. "Well, goodbye, Gala." He held out his hand.

      "Goodbye, James."

      He touched her for the last time and then they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives.

      Diamonds Are Forever

       Table of Content

       1. THE PIPELINE OPENS

       2. GEM QUALITY

       3. HOT ICE

       4. 'WHAT GOES ON AROUND HERE?'

       5. 'FEUILLES MORTES'

       6. IN TRANSIT

       7. 'SHADY' TREE

       8. THE EYE THAT NEVER SLEEPS

       9. BITTER CHAMPAGNE

       10. STUDILLAC TO SARATOGA

       11. 'SHY SMILE'

       12. THE PERPETUITIES

       13. ACME MUD AND SULPHUR

       14. 'WE DON'T LIKE MISTAKES'

       15. RUE DE LA PAY

       16. 'THE TIARA'

       17. 'THANKS FOR THE RIDE'

       18. NIGHT FALLS IN THE PASSION PIT

       19. SPECTREVILLE

       20. FLAMES COMING OUT OF THE TOP

       21. 'NOTHING PROPINKS LIKE PROPINQUITY'

       22. LOVE AND SAUCE BÉARNAISE

       23. THE JOB COMES SECOND

       24. DEATH IS SO PERMANENT

       25. THE PIPELINE CLOSES

      1. THE PIPELINE OPENS

       Table of Content

      WITH ITS two fighting claws held forward like a wrestler’s arms the big pandinus scorpion emerged with a dry rustle from the finger-sized hole under the rock.

      There was a small patch of hard flat earth outside the hole and the scorpion stood in the centre of this on the tips of its four pairs of legs, its nerves and muscles braced for a quick retreat and its senses questing for the minute vibrations which would decide its next move.

      The moonlight, glittering down through the great thorn bush, threw sapphire highlights off the hard, black polish of the six-inch body and glinted palely on the moist white sting which protruded from the last segment of the tail, now curved over parallel with the scorpion’s flat back.

      Slowly the sting slid home into its sheath and the nerves in the poison sac at its base relaxed. The scorpion had decided. Greed had won over fear.

      Twelve inches away, at the bottom of a sharp slope of sand, the small beetle was concerned only with trudging on towards better pastures than he had found under the thorn bush, and the swift rush of the scorpion down the slope gave him no time to open his wings.

      The beetle’s legs waved in protest as the sharp claw snapped round his body, and then the sting lanced into him from over the scorpion’s head and immediately he was dead.

      After it had killed the beetle the scorpion stood motionless for nearly five minutes. During this time it identified the nature of its prey and again tested the ground and the air for hostile vibrations. Reassured, its fighting claw withdrew from the half-severed beetle and its two small feeding pincers reached out and into the beetle’s flesh. Then for an hour, and with extreme fastidiousness, the scorpion ate its victim.

      The great thorn bush under which the scorpion killed the beetle was quite

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