Coming out of the concert hall after the last, culminating burst
of harmony, Cary Scott drew a deep breath of the night air. Lover
and connoisseur of music though he had always been, never in his
recollection had it so penetrated his being as now. Better programmes
he had listened to, more perfectly rendered. But the companionship
of the intensely responsive young girl, her superb and poignant
vitality concentrated upon the great waves of sensation which had
swept over their spirits, interpreted the numbers for him in a new
measure. Timidly, tentatively at first, then more boldly as the
ardent influences took hold upon her, Pat had yearned to him in the
semi-darkness which surrounded them. The sweet, firm curve of her
shoulder first, then the close pressure of her knee; soon her fingers,
creeping to his hand, clasping and being enfolded, the fragrance of her
light, quick breath, rhythmic upon his cheek. It seemed as if she had
become subtly the medium and instrument of all the splendour of sound,
as if the music were flowing in the currents of her woman's body out
upon him and around him in a submerging flood.
Now they were in the open air. She walked beside him, her face dreamy
and demure, the faintest of smiles implicit in the up-slanted corners
of her mouth.
"Wasn't it--magic!" she breathed.
"Yes, magic," he assented.
They located and entered his car. For a time the intricacies of the
traffic engrossed his attention. As they passed into the light-shot
spaciousness of the park he turned to her.
"Well?"
"Don't let's talk. I want to just remember."
He nodded and she leaned to him momentarily again, kitten-like,
caressing, grateful for his understanding. He, too, was glad of the
respite, for, man of the world though he was, he had been strangely,
unexpectedly shaken. It was Pat who, long minutes later, sighed and
broke the silence with the hoarse, enticing sweetness of her tones.
"What did you do it for, Mr. Scott?"
"I? Do what?" He was surprised by the directness of the attack.
"Oh, well! I, then. You know. What did you let me do it for?"
He made no reply. In his stillness was a sense of expectancy to which
she responded.
"I warned you what music did to me. But you--you needn't have let
me----" She paused. "Do you like me a little?" she murmured.
"Yes. A little."
"Only a little?" she teased, half child demanding the comfort of
affection, half conscious coquette. "Not more than that?"
"Perhaps a little more," he smiled.
"But not half as much as you do Con," she said deliberately.
He was silent, his attention apparently engrossed in a heavy truck
which gave them bare passing room.
"Do you?" she insisted, daring greatly.
"Do I what?"
"Like me as much as you do Con? Half as much, I mean."
"If I did do you think I should tell you?"
"Why shouldn't you? But I thought you were crazy over Con. She thinks
so."
Scott hummed one of the passages from the final number of the concert.
"Oh, _very_ well. I'm only making conversation. I don't really want to
talk at all. I'd rather think. All the rest of the way home."
Arrived at Holiday Knoll, he stepped from the car and held out a hand
to her. "Good-night, Pat."
"Aren't you coming in?"
"I think not."
"Ah, do," she wheedled. "Just for a minute."
He turned to look at the broad, rambling house. A dim light burned in
the library; a brighter one in Dee's room overhead. Constance's room
was dark. He was vaguely glad of that.
"I haven't even thanked you yet," she observed.
"You needn't."
"Then you ought to thank me," she asserted daringly, "for taking
Connie's place. Do come in. Perhaps I can find you a drink."
"I don't want a drink, thank you," he returned; but he followed her
through the door.
"It's us, Dee," called the girl, projecting her voice up the stairway
as she led the way to the library. "Mr. Scott and me."
"All right," Dee responded. "I'm in my nightie or I'd come down. Have a
good time?"
"Gee-lorious!" said Pat. She took off her hat, fluffed up her short,
heavy hair with a double-handed scuffle characteristic of her, and
moved forward to the table.
In the diffused soft radiance of the one light, Scott stared at her.
Her pose was languid, her eyes sombre with the still passion of lovely
sounds remembered. Slowly the lids drooped over them. She tilted her
chin and in her effortless, liquid voice of song gave out the exquisite
rhythm of a melody from the Tschaikowsky Fifth which they had just
heard.
"Don't, Pat," muttered Scott.
"Don't you like it?"
"I love it. So--don't."
She moved toward him, her throat still quivering with the beauty of
sound, and lifted her hand to the bright, curt waves of hair at his
temple, brushing them lightly back. A dusky colour glowed in her
cheeks. As the dim echo of the music died, she leaned to him. Her lips,
light, fervent, cool, softly firm, met his, lingered upon them for the
smallest, sweetest moment as a moth hovers in its flight from a flower.
Then she, too, was in flight.
"Good-night," she whispered back to him from the doorway.
Pat's challenge to Stancia's supremacy gave Scott plenty to speculate
about. His first sentiment was amusement that this daring child should
have deliberately elected to enter the lists against her older and
more beautiful sister. But what was Pat's interest in him? Flirtation?
Evidently. He guessed that it was the dash of diablerie in her that had
inspired the experiment. Nevertheless, he was conscious of a rather
excited interest in and curiosity about her, not as a precocious child,
but as a reckonable woman with distinct provocations of person and
mind. In comparison with her, Scott reflected (and was shocked at his
own disloyalty in so reflecting) Stancia was becoming insipid.
He discovered, in thinking it over, that there had grown up an
impalpable embarrassment between Stancia and himself, and that it
seemed to have been growing for some time; an inexplicable thing
between those two who had approached so near to embarkation upon the
love-adventure perilous. Had she noticed it? He wondered. Had he
been so bold as to put the query to her, she would have hardly known
how to reply. She was conscious that at times she failed to hold his
interest; that his mind seemed to wander away from her; but, in the
self-sufficiency of her beauty, she set that down to a quality of
vagueness in his character. He was unfailingly gentle, considerate, and
helpful wherever, in her luxurious and hard-pressed life, she allowed
him to help. And he asked nothing in return.
This piqued, even while it relieved her. For she was no longer
adventurous. The layers of fat were insulating that soft and
comfort-enslaved soul. Scott, striving to maintain the appearances of a
loyalty which he did not really owe (how he thanked his gods for that
now!) found her loveliness growing monotonous, her inertia of mind,
irritant. "Nothing above the ears," Pat had said; wicked little Pat,
whose vividness so far outshone the mere beauty of the elder. The harsh
truth of the slang had stuck.
His next encounter with the girl was several days later when he was
keeping an appointment with Stancia in the library at the Knoll; the
merest fleeting glimpse of the boyish girl-figure as it passed through
the hallway, followed by the heart-troubling, deep thrill of her voice
raised in the Tschaikowsky melody.... "I've asked you twice," he
was conscious of Stancia saying plaintively, "and you don't pay any
attention."
"I really beg your pardon," apologised Scott. "Awfully stupid of me. Of
course, I shall be delighted to stay to luncheon."
As he was leaving early in the afternoon, Pat hurried after him to
intercept the car.
"Take me down to the village with you, Mr. Scott?"
"Indeed I will."
She jumped in. "I don't want to go to the village," said she in quite a
different tone, as the car took the curve. "I want to talk."
"It's a worthy ambition. So do I. Where shall we go?"
"Anywhere."
He whirled the car around an abrupt corner and headed for the open
country.
"I cried that night after the concert," Pat informed him. She was
staring straight in front of her.
"My dear!" he murmured.
"I'm _not_ your dear."
"No. You're not. I must remember that."
"Not a bit--to-day. I've had time to think."
"So have I."
She whirled on him. "Have you changed, too?" she demanded with
animation and dismay, quaintly negligent of the implied inconsistency.
"No. I haven't changed."
"I'm glad," said she naïvely. Then, stealing a glance at him, "Do you
still like me--a little?"
A little? How much did he "like" this bewitching child? Was "like" a
sufficient word at all for the feeling which had taken such puzzling
growth within him? He could not have answered the query to himself
satisfactorily, and had no intention of defining his attitude for her
benefit.
"Tell me," she whispered. "I think you might."
"I have many things to tell you, little Pat," he replied with his
foreign precision of speech; "but that is not one of them."
"It's the one I want to hear," said willful Pat.
"First, do you tell me: why did you cry that night?"
"Conscience. No," she contradicted herself thoughtfully; "that's a
bluff. I don't know. Sort of nervousness, I expect."
"That is what I feared for you; that you would brood over it and make
yourself unhappy----"
"It wasn't that at all," interrupted Pat simply and promptly. "But I
did want to see you again and know that you didn't think--that I wasn't
too awfully--that I didn't seem just a fresh kid to you."
"No. You didn't."
"Was that being '_petite gamine_'?" She threw a sidelong glance at him.
"Was it? You should know."
"After all, it was only a white kiss."
"A _what_?"
"White kiss. There are white kisses and red kisses," she explained
unconcernedly.
"You have no right to that kind of knowledge," said he sternly. "Where
did you come by it?"
"I told you," she muttered gloomily, "that I used to be a terrible
necker."
"Yes. But--that sort of thing! Don't you know that's dangerous?"
"Would it be with you?" she asked with direct and naïve curiosity.
"There is no question of it with me," he answered rigidly. "But, so far
as that goes, no. I am old enough to know how to control myself."
"Then you're different from most men," she returned bitterly.
"Good God, child! Have you learned that already? At your age?"
"Since we're telling each other our real names," said Pat in her
levelest tones, "the first time I was kissed I was hardly fifteen."
"You seem to have been unfortunately precocious."
She flashed a smile at him. "Are you jealous?"
The amazing realisation came to him that he was. But he answered
steadily: "What right should I have to be jealous of what you might do?"
"Suppose I _want_ you to be?"
This he chose to disregard. "I don't believe that you understand
yourself, your temperament." He was trying to hold himself to a tone of
cool diagnosis. "I wish I were your Dr. Bobs for fifteen minutes."
"Well, I don't," she retorted. "Bobs's middle names are Sterling Worth;
but I'd rather have you lecture me. _You_ understand."
"I understand that you are of a very high-strung, neurotic, excitable
temperament."
Gloom overshadowed her face again. "You're not telling me any news
about myself."
"Then you must see how perilous it is for a girl like you to be what
you call a necker."
"Oh, as far as that goes," she answered coolly, "I've always got my
foot on the brake. Every minute. If things get too hectic I can always
see the ridiculous side of it and get up a laugh. It's a grand little
safeguard, being able to laugh at yourself."
"I suppose it is. As long as you _are_ able."
"Anyway, I've been terribly proper ever since you talked to me that
night at the party. Wise virgin stuff! Do you know you've got a lot of
influence over me, Mr. Scott?"
"Have I? I'm glad of that."
"So am I. But I don't quite know why you should have." She pondered.
"Unless it's because there's something about you that makes the other
men seem clumsy and--and _local_."
He laughed. "I'm very flattered."
"Don't make fun of me," pouted Pat. "I'm serious. Particularly about
your having influence over me. Since our talk I've passed up all sorts
of chances to have a flutter. I don't believe I've kissed three boys,
in all."
Despite himself Scott queried acidly: "And were they red or white
kisses?"
"Well, one of them might have had a dash of pink in it. No; I just said
that to tease you," she added impulsively. "I really have been boringly
good. It isn't too easy, either."
"Pat, why don't you talk to Dr. Bobs about yourself?"
"I will if you want me to," said she submissively.
"It would be a good thing, assuming that you would talk frankly."
"Where shall I begin? By telling him about us?" she inquired demurely.
Upon this Scott's inner commentary was, "You little devil!" Aloud he
said composedly: "If you think it significant. But what I said was
about yourself."
"Oh, I'm well enough," said she carelessly.
"Are you happy enough?"
She gave him a startled glance. "Why should you think I'm not happy?"
"I didn't say I thought so. I simply asked you."
"Well, I am." But there was a hint of defiance in her tone. "And you
_do_ think I'm not."
"I think you're restless and discontented."
"What makes you think that?" she asked, curiously, leaning over to him
so that the warm curve of her arm pressed his.
He glanced not at her but at her encroaching shoulder. "Because of just
that sort of thing."
She snatched her arm away. "I hate you!"
"Better hate me than yourself. As you did that night at the club."
Tears welled up in her eyes. Her chin trembled and there was a soft,
heart-thrilling catch in the huskiness of her voice, barely controlled
enough to enunciate: "I don't see why you're so mean to me."
"Why, it's a child!" he exclaimed in mock self-reproach. "And I keep
forgetting and treating it like a grown-up."
"That's why I love to be with you. I want to be treated that way."
"Oh, no! You merely think you do. In reality you want to be petted and
flattered and coddled and approved in all your cunning and silly little
ways. That would be very easy. Only--it isn't part of our compact."
With one of her mercurial changes she flashed a smile at him. "I'd
nearly forgotten. You were to be my wise and guiding friend, weren't
you? Is that why you're telling me that I'm restless and discontented?"
"Well, aren't you?"
"Not more than the other girls."
"Is that an answer?"
"No. Yes, it is, too! Why should I be different?"
"Because you're you."
"'Be-_cause_ you're _you_,'" she sang gaily to the measure of an
elderly but still popular song. "I like to have you say that. How do
you think I'm different?"
"Ah, that I can't say. You see, I don't know the girls of your age
much."
"No; you're always playing around with the married women," she remarked
calmly. "Well, you don't miss much. They're a lot of dimwits, the girls
of my age here. No snap. If they can get a couple of rounds of bridge
in the afternoon and a cocktail before dinner and a speed-limit whizz
around the country in somebody's car, or a few hours of jazz, or a
snuggling party with some good-looking boy on the porch, that'll keep
them from suicide for quite a spell."
"I see. They seek the same distractions from the prevailing
restlessness----"
"You needn't finish," she broke in. "Yes; we're all alike. There isn't
a girl that doesn't go in for spooning if she likes the boy--and a lot
of 'em aren't even too particular about that--except maybe the Standish
girls, and they've been brought up as if their house was a convent. At
that, Ailsa Standish told me the conundrum about why girls wear their
hair covering their ears. D'you know it?" she enquired with a palpable
effect of brazen hardihood. But she turned her head away from the quiet
disgust of his look as he answered:
"Yes, I know it. But you've no business to. It strikes me that you're
in a pretty rotten set."
"It's the only set in Dorrisdale," defended Pat sullenly. "And we're
slow compared to some of the other towns."
"Well, if you think it's worth it," he began slowly when she cut in,
with a sort of cry, throwing out her hands, those large, supple,
shapely, capable hands, in a gesture of despair and appeal. "But what's
a girl to do?"
"Doesn't your school give you anything?"
"Not a dam' thing that I don't want to get and get easy. All they try
to do is make it easy for you to get through. They won't even issue
diplomas for fear some of the girls couldn't pass the exams and their
people would get sore on the school. I study when I feel like it, and
that isn't too often."
"Will you do something for me, Pat?"
"Yes; I'd love to," was the eager reply.
"Make something of your voice. You can do it with a little work."
At the last word she assumed an expression of distrust. "How much work?"
"Two hours a day, perhaps."
"Two hours a day! For how long?"
"A year of it would give you a start."
"Two whole hours out of every day for a year? What do you take me
for; a machine?" Scott's nerves quivered with the strident rasp of
the voice, like the squawk of a dismayed and indignant hen. "Why, I
wouldn't have any time for anything else."
"Some days have as much as twenty-four hours in them," he pointed out.
"However, you might make a start with an hour."
"I might," she admitted dubiously, "while I'm in school. But when I get
out I want to have some fun. And I'm going to."
"So, it seems this influence which I am supposed to have over you
doesn't go very far."
"Now you're disgusted with me again. But I can't help it. I'm not going
to be a _slave_ just to be able to sing a little."
"It might be more than a little. And it seems to be the one quality you
have which might be susceptible of development."
"Now you're talking like a school teacher. And you're not too
flattering, are you? Don't you think I've got any brains?"
"Yes. But I don't think you're going to find them of much use."
"I suppose you'd like me to go to college," said Pat contemptuously,
"and learn the college cheer and how to play basketball."
"You might even learn more than that. However, if you're satisfied
with your present status, that settles _that_. Suppose we talk of
something else."
This did not suit Pat at all. She promptly said so. "I want to talk
about me. You almost always do talk to me about myself. I wonder if
that's why I like to be with you more than anyone else," she concluded
with one of her accesses of insight.
"It's an extremely interesting subject."
"Now you're laughing at me again. And a moment ago you were angry. But
you're still disappointed, aren't you?"
"A little."
"I think that's rotten of you!" she murmured. "I suppose we ought to be
going back." She sighed. "I don't want to a bit. Can you turn here?"
It was a narrow and tricky road. As the car came to a stop after
backing she laid her hand on his. "Kiss little Pattie and tell her to
be a good child and she'll be awfully good," she murmured elfishly.
Scott completed the turn before he answered: "No, little Pat. No more
of that between you and me."
On the return journey she was silent and thoughtful. At the post office
in the village she asked to be set down, and, getting out, looked up at
him, her eyes limpid with sincerity.
"Please, Mr. Scott, keep on liking me," she said. "It's awfully good
for me."