Paddy Learns Her Mistake.
True to her word, Gwen called for Doreen a few days later, and the two
drove in a taxi to Shepherd’s Bush and found their way to the surgery,
where Paddy, in a large black apron, was busy with her prescriptions.
They stayed about ten minutes and then drove away again, leaving Paddy
less able than ever to resist Gwen’s overtures. At the same time, she
felt no less incensed against Lawrence and anxious to avoid meeting
him, which was the cause of her reluctance to accept an invitation to a
small dance at Gwen’s beautiful home in Grosvenor Place.
“I have no dress good enough,” she told Doreen when they talked it
over, “and I can’t afford to get a new one on purpose.”
“Nonsense,” asserted Doreen promptly. “I know quite well you have. Why,
that pretty dress you had for our coming-out dance is not two years
old, and you have scarcely worn it at all. You must just send it to me,
and I will get Jean to do it up for you. You simply must come. It will
be such a jolly dance. Not a grand one at all, but one of Gwen’s
impromptu hops, as she calls them.”
In the end Paddy gave in, and on the evening of the dance arrived at
Cadogan Place in time to go with Doreen and Lawrence in their brougham.
She knew Lawrence would be there, but was prepared for it, and chatted
merrily to Doreen without ever including him if she could help it.
Lawrence took no notice, merely sitting forward, opposite to them, with
his arms across his knees, casually glancing through an evening paper.
When Paddy first arrived Doreen had made her take off her cloak and
show herself, and he had then, as she well knew, though he said
nothing, criticised her keenly. Doreen had been enraptured.
“You look splendid!” was her verdict. “I don’t know what it is about
you, Paddy, but somehow you always manage to look striking nowadays.
Don’t you think so, Lawrence? Here am I, got up at endless expense,
mentioned in the fashionable papers as ‘pretty Miss Doreen Blake,’ and
yet, when we go into the room together, I’m sure everyone will look at
you.”
“If they do, it will only be my hair,” laughed Paddy. “It’s so
difficult not to stare at carroty hair.”
“Stuff!” from Doreen. “But am I not right, Lawrence?”
Lawrence was standing a little apart, lighting a cigarette, and he did
not answer for a moment.
“Paddy has a lot of original ideas,” he said at last, “and they somehow
cling about her. The crowd is always struck with anything original.”
Paddy was pulling on a long glove. “I guess I’ll have this stocking in
half before I’ve done,” she remarked, with studied unconcern, “and then
I shall have to pin it to my sleeve to show I possess it, which is,
after all, the main thing about it.”
When they reached the Hon. Grant-Carew’s, however, and had got rid of
their cloaks, Lawrence came up to them while chatting with Gwen and
asked Paddy how many dances she would give him.
Paddy tried to prevaricate, but both Gwen and Doreen were watching, and
Lawrence persisted. He had purposely chosen that moment, knowing she
could hardly refuse before the other two.
“Give him three,” said Gwen decisively. “I’ll allow that number, as
he’s a lovely waltzer, and you’re sure to enjoy them; but the rest of
your programme I’m going to superintend myself and see that you don’t
get any tiresome partners at all.”
Paddy bit her lip and flashed a look at Lawrence that seemed to dare
him to take advantage of her position. He, however, only smiled
slightly with his usual impassivity, and wrote her name three times
upon his programme. He then glanced at Gwen significantly, and she, in
an easy, natural fashion, possessed herself of Paddy’s programme and
handed it to him.
Paddy was inwardly furious, but obliged to take it with a good grace.
When they had their first dance, however, she hardly spoke, and
afterward insisted upon remaining in the dance-room, so that she could
watch the other guests instead of keeping up a conversation. Lawrence
pretended not to notice, but chatted pleasantly about the people and
pointed out any one of note to her. The same thing happened at each of
his dances, and whereas Paddy was brilliant with enjoyment with all her
other partners, she immediately became constrained and silent with him.
And each time Lawrence chatted in his pleasantest way, and pretended
not to notice it.
Later, however, he suddenly dropped his pretence, and took the bull by
the horns in his most resolute fashion. It had been arranged that Paddy
should return home in a hansom straight from Grosvenor Place, and after
saying good-by to Doreen she turned and nodded a casual good-by to
Lawrence, standing near.
“I am coming with you,” he said calmly.
“Oh, no, certainly not,” and Paddy looked very resolute. “There is not
the least necessity to drag you all that way. Besides, you must see
Doreen home.”
“Doreen will go home in the brougham. I am coming with you.”
For one moment there was a dangerous look in Paddy’s eyes; then Doreen
chimed in with:
“Don’t be silly, Paddy. Of course Lawrie will take you home. As if he
were likely to do otherwise.”
Paddy saw there was no help for it, and tripped down the steps and into
the hansom without giving him a chance to offer his hand. Lawrence gave
the address and stepped in after her.
“Do you mind my cigarette?” he asked, to which Paddy replied coldly,
“Not in the least,” and drew further back into her corner.
“You seem more angry with me than ever to-night,” he began presently.
By this time Paddy had just about exhausted her none too large supply
of cold hauteur, so, feeling she must vent her anger somehow, she
turned upon him suddenly, which secretly pleased Lawrence because it
was so much more natural to her.
“Of course I am angry with you,” she exclaimed. “I think you have
behaved abominably. You have simply laid traps for me, first over the
dances and then over this drive. You know perfectly well I would have
refused both if Doreen and Miss Carew had not been with us.”
“That was strategy. They say all is fair in love and war.”
“I don’t care what they say; you are a paltry enemy, because you take a
mean advantage.”
“And supposing I weren’t an enemy at all?”
“But you are; you can’t help being. You only did it purely and simply
to annoy me. You knew I did not want to dance with you, so you thought
you would make me, just for an amusement for yourself—because it’s a
new experience to have an unwilling partner, or something equally
silly. It was only on a par with most of your actions.”
Lawrence slowly knocked some ash off his cigarette.
“I can’t understand Miss Carew helping you,” Paddy ran on. “If she is
going to marry you, it is no reason why she should encourage you in
annoying other people.”
Lawrence raised his eyebrows slightly.
“What makes you think Miss Carew is going to marry me?” he asked.
“Well, when people are engaged to each other, don’t they usually
marry!”
There was a faint gleam of amusement in his eyes, but he managed to
hide it by studying the end of his cigarette.
“And what makes you think Miss Carew and I are engaged to each other?”
Paddy shook herself with an irritable movement.
“Because you are, of course! I have known it a long time.”
“Longer than we have, I suspect,” with provoking calmness.
Paddy puckered her forehead into a frown, and condescended to look at
him.
“Of course, I don’t know whether it is announced or not yet, and I’m
sure I don’t care, but I heard from a mutual friend of yours and hers
that it was settled when you were in India over a year ago.”
“Might I ask you the mutual friend’s name?”
“It was Captain O’Connor. He met you both in Calcutta. But really,
except that I like Miss Carew very much, this is a most uninteresting
topic.”
“On the contrary, considering we have never been engaged at all, and it
is very unlikely that we ever shall be, I find it extremely
interesting.”
“Never been engaged at all!” gasped Paddy.
“Never to my knowledge,” with the same provoking calmness.
“Impossible! Captain O’Connor told me he had congratulated you both,
and that he heard it from Miss Carew herself.”
A sudden light broke on Lawrence. “Did he tell you it happened a year
last Christmas?” he asked.
“About then. He was passing through Calcutta on his way home.”
“Ah!” significantly.
“Then you were engaged,” scathingly, “and with your customary
changeableness have broken it off again?”
“Yes, that’s about it. But this was a record in quick changes.”
“Why?—how?” irritably, feeling there was something she did not
understand.
“Merely that it only lasted one evening.”
“One evening!” incredulously.
“Yes. But, of course, you do not care to hear about it. I quite
understand that my affairs in any shape or form are not of the
slightest interest to you,” which was quite a long sentence for
Lawrence.
For a few minutes Paddy felt squashed; then her curiosity got the
better of her.
“Did Miss Carew do it?” she asked.
“She did. She asked me to be her tool for one evening, having got into
a scrape with a hot-headed Irishman and a woolly-lamb Englishman.
Since, almost as long as I can remember, I have been at Gwendoline’s
beck and call, I was perfectly willing. I presume the hot-headed
Irishman was your friend Captain O’Connor.”
For some minutes Paddy was struck dumb. It had never entered her head
to question the engagement, and she had not mentioned it to Doreen
because it was such a sore subject. Hastily reviewing the past year,
however, she could not but see that, on the whole, the news, though
incorrect, had been most beneficial to Eileen. Undoubtedly, from the
time she learnt of Lawrence’s supposed engagement, she had been better
able to pull herself together and set steadily about forgetting him.
Only this could not, to a girl like Paddy, in any measure abate what
had gone. For every tear Lawrence’s heartlessness had made her sister
shed, she felt she had an undying grudge against him, and she would not
forget. Presently, to break the silence, she remarked:
“I don’t know how you can help falling in love with Miss Carew. Why
aren’t you engaged to her?”
“Well, one very good reason, perhaps, is the fact that she is
practically engaged to someone else.”
“Is she?” with ill-concealed eagerness. “Who is he!”
“Unfortunately he happens to be a younger son, which is a heinous and
not easily-overcome offence in her mother’s eyes, and hence the delay.”
“What a pity! Is he nice?”
“One of the nicest chaps I ever met.”
“Oh, I do hope it will come out right in the end.”
“There is not much doubt. Gwen has her father on her side, and I think
it is chiefly a question of time with the mother. But, for the matter
of that, Gwen always gets her own way in the end. Her mother arranged
for her to be a countess eighteen months ago, but at the last moment
she advised the earl not to propose to her, and sent him flying.”
“How splendid of her!” cried Paddy, forgetting her anger for a moment.
“And she is going to marry a plain Mr Somebody now?”
“Well, he holds a captain’s commission in the Guards, and considerably
distinguished himself in South Africa. I’m not sure it wasn’t his V.C.
that took Gwen’s fancy first.”
“How nice! I do like her so much. I hope she’ll be able to marry him
soon and be awfully happy. Do you think I might mention it to her?”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t already told you herself. She is not in the
least reserved about it, and she is awfully in love with him. She is as
good at loving as you are at hating, Paddy,” and suddenly he was
looking into her eyes, with an expression she had never seen on his
face before, and which stirred her pulses unaccountably. She fidgeted
with her hands, compressed her lips, and stared straight before her,
feeling in every corner of her being that he was still looking at her
with those calm, compelling eyes.
“Well!” he asked at last, and his voice was full of that winning
quality which had gained him such easy conquests in the past. But it
only made Paddy hotly distrustful, and she gripped the front of the
hansom and called up every fighting instinct she possessed.
“Miss Carew would hate in my place.” She drew a long breath, as if
gathering herself together for a special thrust. “Since she loves as
strongly as I hate, I am glad it is some one else, and not you, to whom
she has given her love.” She was unconsciously sitting rigidly upright,
and from his corner, with his compelling eyes still watching her face,
that gleam that might have been either love or war again passed through
them.
“You hit hard,” he said at last; and then, with the slightest
inflection of a taunt in his voice, added: “Why don’t you look at
me—are you afraid?”
Paddy bit her teeth together hard, and her breath came a little
fitfully. She was not afraid—that was quite certain; but, on the other
hand, she had not quite the calm assurance she usually felt. She would
greatly have preferred not to look at him.
“Well?” he said again.
Paddy took her courage in both hands.
“No, I am not afraid,” and she turned her head a moment and looked full
and deep into his eyes.
Suddenly he gave a low, harsh laugh.
“My God!” he muttered. “Patricia the Great!” And then he flung his
half-smoked cigarette away and stared into the night.
Neither spoke again, and a few minutes later the cab drew up at her
uncle’s door. He sprang out first and offered her his aid, but she
gathered up her dress with both hands and ignored him. At the door she
fitted the latchkey into the lock herself. While she fumbled a little
in the dim light, she felt his eyes again fixed on her, and before she
managed to get the door open he said, in low, distinct tones, “The new
interest you have given me is growing apace, Patricia. I see it is
going to be war to the knife, but, if I’m worth my name, I’ll win yet.”
“Good-night,” she said jauntily, as the door at last opened, then
slammed it in his face.