his rudeness to Amy, her spirits had risen. Whatever secret weaknesses
her will might hint, she was sparkling with temper. He had entered a
bully; well, she would not be bullied. She saw the difference of his
demeanour to Amy, whom he disliked, and to herself, whom he loved. For
how long would his behaviour remain different? In Jean Cowley's case it
had been a month. "Now, Harry," said Patricia.
Harry's manner softened. His tone was lowered. His possessiveness was
subtly mingled with appeal. He took a step forward, a big figure with
bared teeth and that ready smile. There was no doubt of the effect he
had on Patricia. She felt herself small, weak, laughing.... And yet not
now yielding. A day ago she would have been yielding, tasting all the
sweetness of surrender to such masterful treatment.
"Put your coat on," pleaded Harry. He wore none himself. "I want you to
come and have a meal with me."
"It's barely tea-time," objected Patricia.
"All the better. We'll have tea and dinner as well."
They both ignored Amy, who stood angrily staring at them.
"Why _should_ she?" cried Amy. "What cheek!"
Harry turned upon Amy, and laughed at her.
"Hullo, Amy!" he answered. "You there? Sorry. Look here, I know it's
cheek; and I apologise. But I must talk to Patricia, d'you see. Our
last talk was interrupted."
"Patricia's talks seem to be subject to interruption. Her talk with me
was interrupted."
"I know. By me," Harry said, charmingly. "It's too bad."
Patricia was mechanically putting on her mackintosh as they squabbled.
She smoothed her hair; and a curious excitement which had risen in her
was transformed into intrepidity. So may a man in danger become aware
of new alert vitality. She heard the remarks without observing their
content, so engrossed was she with thoughts of her own.
"How's Rhoda?" asked Amy suddenly. It came like a stab, and like a
stab was Patricia's glance at Harry. His own glance towards her was as
sharp, as keen.
"Very well, I think," said Harry, in a patient voice.
"She's away, isn't she?"
"I really don't know."
Amy again gave that strained laugh of sarcasm.
"Oho!" she laughed. "Harry!"
Harry held out his hand to Amy, seeing that Patricia was ready. Amy
ignored the hand. She never shook hands with anybody. It had always
seemed to her more masculine and professional not to do so.
"You ready?" Harry asked Patricia.
"Awkward questions," murmured Amy, almost unheard. "Well, cheerio,
Patricia. Perhaps one day we shall meet again. I shall be here, I
expect."
"Do try to go away," whispered Patricia. "Really try. It's so bad for
you to be alone." Harry was outside the door by now, and the parting
was solitary. "Try to go away--just for change of thought and scene."
Amy shook her head--almost with a shudder.
"Now go," she said. "Harry's waiting. And Patricia--what I told you was
_true_. D'you see? Not spiteful."
"I know. I know." Patricia pressed her hand and was gone.
viii
Outside, in the street, Harry was waiting.
"What a sight that woman is! Silly little fool!" he explained. "She's a
cat, too. Did you notice that?"
"Look here, Harry," said Patricia, abruptly. "I don't want to listen to
abuse of Amy. I'm sorry for her."
"Oh, God, so am I!" cried Harry, lightly.
"No, I'm really sorry. You don't understand." With sudden indignation,
she concluded: "You couldn't _ever_ understand. You don't know enough."
"Well?" He was quite cool. "I see you're in a rage about something."
"I'm not in a rage about anything; but I do resent your coming to the
studio as if I belonged to you. You've got no right to do that. I came
out because I didn't want a row before Amy."
"Oh! A row!" Harry turned a laughing, coaxing face to her, very sure of
himself. His hand was at her arm; but Patricia was completely mistress
of herself.
"Yes, a row," she cried, her eyes sparkling afresh. "Let's go and have
tea somewhere."
Harry's face was also alight. If Patricia had temper, so, it appeared,
had he. They were matched.
"That was exactly my idea," he said impudently. "Let's!"
They walked through into Oxford Street and joined the crowd there. Such
teashops as the one at which Patricia had lunched were unsuitable.
They were at this hour too crowded for conversation. As a result the
journey was for a time without result; but at last they came to a
big restaurant at which few visitors to the West End imagined that
such a thing as tea would be served. Here it was that, surrounded
by innumerable empty tables, and at a distance from half-a-dozen
pensive waiters, amid gilded mouldings and huge mirrors and imposing
candelabra, Harry and Patricia seated themselves for their talk.
"Now!" cried Harry. "Tea, crumpets, cakes. No crumpets? Toast." He
instructed the waiter with the assurance of one who has entertained
since the days of undergraduate life. Having seen the waiter depart
upon his errand, he then cleared a vase of flowers from the table, and
moved a dish which stood in his way. Then, with wrists upon the table,
he stared at Patricia. "Darling!" he said. "I seem to feel most at home
with you when you're in a rage. There's a little nick ... see...."
"Never mind the little nick," said Patricia, sternly. Her heart had
begun to sink again. "I wasn't going to talk to you like this; but I
must." Harry waved his hand, as if giving her free permission to change
her mind without restraint. "I want to ask you several things. You
needn't answer if you don't want to...."
"You want to ask me about Rhoda!" suggested Harry, his smile deepening.
There was no quelling his easy confidence.
"That was one thing," admitted Patricia, also in no way superficially
discomposed, although her heart was struggling.
"I thought so. Well, now, Rhoda--mind, I'm very fond of her--is nothing
at all to me."
"Has she been?"
"Oh! Oh!" He protested at such a demand. "No, she hasn't been. I admit
that she may think ... I'd better put it like this: she thinks she's in
love with me."
"I see. Then, the other thing I wanted to ask is this. You see, I'm not
sure if I'm in love with you or not."
"You soon would be," he interrupted. "Sure, I mean. I'm in love with
you."
"That was just it. You've been in love before."
"Lots of times. Never as much as this, Patricia!" He stretched his
hands towards her. Patricia hesitated. Then she shook her head.
"You mustn't joggle me," she said. "I've got to find out for myself."
"Well, was that all you wanted to ask me? If so, I'll tell you
something. You've got the most beautiful eyes, Patricia; and your
little mouth changes every----"
"That wasn't all," cried Patricia, and stammered, the warmth rising to
her cheeks. She could see him so near, and his ardent glance and air
of conscious and indulgent charm were intoxicating to her; and she was
shot through and through with the knowledge that Harry could be brutal
and harsh and tyrannical, that he could be brusque and unfeeling; that
the thick stream of emotion which she was conscious of recognising in
him made for satiety and not for the delicate, whimsical, pervasive
love she craved. She had been going to ask him other things--things
which it was essential to her peace of mind both now and in the future
that she should know; and she could not do so. They, whether she had a
right to them or not, were all of no account beside her certainty. He
was a stranger at heart, who should have been master of her finest and
truest consciousness. Patricia paled, her hands sharply together. "No!"
she cried. "I can't marry you. It's too great a risk. I can't do it!"
"And who on earth," said Harry, "who on earth _asked_ you to marry me?"
ix
Patricia felt her heart jump and then turn cold. She stared at him.
"Oh," she stammered. "Oh ... then ... then, that's all right, isn't
it? I thought you wanted me to. I...." She gave a small nervous laugh.
"What _do_ you mean, then?"
"Look here," said Harry. "I'm in love with you, and you're in love with
me."
"No," said Patricia. "I'm clear about that now."
"You're not. You're in love with me." Harry was overbearing in his
confidence. His face had not lost its beaming affection and good
nature, but the power to charm her was vanished. "And so you think of
marriage. Well, there's no question of that, because I know something
about myself and about you. It wouldn't last. How could it? Love's a
rapture."
"We don't mean the same thing," replied Patricia, steadily, meeting his
eyes frankly, and with defiance. The coldness which had possessed her
on the previous evening was reinforced by a pride that was insane in
its egotism.
"When people say 'Love and Marriage' they're not thinking of us.
Marriage belongs to the days of women's economic dependence," he
asserted.
"It belongs to the idea of constancy."
"When a woman was economically dependent," pursued Harry, ignoring
the interruption, "she said 'what will you give for my love? Will you
support me for life?' That's altered now. She gives love for love."
"And when she's broken?" Patricia's anger began to manifest itself.
"Do you think other men think as you do? I mean, when they're offered
something soiled?"
"Soiled?" Harry's astonishment was marked. "That doesn't arise."
Patricia controlled herself.
"To me it does," she said, gravely. "Not to you."
"Good Lord! I'd no idea you were such a little ... puritan!" cried
Harry. Into his air of unconquerable charm came the faintest sneer;
but it was not strong enough to wound. He was genuinely perturbed and
unable to fathom her objection to something which for himself was a
standard of conduct.
"Yes, you were mistaken, weren't you?" said Patricia. "You didn't know
I was a ... prig!"
"No, no!" He was handsome in his protest. "It's a question of truth--of
sense. Patricia, it's a question of purity. The delight of love doesn't
last. What _is_ the good of pretending that it does? My dear, I love
you. I'm not trying to seduce you. Never!"
"My dear Harry," exclaimed Patricia, "you're talking to the wrong
person. You think that love is just self-indulgence. Perhaps you're
right. You may be right. I can't tell. But you see I don't think like
that. I admit that I...." She could not proceed. "I'm not even thinking
of sacrifices. I'm thinking of happiness."
"You're refusing it, my dear," said Harry.
"Then it's not worth having."
He turned aside with brusqueness. He even shrugged. It was in his case
not viciousness, not deliberate sophistry. He had merely mistaken
Patricia's readiness to accept his standards. To Harry these were the
common sense of love. He was not at all unclean. It was astonishment
at a question that made him thus obtuse. The waiter came to their
table and began to spread the cups and plates with absorbed deftness.
Patricia, her mind elsewhere, watched him with constraint. When once
the waiter had gone, she said breathlessly to Harry:
"Look here, Harry. I can't eat any of this. It would make me sick. I'm
going. I'm sorry to...." She rose to her feet, trembling. Harry rose
too, masterfully.
"Shut up, Patricia. Sit down, and don't.... Look here, we'll talk about
it. I'll make you see my point of view. I'm not trying to...."
"I'm going. You eat it. I'm ... I don't want...."
Patricia stood there, her eyes stern but loving; reproachful and
contemptuous. There was still a moment; and it passed. She turned
swiftly, and left Harry standing by the table. He called once; but his
fear of attracting attention in a public place held him there. It was
the one thing which would have restrained him. Sick at heart, but with
her head erect, Patricia walked quickly out of the restaurant and into
the street. She felt that her heart was breaking.
CHAPTER NINE: MISCHIEF
i
For two days Patricia kept within doors. She was broken and weary. For
a time it was as though she had lost all the pride which had sustained
her at the parting with Harry. She longed to see him, longed to beg for
anything at all at his hands; and was restrained only by some timid
delicacy, some fear, some paralysis of the will. The days were spent in
sitting in her little front room, staring apathetically before her, or
without seeing them at the fire and the murky sky. The nights were even
more torturing, for if Patricia slept at all it was to dream hideously;
while her wakeful tossings were almost unendurable. Harry, of course,
came to the house; but Lucy was staunch, and he had been sent away with
elaborate lies. Never until this moment had Patricia understood how
much warmth and generosity lay behind the pink smudge of Lucy's face.
She had been forced into half-confidence; and Lucy had understood the
whole. At first, shrewdly, she had taken a consoling view. "Expect
it'll come right," she had said, out of a deep knowledge of feminine
psychology. "You feel queer now. You're all of a twitter. Then you'll
want 'im, and go out and meet 'im somewhere on the sly. And--" But she
had very quickly discovered that the break was serious. "Ah!" she had
said. "All for the best, you and 'im bein' so fair, with blue eyes
and all. I expect the babies would have been little niggers." She had
sworn, refusing Harry's tips, that Patricia had gone into the country,
leaving no address. Her pink face had glowed with the most righteous
honesty. A letter had followed, a long letter full of explanations;
and Patricia, although it had deeply moved her, had left it without
acknowledgment. A further letter, asking for at least an interview, had
been similarly ignored.
She was quite at a loss. Harry had meant so much to her, both in fact
and in her happy dreams of love, that she was miserable without him.
She knew that her silence was inexcusable; that it would make him
think her merely the little suburban prig of his supposition. But
the facts which were turned over and over in her mind--the sudden
intuitions which had been the occasion of the crisis, his own attitude
to marriage, the illuminations provided by Amy--were devastating.
Patricia could not deal with them. They were too much for her. At
times she tried to reason with herself. Fear sprang to her heart, and
reduced her to panic. She made an attempt even to analyse her own
sense of shock, to say that it was stupid, that it was squeamish,
old-fashioned, babyish. Useless! The truth was more bitter than any
merely cowardly flinching. Whatever might be her feeling in the
future, she was almost hysterically determined at this moment. Her
mind leapt on to blacker thoughts of Harry, and recoiled from them.
All the curious exaggerations of wickedness which will arise in the
most virgin minds tempted her own. They were repulsed. She was not yet
sophisticated enough to be ready to believe the alarmist suggestions of
her imagination.
At last she wrote to Harry:
"Dear Harry: I was silly to leave you under a wrong impression. I
had been thinking I was in love with you; and then I had suddenly
realised that I couldn't _marry_ you. I wasn't shocked at the
thought that you only wanted to have an affair with me. I had just
felt that you weren't any use to me, and that I wasn't any use
to you. I am very fond of you. I have never been so attracted to
any one. It isn't enough for me. I want lots more. Sorry, Harry.
Patricia."
To this letter there had been no answer. Harry, evidently, was lying
low.
ii
So the matter stood, and Patricia was drowned in bewilderment and shame
for as long as her first mood lasted. But then young buoyancy revived.
On the third night she slept, and her dreams were sweeter. On awakening
she was still unhappy; but as she lay in bed and her little thoughts
darted about like shadows of birds she had suddenly an overwhelming fit
of arrogance.
"Pooh!" cried Patricia, violently throwing back the bedclothes. She
stepped out of bed and stood there, yawning, with her hands clasped
behind her head, and her cheeks resting lightly against her raised
arm. Downstairs Lucy had begun her strong clouting of the furniture.
The morning was still grey. And as she stood there Patricia caught a
movement in the mirror by the window, and was drawn across the room to
it. In the mirror's depths she saw her own sleepy face; her little fall
of hair, her soft cheeks, "two witch's eyes above a cherub's mouth,"
and the beautiful line of her neck. "I'm pretty!" she said to herself.
"I'm pretty, and I know it. I've got taste. I've got brains. Pooh!"
And with that she went back to bed, to await the arrival of Lucy with
the hot water. Wave after wave of arrogance passed through her in
healthy reaction to her earlier despair. "I'm better off than Amy,"
she thought. "I'm cleverer than she is--not such an idiot. Rhoda ...
poor thing! Poor thing to be _known_ to be in love, and by a man who
doesn't care for you at all. Unless he made it up! I wonder!" Did men
pretend sometimes, as girls did, that they were loved? She expected so.
She had known a girl who thought all men were in love with her, who
thought a man must either love her or dislike her. Well, Patricia did
not believe in that assumption. She admitted candidly that, although
they seemed to like her, all the men she knew were not in love with
herself. "It's very funny," she said, ruminating. "People in love.... I
suppose there are all sorts of ways of being in love. There's Harry's
way, which is just self-indulgence. There's Jack Penton's way, which
is silly devotion to somebody who doesn't care _that_! There's ... oh,
there's lots of ways. And my way--or my thought of way.... Perhaps it's
only.... Pooh! If I don't love a man I needn't marry him. You can do
all sorts of things, if you aren't one of these silly little creatures
who give in. I'd live with him--if I loved him. I don't love Harry:
that's why I wouldn't...." This, however, was bravado; and she passed
on, ignoring the gross lapse into indelicate falsehood. "But he'd have
to love me better than himself. That's it! I've got to be _loved_;
not just wanted. I've got to be needed, and adored, and passionately
wanted, and respected, and understood. Then I should be sure, and
then I'd give back love for love--full measure. I'm too good for this
ordinary love--this sort of 'affair' that Harry likes; or the marriage
that's like taking a situation--'permanency.' I'm too good for it. I
need half-a-dozen husbands to do me justice. I don't have to take what
I can get. I'm ... I'm Patricia Quin!"
She was filled with supreme egotism.
iii
When little Jacky Dean called for her on the Saturday evening, Patricia
was still full of her healing arrogance. She greeted Jacky rather
sweepingly, because he was a young man who invited disdain; and in two
minutes had received fresh reassurance as to her superiority to all
other girls. Jacky was, in fact, the open-mouthed fair young man with
whom she had found herself left at Topping's. He was always perfectly
dressed, because he was wealthy and without occupation; and he was by
way of being infatuated with Patricia. He was always at her service,
always eager to stand a dinner or a dance, or a _revue_ or musical
play. Conversation beyond the "top-hole" stage he was incapable of
reaching; but he was very dog-like, and looked sweetly pink and golden;
and his dancing had improved; and he was never any strain, as he made
no demands at all, but merely sought to be useful and obliging. He had
two thousand pounds a year, with the prospect of more when an elderly
aunt died; and he would proudly have married Patricia on the morrow. No
wonder, therefore, that she was kind to him in a disdainful way, and
refrained from hurting his feelings. Nothing would have made her marry
him--the thought of doing so had never entered her mind; but she found
his devotion rather pathetic at times, and always, in spite of the
discipline Jacky received, most timidly fervent.
Jacky was subservient by nature. He had attached himself to the
purlieus of the stage door as soon as he had become a man; he was
a feature of river parties in the summer and every other sort of
party for the remainder of the year. In physique he was a weed; but
there was nothing noticeably the matter with him, beyond an amiable
lack of brain. He was everybody's pet, as one who would never grow
up and who never minded paying. Pleasure, in Jacky's case, was no
feverishly-sought goal, but a state of being so customary as to
limit his interests. His wan little face, with its air of constant
innocence, was still that of a child. Whatever adventures he might
have had in connection with the stage door had left him unscarred. He
was still the delicious babe of his unripe years. Patricia found him
easily manageable; he had never even dared to put his arm round her
in a taxicab, although obviously he would have liked to venture this
exploit. She had a considerable sense of power when she was in his
company, and nothing had ever occurred to weaken it.
Jacky's idea of the evening was dinner in the West End, salted with
cocktails in plenty, with champagne, and with old brandy. Then a taxi
would carry them from Regent Street to South Hampstead in a fit state
to enjoy a rowdy dance, during which Jacky, laughing with joy, would
assist the band. But Patricia checked his enthusiasm. On no account
could she risk a meeting with Harry--she even dreaded that he might
appear at Monty's,--and her own plan was less ambitious. It was she who
named the restaurant--an obscure place to which she knew Harry would
never think of going; and Jacky was too mild of spirit to resist. They
went therefore to this shabby place--the Axminster--where all was faded
cream and gold, with rusty palms and magenta lamp-shades and artificial
flowers and vulgar mirrors and English waiters. It is true that Jacky's
face fell at sight of the bill of fare, and still more at the meagre
printed wine list (with alterations in a crabbed handwriting), but in
the midst of his furtive glance round preparatory to suggestion of
flight he was diverted by the sound of a popular one-step as played
to applause by the restaurant orchestra. He subsided, looking with
shallow-pated amusement at all the respectable men and women of middle
age who sat around them. If Jacky's simple-minded ingenuity in the
matter of painting the restaurant red came to nothing, at least, as
Patricia could tell, he was perfectly happy to be dining alone with
his goddess; and the meal was carried through, upon his part, with a
silence as complete as lack of ideas for conversation could make it.
iv
Patricia liked Jacky. Although silly and lacking in brains, he was
very honest and very good-natured. When she said to him that she was
out of sorts, and wanted to be quiet, he did not become fussy, and he
did not sulk. He did naturally what was the best thing to do in the
circumstances. When he thought of anything to say he said it, in his
queer unlettered English; and when he had nothing at all to say, he
cheerfully allowed himself to be silent. There was no difficulty at
all. Patricia, although she was in such a state of advanced conceit,
had one sweep of comprehension; and she was touched to the point of
moist eyes and an ejaculation.
"You _are_ a sport, Jacky!" she said, impetuously.
Jacky glowed. The colour came creeping up from behind his tall collar,
and he jerked his neck out of the collar with a nervous movement, as of
one whose throat has suddenly become swollen.
"Er ... Quite all right," he said, in his jargon. "Cheers; and all
that...."
No more was said. They ploughed a way unsuccessfully through an
ill-cooked meal, of which the major part was encased in thicknesses of
flour and water which had been very severely fried.
"Er ... saw old Harry," presently said Jacky. "Last
night--yesterday--I forget. He ... thought you were away, or something.
Thought you'd forgotten our evening. Jolly glad you turned up. Er....
Must have been your...."
"He's not coming, is he?" Patricia's head was down. She was struggling
to remain composed. That was what this meant: wherever she went she
would see Harry, would hear of him. And she knew she _wanted_ to see
him, _wanted_ to hear of him. It was the strangest sensation. Harry
to her was become a stranger; she realised that she knew nothing and
always had known nothing of his heart. But all the time she was deeply
concerned with him. He was a stranger; but he was the only stranger she
knew in that vast crowd of strangers. Patricia awaited Jacky's answer
with dread.
"I forget what he said," answered Jacky, slowly and vaguely. "No, I
don't think he could come. The old fellow was ... er ... some jolly old
thing or other. I quite forget."