i

Patricia undressed, still trembling, still with a set face and a false air of coolness. Only when she was in bed was she hysterically filled with anger for herself, and contempt, almost with self-horror. She could not comprehend herself or her own stupidity, so great was her longing for love and understanding.

"Love—yes; but understanding!" He could understand her in happiness—now, at dinner, at the dance. But as she grew older, as she needed guidance and wisdom? Never! That was her thought of Harry, the first wild sweep of anger at his deficiency. "He'd never understand me—never!" And then again she demanded of the silence, striking the pillow with her vehemence: "Why—why—why?" Why had she so shrunk from love? Excuses poured into her mind, the more vehement because she felt them to be invalid. It had been a mood, this rejection of his love. She wasn't accountable for her moods. She said definite things without knowing them to be definite—without meaning them to be definite. It wasn't final. It wasn't. Then self-anger again grew uppermost. "You fool! You little fool!" she cried aloud. Then again: "I'm not ready. I don't know what love is. I only want to be loved. I don't want to love and be loved—not finally, like this; not give myself up to it. Only like a little girl. I don't love him. I felt it. I've just been playing ... I can't love him! If I did, I should be sure. I shouldn't think ... of all this ... of his not ... of my growing out of him.... I should be proud—overwhelmed. I'm not proud. Not overwhelmed. He's only selfish. I could tell. Anybody could have told. The feeling was all wrong. It was.... He's kissed other girls. They were proud—willing.... He wants love in his way—not mine. He can't have it. I'm not sure. I've got to be sure. It's for life. He must give me time. I felt he wouldn't.... And yet I do love him so.... Harry! My dear!" She pressed her lips to her own fingers, kissing them sweetly. "I wanted him to kiss me. I liked it. I wanted it. I wouldn't let him.... How could I be so beastly—so beastly! I couldn't have kissed him. I've thought of it—liked the idea of it. It's the reality—cowardice. Oh, I'm afraid of life. It's all very well to play and dream—lovesick girl. When a man really.... It wouldn't have been right. It wouldn't have been true. It can't be right to feel like this! I'm sophisticated. I want love, and not love,—love and friendship and wisdom and understanding—somebody to understand me; somebody delicate and wise ... beautiful.... I want too much. You can't ask...."

With a mind distraught, she turned upon the pillow, until it grew hot and seemed to rasp her cheeks; and her head ached and her eyes and lips burned and the room seemed overpoweringly full of stale air. She could see the darkness out of doors, and hear the wind tearing and pressing in wild gusts out of doors, and soot whispering down the chimney, like mice foraging in a newspaper. The wooden rod at the foot of the hanging linen blind knocked against the casement until she was frenzied; and she rose passionately to draw the blind to its full height, out of the draught. Standing there in the darkness she could feel the cold air upon her raised arm and her breast, and in a moment through her thin nightgown. And all the time her lips were drawn back and down in this great distress and self-blame which had come suddenly into her blithe days. And she realised that it had all been implicit in her blitheness, that only a young girl could have supposed that the postponement could go on for as long as her delight in it was maintained.

"If only I had something to drink I should feel better!" cried Patricia, on an impulse. She went to the washstand, and the carafe was empty. The water-jug was empty. Lucy had forgotten to fill it. Even here the catastrophe was a futility, a humiliation, a further exasperation. She was maddened. She was shaken and jangled. Rage swept her. "Oh, damn!" she cried. "Everything! It's awful!"

With her hands in her mouth, Patricia turned back towards the bed, and leant against the foot of it; and sobs shook her body, so bitterly that she was afraid her crying would be overheard, and crept back to bed to cover herself and stifle the noise. It was the great strong dreadful crying of a little girl who had been disappointed of some dearest wish. It was not a woman's crying at all. It was the result of shock and self-contempt; but it was not the heartbreaking sorrow of the hopeless woman. Patricia would yet laugh again—would laugh, perhaps even at herself. But now she could see only her own cowardice, and she was in despair.

Presently the crying ceased, and Patricia began to talk to herself, very softly, as a little girl who has been desperately unhappy will sometimes do; and because there was nobody in the world to comfort her she began to try and comfort herself, speaking between small spasmodic sobs, and explaining and cheering, as the mother she could not remember might have done. It was poor cheer; but it gradually began to soothe her. And at last, lingeringly, in pity for herself at having nobody to console her for ignorance and uncertainty, Patricia began refreshingly to cry. Long afterwards, while it was still dark, she fell asleep.

ii

When Lucy banged into the room in the morning Patricia still slept, her little pale face deep in the pillow, and her hair tumbled; and she would have continued to sleep if Lucy, in stumping across to the window, had not been reminded of her failure to fill the carafe and water-jug.

"Gawd love a duck!" exclaimed Lucy, at which Patricia awoke.

She could vaguely see a pink dress, very soiled, and a big dirty apron surrounding a stumpy body, and a little cap, and the dirty red smudge which she knew to be Lucy's face.

"Good morning," said Patricia drowsily, still hardly conscious of the day.

"I've said it once," cried Lucy, emphasising the sibilants until she appeared to hiss. "I said it as I come in. And now I've got to traipse all the way downstairs again to get you some cole water! What a life!"

"Well, Lucy," said Patricia, putting her head out of bed. "I don't think you can blame me for that. In fact I was very annoyed last night, when I was thirsty, to find there wasn't any. I might have parched to death."

"You didden brush your teeth larce night, I can see," retorted Lucy. "Got 'ome too late, I s'pose, and frightened of the beetles." She clucked her tongue in reproof. "Your young man wouldn' like to know that about you!"

"Don't be coarse, Lucy. I did forget to brush my teeth. But it's the first time for months."

"Gawd. Some people wants a nursie always after them! I got no time for it. Not myself, I 'aven't. I s'pose I got to get your water now. Don't want to scald yourself. 'E wouldn' like that, neither!"

An idea shot into Patricia's head. She had a sudden cowardice about getting up. What if Harry had written? She felt she simply could not face all the possible sequels to last night's scene. It was terrifying! As she lay there she definitely feared the day, and its outcome. All the time Lucy was away, Patricia was trembling with apprehensiveness. She would run away—she would burn a letter—she would.... Ghastly possibilities flew through her mind. Lucy had hardly re-entered, panting and noisy, before the inquiry was launched alarmingly at her.

"Lucy, is there a letter for me?" demanded Patricia, in a betrayingly self-conscious and unsteady voice.

"No!" said the smudge, rather severely. "There ain't! But there's some nice cole kipper, if you 'urry."

She disappeared, while Patricia, half-relieved and half tearful, with a sinking heart, put her head back under the clothes, feeling ill and doleful and heavy with trepidation.

iii

There was a long silence. It was not that Patricia was asleep, although she was so tired. She was malingering. A fond mother would have been misled. She almost, in that rÔle, convinced herself. But she knew that Lucy would never be a willing dupe, and something about Lucy's wholly unsentimental attitude towards ill-health alarmed Patricia. It was not, however, until she was stung by a bitter thought that she rolled back the bedclothes and paddled her bare feet upon the floor.

"I'm just like Amy, with Jack Penton!" was the thought. "How horrible!"

That thought stayed with Patricia during the whole of her bathing and washing. She was appalled by it. No criticism could have been more withering.

"But Harry would never be like Jack!" she exclaimed, with certainty. "He'd never stay on the chance that I'd change my mind. With him it's one thing or the other. I wonder...."

It was a possibility. Perhaps it was the solution. Patricia felt brighter. Of course! Why had she not thought of it before? She would say to Harry, and it would be an extremely reasonable speech: "Harry, I do think I love you. But I want to make sure. Can we go on as we are—just being friends—for the present?" "Of course, old girl," Harry would say. "I don't want to hurry you, if you're not sure. Just try me for a little while." Patricia laughed, as she imagined him saying that. Harry would laugh, too. She would.... Her eyes sparkled. She became demure.

Suddenly, in her imagining, Harry turned sharply to her. "By the way," he said. "How long am I to wait?" Patricia answered very quickly. "Well, I couldn't marry you until I got a trousseau, could I?"

She had awakened in a very different state of mind from that in which she had slept. Far from the danger, she had become quite bold. It seemed at this moment as though she had almost made up her mind.

"But I haven't ... really," said Patricia. "I'm only brave in the morning, because the danger isn't urgent." It was true. She had floated back into her dream of love. The reality no longer disturbed her. Slowly her mind returned to the bitter thought which had driven her out of bed. Supposing Harry said: "Now or never!" What then? Immediately her courage oozed away. She shook her head, and became very grave. Even in her drowsy state of unreality she still knew that she must play the game. "I can't give him up!" she thought. Then she laughed without glee. "I'm like Amy. I know it. Why am I like her? Are all girls like her? Impossible! I shall go and see Amy. It'll be good for me. I'll go this very afternoon!"

iv

Over breakfast, the nature and temperature of which was as Lucy had prophesied, and of which she could therefore eat little, Patricia had a cunning insight. Harry was not in the habit of accepting refusals. If he wanted a thing he went for it. Therefore, supposing his work did not prevent, he might call for her at any time during the day. He would come.... She was seized with panic. No message would send him away, and she was not in a state to see him.

"You silly!" cried Patricia.

All the same, she could not see Harry until she was more composed. It would be impossible. Consent won from her in such circumstances, she knew, would be disastrous. Instinct was sound there! She knew herself well enough to realise that coercion of her impulses would result—not in submission, as it might do in the case of girls less neurotic, but in inhibitions. Therefore she must not see Harry until she was calmer, until she could freely give him the love he demanded. To know this, and to foresee his possible arrival, was to take instant action. She looked out of the window. Last night's storm had been appropriately followed by morning calm. The few clouds in the sky immediately visible from her room were white, and they were racing ferociously to the east. That meant more rain. She would go prepared; but she could not stay at home another minute without increasing her danger.

Quick! Her mackintosh, her waterproof cap! Her handbag, gloves.... In fresh panic, Patricia gathered these necessary things and hurried down the stairs.

"Lucy!" she called to the kitchen. "I'm going out. All day. If anybody comes, say you don't know when I'll be back."

"Righto, miss!" came a faint call in response.

The gusty wind slammed the front door behind her. A hasty glance along the street showed that the path was still clear. With lowered head and beating heart Patricia made her escape, laughing a little at her own fears. Some exultation showed itself also in her inner consciousness—a vanity, a something of the heart. After all, it was something to have a lover of whose determination one could be happily afraid! Panic had its core of delight!

v

An omnibus carried Patricia to Charing Cross, and she walked over to the National Gallery. It was not open yet. The beginning of her day was inauspicious. It became necessary that she should wander about the streets, looking in shops, unless she could think of some alternative to her first improvised plan. She glanced up at the sky, and the rapid movement of the clouds gave her inspiration. The sky was brilliantly blue, and a draughty day in London might well be delightful in the country. But where, cheaply, could she go? The nearest open space would be the best. It required but a moment's reflection to decide what to do. Another omnibus would take her to Hampstead. And so she was once again in movement, and, looking over the side of the vehicle with a curled lip of distaste and a sharp wonder at the people who could bear to live in such districts, she passed through the dinginess of Camden Town and Gospel Oak. From the point of arrival, where the omnibuses rested awhile before they returned once again on their unsteady journey, she quickly reached the Heath.

It was very windy, and the ground beneath her feet was soggy with the rain; but Patricia trudged on valiantly, looking back from the height over that grey fog of rising smoke which marked the daily life of nearer London. All about her was a wide stretch of green, rising and falling from one round height to a lowland where several large ponds spread their black waters. The Heath, and the Parliament Hill Fields, were deserted. It was not the time of year, nor the day of the week, for this enormous and house-bound green to be peopled. Even children were at school. Only an occasional old gentleman or loitering out-of-work passed her, with hastily averted eyes of resentment and fear, and occasionally a girl or nurse with young children in a perambulator ambled by, munching fruit or studying a novelette as she trusted to the rim of grass to keep her path true. The paths yielded to Patricia's feet; the grass concealed mud, and was treacherous. But the fresh air was most sweet, and the exercise improved her morale, and every trouble in the world seemed to have drifted to a convenient distance. Patricia was breathing deeply with relief.

She walked upon the Heath for a couple of hours, and sat awhile upon a seat, exposed to every wind, until the cold began to make her uncomfortable; and then, with a plunge, she returned to the point from which the omnibuses start. Within half-an-hour Patricia was back in the West End, very much better, very much more able to enjoy the crowds in Regent Street and Oxford Street. A short tour brought her to the end of the shops, and she found it was lunchtime. Still further refreshed by a light meal at a neighbouring teashop, she returned to the National Gallery; and stared at pictures until the extremely tiring pastime made her begin to yawn. Patricia knew that it was now—if she was going to keep to the schedule of her planned day—her duty to call upon Amy, and to Amy's studio in Fitzroy Street she accordingly went on foot.

Arrival at Amy's found her weary and depressed. She had begun once more to take a pessimistic view of her own affairs. When she had rung the bell Patricia had a momentary inclination to run away. To endure a talk here was the last thing for which she was prepared. It had been a ridiculous proposal. She wavered, feeling demoralised. The impulse to flight, however, was frustrated by the appearance at the door of Amy herself, very white and very puffy about the eyes, with a cigarette between her discoloured fingers, and her dress crumpled as though she had been lying down. Her short light-coloured hair was also rough, which strengthened the first quick impression. She looked ill and discontented.

"Oh, it's you," said Amy, not very agreeably. "I thought you'd forgotten I existed."

"Oh, how unkind, Amy. When I've come to see you!" cried Patricia, in rebuke.

"It's about time." Amy, after this laconic protest against neglect, led the way to the studio, and closed the door. Her gas-fire was fully alight, and a book lay face downwards upon a table which bore the remains of a meagre lunch. The bed had been made, and the brilliantly coloured spread was over it, but the studio was untidy and unswept. The early dusk was darkening it, and the whole place had a dispirited air which chilled the visitor to the heart.

"I'm not going to excuse myself," continued Patricia, briskly, to cover her shrinking. "I'm a beast, and I know it, and I'm sorry. Don't be hard on me. I've been having a rushing time. How are you?"

Amy looked at her sourly, and Patricia was shocked to see how thoroughly ill she seemed. There was increased discontent in her expression, and the unkempt air she wore showed that Amy was taking no care of herself or of her person.

"I've seen you; and I've heard about you," Amy said.

"I hope I looked nice." Patricia was being painfully cheeky, because she was afraid. She had never been so afraid as she had been since her parting with Harry. "Are you all right?" The question was not merely perfunctory: it was drawn from her by real pity.

"No. I'm not. Patricia, I feel perfectly awful. Not with you—everything. I can't work, I can't do anything. I don't know what I shall do. I feel desperate."

"What's been happening?" Full of concern, Patricia turned from throwing her mackintosh over a chair, and regarded Amy with eyes in which contempt and dread mingled with her sympathy.

"Nothing's been happening. That's just it. I can't paint. I never could paint. It's all ridiculous. Ridiculous!" The words were blurted out in a breathless voice of pain. "I'm in hell!"

And with that Amy began to cry. Patricia put an arm round her, and felt the poor creature sobbing. But no tears came; the sobs were long drawn and agonised; and Amy could not weep.

"And nobody's come near you!" murmured Patricia, stricken with conscience. "Oh, you poor thing. You poor thing!" Amy jerked herself free, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief that had been soiled with paint. She stood there all puckered, terribly hostile to consolation.

"Don't!" she choked. "I can't stand being pawed! All the damned fools in the world have come. Damn them! Grinning and ... Damn!" She began to blow her nose and to wipe her eyes, looking inexpressibly forlorn in her little linen dress without a waist. It was a piteous sight. An old woman stood there, facing bitter knowledge. Patricia could see that Amy's face was swollen with crying. She was evidently in a state of wretched misery, and yet what could be done? Nothing! Desiring pity, comfort, sympathy, Amy could yield herself to none of these, and her hysterical scorn for them was devastating. There was a long silence, awkward and increasingly embarrassed. Patricia stared downward, biting her lip, oppressed with the knowledge of her helplessness. When she spoke she could hear her own words, and her false voice, and the emptiness of her emotion.

"You'd better go away for a holiday," she suggested. "Go down to Cornwall."

"No." Amy jerked with impatient unhappiness. She was like a desperate animal that snarls at a rescuer. "I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anybody." She controlled herself with a fierce effort, moving a few steps this way and that, and smoking furiously, until the cigarette was glowing and burning her lips. For a time during this paroxysm of fury there was silence; and then Amy went on in a curious dry disinterested voice: "Sit down, Patricia. Tell me what you've been doing. No, I'm all right. I'll stand up. I can't bear to keep still. Got a cigarette?" She lighted the fresh one from her burning stump, in the same grievous way leaning against the mantelpiece and again starting erect with nervous lack of self-control; and every now and then she was shaken by a sob. Without waiting for Patricia's narrative, Amy went on viciously: "That brute Felix has been spiteful about me—and I don't care. I don't care! I'd like to kill him—all of them. All these grinning apes.... I know I can't paint. I'm no good at it. I never shall be any good. Well? What's it to do with them? They're all as glad ... because I'm a woman. That's what it is. What it comes down to is naked sex jealousy. I know. I've known it all the time. And I've gone on, pretending to believe it, pretending I was taken in. I wasn't. They thought I didn't know they laughed at me. Well, I did. And it's I who laugh at them. I despise them. I'm no good; but they're no good, either! And I've told them so. There's that...."

Her voice had grown louder and more hysterical as she progressed. Patricia stood rooted, quite overcome by this torrential violence of anger and chagrin and revelation. But Amy's voice changed again. Almost beseechingly, she turned to her friend.

"But what am I to do, Patricia? I've spent all this money—pounds and pounds of it—and worked and worked and worked; and kept on and on, hoping ... refusing to see." Then, suddenly again out of all control, she shouted. "And it's no good! D'you see? It's no good!" The suppressed rage in her voice was as if saturated with the bitter tears which she could not shed. The tears started to Patricia's eyes in sympathy. She was suffused with conscience-stricken loyalty.

"Where's Jack?" she demanded, fiercely. "What's he doing?"

"Jack!" It was almost a scream. "God! I hate the sight of him. Hate the sound of his rusty voice."

"D'you see him?"

"Do I not!" Amy was concentrated scorn. "Every evening! He comes to cheer me up; and I could kill him, I'm so bored! He's driving me mad!"

Patricia made a little sound with her tongue. Here, if ever, was the occasion for Jack to be strong, to control matters. He must be stupid—stupid! She shook her head, frowning.

"Amy, dear; it's such a pity for you to be making yourself ill like this. Couldn't you...."

"I'm gloating in it!" came Amy's shrill interruption. "I'm enjoying it. It's not often a woman comes up against the sex war as clearly as this. If it had been a man—oh, very different. They'd have stopped me. They'd have criticised me sick. They'd have had no more consideration for my feelings than for a dog's feelings. But I'm a woman—to be teased and lured and flattered and laughed at. What d'you suppose all the praise of woman is? You see us praised. Yes, and why? To keep us quiet. Like giving sweets to a baby. Praise is our comforter. It's not meant. A man's given a chance to learn that he's a fool. We're not. We're up against honeyed lies. It's cotton-wool everywhere, for us, until we're broken by it. And all the time they're laughing—sniggering at us behind our backs. They don't care. They fool us to the top of our bent. They praise our daubs and our abortions of books; and to themselves they're doubled up with laughter. That's what woman's freedom means. That's what equality of the sexes means. It means broken hearts for women. Broken hearts for bloody failures! Oh, my God, my God, my heart will break!"

vi

She began once more convulsively to sob; and Patricia, who was now herself white and shaken as the result of this tirade, was stricken with fear for her reason. These ghastly, tearing sobs were unbearable. They echoed in the lofty studio, rising, sometimes almost to the pitch of screams. For ten minutes they lasted, and then, gradually, with returns and relaxations of violence, Amy became quiet, and lay on her bed, drying her eyes. Long afterwards she began to talk in what was very nearly her ordinary voice.

"There, that's enough," she said. "I'm a fool. You're bad for me, Patricia. You make me lose my head. You look so kind and pretty, and as if you understood, which of course you don't in the least. No, if Jack was any good to me, I'd marry him at once just to get out of it. But a man who bores you is no good. I should leave him on the train somewhere, poor fool that he is. It's no good. We're all alone, Patricia. Each of us. You think you're not——"

"I know I am," swiftly corrected Patricia.

"Oho! So you're getting it, too. We all do, sooner or later; and you're the sort of pretty little fool who gets caught by her vanity. I've done it. You'll have a bad time before you're done. Yes, now I look at you I see you're a bit peaky. I suppose it's Harry Greenlees. Harry Greenlees, Good God!" Amy laughed with a strained satirical note. "Well, I warned you. I could have told you about all sorts of girls he's treated the same——"

Patricia's heart stopped beating for an instant.

"All sorts of girls?" she cried. "What d'you mean?"

Amy looked at her sharply, her face transformed, almost venomous. "Well, little Jean Cowley went away with him. It was all over in a month. They hardly notice each other now. She's through it. He's been the lover of half-a-dozen girls I know——"

"I don't believe you!" cried Patricia, perfectly white with anger.

Amy looked back with a superciliousness as great as her own.

"Jean Cowley told me all about it herself. I'm not a liar. Penelope Gorran ... Phyllis Mickle...."

"Amy!"

"I know what I'm talking about."

"Not whom you're talking to, though!" cried Patricia.

Amy became for the first time really intense. She rose from the bed and came across the studio, and Patricia could see her red eyes and the terrible white face all disfigured with angry grief.

"You're not his mistress, are you?" demanded Amy. "You poor fool!"

How far Patricia had travelled since their previous talk about girls and their lovers. She was not now stricken with shame at such a suggestion. She was merely indignant.

"Be quiet, Amy!" she cried. "You can't talk like that!"

Amy gave a short laugh, raising her arms in the air in a gesture of offensive marvel.

"Beautiful!" she said. "Beautiful!"

As they faced each other, both desperately angry, with opposed glances of hostility, breathing quickly in their common agitation, there came a ringing at the bell of Amy's studio. Slowly the blood rose and flooded Patricia's cheeks. She knew who was without. All her anger died. Its place was taken by fear. She was paralysed, knowing that the moment she had dreaded was upon her.

vii

Harry entered the studio with impetuosity, and his height and energy made it a normal-sized room. He made no pretence of having come to see Amy, but as soon as he caught sight of Patricia he addressed her.

"I thought I might find you here," he said, and stopped. His eyes embraced her, and Patricia's heart leapt. Then, uncontrollably, she turned away while Harry looked at Amy. "Sorry to be unceremonious; but I'd been to Patricia's," he said cheerfully. "Found she was out. How are you, Amy? I hear you've been having a fracas with old Felix. Poor old Felix! I wonder how he's feeling now, eh? Jolly rough on him—what? Now I want to get hold of Patricia, because we're going to a football match on Saturday, and didn't fix up a time of meeting. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all!" said Amy, sarcastically. "Ignore me. Use my studio as your own. Interrupt a conversation with the greatest assurance——"

"Thanks," answered Harry, not troubling to be polite. "I will." His blue eyes had their steel; and his cheerful face its grimness. "Now, Patricia...."

"Now, Harry." Patricia was recovering her nerve. At his insincerity, 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.