i

She had seemed haggard when first Patricia had noticed her at the September party, and again upon their second meeting; but now, in that light, hooded, and in extremity of emotion, Blanche was a picture of unhappiness such as Patricia had never known. The long line of her face was sharply cut by the edge of the dark hood; her lips were a piteous thin gash of brilliance, almost like a new cut; her eyes were black diamonds. She stood within the room, pressed back against the door, listening and watching, her bleak glance entirely for Monty.

There was an instant's silence after her anguished cry. Monty's outstretched hands fell once more to his side. Patricia did not move: she was too horrified to do so. During that instant, when even the studio revelry was ignored, the hearts of all three might have stopped beating for all the motion visible. Then Patricia saw that Blanche's low breast was rising and falling very quickly, and the dark cloak fell away from her neck and showed the hollows at the base of Blanche's throat. But Blanche paid no heed. She was entirely absorbed in the moment. Only when Monty moved ever so little towards her did she speak.

"I didn't expect to find anybody here," Blanche said, hoarsely. "I didn't expect to find you...." She hesitated, and with a sort of dreary sarcasm completed her sentence, "... making a proposal of marriage. It seems rather odd. I didn't ... expect it. I wonder if you quite mean it...."

Monty said to Patricia:

"We're interrupted, you see." His shoulders were a little raised; but his face gave no sign of whatever emotion he might be feeling. With the emergency, he had slipped back into that unreadable air of reserve which at first had been for Patricia such a strong attraction. It showed, she now knew, as much caution as self-control; but the silent person in a quarrel is always at an advantage. His head was sunk upon his shoulders, and the heavy outline of his jaw was projected, as though his teeth were firmly clenched.

"I see we're interrupted." Patricia took two or three steps towards the door. She was still in a state of suppressed excitement, and was half blind with the continued emotional tension. "Mrs. Tallentyre," she said, impulsively. "Monty didn't quite mean his proposal of marriage; but if he had meant it I shouldn't have ... taken it seriously. How d'you do?"

For the first time Blanche took notice of Patricia. She turned her eyes from Monty and looked from Patricia's head to her feet, as if with intent deliberately to ignore her. When she spoke again her eyes were averted.

"What are you doing here?" she asked coldly. She was imperious, like a mistress who has discovered a servant in the act of prying.

"Monty has a party," answer Patricia, trying to control her excitement and to speak in an ordinary tone. "But I don't understand what.... What is it to do with you?" In spite of her effort, and perhaps because of it, she found herself trembling with anger. "I don't understand you."

Blanche sneered. A look of contempt passed across her face. The bitter, anxious eyes darted at Patricia a quick glance of scorn.

"You're impertinent!" she cried, and was again as if frozen.

"No, Blanche. This is really intolerable, you know," put in Monty, anger in his own contemptuous tone. "We're not at the Lyceum now. Patricia is here as my guest."

"And you are proposing to her. I interrupted you. I'm sorry." Blanche gave a brusque laugh. But she did not move from her position at the door.

"And now I'm going," said Patricia. She made as if to do so, but looked from one to the other of them in uncertainty that was not without indignation. Her heart was fluttering.

"No. You asked what right I had to...." Blanche moved her arm stiffly, and Patricia saw its wretched thinness, and the ugly bone at the elbow. "Of course, I haven't any right...."

"You really mustn't make a scene, my dear Blanche," interposed Monty. "It's quite out of the piece, so to speak. You interrupted a conversation...."

"I came, because I wanted to see you, Monty," said Blanche. "But the conversation I interrupted concerns me very vitally. Miss Quin, you may not be to blame. I can't tell. It's all so ... peculiar. You're only a vain little fool, of course. But Monty has no right to offer you marriage."

"I can assure you," answered Patricia, with undesignedly offensive coolness which arose from her fear and her effort at self-control, "that that doesn't in the least matter."

"And now, good-night, Patricia. I'll see you to the door," said Monty.

"No!" Blanche pressed back. "Miss Quin: Monty and I have quarrelled. We quarrelled here a fortnight ago, and he has not answered my letters——"

"My dear Blanche! The story of our quarrel—" Monty approached, seizing Blanche's arm. He could quite easily have torn her from the door and made way for Patricia, and that was clearly his object. His hand was to her elbow, and Blanche was already bent to exert her strength in resistance. But as Monty's grip tightened, she said in a very low tone:

"Do you want me to scream, and bring the others? Then let go my arm."

Patricia's saw Monty's teeth bared, his left fist clenched. And then he stood back a little way.

"You're doing yourself no good, you know," he said presently, in his caressing voice. "Only harm. Poor fool that you are."

"Miss Quin——"

Patricia spoke entreatingly. She went closer to Blanche, her voice low and her hands appealing.

"Mrs. Tallentyre, is there any need for me to hear? I was going when you came: my one wish is to go now. You're mistaken in me. You needn't have any thought——"

"Please let me tell you. For a fortnight I have been ill. I have written to Monty, and he has not answered my letters. This afternoon I received, without a letter, a thousand pounds in bank-notes. From Monty, you understand. A thousand pounds. It was my solatium. I was to take the thousand pounds, and—good-bye! You understand that, also? You're very quick."

During all this time, Monty stood with his back turned to Blanche, and his hands in his pockets. He appeared not to be listening, but to be thinking of another matter. Such disregard was to be expected of him; but at this point he showed that he had been listening intently. He wheeled round with angering insolence, his eyes widely opened, his head thrown back.

"Oh," said Monty, as if with surprise. "You've come to chaffer!"

ii

Blanche flinched, and Patricia—stung to loyalty for one so helpless in face of the power to insult—felt a sudden outgoing of pity for her.

"You poor thing!" she cried vehemently. "You're suffering!"

"Oh, don't be sentimental!" cried Blanche, in a harsh, impatient voice. She jerked her head in pain. "I haven't come to chaffer, and I've got no use for your school-girl sympathy. Keep that for your own wounds. I'm dealing with real things, as Monty will discover in a minute. You, with your silly baby face, haven't the heart to understand. You.... But I'm forgetting. Monty won't like me to speak harshly to his promised bride. He'll——"

"I'm not!" shouted Patricia, suddenly out of control. "I wouldn't!" She was sparkling with temper; and yet remained staring at Blanche. Her feelings were in tumult—indignation in conflict with fear, and both with pity. "Nothing can keep me from being sorry for you," she said, "because you're unhappy. I don't like you. I don't like you. But I'm sorry for you."

"Well, that's very nice," drawled Blanche. "It's so nice for women to feel for one another."

"If you've not come for Patricia's pity, and not come to raise the thousand pounds, which, after all, is quite a generous sum—" began Monty.

"During all the time we've known each other, I've taken no money from you, Monty. D'you realise that? You couldn't realise it! It's not in your nature to realise it, because you're avaricious yourself, and find avariciousness.... Oh, God...." Blanche's voice dropped wearily. "Haven't I heard your views of money.... Don't I know you, Monty? How well I know you. Too well! No, I haven't come for money. I don't want it. I wouldn't take money——"

"But, my dear, you must," Monty said. He turned quickly, and came towards her, ignoring Patricia, whom he had forgotten. "It's the only thing I can give you. Look, I'll make it two thousand. I want to be generous——"

"Generous! My God!" whispered Patricia. She raised her hands in an unconscious gesture. Was it really thus that Monty—that such men—computed generosity? In guineas? She was distraught.

"But it's no good to think that you and I can go on," Monty was continuing. "We can't go on." Even here he was speaking slowly and deliberately, in that thick, sweet voice which was so seldom raised beyond quietness. "Our interest is gone. The whole thing's finished, you know."

Blanche looked at him, her face drawn, and her lips parted in a miserable smile.

"Finished, yes," she said. "You're tired of me. That I realise. I realised it long ago. Tant pis. But it isn't finished." She shook her head. "Five years ago I was tired of Fred. I met you. Now you're tired. But you've forgotten Fred."

"Fred!" exclaimed Monty. "What's he got to do with it?" His voice was suddenly coarse with cruelty. "He doesn't count. It's nothing to do with him."

"That's why I came," said Blanche, very low. "All this time Fred's been wondering why I didn't care for him...."

"Look here, Blanche," said Monty, quietly. "It's no good to threaten me. You know that!"

"I'm not threatening you, my dear," returned Blanche, with a shudder. "But it seems that Fred's found a little girl he wants to marry."

"Fred!" cried Monty. He seemed astounded. Behind his air of surprise his thoughts moved with the speed of lightning. "What d'you mean?"

"Just that. You see, he's had me watched," answered Blanche. "He says he's got all he needs. So I've brought you back your money. He's vengeful, Monty. He'll go for damages."

iii

Patricia conceived the situation. Blanche, consumed with that hot, wasting love which is concentrated upon the fear of loss, watched, trapped by a husband as unscrupulous as herself; Monty, at first passionate, as he had been with Patricia herself, and with more success, with his love tiring, bent upon extrication, also watched, trapped; herself, a spectator, half-guilty as the result of foolish recklessness, trapped here, but possessing the power of flight. She could escape, and would eventually do so; but there was no escape for Blanche. There was none, perhaps, for Monty. Ugly love, ugly renunciation, and a squalid sequel; and what then! No hope for Blanche! Nothing for that poor, haggard woman with the ugly elbows and the glittering wretched eyes of a dumb creature in pain. There was even no future for her. Patricia was appalled. And Monty's clumsy attempt—so grossly insensitive—to close the intrigue with money.... Why had he chosen this way? A quarrel there had been, a parting, some coarse-grained assumption and deliberate plan to make the parting "equitable" and final. He must have had some urgent reason. Herself? Monty gave a jeering laugh.

"Well, done, Fred," he said quietly. And then, after a pause: "And where's his evidence? He's bluffing, Blanche."

"You say that...." Blanche contemptuously answered. "He's not bluffing, Monty. He's got an object. I know. And it isn't money. It's the little girl."

"But, good God, what's that to do with me?" demanded Monty. "Or, for that matter, with you? Nothing. Nothing whatever. Any little girl, at Fred's age, isn't going to be particularly squeamish about marriage. You've only to look at Fred, too. She must be out for what she can get. Oh, no, it's absurd. Take it from me, Blanche, he's bluffing!"

While Patricia, more impressed than ever, was filled with consternation at this inside glimpse of the working of Monty's mind, Blanche sighed. Perhaps it was no revelation to her? Were, then, all people at bottom coarse, cynical? Was she herself? Patricia recoiled from a question. Again she had the sense of comparing those anxious, ghastly eyes to the eyes of a monkey, which seem to hold all misery, and anxiously to survey a treacherous and sophisticated and bewildering world. So might her own eyes have looked if they had indeed, at this moment, mirrored her dread.

"You'll see," at last Blanche answered quietly, after a moment's pause.

Monty shrugged his shoulders. He was not so obstinate in his belief as his speech made him appear. Already he was searching in his memory for occasions, for details, for possible spies. An idea occurred to him.

"Jacobs?" he asked. "Impossible."

Blanche shook her head. Patricia, watching her, thought she was paler. The brilliant lips were hardly parted as she spoke.

"Nothing's impossible," answered Blanche, drawing her breath quickly.

Monty looked at her with sudden attention. Suspicion darted to his eyes.

"You?" he cried. "Not you, Blanche?" His face had crimsoned. Again Blanche slowly shook her head.

"Nothing's impossible," she repeated.

iv

It was then only that she took further notice of Patricia, to whom she made a slight ironic inclination of the head. While Monty stood with that brooding glance of suspicion still directed upon her, his doubt, once awakened not easily to be dispelled, Blanche opened the door.

"You want to go, don't you?" she said. "Well, you can go now. We shall get along better without you now. I hope you've been edified. You've seen Monty, and you've seen me, and you've learnt quite a lot that you won't be able to repeat. It'll do you good. You once said that the world was full of women who had found out too late. I wish that you could be one of them. I should enjoy it. Now go."

Patricia, in silence, passed from the room, and into the hall; and the door was closed again. Monty had not spoken. She was alone in the hall, which rose lofty and spacious above her head to a painted ceiling, the whole in a brilliant blue. Around the ceiling ran a strip of shaded light, the reflection of which made the hall's illumination. The walls were hung with thick brilliant curtains which deadened all sound, and thick rugs lay along the polished parquet flooring. Only by the door stood a single small piece of statuary, a reproduction of a classic fragment. There seemed to be a stifling heaviness in the air, as of scent, so much had she been affected by the late scenes. Patricia paused here as one in a dream, bowed and trembling, but with emotion that was new to her. She was no longer afraid or angry; but she was pierced through and through with the longing for contact with something unquestionably clean.

She had reached the heavy front door. Her hand was outstretched to the catch. And then she hesitated. This poignant desire was irresistible. It was the longing to be assoiled. Only by such contact could she recover purity, could she be at peace. Memory flashed a thought into Patricia's mind. With a glance across her shoulder, a hasty step to the wide staircase, a pause for intent listening, she ran back into the room from which she had a short time before taken her hat and coat.