Half-past seven, and the appointed restaurant. A revolving door, brilliant lights, warmth a general air of opulence; and Patricia found herself in a small entrance hall, at one side of which attendants wrested their outer garments from all men. She had noticed before that no man may enter a restaurant with his hat and coat, although a woman may sit in her furs all the evening; but she had never understood the meaning of this differentiation between the sexes. Before her, several people were sitting, as if waiting for others; and in a fireplace glowed what she at first took to be a real fire. A sandy young man was perched upon the edge of a chair, gnawing his under-lip, and ever and again flirting his wrist out of his sleeve as he checked the lateness of a friend. Two highly refined women talked in loud voices about their private affairs, extraordinarily self-conscious in face of the sandy young man. They broke off in order to stare at Patricia in a well-bred manner, and resumed their conversation in a slightly lower key. The young man looked again at his wristwatch.

Patricia, for her part, was frowning. She was punctual, because she was always punctual. And she expected any host to be punctual also. Harry's lateness, when she had arrived so eager, chilled her. She stood hesitating, only half-aware of those others who were in the small room with her. She had imagined something very different—an arrival, and Harry's greeting as eager as her own. When she had so carefully refrained from the coquetry of lateness it was only right that he should have done the same. She was chagrined. There came back into her mind—by what connection she could not have said, since she was only half-conscious of her own flying sensations—memory of her distaste for his jokes about personal cleanliness.

And while she stood there, a little wavering, all her doubts were dispersed. There was drawn across every unpleasant thought an oblivion so complete as to be annihilating. Patricia had seen the half-filled restaurant through the bevelled glass panes of another door, and had been aware of a muffled noise of conversation and the sounds common to all restaurants; and as she waited she saw a quick movement of black and white. The door was burst open. The black and white, so tall as to be unmistakable, gave place in her eyes to Harry's sparkling countenance. He was at her side, as full of verve as he had ever been in the football field, delightfully impetuous.

"Hul-lo!" he cried in greeting. "I say, I'm so sorry! I was just ordering the dinner. It's only just half-past, isn't it?"

Patricia was electrically happy. The life in her responded to the life in him. They were two vital creatures, meeting and delighted; and as she went with him into the restaurant those diners who were conveniently placed were all moved to attentiveness at the sight of such health and radiance. With her spirits mounting to expectation itself, Patricia suffered the waiters to wedge her behind a small table which Harry had reserved in the corner of the shining golden restaurant. She was dazzled by a thousand lights and reflections, her heart dancing, and her eyes so dangerously tender that she instinctively withheld them from Harry's inspection.

ii

"I say!" exclaimed Harry. "This is superb, you know!" He was looking at her brilliant dress, upon which nobody had thought to make any comment on the previous evening. "I've never seen anything to beat it." The dress was quite plain; but the taste which had planned it was manifest. Both the material from which it was made and the delicate silk with which its adornments had been fashioned were sun-coloured. Every light made it richer, more simple, more effective. He was full of admiration. Patricia was rewarded. She knew now that she had thought of Harry all the time she had been employed in the long task of preparing the dress. She made no reply. He resumed impetuously: "I could have murdered that girl of yours the other night. Somehow I'd reckoned on finding you at home."

"I was at Amy's."

"Oh!" He was astonished. "I almost went on to her."

"Monty and Jack Penton were there, too. They came in after dinner."

Harry frowned. It was his turn to do so. But it was not a very serious frown, as Patricia, glancing side-ways, could see.

"Oh, the old fat man!" he lightly commented. "I don't know Penton. I mean, I've met him, but I can't remember him."

"Did you go and see Mr. Mayne?"

Harry shook his head.

"No. I wasn't serious. One can't push one's self." His teeth showed, not in a smile, but as if in some habitual expression. "He's not my sort."

"He's very kind."

Harry laughed.

"Exactly," he said. His eyes were upon her, so eager as to be devouring. "You know, I'm most awfully glad you could come to-night. I've got all sorts of things to tell you."

"I wish," murmured Patricia, "I wish you'd tell me why men have to leave their overcoats at the door of a restaurant."

His voice was lowered. His eyes roved for an instant.

"It's so that they can cut a figure," he explained. "A man in his overcoat—oh, a sorry sight. A woman—it's so different. She's got to keep her shoulders warm. She's got to show her furs to everybody. By the way, where are yours?"

Patricia regretfully shook her head.

"You have to imagine them," she ventured.

"They're the finest here," Harry assured her. "It's all simply a question of decoration. And also, no doubt, of tips. You see, a woman is entertained."

"I never understand why that is," cried Patricia. "I'd far rather always pay for myself. I do, as a rule."

"Not with me," said Harry, with a sudden firmness which she admired. "You don't want to with me, do you?" He was confident; but he spoke truly. She had no will to flout him.

A shyness fell upon them. They ate for a moment in silence. After all, they did not know each other very well; and it may have occurred to each that part of the lightness of the conversation was due to a kind of defiance of constraint. Their moods, however, were in harmony; as was testified by the exchanged smile which succeeded the silence.

"Are you a good dancer?" demanded Patricia. Harry laughed again.

"I didn't bring my testimonials," he answered. "Did you?"

"I brought my shoes." She was quite ready for him. "If you're a bad dancer I shall be shocked."

"You needn't worry," said Harry, calmly. "The question is, can you dance?"

Patricia thought: How splendid! How splendid! Her glance was roguish and evasive, so perfect did the understanding between them appear to be. Aloud, she very demurely responded:

"We'd better both hope for the best, hadn't we? It's no good meeting trouble half-way."

iii

They found themselves autobiographical in a very short time. Patricia was made to give a sketch of Uncle Roly and others; and Harry detailed some of the more amusing episodes of his youth. He had been born in the country, it seemed, and had lived in the country until he was sent away to school. Patricia rejoiced. Some of her own early memories were of the country, and with her fancy quickened by the occasion she followed Harry's narrative with what she felt sure he must recognise as perfect understanding. He pictured the district in which he had lived, making little strokes in the tablecloth with his dessert knife in order to give her a rough notion of the scenes amid which he had played.

"That's the hut," he said. "The ditch was along here. Trees, you know ... and the road here. That hut was a real treasure. One never gets tired of that sort of place. It suits every game, and every weather. We slept there sometimes in the summer, in hammocks slung across. It's a queer thing to sleep out of doors in the midst of all the night noises."

"Is it alarming?" asked Patricia. She was thinking of things inexplicable.

Harry's eyes opened. He did not understand her.

"Oh, no," he said. "I only meant, queer to listen to the jolly old owls, and things."

"Had you got a river near you?" She resented his misunderstanding; but for an instant only.

"You mean, boating? No, not near. There were streams, and bits of water; but nothing big enough for boating. We used to bathe. Jove, they were days! Of course, I get some of the old pleasures now by tramping. I started it before the war, and went back to it directly I got out of uniform. There's nothing to beat the road, if one doesn't mind roughing it. You go along and along, and haven't anything to tie you to a place or a bed. You get meals where you can, and tumble in for a rest where you can, and come home when you like, and go where you like. Even now it's quite decent, so long as your passport is all right and you don't mind taking what you can get."

"And when you were a little boy, were you naughty?"

"Yes. And were you a naughty little girl?"

"No. I was a good little girl."

"What, never naughty?" His face was full of incredulity.

And so the meal progressed, and the friendship was enhanced by every piece of observation which either of them directed at the other. Seen close at hand, as Patricia knew already, Harry had all the attractiveness which belongs to good health and physical vigour. All his movements were definite, his eyes were clear and his glances assured. His hair was crisp, his colour good, his frame large and impressively well-knit. He had played forward for the Harlequins, in a pack that was both heavy and quick, a team that owed its triumphs not only to great generalship but also to the speedy adroitness of its individual members. And in spite of his years Harry was still a man of sure and rapid action. At all points he charmed Patricia.

Patricia charmed him no less. That which in him was quick and vivid found its counterpart in her. If they had had nothing intellectually in common, still their proximity would have brought happiness to both. But in addition Patricia was nimble of wit, and intrigued Harry's interest in that respect also. She was as quick as he was, and sometimes she was quicker than he. Harry could see the play of expression upon her face during the whole time that he was talking, and the play showed that she had no mental inertia, and no single inability to comprehend the meaning of all he said. Harry was quite used to the skill with which a more ignorant girl would manifest understanding of which she was incapable. He knew that in Patricia's case it was the real thing. So speaking a face could not deceive. And perhaps he did moreover "receive fair speechless messages" which increased his ardour and his already dominating confidence. He was very happy. They both were very happy, and their happiness added lustre to the beauty of both.

iv

"Where are we going after dinner?" Patricia demanded suddenly. She had declined a liqueur, and was finishing her last cigarette. Already the restaurant was half-empty of those diners who had proceeded to theatres. The remainder sat on, talking. She could see the two highly bred women of the lounge in the company of two glossy-haired men in evening dress. Neither man, she recognised with satisfaction, could compare with her own escort. And so the manner of her inquiry had been complaisant as well as calm.

"It's for you." Harry set down his liqueur glass. "The Queensford's the more genteel; and there's a better band at Topping's. Floor's about the same at both. The Queensford's larger."

"Is Topping's low?" she sparkled. "Let's be low."

"Right." He called the waiter.

"If it's not far, let's walk there," said Patricia. "It's such a beautiful night."

The mirror at her side gave back a reflection of what she knew to be an excited and even slightly flushed face. But she could not fail to be charmed by her own prettiness as she rose and went towards the door with Harry. The refined ladies and their escorts abandoned conversation as Patricia passed, which gave her further satisfaction. She knew that they could none of them withhold curiosity and perhaps admiration. Well, wasn't that quite pleasant to Patricia? She had no fault to find with her situation.

They were in the street, and in the piercing whiteness of electric light. The air was very crisp, and she welcomed its cold touch upon her cheeks. There were taxicabs and newspaper sellers and loitering people; and a huge omnibus went heavily by. Crowds were thinner than they had been early in the evening, but every face was whitened by the light, bleached to the colourless gravity of a kinema film. Above, very distant in the most lovely of blue night skies, was the moon, silver to the eye, very pure and remote. Patricia looked up at the moon, smiling her love for it, so much did that silent shape draw wonder from her heart; and in doing this she unconsciously moved into Harry's path. He took her arm for an instant's guidance, and, as they approached the crossing of Piccadilly, he retained his hold. It was all nothing, and she was free again when they reached the other side of the street; but the protection had been so natural that it gave her pleasure. She walked by Harry's side with a thousand beautiful little memories and emotions and imaginings making what she knew to be happiness in her heart.

And then they were at Topping's; and she could hear the band. Other young people stood about on the broad stairs—fluffy-haired girls and well-groomed young men, all with that curious excited expression in their eyes which went with late hours and noise and nervous exhaustion. Patricia felt her feet begin to catch the strongly marked rhythm, and went quickly to change her shoes and leave her coat. She was out again upon the stairs before Harry had returned; and stood there listening, her breast rising and falling rather fast, a piquant figure, both light and graceful, so fresh in that brilliant light that she drew the attention of all who were near.

She was still waiting when two people came down the stairs from the street towards her, both cloaked and muffled against the cold. For an instant she did not recognise them; but as Monty took off his hat and moved away to the men's cloak-room Patricia was recalled to memory with a start. Evidently Monty had not seen her. Swiftly she looked at the on-coming figure of his companion. A cold greeting was exchanged, surprise rather than pleasure being obviously the emotion upon both sides. Patricia followed the newcomer with her eyes until she was hidden; and her brain was engaged with a problem.

Monty. Monty ... and Blanche Tallentyre. How strange.

v

Patricia was not allowed further time to ponder this singular meeting, for Harry was once again at her elbow. He had not seen Monty, but was eager to be dancing. They descended the remaining stairs. There was a good deal of noise, not only from the band, but from the dancers and, even more, from those who were still dining in that part of the very large room which was set apart for the purpose. Patricia could see that girls and men were at many of the small tables, smoking and drinking, and that it was the custom for them to leave their places in order to dance and to resume them when the music stopped. She had a few moments to examine the throng; for exactly at the instant of their arrival the band quickened its pace for the end of the dance which she had heard in progress. Couples dispersed, and there was a crowded and dishevelled scene which took her breath away. All sorts of girls in all sorts of dresses and coiffures filled her eyes; all sorts of—no, there was not such variety in the young men. They did not surprise her, for they seemed to be men such as she might have known all her life. The uniformity of costume, also, made many of them indistinguishable. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of excitement such as she herself was feeling. She was dazzled and delighted. A new ichor seemed to run in her veins. It was some weeks since she had danced, and this place was so much more attractive than the suburban halls and rooms she had known that the surroundings appeared to Patricia ideal. For a moment she was almost timid in the face of such terrific energy, such fizz and glitter; but as soon as the band began to blare out a favourite fox-trot Patricia lost all timidity. New elasticity ran through her body: she was thrilling to the finger-tips. She was aware of Harry's hands—one clasping her own, the other lightly and firmly at her waist; of the ease of his step, the certainty of his command; and she yielded herself completely to the dance.

"It's all right," Harry murmured in Patricia's ear. "Perfect. Knew it would be."

He was able at last to hold Patricia within his arm, to be conscious of her dangerously charming proximity, to speak close to her radiant eyes, to employ the tone and glance which could no longer mar or frighten away the prospect of this manoeuvred evening. He was in a familiar land, dealing with familiar emotions and opportunities, supremely content.

Patricia's face lighted up with a mischievous and unsuspecting smile. She could not read his more sophisticated satisfaction, but she was wholly spirited in her own.

"You're not such a bad dancer," she impudently informed him. "Considering."

vi

A slightly increased pressure of the hand was Harry's only response. He had rapidly fallen into that mood of enjoyment which gave his nature its fullest play. His energy was being employed; he was being charmed and gratified; his senses were all being titillated. Half a hundred women would have given him most of his present pleasure, but the novelty no less than the beauty of Patricia supplied just that added spice which any indulged appetite presently demands in its exercise.

They danced three times, and then sat down, watching the other dancers and comparing their styles. Here they could see a pair pedantically apart, correctness itself; there a couple buried in each other, the young man's face lost to view in his partner's hair. Every degree of absorption in the dance or in physical sensation was to be observed. The one thing absent from all faces was love; but since Harry and Patricia were not looking for this rare emotion in others they did not observe its absence.

Patricia was the first to catch sight of Monty, for whose figure she had been searching in the crowd. As she could have foretold, he was dancing perfectly. Blanche was rather stiff, she was pleased to notice. Monty's expression was that of one who was bored: a line of white showed beneath the iris of his eyes. His manner was almost too easy, as though his thoughts were engaged otherwise than with his partner or the dance. Nevertheless, he was obviously at home. His clothes fitted and suited him. He was far beyond most of his neighbours in appearance; for in too many of these Patricia cruelly discerned mediocrity. She shook her head at the spectacle of so much that was to her fresh eye uninspired and uninspiring.

"You see Monty?" she said to Harry.

He was about to answer when a swarm of people seemed to rise up about them. All greeted Harry. It was a large party, newly arrived, all the members of which appeared to be his friends. Young men, some of them fair, with toothbrush moustaches and curly hair, some of them dark and clean-shaven and very like Jack Penton in appearance; young women of all colours and all varieties of noisiness, clamoured for his attention. All the young men were combed and brushed to resemble tailors' dummies; all the young women were freshly powdered and freshly adorned with rouge and belladonna and those aids to lashes and brows and hair which heighten the attractiveness of women already attractive. Patricia listened laughingly while each was introduced to her; but she heard none of their names, and only knew that she was in the midst of a lively party. She could not analyse them, although she tried to do so in a hurry; and so she accepted them simply as Harry's perhaps ever so slightly peculiar friends. Only when it became clear that they proposed to settle in this place and spoil her evening with Harry did Patricia take alarm. She was moving very quietly, preparing for the first notes of the next dance, when she saw the liveliest of the girls—a brunette who was beautiful enough to be dangerous, and obviously adept at this practice—seize Harry, pull him in step towards the dancing space, and thus forcibly kidnap him.

"Well!" ejaculated Patricia, wholly to herself. Harry cast a laughing, appealing glance at her. He was captured, and by a ruthless and rather boisterous victor. Patricia followed the two indignantly with her eyes. Swift anger gripped her. She had never been so angry as at this trifling folly. It was a direct challenge to her. It was a thing she could not have done herself—this impudent appropriation of a man who was confessedly present as the escort of another girl. She disliked the interloper. She was instantly suspicious of her. Although impulsive herself, Patricia had no interest in the impulsiveness of others, especially if the others were girls. Her anger blazed silently for a full minute. Slowly it diminished. She found herself almost deserted by the party of intruders, all of whom, with great freedom of gesture, were now dancing. Only one rueful young man remained; a young man with unoccupied blue eyes and flaxen hair, who looked painfully surprised at everything, and was in appearance so almost excessively juvenile as to make Patricia suppose him fresh from school.

"Er ..." said the young man, with great feebleness of intellect.

"Yes!" cried Patricia. "I never saw anything like it. It's shameful. It's cradle-snatching. Was she your partner? Never mind; come along!" She swept him into the arena, as indomitably unmoved in appearance as she could have desired. Though her heart was burning, Patricia's pride was beyond reproach. Nevertheless, she was desperately wounded.

vii

She was still aching from the injury to her pride when the dance came to an end. By that time the anonymous young man with the sheep-like blue eyes had exchanged an expression of helpless vacancy for one of helpless admiration. Once, during the dance, he had stammered: "I ... I say, ... you do ... d-dance well"; but Patricia had ignored his speech. She could not compliment him in return. Her one curiosity was to know the name of the girl who had stolen Harry from her. Several times during the dance they had encountered the other pair; and Patricia had not failed to observe the voluptuous abandonment of the girl to a posture more nearly approaching immodesty than anything to be seen elsewhere.

"What was that girl's name?" she asked, as the young man proudly led her back.

"Bella?" he queried. "That's ... that's Bella Verreker. That's not her name really: it's her stage name."

Stage! Generations of puritanism caused a shiver to run through Patricia. She was instantly apprehensive. Bella was dangerous to Harry, to the evening, to ... her own happiness. Stricken with horror as she was, Patricia's distress was poignant. She was really afraid. This was something beyond her depth and her understanding. Her mood of fear was thereafter succeeded by one in which this curbing of spontaneous enjoyment was resented by her vanity. She was elaborately indifferent.

At that moment they met Monty, who had come towards her through the pressing crowd, with a politeness oriental in its quality, in its subtly encroaching familiarity towards herself.

"Hullo!" cried Patricia, in joyous greeting. She was all unconscious of anything but her own feelings. At this juncture the appearance of Monty was welcome, not for her interest in him, but for his opportuneness as a diversion. "I caught sight of you before."

"Come and dance," demanded Monty.

"Where's ... Mrs. Tallentyre?"

"Resting, and talking to a friend."

Patricia's teeth were firmly together. That impetuous mouth had become hard. Monty could read her as though she had spoken aloud. He knew she had been hurt, that she was in reaction. He knew that he had presented himself to Patricia as an opportunity. She was tempted; she was falling. He smiled comfortably.

"No you don't, Monty!" came Harry's voice: "No bagging my partner!"

There was a singular little scene; the three of them standing together, all ruffled and all good-humouredly smiling. Monty was not as tall as Harry, who accordingly towered over both of the others. He was very much the well-groomed man of the world in this place, and yet his smile was faintly ugly. It had changed within an instant, had deepened and become set. Not a wrinkle showed upon his unreadable face. Harry's cheerful grin, which displayed all his big white teeth, held combativeness. Patricia, thoroughly exasperated at the general bad manners, and not least at her own impulse to naughtiness, resented the feeling that she was a mere partner to be claimed by either. She was both exasperated and wisely alarmed.

"I saw you dancing with Bella," suavely explained Monty.

"She's with a party here ...." Harry was grim. There was definite conflict between the two men, spoiling, but controlled, so that while all three of them knew the conflict to be there no others near by could have guessed its presence. "But Patricia's with me."

Something—she did not realise what it was—cleared Patricia's vision. It was necessary that she should act with decision. She turned to Harry, no longer ill-tempered, but paler and almost deliberately patient in her manner to him.

"I'll dance once with Monty," she said. "And then come back to you."

And as the music began, she fell into step with Monty, leaving Harry chagrined and reddening. There was still a little temper in her emotion; but her chief thought as she danced was: "Two great babies!"

Patricia might have considered herself a third; but she did not do this.

viii

During the rest of the evening the relation between Harry and Patricia, although it was gay and friendly, never quite recovered the fluency it had attained during dinner. They danced together; but Patricia, warned by what she had seen, shunned anything more cordial than the merest partnership in the dance. Harry tried to hold her more closely, but he found that it was at the cost of enjoyable dancing, and he therefore abandoned the attempt. He discovered that Patricia, while she was as agreeable as ever, had no intention of letting him make love to her. It was contrary to his practice to explain or to apologise, and he did not refer to Bella. Patricia, upon her side, showed no disposition to forsake or despise the interloping party; and so gradually the two of them drifted apart. She danced with two or three of the other men, and he with Bella and another girl. The noise of the room, and the crowd of people, seemed to increase. It became late. The party showed signs of an inclination for the evening's end. Drinks had long been done with; new arrivals, fresher and more eager than those who had been dancing for some time, took the floor. The evening was collapsing. Quite definitely it was petering out. At a quarter-to-twelve there was a signal for closing the place; and then, as part of a general shoal of departing merry-makers, a very sleepy party pressed out into the night air. Monty and Blanche had left long before.

As they thus emerged, Patricia, in evading Harry's attempt at segregation, found herself with two of the other girls, who both said they lived at Chelsea. The journey homeward was therefore made in a crowd, which separated Harry and Patricia. They all came to the end of the street in which Patricia lived, and then to the house itself; so that she was not for an instant alone with Harry. Even at the parting, he was but the last of the group to bid farewell, and she walked slowly upstairs to her rooms with cheery voices still ringing in her ears.