Transcriber's Notes:
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original.
A few typographical errors have been corrected.
The cover page was created by the transcriber and can be considered public domain.

THE THREE LOVERS

FRANK SWINNERTON

BY FRANK SWINNERTON

The Three Lovers

Coquette

September

Shops and Houses

Nocturne

The Chaste Wife

On the Staircase

The Happy Family

The Casement

The Young Idea

The Merry Heart

George Gissing — A Critical Study

R. L. Stevenson — A Critical Study

THE THREE LOVERS

BY

FRANK SWINNERTON

AUTHOR OF "COQUETTE," "SEPTEMBER," "SHOPS AND HOUSES," "NOCTURNE," ETC.

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

THE THREE LOVERS. II

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

PART ONE

THE THREE LOVERS

CHAPTER ONE: THE STUDIO

i

It was a suddenly cold evening towards the end of September. The streets were very dark, because the sky was filled with heavy clouds; and from time to time, carried by an assertive wind, there were little gusts of fine rain. Everybody who walked along the London pavements shivered slightly, for the summer had disappeared in a few hours and had been buried in this abrupt darkness; and the wind seemed to come flying from all corners of the earth with a venom that was entirely unexpected. The street-lamps were sharp brightnesses in the black night, wickedly revealing the naked rain-swept paving-stones. It was an evening to make one think with joy of succulent crumpets and rampant fires and warm slippers and noggins of whisky; but it was not an evening for cats or timid people. The cats were racing about the houses, drunken with primeval savagery; the timid people were shuddering and looking in distress over feebly hoisted shoulders, dreadfully prepared for disaster of any kind, afraid of sounds and shadows and their own forgotten sins. Sensitive folk cast thoughts at the sea, and pitied those sailors whose work kept them stationary upon the decks of reeling vessels already weather-beset. The more energetic breathed deep if they were out-of-doors, or more comfortably stretched towards their fires if they were within. Poor people huddled into old overcoats or sat on their nipped fingers in close unheated rooms. The parsimonious who by settled ritual forswore fires until the first of October watched the calendars and found an odd delight in obedience to rule. The wind shook the window-panes; soot fell down all the chimneys; trees continuously rustled as if they were trying to keep warm by constant friction and movement.

In the main streets the chain of assembled traffic went restlessly on, with crowded omnibuses and tramcars, with hurrying cabs, and belated carts and drays, as though the day would never cease. The footways were thick with those who walked, bent this way and that to meet and baffle the sweeping breezes. The noises mingled together in one absorbing sound, heard at a distance of many miles, a far undersong to the vehement voice of the country. Apart from the main streets, so crowded and busy, London was peculiarly quiet. If a door banged it was like a gun; and such a rumble provoked only a sudden start, and no constriction of the cardiac muscles, for Londoners were no longer accustomed to the sound of guns breaking night silences with their drum-like rollings. Passengers in every direction instinctively hurried, making for shelter from the rainy draughts and the promise of storm. It was a subtly dismal evening, chilled and, obscure. It was the real beginning, however premature, of a long hard winter. Those who had joys were sobered: those who had griefs were suddenly over-powered by them, depressed and made miserable by the consciousness of unending sorrow. Nobody could remain unaffected by so startling a change in the atmosphere. All craved light and warmth and society. In a few hours the aspect of life had altered and winter forebodings were upon the land.

ii

Out in South Hampstead the big old houses stood black in the common murk. Few of the windows were lighted. The only illumination came from the street lamps, which seemed crushed by the overmastering clouds, and from occasional passing cabs, whirring swiftly out of the main roads and losing themselves once again within an instant's space. The wide roads were clear, the noises subdued: one would have thought it midnight and the shuttered city at rest. But within these comfortable houses the scene was changed. Fires brightly burned and gas or electric light gave an enviable brightness even to rooms the furniture of which was stale with irremediable ugliness. Warmth and comfort was in every house. It was a whole district of warmth and comfort. And in one house especially there was a gently pervasive heat, a subdued brightness, a curiously wanton elegance, in strong contrast with the outside chill. It was a long two-storeyed house lying back from the broad road. One reached it by means of a wide gravel sweep, and the solid old door supported a heavy knocker of iron. The house stood quite alone, as silent as its fellows; but its furnishing, although sparse in the modern manner, was dazzling. It was like the house of a suddenly transported Pasha, and colours dashed themselves upon the eye with a lustre that commanded surrender. To meet such colours without a trembling of the eyelids would have been impossible to normal men. They were rich to a point of extravagance. They all sang together like the morning stars, clashing and commingling like the notes of barbaric music. They made a very beautiful scene, intoxicating and superb. And cunningly, as though some arch genie had brought the furnishings hither, they merged into voluptuous comfort. One sat in chairs that rose caressingly about one like the waters of a river. The lights were so shaded that nothing harsh or strident offended the eye. The taste of the whole, although extraordinarily courageous, was unquestionable. The owner of this house, whatever one might think of his paintings, was obviously a connoisseur. He knew. He was upon the point of entertaining friends in his studio. His hospitality richly ignored and dominated the weather. He defied the outer world, as though he had been a magician. It was his nature to ignore every discomfort as he ignored his correspondence; and this house, the home of a sybarite, was the symbol of his arrogant disregard.

Monty Rosenberg was a sublimely and ruthlessly selfish man, who gave joy to others by accident, pursuing all the while his own luxurious aims. From the day of his birth until this lamentable evening in September he had never wished to benefit anybody but himself. He lived to and for himself, and this beautiful home had been made for his own delight; and yet the inscrutable ways of life had performed a seeming miracle, and Monty was to-night a mere voiceless child obeying the decrees of circumstance. He was preparing to entertain his guests in a mood of solemn and magistral calm. He thought nothing at all of their pleasure or their envy. He was as much above snobbery as he was below compassion. But he had created an atmosphere of gorgeous appropriateness to the marvels of the human heart, and the gloomy night furnished a contrast as violent as the most emotional person in the world could have desired. He had prepared a stir of colour which must affect all those who were to be present upon this occasion.

iii

Monty was walking about his studio in a state as nearly approaching self-satisfaction as his sleek pride would permit. He relished the studio's warmth, its beauty. He sufficiently perceived his own beauty, for although he was fat for his thirty-seven years, and although in a short time he would be subsiding into a grossly apparent middle-age, Monty carried his heaviness with an air of distinction. His manner was such that the least sycophantic accorded him the usual tokens of respect. He was well-built; his clothes were well-cut; his rather sensual face retained in its aquiline nose a delicacy and in its soft eyes a suggestion of smouldering fire which saved it from anything like dulness. He was still graceful in all his movements. His long black hair was beautifully worn; the single ring upon his little finger was small and in keeping with his fastidious hands. A slight vanity gave him unfailing carriage and address. Oxford, money, talent, all combined to make him agreeable. He had no friends. There was no essential kindness in his nature. He was an artist and a connoisseur, a viveur and a solitary, a quick and shrewd calculator who would have been a good business man if circumstances had not legitimised his air of general unconcern with petty economies. He was still a stranger, a polished and foreign stranger, to all his acquaintance; and no man knew his secrets. That he had secrets was evident. There was talk, of course, about Monty as there is about every man of personality in the world of chatter. He was too discreet in his relations with all—though never so furtive as to hint at mysterious understandings—to avoid altogether the belief that he managed his "affairs" (which were supposed to be many) with skill and gentlemanly coolness, and his manner towards women was a little assured. At least one of his prospective guests had seen him angry, when a kind of thick toughness of savagery had flung breeding to the ends of the earth. He was not a gentleman through and through; but he was a tolerable enough imitation of one—an imitation that was not all counterfeit. The tough will which lay behind his usually suave manner was what made his imperiousness weigh in the minds of social inferiors. These inferiors could not avoid reading and fearing danger to themselves behind that steady assumption of their obedience. Others also were aware of a menace, and they gave place rather uncomfortably to Monty. Some of them, bidden to his parties, came with reluctance; and revenged themselves for their fears by sarcasms uttered at a safe distance.

So upon this September evening, fastidiously aware of every detail in the studio, of every detail in the proceedings (so far as these could be planned in advance), Monty stood looking at his finger-nails or smoking an aromatic cigarette or reading carelessly from book or paper, waiting for his guests to arrive. He was ready well in advance of the appointed hour; but he was not restless or impatient, but gave the impression of being imperturbably in harmony with the quiet tickings of his handsome clock. Outside in South Hampstead the whirling wind sank, and the rain which had come earlier in gusts began to fall in a spiteful steady downpour. The clouds hung lower and more threateningly over London. Everything became sodden with shivering wet, and gulleys and drains were full of singing water. The rain hissed; running footsteps were sometimes heard; the lamps were streaming with rillets formed by helter-skelter raindrops.

iv

As the hour of eight o'clock approached, Monty drew from his pocket a hunter watch and snapped open the case, observing the motion of the seconds hand with a kind of absorbed interest. In reality his brain was slowly working and he was hardly aware of the movement under his eyes. He was recalling the preparations which he had made and calculating the numbers of his guests. Twenty people were coming—people of all sorts; but mostly people belonging to that type to which an American writer has given the name of troubadours. That is to say, few among them were what would be called men of action; for men of action, who had nothing to say for themselves or whose view of life was philistine, had no interest for Monty. Men of action were men who could dance and kill and plan utilitarian works, but who could not think of anything that required an original and creative gift. Their interests were at best mechanical; and at the worst they had no vital interests at all apart from the consumption of time. To Monty, whose consumption of time was lordly and individualistic, who could do nothing without a clear aim, such men were outside the pale. He was no sentimentalist. His mind shrank from nothing. Applied to men and women it was almost purely corrosive and therefore destructive; and his self-sufficiency was so great that no affection ever made him yield his judgment to a warmer feeling. He never acted upon impulse, never caught beauty or inspiration flying; but always deliberately and mathematically laid foundations and with skill built up his structure with an eye to the final effect. He never loved anything or anybody enough to lose his head. He could always, at any moment, draw up and dismiss an inconvenience or a line of conduct, so that nothing and nobody ever had a claim upon him that he could not repudiate. He was a wise man in a world of impulsive fools running after their own tails and dashing emotionally into hysteria.

Eight o'clock chimed by the gentle bell of the clock which stood upon a table in the far corner of the studio. The strokes pinged and hung like scent upon the air. Monty sat unmoved, fingering his watch, slowly passing his thumb backwards and forwards across the golden case. He was lost in a reverie. His eyes were narrowed as though he were scrutinising a memory and paring it down to its essential traits. With such an expression his face lost vitality and became heavy—not ugly or sinister, but unpleasing. The coldness of his nature was revealed, with its adjunct of unplanned but deliberate cruelty. The secret of Monty's self-command and his power to deal with every event was no longer a secret, but a calculable fact. It lay plain to see in that disregard of others which marks the esprit fort, the strong man of our weak ideal. He was a secret man, captain of his own nature, and capable through insensibility to their conflicting aims of dominating the actions of others.

Eight o'clock, and silence in this gorgeous house upon the miserable September night. Monty sat in luxurious quiet, waiting for his first guests. The moments dropped quietly away as the softly-ticking clock marked their passage. At last a short peal sounded at the door-bell. Monty rose, his steps noiseless upon the heavy rugs, and moved to greet the early arrivals. He advanced into the wide and tapestried hall.

v

And then for half-an-hour came successive rings at the bell, and loud-speaking people arrived in a general flurry of raindrops and shiverings. Some of them had walked through the rain, others had come in taxicabs, one or two in their own cars. The hall, with additional mats and two or three long jars to hold umbrellas, was quickly sprinkled from the overcoats and furs of the visitors; two rooms adjoining were made into cloak-rooms; and then the studio was invaded. Here all the visitors, talking, laughing, cigarette-smoking, sat upon chairs or divans or cushions, and scattered the ash from their cigarettes in every direction, as motley and restless as the furnishings, and still by great fortune harmonious. There were women in short frocks, with bobbed hair, and women with long gowns and long hair decorated with combs, one or two in evening-dress, one in plain black; and men in all varieties of costume from dinner-jackets to tweeds. Above their heads, towards the studio's glass roof, rain-bespattered, rose tobacco-smoke; from their lips came an endless spume of words, often enough in loud voices which from the hall itself made the guests sound like a distant multitude. The studio was dwarfed by the presence of so many people and so much noise. To Edgar Mayne, who alone of all those invited stood slightly aloof, as one to whom the others were strangers, it seemed that never had he heard people with such loud voices, except at performances given by the Stage Society. He was one of the sober ones—a man of nearly forty, undistinguished in appearance and dressed in an ordinary lounge suit. His association with Monty was that of business only, and he was here experimentally, quite lost in the crowd, and so unsympathetic with it as at times to be almost hostile. So he stood away from the fire, back from the rest, and surveyed them with an unreadable air of interest. He received stares of appraisal from all; no greeting, but also no coolness, had been vouchsafed; and he knew that he could without fear of a snub have entered any one of the several deafening conversations which were in progress in his neighbourhood. He preferred to look on, for this society was to such a worker as himself something so novel as to be nearly incredible. He was half-dazed by the noise and the colour and the rising smoke. The general relation of the men and women baffled him. The women had not ceased to be women, but their professionalism and slanginess made them exceptional in his eyes. That he liked them, Edgar could not have said; but he was not yet summing-up. They were merely different from the suburban young women whom he met at tennis or in the drawing-room. For one thing, Edgar had never yet been at a mixed party where conversation was regarded as a sufficient form of entertainment. He had never met women who talked as freely as these did.

So his eyes wandered from face to face—from a man with long hair who spoke in a rather strained high voice to a sturdy young woman in a cretonne frock which appeared barely to reach her knees, who lolled back against the leg of a table and held a cigarette so dangling from her lips that its smoke straggled up into her eyes. He could hear nothing but odd words from all the conversations; but the tones, the gestures, and the glances of the talkers were all new and puzzling to such a stranger. His eyes were never at rest. Purple, gold, crimson, scarlet, green, terracotta, black; faces that were long and thin, surmounted by straight fringes of hair, or round and plump and white, with full lips and heavy eyes; a fluttering hand, a startling costume—all caught his gaze and helped to bewilder him. The types were strange, the voices and the assumptions; and Edgar was from Respectability and Commerce, and too old to be merely excited. He was critical, as well. He was especially critical of the girls, although upon the whole he preferred the girls to the men.

One young man with high spirits and a quick laugh several times drew his attention. He studied him—a tall, fair type, very handsome, and with large white teeth which showed when he laughed. The young man was big and well-made. He carried himself with an ease that suggested athletics, and he had evidently a great deal of self-assurance. He was talking to a short, and rather plump, girl whose black hair, bobbed, and milk-white complexion made her one of the most attractive of them all. That he was amusing her there could be no doubt. Her eyes were raised delightedly, so that it was the young man who sometimes looked away and returned and occasionally flickered a little glance at others in the room. Edgar's consciousness registered a definite impression. He liked the fair, and rather sparkling, young man with the white teeth; but he at once made purely masculine reservations. They might only be jealousies, for we are all alert to see the limitations of others; but they were valid for Edgar. As he was engaged in judgment he discovered for the first time that the young man, through all his sportive talk, was demonstrating a similarly observant interest in himself, and no doubt docketing complementary reservations. A half-smile crept to Edgar's face. The left hand, resting in his trousers pocket, involuntarily clenched. His chin hardened. With his lids lowered he looked straight back at the boy, and the smile vanished.

vi

The studio by now was well-filled; and from Monty's engagement in the general hubbub Edgar supposed that the total number of expected guests had arrived and had taken their places in the crowd. But he was wrong, for in spite of the fact that he could no longer hear the bell he could see the door opening again to admit further newcomers. His attention was being given to those nearest, and for an instant he did not do more than glance towards the door. Most of those about him were self-absorbed, or intent upon what they were talking about, which amounted to the same thing. The smoke and the chatter, in fact, allowed Edgar no free activity of the mind. He was as one drowning. It was only a sense that his young friend of the flashing teeth had ceased talking that gave Edgar an opportunity for this instant's new interest. He looked up and towards the door. There stood within the studio an old man—a tall old man with a long white moustache and a rather bald head, erect but markedly obsequious to Monty, dressed in such a way that all must recognise him as a painter. A slight pucker showed in Edgar's forehead. The face was familiar, the bearing.... He knew the man. He was conscious of displeasure at seeing him. But he could not immediately remember what had given rise to this distaste. Then, he looked beyond the old man, and his attentiveness quickened. In the doorway stood a young girl. She was very slight, very fair, and her dress was both beautiful and striking. Her hair was worn so that a rolled curl was above each ear, and it was brushed high from her neck. Clear blue eyes, a delicate nose, an impetuous mouth, a peculiar stillness in her attitude; and Edgar could no longer record detail in his general admiration. He was filled with interest. Not even the green dress which she wore and which startled the eye could rob Edgar of the sudden impression that she was somebody alone—alone in the world, alone in herself, alone here this evening. She was the first person who had struck him in all this party as belonging to life as he imagined it to be. There was a fresh vitality about the girl that he found in none of the others. In none?

Edgar looked from the girl to Monty, who had taken her hand and was smiling. Monty, with his rather heavy, rather oriental face and figure, smooth and impossible to be hurt, a man of determination and of personality. Edgar knew very quickly what Monty's nature was. He was not unpractised in the art of understanding his fellows. The experience by which this skill had been gained had been a part of the training which had led to his business success. The contrast, then, to Edgar, between Monty and the girl who had come as his guest was as unmistakable as was the difference in their complexions. There was no likeness here. Edgar would have made no further comment; but some instinct made him look from Monty's possessive figure to another, which stood nearer. It was that of the young man whom he had noticed before. The teeth were to be seen at this moment, for the young man was standing, as fair and as full of vitality as the girl herself, with his lips parted and his eyes intent. There was no mistaking the significance of his attitude and his tense regard. Edgar looked again from the girl to Monty, as they stood together by the door; and he saw the sparkle of the girl's eyes and the quick flight of her smile. Again he looked from Monty to the young man, and so back to the girl. And as he returned to his observation of the young man Edgar saw him take a quick breath, and saw his lips meet.

It was in this single instant that the young man, urged no doubt by an impulse as incalculable as Edgar's, drew his eyes from the girl. He turned sharply and looked at Edgar. Their glances crossed. Both smiled.

CHAPTER TWO: NEW FRIENDS

i

Harry Greenlees, the young man with the flashing teeth, had been given his Rugby blue ten or eleven years before, and had helped Oxford to beat Cambridge in a memorable year. Since leaving the University he had played for two seasons with the Harlequins; but his footballing days were over now as he could no longer endure the strain of ninety-minutes' incessant conflict. During the rather aimless experiments which followed in the art of earning a living without exertion, Harry had revived an undergraduate habit of writing sporting descriptive articles, and to fellow-journalists his competence for this work was known. It was not, however, celebrated among his friends or the general public, and as he had fallen in quite by accident with a semi-literary and artistic set, the members of which took him for granted as a cheerful companion with enough money to live on, Harry enjoyed a most agreeable sort of life. His work was slangy and vigorous, and if it did not produce an income upon which a man of his type could exist, it made sufficient the small private means which were already at Harry's command. He was able to support himself in comfort and to go about the world very much at his ease.

Abroad, Harry walked, with a knapsack on his shoulders, and saw the countries of Europe from the road. It was for papers chiefly concerned with out-of-door life and sport that he worked, and accordingly he found material ready for his eye and his fountain-pen wherever he turned for diversion. His was a life of varied pleasure, and for as long as he remained fit he would find it inexhaustible in possibilities. He was a lively companion and a good sort. He was full of zest, making friends lightly and as lightly letting them go. Everybody felt his honesty and his energy, and he had neither the mannerisms of the unduly famous nor the menacing air of those who are intellectually better than their company. He was happy, impulsive, handsome, agreeable, and charming. It needed an Edgar Mayne to detect his faults, and Harry was too unsuspecting and satisfied to suppose that others were more subtle than himself.

He had been talking to Rhoda Flower, the dark girl with the milk-white face, when he first observed Edgar. And Edgar had been so little remarkable in appearance that this was the first fact about him which Harry had noticed. Harry, however, had found himself looking back at Edgar, unable to account for the interest he felt in the unknown. Rhoda, whom he had asked, knew no more about the man than he did, and had been indifferent; but Harry was definitely curious. If Edgar had been nearer he would have found himself directly addressed; but as it was the exchanged glance already mentioned was the only communication to pass between the two men. The glance had originated in a most singular impression which formed in Harry's mind.

When Monty had moved forward to great old Dalrymple, who was some sort of artist, Harry had felt his usual dislike of the man, based upon the feeling that Dalrymple carried with him an air of stale drink and unsuccess. But he had looked past the old man to the unknown girl who seemed to be his companion; and instantly there shot through him that strong sexual interest which Harry was in the habit of calling "love." He was a strong young man, very sufficiently sensual, and his notions of love were made accordingly. It was a quick impulse, and his first thought after receiving it and deciding that he must know the stranger was the realisation that what he had desired Monty also would desire. And then, ignoring all the others present, he had sharply sensed danger. The glance at Edgar had been quite three-quarters of a challenge. The flashing teeth had been bared, and the blue eyes had been hard. But there was something about Edgar which disarmed him. Hence the smile.

This was not the first time Harry had been in love. He was attractive, and he was quickly attracted. He had self-assurance, and he knew how to give pleasure. To Rhoda Flower he was certainly the most attractive person in the world. It was to her that he continued quietly to talk while the stranger was being brought forward to the group round the fireplace. He was teasing Rhoda, and gave no further sign of interest in the other girl; but he knew when she was near. He turned his head and looked at her. He looked from near at hand at the soft, beautifully moulded cheeks and the impetuous mouth and the clear blue eyes; and a very faint additional colour came into his face. Not knowing that Edgar was watching him, he was perfectly aware of the girl's grace and beauty. The curve of her neck and breast and shoulder seemed always to have been known and entrancing to him. With Harry it was love at first sight.

"... Greenlees—Miss Quin," said Monty, leading the stranger from one to the other of his older friends, and making her acquainted with them all.

The smoke-filled atmosphere seemed to come down like a cloud against which she stood fresh and lovely. All the vehemences of colour about him were softened. For that instant Harry saw nothing but the stranger, felt nothing but her hand. He found Miss Quin adorable. She was a reality, a sweet and wayward reality, like a flash of scarlet; and his one desire was to feel her soft hair against his cheek, her cool shoulder, her surrendered lips. The imagination of these contacts was intense. Into Harry's expression of light spirits crept something ever so slightly heavier. He was serious. To him the senses were a cause of seriousness, a cause of the complete oblivion of all that was comic or whimsical.

From behind him came the voice of the young artist, Amy Roberts.

"Hullo, Patricia," she said in greeting.

Patricia! Patricia Quin. So that was the stranger's name. Harry's faint flush subsided. He cooled. The vision had passed. The quick physical imagining was for the present gone, no longer an eager craving. He must talk to her, see her, be with her; but in a few minutes, quite easily and simply. What lay in the future was something which stretched much farther than his immediate vision. To Harry it beckoned as irresistible adventure.

ii

The party swayed and engulfed Patricia. She was among all the others, and talking or listening, extraordinarily delighted with all this sound and colour. To her, whose first party of the kind it was, such a brimming claim to the senses had no shortcomings. It was all new and glorious and intoxicating. She felt herself a queen. Wherever she looked she found the strong colour and sensation for which she had pined. It was the first party, and a landmark. Compared with her days and the unattractive dinginess of her own rooms, Monty's home was all that was rich and desirable. At two-and-twenty, when one is starving for colour, a glut of it is like a feast. She was so happy, like a child at its first theatre, that she sat there spell-bound. It could not have occurred to her to think these people sophisticated; they were all so kind, she thought to herself, so kind and generous and interesting. Her heart went out to them all. It was as though she cast her own warm affectionateness upon the party. Her radiance increased with each instant. The corners of her mouth went up; her sweet, child-like laugh melted into the general laughter. All this light and colour and sound was superb. It was vivacity and richness, music and poetry, an unequalled stimulant to gaiety and the senses. It was life as she had dreamt of it. There was a spice of daring in such contact with the unknown and the exciting, and daring was her ideal. It was lovely.... She was in a beautiful dream of delight.

Even Patricia at last began to look, beaming in her happiness, from one face to the other. They were all faces that interested her. They all had a cast—not of dignity or wisdom, but of something which she thought of as enlightenment. There was a quality about them to which she was unaccustomed, and she exalted it. She was prepared to find all knowledge and emotion in the faces, and she found it. The tones of the voices charmed her; the little jokes which she did not understand, and the fragments of criticism which belonged to another world of interests and consciousness, were all a part of the magic and delight of the evening. She set herself to look round the studio, sitting close to Amy Roberts, as a child might have done, while Amy, to whom all this sort of thing was becoming almost as commonplace as she pretended to Patricia that it already was, preserved an air of most distinguished semi-boredom. Amy, herself an artist, told her the names of those present, and sometimes, if she knew it, something about the people. Patricia from time to time glanced aside at Amy's fair bobbed hair and her white face and light lashes and eyebrows and dissatisfied mouth; and thought how nice Amy was, and how clever, and how she wished Amy had a sense of humour of the same kind as her own.

"That's Rhoda Flower—that dark girl. She's a dress-designer. Not much good, as you can see from her dress. And those two over on the right, who're so fond of each other and think each other perfect...."

"I know. They're engaged," guessed Patricia, laughing.

"More than that. They're married. And happy. The only married people I know who are happy. And how it is that Olivia has brought herself to leave the babies this evening I can't understand. They must have got a nurse. So I suppose Peter's been making some money, for a change. Olivia and Peter Stephens, they are. They've been married three years, and they've got two babies. They're still devoted to each other."

"Odd!" joked Patricia, with archly raised brows. She had no notion of the truth of her comment in the present company, or of the underlying cynicism which an unfriendly hearer might read into it. Amy looked side-ways at her friend. She was puzzled, as the sophisticated always are puzzled by a remark made with nonsensical humour and without consciousness of its implications.

"It is," she agreed drily. "Then there's somebody who isn't devoted to her husband—Blanche Tallentyre. And with good reason. That white woman with the salmon lips."

"Is she unhappy?" Patricia's face clouded. She imagined a tragedy, and she still passionately desired happy endings to all stories. She scanned Mrs. Tallentyre's face, and saw the hard lines at the lips, and the thin cheeks, and how tight her skin was across the cheek bones; and her heart felt soft towards one to whom love had been cruel. Now that she knew this of Blanche Tallentyre she could notice the hunger in Blanche's face, and the thinness of her bare arms, and the cup at the base of her throat. She could imagine sleepless, tearless sorrow. So there was one at least here who, in spite of all the thrill of it, was unhappy.

"Not too unhappy," said Amy. "Hush. I'll tell you later. Not now."

They paused, Patricia looking childishly wise in an effort to disguise her faint distaste for this hint at an only dimly-realised form of ugliness; and both stared valiantly round at the others, so mysterious to Patricia, and so fascinating in their mysteriousness.

"Jack Penton's here," proceeded Amy. "Somewhere. Of course, not when he's.... Oh, there you are, Jack. You know Patricia, don't you? Who's that man at the back? Behind Charlotte Hastings. That quiet man." Patricia looked quickly at Jack Penton, whom she had met before. He was a dark, clean-shaven, commonplace-looking young man with a rasping voice; but he was a good dancer, and she thought him, if not clever, at least intelligent and worthy of some other girl's love. There was cameraderie, but no love, in Amy's manner to the boy; and something very similar, upon the surface, in his manner to Amy; but to Patricia it was agreeable to see their faces near together. But then Patricia was a sentimentalist, and saw and imagined all sorts of things that never existed.

Jack wrinkled his brow in the effort to recall a name half-forgotten.

"Er—I think his name's Rayne, or Mayne," he huskily reported. "That's it: Edgar Mayne. He's something in the city. Rather an old bird, don't you think? He's a friend of Monty's. Somebody told me he was clever, but you never know with that sort of chap."

"He looks very nice," whispered Patricia. "But rather stern. I don't think he likes this kind of thing. He looks disapproving. Oh, I wish he liked it."

Again came that incredulous stare from Amy which convicted Patricia of a naïveté. Patricia stiffened a little, and became more guarded. Some vanity in her cried out against criticism. It was the one thing she could not bear.

"Just there, on the right, is Felix Brow," proceeded Amy.

"Not ..." Patricia began in amazement.

Suddenly, as they sat thus absorbed, there came an interruption.

"Can't I help?" breathed an eager voice. "I can tell you all sorts of things you don't know—about everybody. Who they married, and why they separated, and who they're living with. I'm really an expert guide."

They all looked up, and saw Harry Greenlees, whose face was so lowered to Patricia's that it was almost level with her own. It was so close, too, that she could see the warm colour under his skin, and the crisp hairs of his moustache, and the curl of his lips as they parted in a smile of entreaty. Seen near at hand, Harry's face had all the additional attractiveness which health gives to good featured. His vigour was manifest. There was a pleading in his eyes that was almost irresistible. It was the pleading of an ideally masterful lover who would not understand a refusal and so would not accept it. Patricia looked, and held back her own head until the curve of her cheek was lengthened and made even more beautiful than before. She was smiling, and when she smiled one beheld such a picture of happiness that one became quite naturally intrigued and marvelling. To Harry the picture was an intoxication.

"You may tell me everything," said Patricia, with assurance equal to his own. "But first of all tell me who you are."

He took a seat upon the floor by her side, clasping his knees, and fixing his attention upon the two plump little hands which were clasped in Patricia's lap.

"I am the most marvellous and unfortunate of men," he said. "Unfortunate, at least, until this very minute. My name is Harry Greenlees...."

iii

To Patricia it was all as delicious as a fairy tale. She was not unused to admiration, for her beauty was of the kind to draw men; but the admiration of the men she had known had been too easily won to possess any lasting value. She had become regal and fastidious, accepting homage even while she despised those by whom it was offered. And who were these men, after all? They were men she had met at local dances, or in the office in which she had not very competently or devotedly worked. A few she had met at the homes of acquaintances, a few at the seaside hotels at which she and her uncle had stayed from summer holiday to summer holiday. They had been clerks or young school-masters or inferior stragglers in one or other of the professions. All, apart from the admiration they offered and the fact that they were more or less organically sound males, had failed to interest a lively intelligence and an impatient spirit. But now that her uncle, like her father and mother, was dead; and now that, having lost her situation and determined upon a Career for Herself, Patricia was in new lodgings and facing life upon a new footing, the case was altered. Old Dalrymple, whom she had met several times, and who had pleased her with his rather stale compliments and the still-unpricked bubble of his exaggerated tales of acquaintance with the great, had brought her to Monty's. He had been proud to do it. Partly he had an old man's rather morbid sentimental feeling towards her, which played with the pretence that it was paternal; and partly he had the knowledge that Patricia was a creditable companion. So he had brought her here on this occasion, and Patricia, revelling in the newness of her delight, had forgotten him. She was already in a hitherto-untasted heaven. And this ardent young man at her feet, who shone with admiration so confident and encroaching as almost to excite her, was a new type to Patricia. She had always been so much quicker-witted than her followers that she had discouraged them in turn. She was still engaged in battling with Harry's wit, and thinking it exceedingly nimble and daring and charming. She was more and more charmed each minute, partly with Harry, partly with herself for so charming him.

He told her about all the different men and women who were before her, what they did in order to live, and why they were present; and as she skipped quickly with her eyes and brain from one to the other he made up a great deal of nonsense about their private lives which diverted Patricia extraordinarily, while Amy listened with disapproval to the whole catalogue.

"Stuff!" she at last interrupted. "There's not a word of truth in it, Patricia."

"I know!" bubbled Patricia. "Don't you see, that's what's so nice!" Her whole face was alight as she spoke. Amy's objection seemed to Patricia to show her so very pedestrian in standard and judgment.

"Patricia understands me," said Harry, unchecked in his use of her Christian name. "She's the first person to understand me. Do you know, I've been looking all over the world for you—for thirty weary years." He beamed whimsically, handsomer in Patricia's eyes each instant.

"I wonder how many times you've said that," snapped Amy, who was impervious.

"A million times, and never meant it until now." Harry's smile showed his big white teeth, and long lashes shaded his eyes; and his big frame was so firm and manifest that Patricia, in laughing as she did with an exultancy that almost held tears, was full also of happiness in the enjoyment of his manly graces.

"I understand everything," she announced, confidingly; and mystically believed it.

"Yes, but he doesn't think so," warned Amy, in grave alarm. "Or he wouldn't be telling lies at such a rate. It isn't true that Dolly Fletcher's the daughter of a Russian prince and a charwoman."

"Oh, but wouldn't it be nice if she was!" cried Patricia.

"Exactly," agreed Harry, and proceeded to embroider his legend. "You see the short nose of the Russian of high caste, and hear the accent of the London back street. Notice the powder, the scent, the gold chain; the fur edging to her frock. You can imagine snow on her shoes and a pail in her hand. You can imagine waves of dirty water slopping just under the edge of the bed, and silk underclothing, and cosmetics, and a bath on the first Sunday of the Month—as a rarefied sensual indulgence."

"She does look dirty," admitted Amy, scrutinizing Dolly. "It's her skin. But she's a very decent sort."

This was said defiantly, while Patricia wondered. How strange! It was the first flaw that she had found in her handsome new friend, and it was unwelcome. She wished he had not spoken in that way. It troubled her.

"Tell us what you know about Mr. Mayne," said Patricia, to change this topic and to conceal her distress. It continued for a moment or two, nevertheless, as an undercurrent to her thoughts, and was still unpleasant. Personal uncleanliness was abhorrent to her; but the joking suggestion of it was equally abhorrent. It was an ugliness.

"Mayne? Who's he? Oh, is that Mayne? Really!" Harry seemed for a moment to be lost in thought. "How astonishing. Edgar Mayne. I didn't know who it was. Well, Mayne's a peculiar fellow, as I don't mind telling you."

"Is he married?" demanded Amy impatiently. "If you don't know anything about him, say so. Don't make it up. If you play any tricks on us about the man I shall go across and ask him myself."

"No, this is true," said Harry, reflectively. As he spoke he looked again at Edgar, who was talking to Rhoda Flower and listening calmly to her chatter. "He's a man who started as a bootblack or something...."

"Lie number one," commented Amy. "Take care!"

"Well, an office boy. And he got to be a ledger clerk. And he became an accountant. And then manager. And then partner. No, Amy, he's not married, as far as I know. And instead of marrying he's stuck to work and he's just bought a newspaper of some sort. So I suppose he's presently going into Parliament, and intends to be in the Cabinet in five years. He'll attack the Government in his paper until he's offered a job; and then they'll give him an Under-Secretaryship. Then he'll push out the old chap above him, and become a Minister. And there you are."

"Very nice. He's rich, then?" Amy was as sharp and persistent as the claws of a playing kitten.

"I s'pose so. I don't know. He's the industrious apprentice."

Unperceived by his hearers, Harry was sneering a little, as one always does at industriousness, with the suggestion that it is a common vice, whereas it is a chimera.

"What's the paper he's bought?" asked Jack Penton. "If it's a daily he'll burn his fingers. I thought he was in the City."

"I don't know what the paper is." Harry's motion towards Jack, however graceful and even consciously charming, showed that he was busy with his more honest thoughts. They became vocal, and his voice, hitherto so ingratiatingly warm, had lost all quality. It was merely cautious and speculative. "I wonder if he'd give me the job of Sports Editor on it," Harry said.

"Take it," jeered Amy. "Take it. That's the sort of thing you do, isn't it?"

Harry smiled again, altogether recovered, and once again the teasing comrade he had been. It was a most welcome return.

"I will," he assured them. "You may regard it as taken. I'll just tell Mayne about it before he goes."

Patricia listened still, the colour deeper in her cheeks as the result of so much excitement and new knowledge. She was quite fascinated by Harry, as she was fascinated by this whole unfamiliar scene. She could hardly keep still, so delighted was she to be in this realm of men and women who "did" things, whose names and qualities and actions were known and public. Such gossip as she had heard was quite new to her. Such assurance as Harry had shown in sketching the possible future of Mr. Mayne argued an inside knowledge of the world of politics and affairs and finance and wide-reaching action involving the fortunes of other people which no man whom she had hitherto known had possessed or pretended to possess. A gentle glance of encouragement, almost shy, but wholly attractive, passed between Patricia and Harry. Upon his side it was prolonged. He gave a little laugh.

"Oh, it's a great life!" he ejaculated, as though he had known her thoughts.

How Patricia agreed with him!

"It's a great life!" she emphatically repeated, kindled to enthusiasm at having her vaguer thoughts crystallised. And she felt how she and Harry appreciated it in common as a great life, and was again pleased and excited, so that she wanted to clap her hands with joy. The little group of four, of which Patricia and Harry were the centre, was observed by all; and if Patricia was in any degree aware of this the knowledge can only have added to her conviction of the general splendid entertainingness of life. She was quite carried out of herself and into the spirit of the hour.

iv

By this time the first half of the evening was coming to an end. Monty, who had talked to all his guests, had observed that it was ten o'clock; and it was now that a screen at one end of the studio was removed, allowing the buffet for the first time to reveal its attractions. The visitors spread—all except our party of four;—and the most remarkable collection of drinks and foodstuffs was being relished by all. For some moments Patricia and her friends knew nothing of what was going forward; but at last Harry and Jack rose abruptly from their places to secure refreshment for their charmers. No sooner had they joined the group at the buffet than Monty and Edgar approached the two girls, the former bearing a tray upon which were glasses large and small, and the latter a couple of piled plates. It was Monty's habit to make his guests serve themselves, and he had only relaxed his rule because he was interested in Patricia and her youthful delight. Upon his heels as he thus approached hung Dalrymple, who saw an opportunity of reclaiming his charge. Patricia had forgotten Dalrymple—characteristically,—although but for him she would never have known the joys of the evening at all.

She was charmed at being thus waited upon, and accepted champagne cup and some of Edgar's more nourishing products with the most urbane pleasure. To Edgar, who came second in the procession, she was especially friendly, for she had been absorbed by Harry's tale of his history. She had time only to thank him and to catch his grave smile, and then Dalrymple, rather officiously, brought himself to her notice.

"Is Patricia having a good time?" the old man asked, with his smirking air of hints and mystery. "That's right. That's right. Is there room here for an old man?"

Amy looked at him with aversion as he squeezed into their seat beside Patricia, and her expression was suspicious and scornful. But Patricia had no criticism. It was nothing to her that his eyes were protruding and gooseberry-like, and the fringe of his moustache above the mouth browned with the stains of food and much drink. She was in a mood to welcome all who contributed to this party. She felt in a curious psychic way that it was peculiarly her party; and the atmosphere of the place would have led her, in any case, to frank friendliness with all comers. She was transported, and hardly conscious of her own actions. The barbaric colours seemed to have mingled into a glorious harmony, and she was as much intoxicated by these colours and the sounds and associations of the evening as she could have been made by deep potations. The glass in her hand was only half-empty; but she was drunk with happiness, her cheeks flushed, her eyes brimming with laughter, her lips parted in eager sportiveness. Danger she could not foresee. She lived in the moment, and knew that for her it was good. She was unaware of Dalrymple's singular glance, with its old man's ugliness and preoccupation. She could not read the expression upon Monty's face when he looked at her over the glass-laden tray. She knew nothing of Amy's grave distrust and even suspicion. She only felt that she had never been so happy.

Upon an impulse she thrust her glass into Dalrymple's hand, and rose and went straight to Edgar. It was extraordinary that she should feel no embarrassment; but Patricia did not reflect. She was acting upon impulse, and she exalted impulse, as modern young women are in the habit of doing. Moreover, all who knew Edgar trusted him.

"I wanted to ask you ..." began Patricia, and then faltered. Edgar's face was blurred to her vision by the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. She blinked them away, and took new courage from his expression. This man, so different from the others there, was one of those, she felt, who could always be reached by the truth. He was so controlled, so grave, that he might have terrified her in other circumstances; but in this mood of exaltation Patricia was carried beyond fear. "I wanted to ask you ..." she stammered again. "They say ... Mr. Greenlees says you've just bought a newspaper.... And will you please make him Sports Editor! I don't think he means really to ask you; but he said he would; and I think he wants to be.... If only you could, it would be so awfully nice.... He's really ..."

And then Patricia faltered. She was at the end of her knowledge. Her cheeks flushed. For the first time she was conscious of grave discomfort. She would have cancelled all she had said if it had been possible; but it was too late, and her trembling smile of anxiety was the most beautiful thing Edgar had seen for many days. Nevertheless, he shook his head.

"Such an advocate would secure a man any position," he said. "But only if it were available. It is quite true that I've bought a paper; but what a paper! Miss Quin—I hardly like to tell you what paper it is. I have only bought it because the Editor is a man I love and admire, and because the paper would otherwise die. It is called 'The Antiquarian's Gazette,' You see, we could only have some very antique sports in such a paper."

"Couldn't you ... couldn't you ... bring it up-to-date?" begged Patricia.

Edgar shook his head with so concerned an expression that she could hardly detect his lurking smile.

"I'm afraid ..." he said.

"No." Patricia was rueful. "No, I see it wouldn't do. I'm sorry, though." Her thoughts ran on apace. "Did you mean," she asked suddenly, "that the editor would have ... he wouldn't have had anything to live on?"

"Well, he's a very proud old gentleman," admitted Edgar.

"And then you've bought it to ..."

"More or less," he agreed. "It's a very special case, of course."

"Well, I think you're splendid," Patricia cried. "But then, everything ..." She paused, almost overcome. "To-night, everything's splendid."

And with that she began quite suddenly to cry, large tears rolling down her cheeks, while Edgar took one of her half-raised hands and held it in his own until she should have regained self-control. It came in a moment, and her friendly smile, so almost roguish, pierced the tears and obliterated them. Edgar smiled also, in relief and friendship.

"All right?" he questioned, very quietly.

Patricia's other hand was for the lightest instant upon his, and she was free. She nodded reassuringly, and with her handkerchief caused two tears which stood upon her cheeks to vanish. She was like a little girl; but she had made another friend, for nobody could have withstood behaviour as free from artifice and so full of naïve emotion. The episode was finished; but its consequences could never be finished, for a human relation had been established, and these things are undying.

v

With the arrival and circulation of the drinks, Monty's party took a new turn. The noise at first increased, into such a sustained and stentorian buzzing that the sounds would have stunned a newcomer unprepared for such celebrations; but presently the noise so died that the steady downpour of rain could be heard upon the studio's glass roof. The cup was a strong one, mixed by a cunning hand; liqueurs followed; tinklings and small clashes were audible. The party grew quieter. A heaviness began to show in its members. The pallor of some of the guests increased, and with the now great heat of the poorly-ventilated room there came closeness and some discomfort. Only Dalrymple and Frederick Tallentyre (the husband of Blanche—a swarthy man with a mass of dark hair) remained at the buffet; and Dalrymple began to laugh quietly, showing his old yellow teeth.

Patricia looked once at her escort, and if she also had not had the first Benedictine of her life she would have been shocked. As it was she sat still beside Amy, her lips a little swollen and her eyes glowing; almost noisy, but no longer happy as she had been. Any outbreak of noise and dancing would have carried her with it; but these people, with their increasingly white puffy faces and the seriousness which began to overtake most of those present, were no longer adorable. They fell into a monotony of familiar dummies. Even Harry, eager though he was, she saw with less intensity of vision. He was still delightful and gay; but she was surfeited with emotion. Not at all intoxicated, but over-tired, she was now ready for the end of the evening. She even observed the first departure with some gladness. Departures began and continued.

"I say ... I'm sorry ..." Harry was murmuring in Patricia's ear. His hand was upon her wrist. "I say ... we must meet again, you know."

"Of course," she agreed, her face clear and open and full of the sweet candour she was feeling.

"How ... when can I see you?" He was hot and urgent. "I'm awfully sorry, but I promised to see young Rhoda home. But ... I ... er.... When, I mean ... when can I see you. I must.... It's got to be soon, you know." Oh, they were of one mind upon that!

Dalrymple was now alone at the buffet, a benign smile upon his aged face, and his attitude that of one by the world forgotten.

"Any time. Let me know," said Patricia, very gravely, and without coquetry.

"But how can I find you?"

"Amy.... Any way, it's ..."

She was giving him her address when Rhoda appeared against the doorway, all muffled in furs, with her expression one of impatience ill-concealed. Harry shook Patricia's wrist, and made off to the door. He turned as he reached it, and kissed his hand. Patricia, with her head back and her eyes suddenly sombre, waved in return. He was gone. She turned to Amy, who was frowning at Jack Penton. Amy sharply whispered:

"How are you going to get home?"

As if in answer, Dalrymple approached rather lurchingly from the buffet. He smiled ingratiatingly upon the reduced company.

"Where's ... where's my lit ... little ... companion?" he said, coming towards them. It was clear that although he could control his movements he was no longer quite sober.

"No," said Amy, in Patricia's ear.

"I wonder if I might give you a lift in my car, Miss Quin."

The voice was that of Edgar. It was so quiet as to be almost an undertone.

"Oh, do." Amy was the one to answer, for Patricia was dazed.

"Get your coat, then. Will you take her?" Edgar supplemented his instruction with the request to Amy; and the two girls moved quickly away. They saw no more of Dalrymple. By the time they were dressed Edgar was waiting in the hall; and they stood in the doorway together while he started the engine of his car. Two great lights illumined the gravel sweep in front of Monty's house. Then Patricia was in a warm, soft-lighted vehicle, and they were in motion. She pressed back in her place, her head throbbing and her mouth still nervously smiling. It was as though she were flying from all unpleasantness, very tired and happy, with one she trusted and would have trusted with her life.

"And now ..." said Edgar. "Where do we go?"

Patricia was looking back at the doorway. In it she could no longer see Amy and Jack Penton. There remained, silhouetted against the light of the hall, only the figure of Monty; and Monty, so still that he might have been without pulses, stood watching the departure of Patricia and her escort. For her thereafter there was nothing but the soft purring of the engine and the sense of security and safe harbourage against all the elements.

vi

In the studio, Monty stood alone. His last guest had gone. He was in the midst of that stale atmosphere and the wreck of a past entertainment. Smoke hung about in the air, the faint pungent smells of the drinks and of drying dampness combined with it. All was hot and vitiated. Monty stood with perspiration faintly upon his cheeks and under his heavy eyes. He had mixed himself a glass of whisky and soda, and rested it now upon the mantelpiece. The soft front of his dress shirt was crumpled, and his hair was less thickly smooth than it had been; but he was otherwise immaculate, from his beautifully-cut dinner jacket to his patent-leather shoes. He looked round the studio, and listened to the pattering of rain above his head.

Slowly Monty sank into one of his soft armchairs, and set his glass upon the floor. Around him was an indescribable mess of cigarette ash. The ghost of the party was risen. It was everywhere about him, in the now-silent chatter and the remembered scents and interests of the evening. Monty's thoughts were not mournful or stagnant, as those of one more sensitive might have been. He was entirely collected, and satisfied with his party. There had been no hitch at all; and even Dalrymple had at last been persuaded to go by the arrival of a taxi and the loan of his fare. Monty was alone, well content.

All the same, Dalrymple must never again come to one of his parties. Monty had no use for a man such as he had shown himself to be. This was for Monty the end of Dalrymple. Far otherwise was the case with Dalrymple's companion. Far otherwise.... The exclusion of Dalrymple must not affect the little Quin girl. She could be reached through Amy Roberts ... possibly through Harry Greenlees....

Monty almost smiled as he had this last thought. Then he became serious again. He had other matters to think of. There were many other things....

Half-an-hour later he still sat in the studio, and at last, as his man-servant came into the doorway to ask if there were any further instructions, he roused himself from his reverie.

"No. Good-night, Jacobs," said Monty.

It was quite remarkable how long that little girl's face had remained in his memory, he thought. Fresh.... She was fresh. Attractive little thing ... Greenlees seemed to like her...."

Monty laughed quietly to himself.

CHAPTER THREE: PATRICIA

i

Patricia was indoors. She lived in two rooms in an old house near the King's Road, and her rooms were at the top of the house. As the door snapped behind her she saw her little bedroom lamp as the only illumination of a narrow passage leading to the stairs; and instinctively she paused, her shadow thrown solid and leaping against the door, while the muffled sound of Edgar's car died away in the distance. The house was dark and silent, and Patricia's heart sank. A sigh of regret escaped her. It was hard to come so abruptly from the glowing scene she had left, with her brain in a ferment of all its new memories and wonderings, to this dingy home in which all was so tasteless. She slowly mounted the stairs, smoke from the lamp's flame smirching the glass chimney and rising acrid to her nostrils. Her bedroom was cold; and a damp shivering breath came from the open window, across which the curtains were yet undrawn. Outside the window everything was black. No lights came even from the houses that backed on to the one in which she lived. She could hear the rustling of the rain. A shudder shook Patricia. Deeply chilled, she moved away from the window.

Even when she was in bed, and slow warmth had returned to her body, she was conscious of unhappiness. It was not that she was normally discontented: she suffered now only from a sense of the acute contrast between this sullen room with the steady rain without and the warmth and peacock brilliance of the studio she had left. And the journey had been so rapid, and for the most part so silent, that she was plunged sharply back from her dreaming joy to sombre consciousness of every-day reality. Had there been a gay party homeward, had friendly voices shouted jocular farewells from the pavement, the happiness might have continued; but she was shaken at this sharp transition. For the first time Patricia girded at her loneliness, which until now—as independence—had made her feel so proud. To the sense of loneliness was added a memory of her poverty. To be alone and poor, young and eager, was to struggle with gloom itself. She did not cry; but a sob rose in her throat. It was such unmistakable anti-climax to be made to face the fact that she did not rightfully belong to this sparkling world of noise and light and colour in which she had spent the wonderful evening.

"Oh, dear!" cried Patricia to herself, suddenly desperate and at war with her lot, as other debutantes have been. "It's too bad. It's too bad!"

And then, fortunately, some little recollection from the multitude of recollections which would presently disengage themselves, made her smile. A soft little sound, such as a baby might have made, came from her throat, the lips being once again closed. Her hands were bunched at her breast. It was the reaction caused by the bed's cosiness and her sweet exhaustion. An instant later she was fast asleep, and in her sleep she smiled as she dreamed of a party of beautiful gaiety, in which she was supreme and unchallenged, ... the admired and the adored of all ... Patricia!

ii

In the morning she awoke to ambitious determination. At first waking she knew it was late, and sighed, very drowsy and comfortable. Happy thoughts began to float into her consciousness, and she smiled again to herself like a little girl. But when Lucy, the maid of the house, tramped up to her door and knocked there with knuckles of iron, Patricia no longer lay in reverie. She instantly arose, took her primitive bath, and was in her sitting-room long before the breakfast arrived.

There were no letters. There were never any letters for Patricia. Letters never come, she believed, to the truly deserving. She had a hunger for letters. She longed intensely to be like those young men in demodé books who opened uncountable bills and billets doux at the breakfast-table and stuck all their cards of invitation round the edges of the mirror upon the mantelpiece. The mirror was there; but no cards adorned it. The mirror had a gilded frame, and was no longer very fresh. It was flanked by vases intended to represent perfectly incredible marble. In the fireplace was a gas-fire, alight. The floor was covered with green and red oilcloth, and a woolly rug of yellow and magenta lay before the hearth. There was a sofa against the opposite wall, and at the window stood a sturdy table bearing a typewriter. In the middle of the room was another table upon which the first signs of breakfast were laid. Here, too, was Patricia's own little bowl of flowers. That bowl, the flowers, and the typewriter, were here her sole possessions. The rest belonged to the landlady who lived somewhere far below stairs, and it received daily a severe banging from Lucy, whose speed and energy exceeded her competence by about as much as the salary of a competent staff would have exceeded Lucy's wages.

Patricia went to the flowers and raised the bowl so that she could still detect the ghost of their waning fragrance. In her morning dress of blue serge, the collar high and the shape quite simple, she seemed perhaps taller and slimmer than she had been on the previous night. But she was quite as pretty, and the fresh pink of her rounded cheeks betokened good health. Her hair, which was not long, was arranged to-day as it had been arranged at Monty's party. She was the same girl, but she was graver, because this morning her thoughts were more active and she was therefore more sad.

She remembered old Dalrymple, whom she had met through the agency of Amy, asking her to go to the party with him, and calling for her; she remembered their journey, her entry of the mysteriously charming house, of the studio, her first sight of Monty and instinctive interest in that dark and impenetrable face. And then the noise and brilliance, and Amy, and all the gay talk, and Mr. Mayne.... For a long time she was shy of permitting any thought of Harry, as one sometimes leaves the finest peach to the last; and it was delicious to be always almost returning and arriving at Harry, to feel him perpetually there, summonable at impulse, and wilfully to hold thought of him in reserve. Yet in reality it was most often of Harry that she was aware in every wayward turn of memory.

iii

Breakfast was another blow for Patricia. There were bacon and eggs, and both were depressingly cold. The tea was strong and cold. Not so would breakfast be, she decided, in any home truly her own; though if, as she had long ago assumed, her future home were to be one in which servants played a leading part, she had no notion of the way in which cold breakfasts were to be avoided. Were there not such things as spirit lamps? Patricia had not stayed often enough in large houses to know that cold breakfasts are inevitable there unless the meal is eaten in the kitchen. She merely felt sure that Monty had hot breakfasts. But she did not associate her confident belief with the fact that he was an autocrat with a man-servant. It is the woman's lot to be ill-served wherever she goes. One has only to lunch at a woman's club in London to have this truth emphasised.

So breakfast this morning was a disappointment. Only good digestion—which she fortunately possessed—could have dealt with it effectively. And with breakfast finished, and the dish with solid streaks of grease upon it mercifully concealed by the cracked dish-cover, Patricia wondered what she would do next. She was at leisure, which meant that she was not in a situation; and her ambition exceeded her powers of performance. Her father and mother had both died long ago, and Patricia had lived the greater part of her life with Uncle Roly until his death a year since. He had been a casual man, subsisting from week to week upon a large salary which his habits converted into a small one. What he had done, except to go to an office every day, Patricia had never known; but while she had been with him there had always been plenty to eat, idleness and chocolates for herself, and drinks for Uncle Roly; and a holiday each year at the seaside or in the country. And then he had died, to Patricia's great but quite short-lived grief, and with his death ended the salary from which nothing had been saved. Patricia had exactly two hundred pounds, and the world to face. No relatives barred her path with offers of homes or advice. There followed a situation as typist at a time when even young girls were able to find remunerative situations. Dancing, suburban gaiety, restlessness, and boredom lasted as long as the situation. That too had ended; and Patricia, with only one hundred pounds of inheritance and savings left (for she had not been thrifty, any more than her fellow-workers and -players had been), was confronted with a new problem.

The alternatives were another situation, which was difficult to find, and a life of vague splendour derived from her talent. Search for the situation being tiresome, and therefore not very sedulously pursued, she was inclined to stake everything upon her talent, as yet unproved. A novel was undertaken—a very autobiographical novel, in which the heroine was extraordinarily charming; and short stories, small poems, little sketches and essays, were all produced from her brain and typed by her busy fingers. When one or two of the stories were accepted and paid for, she had no real fear for the future. She was sanguine with youthful confidence; and her remaining hundred pounds seemed an inexhaustible sum. As she thought of these things Patricia could not help feeling rather conceited. Sometimes, when she dreamed of her ultimate fame, she could almost suppose that those who passed her in the street were already conscious of it.

iv

It was after a day of wasted literary effort, when nothing would come right, that Patricia swept aside all sign of her work, and sought comfort from a visit to Amy. Amy—at least, the adult, as opposed to the child of other days—had first been encountered by accident about a month previously, when she and Patricia had both been shopping. They had stared at each other for a couple of minutes, both half-recognising and half-recognised, and had then pronounced each other's names, reviving a school friendship. Amy, who was alone in the world of London æstheticism by her own choice, and in receipt of an allowance from parents who had plenty of money, was embarked upon an artistic career, and was trapesing about from publisher to publisher with a large portfolio containing pen-and-ink sketches depicting scenes in "The Vicar of Wakefield" and other classic novels. She thus sought employment as a designer and illustrator. She also made drawings of her friends in water-colour and experimented with oils; but as far as Patricia could see (with the candid eye of a true friend) she spent much of her time in dress-making and in drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. She wore her hair bobbed, and dressed in loose cretonne frocks and brilliant stockings and shoes that were as much like sandals as anything could be. She had a casual and dissatisfied air, and was developing extreme untidiness under the impression that untidiness was distinguished. That she was happy in her chosen life nobody to whom it was unfamiliar could have supposed; for it held neither security nor romance. On the contrary, it resulted in an aimless see-saw between gregariousness with others equally ego-ridden and amateurishly opinionated about the arts, and solitary days of labour at work which might have been done more competently by those of smaller æsthetic pretensions. Still, this was the sort of society to which Patricia felt herself at this time drawn; and bohemianism in any guise was fascinating for both of them. They became good friends once more. Patricia made her way to the chintz-adorned studio in Fitzroy Street.

Amy, very professional in a long overall with sleeves, carried a brush between her teeth, and a palette over her left thumb, as she opened the studio door in answer to Patricia's mock-peremptory knock.

"Good!" she heartily cried. "Just the one I want. Don't take your hat off for a minute, and turn round. I want to see just exactly how the hair grows."

"All over the place, mostly," said Patricia, as she obediently turned. The picture in progress stood upon the easel, and represented nothing upon earth. A bloated something without form carried an eye upon its cheekbone. The miracle had been achieved of showing a head upon three sides of its common aspect. Patricia observed it with respect, although she might have been moved to great laughter if she had found it in a child's painting book. She looked crampedly from her stance, as she waited, upon such part of the room as was to be seen. It was not a large studio, but it was lofty, and although a bed stood in the farther corner it was the best combined room she had ever seen. It would be possible, she thought, to be quite happy here. The stained floor was bare except for rugs at the fire and beside the bed, and a large easel stood right under the glass roof. The studio was warm, and so lighted that it appeared to stretch indefinitely into the dusky corners. The only comfortable seats were a big deep armchair and a "podger" which lay against the wall by the side of the fire. Patricia continued to beam upon it as a home for one such as herself. She coveted the studio with a pure and humane covetousness.

"Ye-es," presently came her friend's comment. "All right, thanks. Sit down. Have a cigarette? Well, and you got home all right, did you? With your gay companion."

"He was gay!" jeered Patricia. "He hardly said a word."

Amy clucked her tongue. "Too bad!" she observed. "However, you'd have got soaked otherwise. Anyway, it was better than having Dalrymple. Did you ever see such an old toper? It was amazing. Monty won't have him again."

"Oh!" It was a cry of disappointment.

"Oh, that won't matter." Amy was laying down her palette and searching for matches as she spoke. There was cigarette ash all over the hearth in front of her little gas fire, and ash was scattered across the floor. The bed, covered with bright chintz, showed that she had lain upon it during the afternoon. "You'll be invited without him another time."

"Shall I?" It sent a spark of joy through Patricia to hear this. She looked gratefully at Amy's white face and smooth hair. "Really?"

Amy shrugged with a conceited air of boredom. "You made an impression last night," she announced. Patricia laughed gaily, and Amy continued: "It's easy enough, and it comes naturally to you. Of course, Monty's parties aren't what they were. He used to have a lot of decent people; but he's peculiar, you know. He gets tired of people, and drops them. It's the privilege you enjoy when you've got money. Only of course you've got to keep on making fresh friends, and he's not as bright as he used to be. He used to be able to talk. Now it isn't worth his while; so he says nothing at all. He thinks it. He's sardonic."

"He looks that," agreed Patricia, trying to seem as expert and as patronising as her friend. "But he looks interesting, as well; and that's a great deal."

"Oho! I should think he was. And as clever as the devil. But he's a beast."

"I don't mind that, so long as he isn't beastly to me," said Patricia. "I don't mind what anybody does, so long as they are nice to me."

Amy laughed, and professionally flicked the ash from her cigarette with a little finger. It was a laugh that held dryness.

"Oh, they'll all be nice to you," she observed. "No reason why they should be anything else."

Patricia pondered upon that suggestion, and upon the strange gleam in Amy's eye. She had so much affection to give, she thought, and she had met so much kindness in others, that there really did not seem to be anything but kindness in her whole life. Even Lucy, in her rough way, was kind. Amy, of course, did not know that, and had not meant to suggest it; but there were things which Patricia still did not understand at sight, in spite of her self-confidence in that direction.

"No," she said. "There isn't, is there. Except that I'm poor; but people don't notice that. Of course, Mr. Mayne was really very kind. But he's rather unbending, I think. He's ... well, he seemed to me to be rather out of place at Monty's."

So soon had she caught the trick of calling all persons by a Christian name! Amy, from a greater experience, noticed the more naïve satisfaction of Patricia at the habit, and was amused by it.

"Yes. And then there's Harry Greenlees, of course," she prompted, a little inquisitively.

"Yes, Harry. He's awfully nice and amusing," said Patricia. She was instinctively guarded.

"Quite," replied Amy, now very dry. She shot a glance at her friend that hinted suspicion. "You see in that one evening you made three new friends...."

There was a pause; and then Patricia, who knew nothing of suspicion, went on:

"Amy ... do you know Rhoda Flower?"

"In a way. Not well. Just from seeing her at that sort of thing—and hearing about her. She isn't any good."

"What sort of things do you hear?" Patricia had caught that note, at least, and was stung by it to a question. Amy shrugged, since she had no fact to communicate.

"Oh, nothing ... Nothing really. But of course they're always together."

Patricia started slightly. They? Rhoda and Harry.

"Oh, yes," she said, as if merely in acquiescence. "I thought she was pretty, and looked all right."

"Rhoda?" Amy laughed scornfully. "Yes, she's pretty. But she's a fool."

"How d'you mean? Not got any brains?"

"With Harry."

Patricia was puzzled. She just prevented herself from saying "But I thought one did as one liked, without question, in Bohemia."

"What, ... what, is she in love with him?" she stammered, her eyes wide open.

Amy shrugged, blowing cigarette smoke from her nostrils.

"Oho, I don't know," she said, in a particularly measured voice. "Who knows? It's not the sort of thing one woman tells another unless she is a friend. But she'll burn her fingers with him, you can see. She's not experienced enough at the game. You've only got to look at him to see he's after every fresh face."

It came like a flash to Patricia: Amy's jealous of me! She was aghast and amused in the same instant.

"Oh, well," she cried, with masterly skill. "Who isn't?"

And then Amy and Patricia looked at each other, both smiling, but in conflict as they had not hitherto been. Amy's face was sickly, and there was an extraordinary glitter in Patricia's eyes. Patricia's thoughts leapt quickly forward, skipping all reasons and shades of interpretation. It was not merely of the impression which Patricia had made upon Harry Greenlees that Amy was jealous: it was of Patricia herself, of her power to attract, her intelligence, her freshness. Patricia, even under her horror and her inclination to ridicule such an attitude, was conscious of a sharp accession of complacency. She had entered this new world; she had seen it to be good; she had triumphed with the ease of mastery. It was her fate. She was confirmed in her belief that there was a genuine irresistible something in the world called Patricia. Nothing was impossible to her. The chagrins of the morning were obliterated.

v

Presently the two girls busied themselves in preparing a meal in the small kitchen attached to the studio. It was not a feast; but it satisfied them, and Patricia loved the sense of camping out. They ate it off a small round table with a large coloured napkin used as a tablecloth. The crockery was all odd, as Amy had purchased it from a former tenant, and one plate bore upon it the name of a famous hotel. They had an egg dish and some potted meat and some thin claret, with an apple apiece to complete the meal and some coffee which was rather the worse for wear. Amy smoked cigarettes continuously throughout, laying them upon the edge of her plate during mastication. Her consumption of cigarettes during the day was considerable, and she even smoked and read in bed. Patricia made a note of this, as it seemed to be a part of the bohemian life.

"I never noticed this plate before," she suddenly cried, alluding to the one which had upon it the name of the hotel. "D'you suppose it was stolen, or what?"

Amy shrugged, and wiped a small piece of clinging tobacco from her lip with a forefinger.

"May have been," she said. "Or else its a throw-out. You get them cheap in markets, I believe."

"I hope it was stolen," breathed Patricia. "Fancy eating off a stolen plate! But you'd wonder how any body smuggled anything so large out of an hotel. Awful if it fell!"

"You're perfectly ridiculous, Patricia," said Amy.

What strange eyes Amy had, thought Patricia. They were like big blue-green marbles. They stood out a little. Or perhaps it was only that her eyelashes were fair. Harry had beautiful eyelashes—long and dark; and they made his eyes look charming. She hadn't noticed Edgar Mayne's eyes.... Oh, yes, she had. They were kind and brown. Funny! The thought of him made her smile; but she had at the same time a curious warming of the heart.

"Isn't it strange," she remarked, thoughtfully, "that you can feel perfectly——"

But what Patricia had been about to commend to Amy's notice was lost; for at that moment there came a tapping at the studio door. Instantly Patricia had one of those celebrated intuitions to which all young women at times are liable. She felt sure that the person knocking was Harry. It proved to be Jack Penton, who came in as though the place were familiar to him, and stood frowning at the signs of their feast. He was as smooth and insignificant as ever.

"Oh," he said, in his rasping voice. "You've had your meal."

"Nothing left for you," answered Amy, brusquely.

Jack's manner in reply was protestingly sullen, as if he had been detected in a fault.

"I was going to ask you to come out to dinner," he grumbled.

"I don't think I could eat anything more," smiled Patricia. "It's so nice of you." That was her solace for him, a contribution to what she felt might be a disappointment to so worthy a young man.

"Well...." He hesitated. "I've just got along. Erm.... Look here, I'll go and get something to eat, and come back, if I may."

Amy agreed, and Jack was letting himself out when a notion occurred to her.

"If you meet anybody, bring them with you," she called after him. And when the door had clicked she turned to Patricia. "Don't go, whatever you do...." She put her hand to her brow. "That young man.... He's beginning to be a nuisance."

"What, Jack?" Patricia was full of sympathy for the absent. "But he's most agreeable. I like him."

"Yes," responded Amy, with rather a morose air. "You don't have to put up with him. He's moody. He's got a fearful temper, and he sulks. It's the temperament that goes with that complexion. He's dark and sulky. He hasn't got any notion of.... He's old-fashioned...."

"Do you mean he's in love with you?" asked Patricia. "That seems to be what's the matter."

"Oho, it takes two to be in love," scornfully cried Amy. "And I'm not in love with him."

"But he's your friend."

"That's just it. He won't recognise that men and women can be friends. He's a very decent fellow; but he's full of this sulky jealousy, and he glowers and sulks whenever any other man comes near me. Well, that's not my idea of friendship."

"Nor mine," echoed Patricia, trying to reconstruct her puzzled estimate of their relations. "But couldn't you stop that? Surely, if you put it clearly to him...."

Amy interrupted with a laugh that was almost shrill. Her manner was coldly contemptuous.

"You are priceless!" she cried. "You say the most wonderful things."

"Well, I should."

"I wonder." Amy moved about, collecting the plates. "You see ... some day I shall marry. And in a weak moment I said probably I'd marry him."

"Oh, Amy! Of course he's jealous!" Swiftly, Patricia did the young man justice.

"It didn't give him any right to be. I told him I'd changed my mind. I've told him lots of times that probably I shan't marry him."

"But you keep him. Amy! You do encourage him." Patricia was stricken afresh with a generous impulse of emotion on Jack's behalf. "I mean, by not telling him straight out. Surely you can't keep a man waiting like that? I wonder he doesn't insist."

"Jack insist!" Amy was again scornful. "Not he!"

There was a moment's pause. Innocently, Patricia ventured upon a charitable interpretation.

"He must love you very much. But Amy, if you don't love him."

"What's love got to do with marriage?" asked Amy, with a sourly cynical air.

"Hasn't it—everything?" Patricia was full of sincerity. She was too absorbed in this study to help Amy to clear the table; but on finding herself alone in the studio while the crockery was carried away to the kitchen she mechanically shook the crumbs behind the gas-fire and folded the napkin. This was the most astonishing moment of her day.

Presently Amy returned, and sat in the big armchair, while, seated upon the podger and leaning back against the wall, Patricia smoked a cigarette.

"You see, the sort of man one falls in love with doesn't make a good husband," announced Amy, as patiently as if Patricia had been in fact a child. She persisted in her attitude of superior wisdom in the world's ways. "It's all very well; but a girl ought to be able to live with any man she fancies, and then in the end marry the safe man for a ... well, for life, if she likes."

Patricia's eyes were opened wide.

"I shouldn't like that," she said. "I don't think the man would, either."

"Bless you, the men all do it," cried Amy, contemptuously. "Don't make any mistake about that."

"I don't believe it," said Patricia. "Do you mean that my father—or your father...?"

"Oh, I don't know. I meant, nowadays. Most of the people you saw last night are living together or living with other people."

Patricia was aware of a chill.

"But you've never," she urged. "I've never."

"No." Amy was obviously irritated by the personal application. "That's just it. I say we ought to be free to do what we like. Men do what they like."

"D'you think Jack has lived with other girls?"

"My dear child, how do I know? I should hope he has."

"Hope! Amy, you do make me feel a prig."

"Perhaps you are one. Oh, I don't know. I'm sick of thinking, thinking, thinking about it all. I never get any peace."

"Is there somebody you want to live with?"

"No. I wish there was. Then I should know."

"I wonder if you would know," said Patricia, in a low voice. "Amy, do you really know what love is? Because I don't. I've sometimes let men kiss me, and it doesn't seem to matter in the least. I don't particularly want to kiss them, or be kissed. I've never seen anything in all the flirtation that goes on in dark corners. It's amusing once or twice; but it becomes an awful bore. The men don't interest you. The thought of living with any of them just turns me sick."

Amy listened with attention. Her eyes protruded. She tapped her foot upon the floor.

"Yes, but you're not sensual," she said. "You're not an artist. Experience is a thing every artist must have. Not a humdrum marriage, and children, and washing books ... I must have experience—to do great work...."