Going downstairs quietly she went to the telephone.
"Gerrard 60000," she called, conscious that both her voice and her knees were unsteady.
After what seemed an age there came the reply, "Quadrant Hotel."
"Is Lord Peter Bowen in?" she enquired. "Thank you," she added in response to the clerk"s promise to enquire.
Her hand was shaking. She almost dropped the receiver. He must be out, she told herself, after what seemed to her an age of waiting. If he were in they would have found him. Perhaps he had already started for----
"Who is that?" It was Bowen"s voice.
Patricia felt she could sing. So he had not gone! Would her knees play her false and cheat her?
"It"s--it"s me," she said, regardless of grammar.
"That"s delightful; but who is me?" came the response.
No wonder woman liked him if he spoke like that to them, she decided.
Suddenly she realised that even she herself could not recognise as her own the voice with which she was speaking.
"Patricia," she said.
"Patricia!" There was astonishment, almost incredulity in his voice.
So Elton had said nothing. "Where are you? Can I see you?"
Patricia felt her cheeks burn at the eagerness of his tone.
"I"m--I"m going out. I--I"ll call for you if you like," she stammered.
"I say, how ripping of you. Come in a taxi or shall I come and fetch you?"
"No, I--I"m coming now, I"m----" then she put up the receiver. What was she going to do or say? For a moment she swayed. Was she going to faint? A momentary deadly sickness seemed to overcome her. She fought it back fiercely. She must get to the Quadrant. "I shall have to be a sort of reincarnation of Mrs. Triggs, I think," she murmured as she staggered past the astonished Gustave, who was just coming from the lounge, and out of the front door, where she secured a taxi.
CHAPTER XXI
THE GREATEST INDISCRETION
I
In the vestibule of the Quadrant stood Peel, looking a veritable colossus of negation. As Patricia approached he bowed and led the way to the lift. As it slid upwards Patricia wondered if Peel could hear the thumping of her heart, and if so, what he thought of it. She followed him along the carpeted corridor conscious of a mad desire to turn and fly. What would Peel do? she wondered. Possibly in the madness of the moment his mantle of discretion might fall from him, and he would dash after her. What a sensation for the Quadrant! A girl tearing along as if for her life pursued by a gentleman"s servant. It would look just like the poster of "Charley"s Aunt."
Peel opened the door of Bowen"s sitting-room, and Patricia entered with the smile still on her lips that the thought of "Charley"s Aunt" had aroused. Something seemed to spring towards her from inside the room, and she found herself caught in a pair of arms and kissed. She remembered wondering if Peel were behind, or if he had closed the door, then she abandoned herself to Bowen"s embrace.
Everything seemed somehow changed. It was as if someone had suddenly shouldered her responsibilities, and she would never have to think again for herself. Her lips, her eyes, her hair, were kissed in turn.
She was being crushed; yet she was conscious only of a feeling of complete content.
Suddenly the realisation of what was happening dawned upon her, and she strove to free herself. With all her force she pushed Bowen from her.
He released her. She stood back looking at him with crimson cheeks and unseeing eyes. She was conscious that something unusual was happening to her, something in which she appeared to have no voice. Perhaps it was all a dream. She swayed a little. The same sensation she had fought back at the telephone was overcoming her. Was she going to faint? It would be ridiculous to faint in Bowen"s rooms. Why did people faint? Was it really, as Aunt Adelaide had told her, because the heart missed a beat? One beat----
She felt Bowen"s arm round her, she seemed to sway towards a chair.
Was the chair really moving away from her? Then the mist seemed to clear. Someone was kneeling beside her.
Bowen gazed at her anxiously. Her face was now colourless, and her eyes closed wearily. She sighed as a tired child sighs before falling asleep.
"Patricia! what is the matter?" cried Bowen In alarm. "You haven"t fainted, have you?"
She was conscious of the absurdity of the question. She opened her eyes with a curious fluttering movement of the lids, as if they were uncertain how long they could remain unclosed. A slow, tired smile played across her face, like a pa.s.sing shaft of sunshine, then the lids closed again and the life seemed to go out of her body.
Bowen gently withdrew his arm and, rising, strode across to a table on which was a decanter of whisky and syphon of soda. With unsteady hands, he poured whisky and soda into a gla.s.s and, returning to Patricia, he pa.s.sed his arm gently behind her head, placing the gla.s.s against her lips. She drank a little and then, with a shudder, turned her head aside. A moment later her eyes opened again. She looked round the room, then fixed her gaze on Bowen as if trying to explain to herself his presence. Gradually the colour returned to her cheeks and she sighed deeply. She shook her head as Bowen put the gla.s.s against her lips.
"I nearly fainted," she whispered, sighing again. "I"ve never done such a thing." Then after a pause she added, "I wonder what has happened. My head feels so funny."
"It"s all my fault," said Bowen penitently. "I"ve waited so long, and I seemed to go mad. You will forgive me, dearest, won"t you?" his voice was full of concern.
Patricia smiled. "Have I been here long?" she asked. "It seems ages since I came."
"No; only about five minutes. Oh, Patricia! you won"t do it again, will you?" Bowen drew her nearer to him and upset the gla.s.s containing the remains of the whisky and soda that he had placed on the floor beside him.
"I didn"t quite faint, really," she said earnestly, as if defending herself from a reproach.
"I mean throw me over," explained Bowen. "It"s been h.e.l.l!"
"Please go and sit down," she said, moving restlessly. "I"m all right now. I--I want to talk and I can"t talk like this." Again she smiled, and Bowen lifted her hand and kissed it gently. Rising he drew a chair near her and sat down.
"You see all this comes of trying to be a Mrs. Triggs," she said regretfully.
"Mrs. Triggs!" Bowen looked at her anxiously.
Slowly and a little wearily Patricia explained her conversation with Elton. "Didn"t he tell you he had seen me?"
"No," replied Bowen, relieved at the explanation; "G.o.dfrey is a perfect dome of silence on occasion."
"Why did you suddenly leave me all alone, Peter?" Patricia enquired presently. "I couldn"t understand. It hurt me terribly. I didn"t realise"--she paused--"oh, everything, until I heard you were going away. Oh, my dear!" she cried in a low voice, "be gentle with me. I"m all bruises."
Bowen bent across to her. "I"m a brute," he said, "but----"
She shook her head. "Not that sort," she said. "It"s my pride I"ve bruised. I seem to have turned everything upside down. You"ll have to be very gentle with me at first, please." She looked up at him with a flicker of a smile.
"Not only at first, dear, but always," said Bowen gently as he rose and seated himself beside her. "Patricia, when did you--care?" he blurted out the last word hurriedly.
"I don"t know," she replied dreamily. "You see," she continued after a pause, "I"ve not been like other girls. Do you know, Peter," she looked up at him shyly, "you"re the first man who has ever kissed me, except my father. Isn"t it absurd?"
"It"s nothing of the sort," Bowen declared, tilting up her chin and gazing down into her eyes. "But you haven"t answered my question."