"DEAR PATRICIA,
"Won"t you let me see you? Please remember that even the under-dog has his rights.
"Yours ever, "PETER."
"There is no answer, Gustave," said Patricia, and Gustave left the room disconsolately.
Half an hour later Gustave returned once more.
On his tray were three telegrams. Patricia looked about her wildly.
"Had the man suddenly gone mad?" she asked herself. "Tell the boy not to wait, Gustave," she said.
"There ees three boys, mees."
The atmosphere was electrical. Mr. Bolton laughed, then stopped suddenly. Miss Sikk.u.m simpered.
Patricia turned to Gustave with a calmness that was not reflected in her cheeks.
"Tell the three boys not to wait, Gustave."
"Yes, mees!" Gustave slowly walked to the door. It was clear that he could not reconcile with his standard of ethics the allowing of three telegrams to remain unopened, and to dismiss three boys without knowing whether or no there really were replies. The same feeling was reflected in the faces of Patricia"s fellow-boarders.
"Miss Brent must be losing a lot of relatives, or coming into a lot of fortunes," remarked Mr. Bolton to Mrs. Hamilton.
Patricia preserved an outward calm she was far from feeling. She rose and went up to her room to discover from the three orange envelopes what was the latest phase of Colonel Bowen"s madness. Seated on her bed she opened the telegrams.
The first read:
"Will you go motoring with me on Sunday peter."
No, she would do nothing of the kind.
The second said:
"If I have done anything to offend you please tell me and forgive me peter."
Of course he had done nothing, and it was all very absurd. Why was he behaving like a schoolboy?
The third was longer. It ran:
"I so enjoyed last night it was the most delightful evening I have spent for many a day please do not be too hard upon me peter."
This was a tactical error. It brought back to Patricia the whole incident. It was utter folly to have placed herself in such an impossible position. Obviously Bowen knew nothing of women, or he would not have made such a blunder as to remind her of what took place on the previous night, unless--unless---- She hardly dare breathe the thought to herself. What if he thought her different from what she actually was? Could he confuse her with those---- It was impossible!
She was angry; angry with him, angry with herself, angry with the Quadrant Grill-room; but angriest of all with Galvin House, which had precipitated her into this adventure.
Why did silly women expect every girl to marry? Why was it a.s.sumed because a woman did not marry that no one wanted to marry her?
Patricia regarded herself in the looking-gla.s.s. Was she really the sort of girl who might be taken for an inveterate old maid? Her hands and feet were small. Her ankles well-shaped. Her figure had been praised, even by women. Her hair was a natural red-auburn. Her features regular, her mouth mobile, well-shaped with very red lips.
Her eyes a violet-blue with long dark lashes and eyebrows.
"You"re not so bad, Patricia Brent," she remarked as she turned from the gla.s.s. "But you will probably be a secretary to the end of your days, drink cold weak tea, keep a cat and get hard and angular, skinny most likely. You"re just the sort that runs to skin and bone."
She was interrupted in her meditations by a knock at the door.
"Come in," she called.
The door was softly opened and Mrs. Hamilton entered.
"May I come in, dear?" she enquired in an apologetic voice, as she stood on the threshold.
"Come in!" cried Patricia, "why of course you may, you dear. You can do anything you like with me."
Mrs. Hamilton was small and white and fragile, with a ray of sunlight in her soul. She invariably dressed in grey, or blue-grey. Everything she wore seemed to be as soft as her own expression.
"I--I came up--I--I--hope it is not bad news. I don"t want to meddle in your affairs, my dear; but I am concerned. If there is anything I can do, you will tell me, won"t you? You won"t think me inquisitive, will you?"
"Why you dear, silly little thing, of course I don"t. Still it"s just like your sweet self to come up and enquire. It is only that ridiculous Colonel Bowen who is showering telegrams on me in this way, in order, I suppose, to benefit the revenue. I think he has gone mad.
Perhaps it"s sh.e.l.l-shock, poor thing. There will most likely be another shower before we go to bed. Now we will go downstairs and stop those old p.u.s.s.ies talking."
"My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Hamilton.
Patricia laughed. "Yes, aren"t I getting acid and spinsterish?"
As they walked downstairs Mrs. Hamilton said:
"I"m so anxious to see him, my dear. Miss w.a.n.gle says he is so distinguished-looking."
"Who?" enquired Patricia, with mock innocence.
"Colonel Bowen, dear."
"Oh! Yes, he"s quite a decent-looking old thing, and he"s given Galvin House something to talk about, hasn"t he?"
In the lounge Patricia soon became the centre of a group anxious for information; but no one was daring enough to put direct questions to her. Mrs. Craske-Morton ventured a suggestion that Colonel Bowen might be coming to dine with Patricia, and that she hoped Miss Brent would let her know in good time, so that she might make special preparations.
Patricia replied without enthusiasm. None was better aware than she that had her fiance turned out to be a private, Mrs. Craske-Morton would have been the last even to suggest that he should dine at Galvin House. There would have been no question of special preparations.
About ten o"clock Gustave entered and approached Patricia. She groaned in spirit.
"You are wanted on the telephone, mees."
Patricia thought she detected a note of reproach in his voice, as if he were conscious that a fellow-male was being badly treated.
"Will you say that I"m engaged?" replied Patricia.
"It"s Colonel Baun, mees."
For a moment Patricia hesitated. She was conscious that Galvin House was against her to a woman. After all there were limits beyond which it would be unwise to go. Galvin House had its standards, which had already been sorely tried. Patricia felt rather than heard the whispered criticism pa.s.sing between Miss w.a.n.gle and Mrs.