CHAPTER II
Patricia O'Neill had grown up a victim to the excitement of big ideas. Thus she lived her life on something of an heroic scale. She could go through anything that was disagreeable to her, once she had fitted an "idea" to it; an idea that allowed of translation into tangible action, that is; she had no use for the abstract theory which dwelt aloof from its owner, and which could be kept comfortably enshrined in a crystal or high on an inaccessible shelf. But there was a tingling curiosity in seeing how existence worked out, adapted afresh to each big idea applied. Patricia discovered joyously that there were few thoughts or desires, brain-conceived, that could not immediately be put into execution—provided, of course, that one were willing to accept the consequent damage. And here, she stood by a certain immortal discovery she had made when, as a child, she had been afflicted with toothache: "I can always pretend it's out and on the mantelpiece and aching over there without me; and when Mr. Wright tugs, I neverquiteguess beforehand just how much it's going to hurt; so that it's all fun—even if it's hateful fun...."
So she raced through the years in a fashion calculated to cause much anxiety to an adoring family not aware of the true inner significance that would provide a clue to most of her inexplicable doings. "Pat's terribly inconsistent," said Ann, her one step-sister. "Pat's an egoist," pronounced Hetty, the other step-sister. And: "I wish Patricia were more conventional!" sighed Mrs. O'Neill. But if these accusations were just—if Pat did leap from idea to idea, she was always splendidly consistent to the one temporarily enthroned; only she was wise enough to lay herself open to Ann's accusation rather than cling to an idea that had lost its elasticity, that had gone slack to the pull. And if she were indeed unconventional, it was from no motive of cussedness or desire to shock, but merely that in the tearing progress of whatsoever wagon she drove, star-hitched, athwart space and along the rim of the skies, she would not stay for the impediments that little people had lain along their little pavements, to hinder the swift.
As for the charge of egoism—
"I look at it in this way, Shrimpet,"—her nick-name for Hetty; cross between a shrimp and a limpet!—"Persons like you and Ann, who can contrive to be more rampantly interested in other people than in yourselves, are a sorrowful sight. You have only your own mind, such as it is, Shrimpet, for thinking purposes; the mind of Mrs. Tomkyns round the corner is of no earthly consequence to you when you are alone to face the problem of seven times eight. Granted? You have likewise only your own soul, Shrimpet, for great sensations. Therefore it argues to me an ungrateful disposition, a lack of proper balance, and a want of respect to your own mind and soul, to depreciate them out of existence when it's a question of the mind and soul of Mrs. Tomkyns. Besides all that, if Mrs. Tomkyns happens to be a reasonable creature who puts herself first, and you are putting her first—and getting praised for an unselfish disposition—then there are two people putting Mrs. Tomkyns first, and nobody at all putting Shrimpet O'Neill first. Which makes the world lopsided. Oh, altruism is well beyond me, I admit it. So throw me over the caramels."
After an interval of silence, during which Patricia cheerfully removed the paper from each one of the sweets, to find the especial kind she coveted, and Hetty watched her in speculative apprehension, Ann, who had been thinking over her elder sister's speech, questioned slowly:
"Yes, but might not Mrs. Tomkyns be putting Hetty first? A sort of cross-over putting first?"
"It's rash to bet on it. But I've not the least objection to Shrimpet taking existence in the gambling spirit, if she chooses. Only let us understand that itisthe gambling spirit, and not the sheer beauty of sacrifice, that's all. How much did you pay for these? They're rotten!"
"It's noble to sacrifice," pronounced Hetty, well on her way to becoming a prig.
"Dearest Shrimpet, unselfish people can know nothing about that. They sacrifice as a matter of course; it's a pleasure to them, I assure you. It's only an egoist like me who can speak feelingly of the rich agonies of sacrifice.... Do you like the ones with bits of nut in them, Shrimpet? Hm—that's a pity; so do I!... And that's why I'm pained and grieved beyond measure when anyone calls me selfish; because each time I do wrench myself, creaking and protesting, to an act of sacrifice, I make a mental register of that stupendous fact, its date and circumstance——Here's a nut one—catch!—no—it's quite all right—I've provided for myself!... Well, naturally, memory becomes crowded in time with these bulging obsessions of one's own acts of unselfishness—twice a year, or thereabouts, mounts up, let me tell you, in nineteen years. So that, contemplating these, I do view myself, truly and honestly, as more unselfish than you—you, with memory blankly unretentive of your effortless days of sunbeam-scatter. What causes me to mourn bitterly—I repeat it, bitterly—is the disproportionate appreciation I receive from you all after my twice-yearly. I mention it as we happen to be on the subject, that's all. Believe me, Shrimpet, bravery is to be found only in the coward, not in the brave man. And true unselfishness can come only from the true egoist. Usually it doesn't."
Hetty looked at Ann, who was quietly smiling; then back again at Patricia.
"Wouldn't you—I mean, don't you like giving up little things for people you rather love?" she ventured.
"Heaven forbid! When I am finally guilty, O Shrimpet, of offering up my all in a very ecstasy of selfishness, it shall be to the one person—not to people, but to the one person—who is big enough to warrant the wickedness of self-obliteration. But to please myself in the untidy fashion peculiar to you and Ann, all day long and day after day complacently giving up things in driblets to people who don't count—me, for instance!—that is self-indulgence carried to a degree which I really cannot condone!"
After which severe and lofty denunciation, Patricia absorbed the last of the caramels; sprang down from her perch on the schoolroom desk; and casually asked Hetty to do an errand for her at the far end of the town, through a mile and a half of driving rain. Not seeing the twinkle concealed by Patricia's veiling lashes, Hetty indignantly refused; remarking, as the other had intended she should: "I'd have gone for you with pleasure if you hadn't said all that just now...."
Hetty was the youngest of the trio; only fourteen; and the sole offspring of a late marriage between Shane O'Neill and Mary Lynton, widower and widow, with a daughter apiece to bring along as contribution to the new household. Patricia was four at the time; and staid little Ann Lynton two and three quarters. Dr. O'Neill died a few years later, leaving his wife and the three girls a roomy comfortable house with a large garden in Sydenham, where his practice had been; and a very adequate income for their needs.
When Patricia was twenty, she met Dacres Upton.
She met him while on a winter holiday in Switzerland, at Les Avants. He beat her in the Mixed Singles Toboggan Race. And then refused to give up the prize to her, when a sociable and tactless sports' secretary suggested it were not unbecoming on his part to do so.
"What do you suppose she'd do with a prize she hadn't won?" enquired Upton.
"It was a very close finish. Miss O'Neill put up a magnificent fight."
"She did," the young man assented unemotionally.
"Well then," with a genial beam, "we agree that chivalry dictates——"
"That I shouldn't insult the girl by treating her either as a babe or an idiot. Certainly we agree. Besides," thoughtfully, "I happen to want those binoculars...."
A report of this conversation was carried to Patricia by her indignant admirer, the secretary. At the fancy-dress ball held at the hotel that evening, she had an opportunity of warmly thanking Upton for retaining the binoculars.
He said slowly, in the level tones that never altered: "Of course Mixed Races run on chivalrous lines become an absurdity. But Fennimore doesn't know that it's as much fun to lose as to win. He'd say it was, because that's the 'British sporting spirit.'... You hear about it at election-times. But he would never realize the truth of it."
The girl's interest was spurred by this. Though she only said mournfully: "They are very nice binoculars. I have never had any binoculars of my own...."
Upton promised her she should occasionally look through his. And she asked him if he were not by this concession hopelessly damaging his reputation for inflexibility. He smiled; and offered to race her again, for their private satisfaction, down the same course and under the same conditions.
"And shall I get the binoculars, if I win?"
"No; those are beyond your attainment, now. But you'll get the pleasure of feeling that you are equally capable of the performance that won them for me."
"My dear good man, I shan't be able to bear such a stupendous emotion, all at once, without any training...."
"Quarter to three, at the foot of the Loup." And Dacres Upton relinquished her to another partner, from whom she gathered information that Upton was a Captain in the Army, and recently home from India. Her interest was spurred anew; he did not give an impression of the accepted military type.
He was victor again, in their private contest the following afternoon. And Patricia, who had been secretly nourishing a faint hope that he would after all yield the honour to her, and do this with such skilful cunning that she might not even suspect it—Patricia was both surprised and pained ... and extremely respectful.
They paired off together as much as they could, during his remaining fortnight at Les Avants. But Upton was with a large party of uncles and cousins; and Patricia could not often desert her mother and Ann and Hetty, who regarded her as indispensable to their enjoyment. So that their mutual appetites for the other's sole society was keenly whetted by frustration. And once, during a lively and convivial excursion, Dacres remarked to Patricia, in strictly matter-of-fact tones:
"To Hell with all these braying barbarians. Next Christmas we're coming here alone for a week. Don't forget—December the twenty-third, Charing Cross, in time for the boat-train."
His voice blended quite naturally with the general conversation in progress; and nobody overheard.
"Shall we see that Upton man in London, Pat?" enquired Hetty, on the eve of departure.
"I expect so. He told me his regiment was recalled for a good long bout of home service."
"I don't like him."
"Alack, Shrimpet! and I love him passionately."
Six weeks later, and Patricia would have suppressed that remark for the very truth of it....
Almost directly on their return, Patricia was informed that a gentleman was waiting to see her in her own sitting-room—as the eldest of the girls, Mrs. O'Neill considered her entitled to this luxury—and found Dacres leaning up against the fireplace.
"You're a dangerous creature," he informed her gently, without further greeting.
Patricia modestly cast down her eyes. "You flatter me."
"Dangerous to me. I saw that from the beginning. I ought to have kept out of your way—but that's a futile fashion of avoiding the whole affair.... I'd have gone on thinking about you, and tormenting myself; wondering just how much difference you would have made if only I'd let you.... In fact, I'd probably have overestimated your effect on my life."
"I think not ..." murmured Patricia.
"Well—may I smoke? Thanks!—I prefer to go on with anything I'm afraid of—on with it, and through with it, and done with it. So—here I am."
Patricia lit a cigarette; and reposing face downwards on the peacock cushions of the divan, propped her chin on her hands, and gazed thoughtfully into the ascending spirals of smoke....
"What is impressing me so profoundly that I can hardly bear to mention it without tears, is your tender regard for my attitude in all this. I'm touched by it, really I am. A poor girl in my station of life isn't used to such consideration."
He looked down at her, smiling.
"You're rather a darling ... Pat."
And she knew that behind all his flow of equable talk, lurked some element of the stuff that was going to make this worth while. Very much worth while....
"Just for ten minutes," Dacres proposed, after a pause, "I want you to imagine that I'm my own closest pal, who has known me all my life, and has come to have a little private talk with you to warn you against me. He's probably in love with you too—this pal of mine."
"Simply pestered with admirers!" Patricia informed the slow-curling blue vapours that twisted fantastically between her and the man. But she was tumultuously glad that he had actually and as a matter of course spoken the phrase....
"Go on."
"Between ourselves, Miss O'Neill, Upton is not to be trusted."
"Fancy! And I thought him such a harmless well-spoken young fellow."
"Not so very young; over thirty. He'll try and make you trust in his sincerity, and in certain of his moods he's rather plausible. But don't. Stick like grim death to the notion that he only needs white spats and a dyed moustache to make him the complete villain of popular melodrama. Remember that—and you'll be all right. His inner nature is villainous. Believe me, my dear Miss O'Neill, I'm speaking as much for Dacres' good as for yours."
"Oh, I believe you, my man. I had a sort of inkling that Dacres' good came somewhere into this merry little pastime of yours."
Very seriously Upton looked down into the mocking lure of her eyes: "I'm not sure that it is a pastime. Pat, I warn you—I can't do more—that I'm not to be trusted."
"I hate to boast," retorted the girl, "but neither am I!"
He laughed. And took her in his arms....
They continued for some time on these terms, Dacres forcing Patricia into belief that his intentions were strictly dishonourable; and she countering with the assumption that she was a rank egoist, and was toying with his affections, preparatory at any moment to jilt him in the fashion of the cruellest wanton. Dacres, however, declared on one occasion that it was mere perverted vanity which had caused them to assume such lurid aspects:
"We're quite respectable domestic characters, really.... Come with me to the Censor, Pat, and let me ask him for your hand in marriage. If he sees through your blatant vampire act, and passes you as fit for publication, you'll never be able to impress me again."
"I've heard of those marriages; they're performed under bribery by some wretched hireling who isn't really in holy orders. A pal of yours warned me of just such an attempt to ensnare my girlish confidence."
"Vampires have no girlish confidence. And that pal of mine is a meddlesome and treacherous old bore...."
But he would never let her continue long in any settled faith of his purpose. There was menace to their intercourse—menace which she braved again and again, recklessly, always to find herself saved it would seem by some slender accident ... or was this queer man deliberately playing the guardian angel to her, as well as the silent threatener of evil? Jekyll pitted against Hyde, and Hyde conscious of his Jekyll.... Dacres Upton not yet sure on which side he was ranged himself. And she, for her part, wanted to prove to him once and for all how she joyed in this scrambling slippery contest of their wills; how, challenging all his disguises, she trusted him; would persist in trusting him to the furthest extremes of peril; expose herself to hurt in all vulnerable places—thus forfeiting all right to cry out if her daring were punished. In this spirit would she consent to that breathless week in Switzerland, which they had so often anticipated. And afterwards perhaps, if he still desired it.... He was quartered now with his company at Aldershot; in January his period of home service would be up, and he might be sent abroad at any moment; to Egypt, perhaps. Well—if he still fervently desired it, she might go with him ... his wife. Patricia was twenty, and unwilling to yield up her adventurous girlhood—but Dacres Upton was the mate for her. She would risk her all with him first, for the fun of the risk, and for her own youth's sake.... In spite of her brilliant imagination, she was still funnily possessed of the utterly childish notion that adventure closes perforce with the sound of wedding-bells.
Under his almost obtrusive impassivity of outward bearing, she had discovered a fund of mischief fully rivalling her own; his audacities gained an added spice from the level well-bred tones which he never varied. As for his appearance—Patricia once informed him that he was the Least Common Multiple of every ordinary man that had ever existed: average height; tanned hatchet face; nondescript grey-blue eyes; fawn hair, sleekly brushed backwards.... "I've seen thousands of you, Dacres!"
"It's the Army mould; and originally set up as a protest to the splendid Guardsman of the Victorian era, with flowing chestnut beard and eyes as velvety as a woman's glove and steely withal as the iron hand inside it...."
"Why did you enter the Army?" She had often speculated on this anomaly.
"I was afraid of death."
Patricia questioned no further. Half a year of the man's companionship had taught her that he was no coward by temperament; quite obviously a moral and physical stoic where life was concerned; fearless, too, of all the circumstances of death—suffering, hardship, loss, peril, sudden attack. It must therefore be the actual wrenching apart of flesh and spirit which caused him that sick dread apparent in the one brief phrase just spoken; or perhaps recoil from the after stillness and decay. It was like him, therefore, voluntarily to adopt the profession of arms. Silently she applauded the self-intolerant discipline of his choice.
The months gyrated dizzily, with song-sound as of the humming of many tops.... Autumn now—Patricia's favourite season. Red October affected her as April affects most natures; exhilarated her body; crammed her soul with restless flying hopes.... The hours she snatched alone with Dacres were too frequent for longing to crust itself with peace; insufficient for a generous passion waxing to its zenith. More and ever more their talk recurred to that truant week at the end of December; week which was to contain two days' wakeful journey at the start and at the finish of it, like white sentinels guarding the three central days, shutting them off to the aloofness of enchantment.
On the fifth of December Patricia received from Dacres the following letter, which she read at the family breakfast-table:
"I've met the woman who means all life to me, and death, and beyond death. I've no excuses to make for myself, Patricia—except that I warned you that I was not to be trusted. Did you take in the warning?—I hope so."Thank you for the gift of a good time. I can never ask for a better comrade than you have been. Nor do I suppose I will ever admire anyone quite as much as I admire you, now and always."Of course our arrangement for December 23rd holds, unless you wish to cancel it. Personally, I'm looking forward immensely to our week of winter-sport."Dacres."
"I've met the woman who means all life to me, and death, and beyond death. I've no excuses to make for myself, Patricia—except that I warned you that I was not to be trusted. Did you take in the warning?—I hope so.
"Thank you for the gift of a good time. I can never ask for a better comrade than you have been. Nor do I suppose I will ever admire anyone quite as much as I admire you, now and always.
"Of course our arrangement for December 23rd holds, unless you wish to cancel it. Personally, I'm looking forward immensely to our week of winter-sport.
"Dacres."
"... Coffee, please, Ann." Gently Patricia laid the letter back in its envelope. She would reread it presently, when she was alone; and strive to fathom his motive for this silly gratuitous lie.
A second perusal, when she was lying on the divan of her own sitting-room, convinced her reason beyond all doubt that he wrote the truth. Behind reason, every nerve and sense and feeling quivered their protest, clamoured in startled incredulity.... "Why—he loved you! helovedyou!..."
Hm ... love! Strange to think that he had been right in his grave self-indictment; right in his warning to her. He was what the world would term a "rotter"; what she herself, one day, would dismiss with scornful appellation of "the wrong sort of man."... Meanwhile, there was a thick dark fog to be traversed between "one day" and the present hour ... she could see how black, but she could not tell yet how long. Beyond the fog, the clear road again, and sunshine, and freedom, and the day-long tramp, light-hearted and light of heel....
Patricia sprang impatiently from the couch; crossed to the window; stood looking out across the fantastic patchwork of roofs spread below her....
She must think this out while yet stunned to all anguish ... presently would come tears, and groping misery; futile rebellion; futile attempts at alleviation.... And logic would be drenched and helpless.
Think it out.... "I've met the woman who means all life to me, and all death, and——" That did not need much thinking out, at least. It was kind of Dacres to be so lucid.
... Patricia found herself wondering if the blow would have fallen with yet more fatal effect on her if it had occurred after their wild stolen week? She had not had the remotest conception of the terms on which the adventure was undertaken; had left it to Dacres—or to the inspiration of the moment. There had been a tingle in this haphazard prospect which had woken her at dawn with flushed cheeks, and fast-beating heart, and a gladness in her own daring that was part tremulous, part triumphant. Neither was she in the least aware if the man had made up his mind to any settled course of virtue or villainy—or whether he too were letting the moment decide....
Well—now she would never know. Maybe it was as well that chance had not allowed her the full reaping of happiness for its fuller aftermath of grief. Or might grief have been more tranquil in grateful recognition of the harvest gathered in before the rain?
"It doesn't matter...."
Dacres' offer of "our week of winter-sport," as though indeed nothing had happened to mar its fulfilment, goaded her to a fine flare of anger; she tore the letter violently across and across.... Then paused, half amused that she should have been betrayed into any such act of commonplace melodrama.... But how dared he suggest so coolly the spoiling of all that the past had given them, by this dead travesty of their exultant scheme? A smile twisted her sweet mocking mouth, as from infallible perception of the workings of his brain she followed out his mental evolutions which had resulted in the proposal....
Thus Dacres: "The man of the first degree would not have invited her, under the circumstances, from sheer indifference. The man of the second degree would not have invited her, nor even mentioned the plan fallen through, from motives of delicacy, from the fear to hurt her. The man of the third degree would elaborately have invited her to come after all and in spite of all; throughout the week insulting her by an extra show of chivalry, gentleness and charming consideration. And the man of the fourth degree, which is myself, pay her the compliment of supposing she would prefer to play up, as though indeed nothing had happened, to the hard good-fellowship and careless exacting brutality which would have been her lot by divine right, a month ago...."
"And the man of the fifth degree, Dacres," whispered Patricia, to the torn fragments of his letter littering the floor, "would not have committed the blunder of asking me to believe in all that careful balderdash.... The superman of the fifth degree would have behaved exactly like the man of the first degree—and would have let well alone. You're not quite up to that, are you, Dacres?"...
Funny—to have been jilted! Like being unseated when in full gallop. When would she ride again?—They say one ought to mount at once after a throw, or the nerve is gone....
Some of the numbness was passing away now.... Hurriedly she envisioned the sort of things that were bound to beset her while she beat her way through her bad time ... sodden and bewildered with tears; storms of gusty feeling leading to nowhere; leaden indifference to the stir and pulse of life around her;—then blindly stupid contemptible moods, when she would not,couldnot face her loss ... it was all a mistake—the explanation might come at any moment—Dacres might come at any moment ... moods of attempted evasion, cramming out thought by some frenzied occupation, wilfully wrenching her mind from contemplation of the truth ... other people—other men—anything ... artificially stuffing her ears, her sight, her logic; deliberately avoiding certain places; stumbling painfully over certain dates; alternation of sentimental memories with bombastic "don't care!"... More tears....
All this, serving only to prolong the agony. All this ...mess!... How she despised the sort of thing that a love-disappointment made out of its victim!
Was there then no cleaner way out of it all? No short cut through the fog? Patricia vowed that not Dacres nor any man was to be allowed to weight her buoyancy, bedraggle her white pride. Not for long, anyway. Already she was eager to regain her forfeited fleetness. Was there no short cut?—quick—now—while still she could think?—
And then, in the nick of time, Patricia was whirled up by one of her big ideas!
Suppose, literally, she were to face the matter out, instead of literally fleeing from it——(She had heard of girls, in such straits, who had immediately been dispatched on a lengthy sea-voyage.)... Suppose she were to consent to the week at Les Avants; consent of her own free will to be confronted by the daily hourly evidence of her loss: the perpetual presence of Dacres—loving someone else; renewal of the most intimate companionship, lacking that glow which lit it from behind as through a transparency. No possibility then, after that, of pitiful self-delusion that it was all a mistake, or that he would come back.
It would convince her. And, convincing her, set her free.
But it would irrevocably kill all the good they had enjoyed together. This hollow repetition of what had been once a ringing beautiful thing—it would blur and sully memory; forbid it altogether. Was it not a shame ... to kill a beautiful thing?
No ... and so much the better! To kill the past in order to clear the future. All the love he had given her, overlain by torment, stung and poisoned. With this one week as a thorn-barrier between her and the year gone by, she would never be able to linger for regretful sentiment. The horizon ahead was hers, at the expense of the backward look.
Only—could she go through with it? Go through with it, and not break down? Seven days of strain, incessant and unflinching.... Well, she would at least have her nights alone, if she wanted to ... cry.
Slowly the episode began to take on the hues of adventure; harsh sombre hues—but why need adventure of necessity be joyous? This sharp test to come was surely as much part of her adventure with Dacres as his arms gripping her and his mouth hard upon her eyelids....
Yes—yes—with a queer sense of being lifted high, higher, out of the ruts of thought, Patricia had a glimpse of adventure, true, and sonorous, and made complete by anguish to the verge of breaking-point. It was adventure itself, this dash into the fire for her liberty beyond....
The vision died down ... left her tired, and a little dazed. But she wrote to Upton at once, saying that she would come to Les Avants, as they had planned it. She did not comment on the rest of his letter; and she left her motive for the acceptance unexplained. He might assume, if he pleased, that she could not suffer total loss of him, preferred his company even under the stated conditions; or else he might suppose it was for the sake of the winter-sports——
No—Dacres was not quite fool enough for that.
As a matter of fact, she had not made allowances for his present thickened perceptions where she was concerned. All his fine keen understandings were employed upon his new love, her moods and ways and exactions. He accepted Patricia's decision in an unquestioning spirit; they had agreed upon this week; it was her due to insist upon it. He could trust her to play up to their unspoken treaty of "no scenes."
He hated spending his seven days of Christmas leave apart from—her. But he owed them to Pat. His strict sense of honour insisted that he owed them to Pat. He could not refrain from wishing, however, that Pat had been woman enough to answer his proposal with an indignant or hysterical avowal that she never wanted to see him again.
He was due back at Aldershot on the morning of the thirty-first.... Perhaps he might just manage to wind up his holiday by an hour with the beloved, on the night of the thirtieth, after he had parted from Pat. One hour—it would be worth the whole strenuous wearisome week preceding it. No matter how fagged he was—somehow it should be managed. So he made his plans. And it was with eyes fixed steadily upon the climax he had promised himself, that he met Patricia at Folkestone among the crowd that pressed on to the gangway to the Boulogne boat.... It was with gaze that had never wavered from that climax, that he bade her good-bye at Charing Cross Station, exactly a week later, at twenty-five minutes past nine on the evening of the thirtieth. His casual farewell was just what it would have been had the days behind them been packed rooms of treasure. Only she would have received a look that denied the careless utterance ... silent assurance of a letter the next morning.
Altogether, Upton's magnificent lack of consideration for her welfare had materially and quite unnecessarily added to the torment of Patricia's self-chosen week of discipline. It was a manner of complimenting her which had required considerable living-up-to in the old days when one was happy and could live up to well-nigh anything: Never to betray discomfort nor emotion—that was all very well, spurred by his approbation. But with his dreamy indifference taking for granted the excellence of her conduct, Patricia could have wished for a little less fatigue duty. She could account for his absent-mindedness easily enough ... then the sudden pull back to recollection ... involuntary atonement rendered by some extra deferential courtesy towards herself, hastily superseded by the brusquer comradeship of the man of the fourth degree. Fully a dozen times on the outward journey Patricia watched him through this little comedy—"Truly man is an amazing work of God!"—mouth tilted to its own slow mocking smile ... but now her eyes were dead; dead green, that had once held their hot gold sparkle. She was tired even before they started; for lying to one's family is another thing that requires to be buoyed up by the sub-consciousness of great delights in store to render the lies worth while. Patricia had not at all enjoyed the invention of a school friend who had invited her to Scotland for a week; so many tiny props went to make this structure dependable; she loathed herself for the smaller quibbles far more than for the one big lie. Hetty, of course, asked dozens of questions; and Anne asked none at all, but insisted on packing for her—which was worse.... "Will you really need your skates in Scotland, Pat?" And all the secret arrangements would have been such fun if.... And the journey itself would have been such fun if....
Mrs. O'Neill had just been peremptorily ordered by her doctor into a nursing-home for six weeks; her health required perfect rest. It was a relief to Pat that no news of her escapade could possibly penetrate in any form of idle gossip, to the person whom it would most grieve.
Patricia was only twenty-two, and notoriously heedless of public opinion, or it might have struck her forcibly that to risk her good name for the love of a man was a foolish and headstrong proceeding; but that to risk her good name for the sake of an idea was more than folly—and approached divine lunacy....
Seven days that were like patterns clearly pricked out by a red-hot needle. She did not suppose she would ever forget a single moment of them. Two days out and two days back. And three days that were outwardly a dazzle of ice and snow and sunshine, and white peaks scissor-cut into dark blue skies; and warning shouts of the bob-sleighers as they shot round the curve of the Loup—Gare! Gare!! Gare!!! ... clean crunch of the steel runners through the hard glittering path of snow; skaters swooping in fantastic postures to and fro on the circular ice-rink; hotels that were mere glorified wooden châlets; shining yellow parquet of floors and corridors littered by skis and luges waiting to be scraped; in all the rooms the smell of soaked woollens drying on thecalorifère; young voices clattering ceaselessly their excited sports-jargon.... Three breathless nights of carnival and dancing, dancing till the stiffened limbs relaxed to suppleness; dancing till four in the morning; up again at eight; no respite—Patricia gave thanks to her superb health and fitness that carried her with credit through at least the physical wear and tear of her ... holiday. Carried her through, laughing.
But there were moments whose setting and opportunity craved their fill of passion, that perforce remained empty as beautiful scooped-out cups—too beautiful to be robbed of their meed of glowing wine....
One evening, after sunset, Dacres and Patricia raced on their low-built skeletons down the lonely white mountain-path, that was now rose-flooded to an unearthly radiance. Their old course, on which he had twice beaten her. This time she beat him ... and sprang erect on the snow-bank, dragging away her luge just quickly enough to avert a spill as he came whizzing in her wake. For a second, in exultant anticipation of his applause, she had forgotten.... His hearty "Well done, Pat!" sounded almost real.
"I say, what a run!" She was flushed and tingling from her success, and the speed, and the keen whip of the air.
"I beat you twice, though. I'm not sure that you deserve the binoculars yet. And you won't get another chance, as we go home to-morrow."
Her mood died at the sudden animation betrayed in his last phrase.—Curse the man ... couldn't he behave with outward decency, anyhow? Listlessly she picked up her luge, shook the snow from her shoulders....
She rather thought she deserved more than the binoculars.
But he seemed as impervious to memories as though his faculties were encased in something hard and slippery, from which all flung allusions rebounded ineffectually. And in an hour's time he would be holding her in his arms for the one-step; and his hands would be entirely nerveless; and his dancing automatically perfect....
As Upton had stopped alone down in the valley on the night of their arrival, and had only followed her up to Les Avants the following morning, the other visitors at the hotel, and the staff, and the native peasantry, believed the two to have met accidentally, for the second time; and to be renewing an acquaintance that was rapidly approaching the interesting stage of a formal engagement. Therefore, and as though fate were bent on atoning for its last year's unkindness in the matter, everybody combined to manœuvre that they should invariably be thrown together, and left to themselves. It did not lighten the burden of intercourse, but it added to the situation—at least from Pat's point of view—a certain pungent element of humour. Their combined prowess at all forms of winter-sport had not been forgotten; and they walked isolated and conspicuous: the daring pair who skated so beautifully together, danced so harmoniously together, were so closely matched at ski-ing and luging: "I really forget how many prizes they carried off between them last year...."
Last year. Oh, no danger but that she would hate him enough, when the reaction would set in from this ghastly necessity of playing-up and playing-up; when she would have time to recall and to hate. Safely and surely he was murdering the old Dacres whom she had loved; with every act and look; especially with every act and look left undone.... Thus and thus he was loosening her bondage, as she had intended he should. She was glad she had come, and a thousand times been persuaded of the utter change in him; in a thousand exquisite ways had his indifference pounded into her receptivity. Glad that she was not sitting at home ... a hot fire—a little room-a muffled obstinate sorrow.
Only ... they had planned such a wonderful week!
She checked the rush of thought. Not for that had she come adventuring on the wrong side of the sun; not to give way at the last to a sluggish sentimentalism her soul spurned. Not for that had she wilfully spoilt the fairest message time had as yet whispered; not that she should now hang back to regret its damaged fairness....
For Patricia O'Neill was proud of her twenty-one years, and the glorious vigour of her limbs, and the resilient stretch of her brain; and of her power to shape her life obedient to those empyreal flashes of inspiration that burst upon her out of the angry clouds. Too proud to yield up one jot of longing to a man who was oblivious of her. She had heard and read of the divinity of sacrifice, of pride venting itself in profoundest humility—but at twenty-two this creed was too meek and too quenched of colour for her acceptance. And not all the indignity of Dacres' far-away gaze into the black dripping glooms, as the train pounded its way from Folkestone to Charing Cross, could render her less proud. She braced her overtaxed nerves to meet the last demands upon them ... for she knew well enough whither Upton was bound that night—-that night still—after he had got rid of her. His adventure did not end simultaneously with hers....
The same cynical destiny as had attended them all along, had provided they should be alone in their first-class carriage. If their truancy had fulfilled the promise of its first conception, then in what grateful mood would they now be giving thanks for their isolation ... isolation that permitted her to lie along one of the seats, her head drawn down to his shoulder; his hard sinewy hands straying very softly indeed over her hair and her cheeks and her throat ... lulled tender mood of retrospect ... naughty children returning home, too tired, too happy to care if punishment await them....
"Kiss me, Patricia—we're almost there. I can see the lights. It's been a good time.... Kiss me, Patricia—dear...."
Had he really said it? Or had she been dozing? She started to an upright position in her corner; her head had lain against the window-blind. And Dacres had not moved from his seat at the far end of the carriage. He was still looking steadily out of the window, and he was faintly smiling ... boat and train had been punctual; and already he saw the blurred points of light that betokened London....
He had told her he would be with her on the evening of December the thirtieth, at a quarter to ten. He would be true to his word.