iii
When little Jacky Dean called for her on the Saturday evening, Patricia was still full of her healing arrogance. She greeted Jacky rather sweepingly, because he was a young man who invited disdain; and in two minutes had received fresh reassurance as to her superiority to all other girls. Jacky was, in fact, the open-mouthed fair young man with whom she had found herself left at Topping's. He was always perfectly dressed, because he was wealthy and without occupation; and he was by way of being infatuated with Patricia. He was always at her service, always eager to stand a dinner or a dance, or a revue or musical play. Conversation beyond the "top-hole" stage he was incapable of reaching; but he was very dog-like, and looked sweetly pink and golden; and his dancing had improved; and he was never any strain, as he made no demands at all, but merely sought to be useful and obliging. He had two thousand pounds a year, with the prospect of more when an elderly aunt died; and he would proudly have married Patricia on the morrow. No wonder, therefore, that she was kind to him in a disdainful way, and refrained from hurting his feelings. Nothing would have made her marry him—the thought of doing so had never entered her mind; but she found his devotion rather pathetic at times, and always, in spite of the discipline Jacky received, most timidly fervent.
Jacky was subservient by nature. He had attached himself to the purlieus of the stage door as soon as he had become a man; he was a feature of river parties in the summer and every other sort of party for the remainder of the year. In physique he was a weed; but there was nothing noticeably the matter with him, beyond an amiable lack of brain. He was everybody's pet, as one who would never grow up and who never minded paying. Pleasure, in Jacky's case, was no feverishly-sought goal, but a state of being so customary as to limit his interests. His wan little face, with its air of constant innocence, was still that of a child. Whatever adventures he might have had in connection with the stage door had left him unscarred. He was still the delicious babe of his unripe years. Patricia found him easily manageable; he had never even dared to put his arm round her in a taxicab, although obviously he would have liked to venture this exploit. She had a considerable sense of power when she was in his company, and nothing had ever occurred to weaken it.
Jacky's idea of the evening was dinner in the West End, salted with cocktails in plenty, with champagne, and with old brandy. Then a taxi would carry them from Regent Street to South Hampstead in a fit state to enjoy a rowdy dance, during which Jacky, laughing with joy, would assist the band. But Patricia checked his enthusiasm. On no account could she risk a meeting with Harry—she even dreaded that he might appear at Monty's,—and her own plan was less ambitious. It was she who named the restaurant—an obscure place to which she knew Harry would never think of going; and Jacky was too mild of spirit to resist. They went therefore to this shabby place—the Axminster—where all was faded cream and gold, with rusty palms and magenta lamp-shades and artificial flowers and vulgar mirrors and English waiters. It is true that Jacky's face fell at sight of the bill of fare, and still more at the meagre printed wine list (with alterations in a crabbed handwriting), but in the midst of his furtive glance round preparatory to suggestion of flight he was diverted by the sound of a popular one-step as played to applause by the restaurant orchestra. He subsided, looking with shallow-pated amusement at all the respectable men and women of middle age who sat around them. If Jacky's simple-minded ingenuity in the matter of painting the restaurant red came to nothing, at least, as Patricia could tell, he was perfectly happy to be dining alone with his goddess; and the meal was carried through, upon his part, with a silence as complete as lack of ideas for conversation could make it.