vii
She was still aching from the injury to her pride when the dance came to an end. By that time the anonymous young man with the sheep-like blue eyes had exchanged an expression of helpless vacancy for one of helpless admiration. Once, during the dance, he had stammered: "I ... I say, ... you do ... d-dance well"; but Patricia had ignored his speech. She could not compliment him in return. Her one curiosity was to know the name of the girl who had stolen Harry from her. Several times during the dance they had encountered the other pair; and Patricia had not failed to observe the voluptuous abandonment of the girl to a posture more nearly approaching immodesty than anything to be seen elsewhere.
"What was that girl's name?" she asked, as the young man proudly led her back.
"Bella?" he queried. "That's ... that's Bella Verreker. That's not her name really: it's her stage name."
Stage! Generations of puritanism caused a shiver to run through Patricia. She was instantly apprehensive. Bella was dangerous to Harry, to the evening, to ... her own happiness. Stricken with horror as she was, Patricia's distress was poignant. She was really afraid. This was something beyond her depth and her understanding. Her mood of fear was thereafter succeeded by one in which this curbing of spontaneous enjoyment was resented by her vanity. She was elaborately indifferent.
At that moment they met Monty, who had come towards her through the pressing crowd, with a politeness oriental in its quality, in its subtly encroaching familiarity towards herself.
"Hullo!" cried Patricia, in joyous greeting. She was all unconscious of anything but her own feelings. At this juncture the appearance of Monty was welcome, not for her interest in him, but for his opportuneness as a diversion. "I caught sight of you before."
"Come and dance," demanded Monty.
"Where's ... Mrs. Tallentyre?"
"Resting, and talking to a friend."
Patricia's teeth were firmly together. That impetuous mouth had become hard. Monty could read her as though she had spoken aloud. He knew she had been hurt, that she was in reaction. He knew that he had presented himself to Patricia as an opportunity. She was tempted; she was falling. He smiled comfortably.
"No you don't, Monty!" came Harry's voice: "No bagging my partner!"
There was a singular little scene; the three of them standing together, all ruffled and all good-humouredly smiling. Monty was not as tall as Harry, who accordingly towered over both of the others. He was very much the well-groomed man of the world in this place, and yet his smile was faintly ugly. It had changed within an instant, had deepened and become set. Not a wrinkle showed upon his unreadable face. Harry's cheerful grin, which displayed all his big white teeth, held combativeness. Patricia, thoroughly exasperated at the general bad manners, and not least at her own impulse to naughtiness, resented the feeling that she was a mere partner to be claimed by either. She was both exasperated and wisely alarmed.
"I saw you dancing with Bella," suavely explained Monty.
"She's with a party here ...." Harry was grim. There was definite conflict between the two men, spoiling, but controlled, so that while all three of them knew the conflict to be there no others near by could have guessed its presence. "But Patricia's with me."
Something—she did not realise what it was—cleared Patricia's vision. It was necessary that she should act with decision. She turned to Harry, no longer ill-tempered, but paler and almost deliberately patient in her manner to him.
"I'll dance once with Monty," she said. "And then come back to you."
And as the music began, she fell into step with Monty, leaving Harry chagrined and reddening. There was still a little temper in her emotion; but her chief thought as she danced was: "Two great babies!"
Patricia might have considered herself a third; but she did not do this.