With the expression of a baby that is afraid and is trying not to confess it; with eyes that seemed to grow larger each minute and a mouth that was pursed in fear that masqueraded as courage, Patricia stood alone in that ugly little room with the highly coloured furnishings and the gilded mirror. She knew she had her friends, who would welcome her rich or poor, but they would welcome a happy Patricia, and not one who was cowed by disaster. Such a Patricia as this would be unfamiliar. She could never bear to go among them starving or wretched. Where she had queened it, she could never play Cinderella. But when her imagination darted ever so little forward—to the day when the money which had seemed such wealth was exhausted,—Patricia heard pity, and shrank from it. Hers was the panic cry: "All is lost!" She had been bold; her way had seemed so clear, so conquering. In that minute of discovery it was not surprising that confidence vanished. She was not one used to hardship, to the canvassing of expedients. All her life had been spent thoughtlessly so far as provision for anything beyond the moment was involved. She had no preparation at all for this emergency. She had awakened to nightmare.
With nerves shaken, and despair almost at her elbow, ready to plunge into her heart at a motion, Patricia tried to think. If her money went, what prospects were there? Harry's help—no! She could never appeal to Harry. That was a new thought, and one which confirmed her decision. In no circumstances whatever could she ever have gone to Harry as one humiliated. Nor could she have married him except for love, as an equal—as a superior, the adored, the shining wonderful of her own dreams. Marriage occurred to her—marriage as a way out of want—as it has occurred many times to women;—and it was only without true imagination that she saw it. It was a suggestion made by her inexperience—the sort of careless, unrealised notion that trips off the mind's surface. She knew that at any time she could have married Jacky; and the notion almost, even in the midst of her distress, made her laugh. It was absurd. Jacky! Jacky as a husband, a perpetual companion! There was nobody whom she could marry. A situation? Who would employ her? Now, when men and women were clamouring for work! And how, after so much liberty, endure the constraints and disciplines of office life! Impossible.
Dry-eyed and wretched, Patricia received her shock. She was stunned. A day earlier—in full panoply, deliciously happy, self-enchanted, inspired with the greatest ambitions, now she was amazed to find how insubstantial were the foundations of her confidence. In an instant, from independence, she had fallen to a paralysing discovery. Patricia was terrified. The knowledge that she was only a frightened, inexperienced little girl was borne in upon her.
iv
If she could have been caught in that mood by somebody capable of understanding her, who would have taken all her native silliness at its true value as the ebullience of youth, Patricia might have been turned at this moment into a channel leading straight to growth and happiness. But there was nobody at hand. There so rarely is anybody at hand. She had friends, but no friend. She was entirely without a friend to whom she could turn for renewal of that self-justification which is essential to happiness. She had been without a guide all her life, and all the acquaintances of the last few weeks were self-engrossed and pleasure-loving. She had been so wonderful, and now she saw that the power upon which she had counted did not exist. She was alone, and that was the consciousness which for Patricia lay uppermost. She was alone. Although she tried very hard to bluster, it was forced home to her that nobody cared very much what she did with her life. Harry had wanted her for himself, to make love to, to play with; never for the sake of seeing that she made the best of herself. He had not been interested in her. He had not imagined her. He did not love Patricia: he was merely "in love" with her, which meant that she provided, in her response, flattery to his own self-love.
Not a real friend: they did not grow in this heartless realm. There was only one house in London which she had felt as a home; and Claudia she hardly knew, while she was sure that Edgar Mayne, although he was kind, was inhuman. He could never understand that she was Patricia Quin, the marvellous Patricia; and that so she must remain in her own eyes for weeks and months and years to come—she believed, for ever. When she thought of him it was of one whose friendship she might value if only he would do what he could never do—acknowledge her will as a thing quite as splendid as his own. No friend: she was alone. A sob shook Patricia. The first hint of desperation showed in her. She gave a sob. What did it matter what she did? Nobody cared. Again that surge of arrogance swept—now a little less strongly—over her. She could rely upon only herself; and she was a little girl. Edgar was grown-up. Harry was grown-up. Amy was grown-up. They were all finished: only Patricia had the power of infinite growth. They could none of them understand her. She was too big to be understood—too big, and too childishly helpless. Patricia angrily wiped away two tears which had stolen out on to her cheeks. The contrast between her egotism and her situation was insufferable. She felt reckless, without hope. Who cared?
v
She was dining that night with Monty; and they were going on to dance at a club. She supposed it would be Topping's, but she was not sure. And as she wiped away her tears Patricia felt glad to be going out to dance. She thought that for one evening at least she would be able to forget that she had lost Harry and that she was on the verge of poverty. Still with that expression of fear and misery upon her face, she began to wonder about the dress she would wear, and about the evening, and about Monty; and as she did this her heart was a little eased at the distraction of her thoughts, and a more cheerful glance gave freshness to her appearance. She might still be fearful; but at any rate she was—ever so slightly—relieved. Complete disaster was not yet.
The day went on, very slowly, giving Patricia time for many changes of emotion between her fear and her arrogance, for tears and blustering or consoling speeches and recoveries; and by the evening she had become calmer. But the assertion of self-control had been purchased. She was no longer normal. The knocking of a postman in the street below made her heart flutter, and her ears strain. Any violent noise was enough to set her nerves jangling. With her mind lost, she could not do anything with concentration, but committed mistakes in spelling, wrote words that made nonsense, spilt water from the vase she had just re-filled, and almost broke the vase itself by striking it against the table in inattentive blindness. And at last the day grew dark, and then it seemed as though the lighted gas tried her eyes, making them smart, and as though the atmosphere were unaccountably heavy. Out-of-doors it was raw, with a mist rising. Within, the heat was dry and exhausting. And the hours would not pass quickly enough. They dallied slowly round the clock, and she watched the seconds hand with impatience from quarter to quarter. The room grew smaller and smaller, closing in upon her until she sprang to her feet as if to force the walls apart, so that she could breathe.