CHAPTER SIX: EVENING WITH HARRY
i
Half-past seven, and the appointed restaurant. A revolving door, brilliant lights, warmth a general air of opulence; and Patricia found herself in a small entrance hall, at one side of which attendants wrested their outer garments from all men. She had noticed before that no man may enter a restaurant with his hat and coat, although a woman may sit in her furs all the evening; but she had never understood the meaning of this differentiation between the sexes. Before her, several people were sitting, as if waiting for others; and in a fireplace glowed what she at first took to be a real fire. A sandy young man was perched upon the edge of a chair, gnawing his under-lip, and ever and again flirting his wrist out of his sleeve as he checked the lateness of a friend. Two highly refined women talked in loud voices about their private affairs, extraordinarily self-conscious in face of the sandy young man. They broke off in order to stare at Patricia in a well-bred manner, and resumed their conversation in a slightly lower key. The young man looked again at his wristwatch.
Patricia, for her part, was frowning. She was punctual, because she was always punctual. And she expected any host to be punctual also. Harry's lateness, when she had arrived so eager, chilled her. She stood hesitating, only half-aware of those others who were in the small room with her. She had imagined something very different—an arrival, and Harry's greeting as eager as her own. When she had so carefully refrained from the coquetry of lateness it was only right that he should have done the same. She was chagrined. There came back into her mind—by what connection she could not have said, since she was only half-conscious of her own flying sensations—memory of her distaste for his jokes about personal cleanliness.
And while she stood there, a little wavering, all her doubts were dispersed. There was drawn across every unpleasant thought an oblivion so complete as to be annihilating. Patricia had seen the half-filled restaurant through the bevelled glass panes of another door, and had been aware of a muffled noise of conversation and the sounds common to all restaurants; and as she waited she saw a quick movement of black and white. The door was burst open. The black and white, so tall as to be unmistakable, gave place in her eyes to Harry's sparkling countenance. He was at her side, as full of verve as he had ever been in the football field, delightfully impetuous.
"Hul-lo!" he cried in greeting. "I say, I'm so sorry! I was just ordering the dinner. It's only just half-past, isn't it?"
Patricia was electrically happy. The life in her responded to the life in him. They were two vital creatures, meeting and delighted; and as she went with him into the restaurant those diners who were conveniently placed were all moved to attentiveness at the sight of such health and radiance. With her spirits mounting to expectation itself, Patricia suffered the waiters to wedge her behind a small table which Harry had reserved in the corner of the shining golden restaurant. She was dazzled by a thousand lights and reflections, her heart dancing, and her eyes so dangerously tender that she instinctively withheld them from Harry's inspection.
ii
"I say!" exclaimed Harry. "This is superb, you know!" He was looking at her brilliant dress, upon which nobody had thought to make any comment on the previous evening. "I've never seen anything to beat it." The dress was quite plain; but the taste which had planned it was manifest. Both the material from which it was made and the delicate silk with which its adornments had been fashioned were sun-coloured. Every light made it richer, more simple, more effective. He was full of admiration. Patricia was rewarded. She knew now that she had thought of Harry all the time she had been employed in the long task of preparing the dress. She made no reply. He resumed impetuously: "I could have murdered that girl of yours the other night. Somehow I'd reckoned on finding you at home."