"Yes!" cried Patricia. "I never saw anything like it. It's shameful. It's cradle-snatching. Was she your partner? Never mind; come along!" She swept him into the arena, as indomitably unmoved in appearance as she could have desired. Though her heart was burning, Patricia's pride was beyond reproach. Nevertheless, she was desperately wounded.
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?"