And through all this new experimenting with her own strength there ran for Patricia something more precious still. The added significance which had been given to her days was due only in small part to this increased circle. The friends she made were a background; they filled in the picture; but no more. Every day was coloured and moulded for Patricia by happiness, the happiness of young half-love. It warmed her heart through the gloomy winter days; made her laugh, sparkle, sigh, with a new tenderness; and gave fresh life to all her perceptions and understandings. Occasionally she even glimpsed her own happiness, when the excitement of it was past and she sat more thoughtfully alone. And then the precariousness of it, the sense of insecurity, of withheld culmination, gave to the vision a fresh colour and zest of danger.
That one evening with Harry, which had begun so splendidly and ended in such dissonance, was but the beginning. The mixed crowd of people had resolved itself into two separate portions—the theatrical and the non-theatrical; and even the theatrical portion proved shortly to be a welcoming band. Bella Verreker was appearing in musical comedy, and she did not again encroach. Only the less aggressive girls continued to join the parties; and Patricia found that several of these, and some of the young men, were so far without regular paying engagements. They appeared in private or semi-private shows, for experience and reputation; and she had the first consciousness of forming a part of her generation. All were lively people to know slightly, and the non-theatricals, some of whom were Civil Servants and others of moderately independent means or of various artistic or semi-artistic occupations, were immense talkers and eager, but not expert, dancers. Beside them all, Harry was as distinguished in his way as was Patricia in hers. They were both welcomed, even sought.
Patricia felt herself alive at last. Letters came for her in the mornings and at night. Harry called for her. She herself gave a little party in her small rooms at the top of the house. It was fun to have seven or eight guests sitting with difficulty in the crowded space, and talking to their hearts' content. But more than that she enjoyed going to yet larger parties in more capacious studios, where the floor was sometimes cleared for impromptu dancing, where there was dressing-up, and where the games made them all laugh and talk nonsense together. She loved to swing into one of the brasseries of West End restaurants, to meet other talkative youngsters, to smoke cigarettes and sip little strange drinks. It made her feel very bold and modern and authoritative. And most of all did she enjoy the evenings which she and Harry spent together, dining at Paggolino's or some smaller Italian restaurant, and going together to a theatre or to Topping's or the Queensford or even to more popular halls where the bands were good and the floors better.
"If only," breathed Patricia. "If only one could never grow up! Always, always this beautiful...."
ii
And then sometimes she longed to grow up. As the variety began to stir her blood, and an odd unoccupied evening became a restless horror, she knew that one day she would want to be different—to do different things. She tried to tell Harry how she felt. They were sitting at dinner together one evening, when she had telephoned to him in fear of a solitary time, and they had gone to the Chat Blanc. Patricia was smoking one of her own cigarettes over coffee, and was blowing the smoke slowly from between pursed lips. She was fully conscious of the extraordinary intimacy between them, and at the same time of the constraint that underlay the intimacy and gave it an attractive excitement. Harry was so very much her friend, and yet her feeling for him was so entirely different from that which she had for the other young men of her acquaintance. He was cleverer than they—with his constant sparkle of lively expression,—and more handsome. He was himself, where the others were almost indistinguishable both in themselves in their rather immature and shallow and admiringly friendly attitude to herself. His admiration was that of a man. She responded to it.
Around Patricia rose the white walls of the restaurant, daubed with the strange sick fancies of eccentric artists; and from their table she could command the whole of the long narrow room filled with other, similar tables, all with orange and white check tablecloths and black cruet stands and pewter knives and forks and spoons. Patricia could see other guests departing at the approach of theatre times, and waiters bowing and flicking the tables clear of crumbs, and folding fresh napkins and standing the menus upright again. In a few moments they would be the only people left in the restaurant, except for one suburban couple who had strayed into Soho under the impression that theirs was a very bold experiment in night life, and who were waiting for the sensations to begin. It was just then that Patricia had this notion, which was new, and therefore irrepressibly vehement, about the desirability of growing up.
Harry sat opposite, a little leaning back from the table, dabbing a finished cigarette into the plate which they were using as an ash-tray. He was in brown tweeds, which made his beautiful fairness appear to dominate and penetrate even his clothes. The fresh brown of his face, the strength of his shoulders, the gold at his temples and in his neat moustache, the cleanness of his lips and chin, and the general magnetism of his air of disciplined vigour, were all apparent. But in addition she was most singularly moved by the fine moulding of his cheeks and that air of confident good-humour with which the popular man is so peculiarly endowed. His smile, so ready, so consciously agreeable and charming, was a part of Harry himself. Patricia, equally fair, with her piquant little head, and the blue expressive eyes and mobile lips, was his delicious counterpart. She was her age, and a child, and a witch, with much greater unconsciousness than he, because with Patricia, whose thoughts were quick and fleeting, every thought had a reflection in her face. And at this moment, from happiness, she had turned to a sudden grave discovery, far more quickly than most men could have done; and her gravity had given way before resolution, desire, uncertainty, and again conviction.
"I'd like to have a big house," she said. "A country house, with lots of servants, and a lake, and peacocks, and a ballroom, and a wood, and lawns. I'd like to manage an estate."
"Good God!" cried Harry, pretending to be startled, and sharply dropping his cigarette stump into the plate. "What for?"