"I'd like it. You see, all this running about—it's great fun, and I love it. But it won't last."
"Why not?" Harry's tone was a little flat, as though his surprise had only been exaggerated, as though he had been disturbed by a definite assumption. "I don't see why it shouldn't. After all...."
"I shall get tired of it."
Harry laughed, showing his big white teeth. Patricia wondered if he knew that when he laughed she had a sudden almost aching thrill of affection for something boyish and lovable in him. Did he know?
"You won't," he assured her, the laugh remaining and fixing in his cheeks for a moment deep lines of untroubled good humour. "Not for a century."
"I might. I might get tired of it in a month," she said. "Sometimes I'm tired of it already." Patricia hardly knew what she was saying. The words came easily; but the conviction was lagging behind somewhere in another thought. "You see, Tom Perry and Daphne and Woods—they're all right, but they've got no brains. If I want to talk to anybody—really talk, I mean,—there's nobody but you."
"Well?" His grin reappeared. "Aren't I enough?"
"You're splendid, of course."
"You're not so sure?" Harry's question was teasing: he was not taking her seriously, was being indulgent, deliberately winning: but a shock ran through Patricia even as she responded to his charm. The hesitation which he had detected—had it really been there? Quick emotion moved her. She turned away her head for an instant. For that fraction of time her doubt had become a reality. She was pitiably uncertain of herself. Surely if one were—say, even half-in-love—one never had such a doubt of the beloved? And yet Harry—he was older than herself, a man, fixed perhaps in his present state of life.... If she grew out of him! What then? In such a life as they led.... Patricia still clung to the theory of constancy, of common growth, of happiness for ever after. With all her arrogance, she did not want to lead. To be led was a necessity to her.
"Don't you see I'm not sure?" she asked. "How can you be sure? How can you ever know what you'll think in a week, or a month, or a year?"