"As a nun!" he agreed. "Didn't you know?"
Again Patricia shrank into herself. They were nearing her home now, and the road was very dark, and Harry's nearness gave her a sense of happiness and security. And yet she was neither happy nor secure. It seemed as though the stormy evening had reawakened all her sensitiveness. No, she was not happy. Intermingled with her own mood was the strange jumble of problems which had been raised by their talk and the memories it evoked. Now she wanted to leave him, now to stay—and at each turn she was exasperated anew at her own waywardness. The shallowness of Harry's conviction that one ought to cultivate those who might be useful hurt her (as similar remarks had done several times before). She remembered several of her distastes for things he had said. She remembered, too, their talk over dinner on the subject of growing up; and it made her shiver. And yet she continued to walk by Harry's side, feeling in his proximity the same joy, the same warm affection as she had done all the evening. It surprised her to know that one's love for a person could fluctuate so, and so persist; that it could come and go almost as if with breathing. She was undecided. Did she perhaps not love him at all? It was as though some reality greater than inclination, or else some very strong illusion, was always interrupting her love and making it ineffective. He was the only man she had ever wanted to kiss her, the only man to whom she could physically have yielded herself; and yet....
She fell into a series of fresh ponderings, about Amy and Jack Penton, about Harry and Amy, about Harry and Rhoda, Harry and Bella, about Harry's spitefulness; and with each variation of the theme it became less and less possible to disclose the nature of her thoughts to Harry. How could one love a person, and yet sometimes dislike what they said, and resent what they did, and hate what they thought? And yet, as her heart told her, he was the man she loved, so beautiful, so strong, so much her true love. What were thoughts and speeches compared with that instinctive certainty? She was torn. It was a puzzle to Patricia that this hesitation should arise. She was unhappy under her happiness.
Suddenly she became aware that they were outside her home, and that the house was dark, and that Harry had spoken to her without receiving a reply.
"Hey!" he cried sharply, to attract her attention.
Patricia, startled, looked up at him as if she were dreaming. The little hushing wind in the slim and bare branches of small trees was accompanied by the pattering drops of a fresh shower. Cold splashes touched her cheeks. She could see Harry standing like a giant above her, could feel the radiance of his strength and beauty and love for her. She was deeply moved. Harry, amused and laughing at her abstracted silence, put his arm round her. As if naturally, but in reality because she was only half-attentive, Patricia stopped, standing there within his arm. She was quite happy, quite at ease, but dreaming.
"What is it?" she asked, in a very hushed way, hardly to be heard.
"Only that you're a darling!" Harry stooped and kissed her, holding her tightly but gently within his arm, and with his free hand raising her hand to his lips. She felt his rough cheek against her own, his warm lips, and against her hair the brim of his hat. How strange that for a moment, held so firmly, Patricia felt nothing at all except that it was delicious to be there, delicious to be so encircled, so loved. Harry kissed her a second time, but not her averted mouth. She felt his lips encroaching, his hold more urgent. Patricia's heart beat faster. So she might yield herself to love. He would kiss her lips, and she would kiss him, and then for ever—for ever.... She was half-yielding. She was yielding. Faster and faster ran her heart, and the wind and rain and darkness were blotted out in this sweet stupor. And then some electrical revolt shocked her into resistance.
"No!" she said, very quietly, and sought to disengage herself.
"Kiss me!" demanded Harry. "My dearest!"