Jacky's idea of the evening was dinner in the West End, salted with cocktails in plenty, with champagne, and with old brandy. Then a taxi would carry them from Regent Street to South Hampstead in a fit state to enjoy a rowdy dance, during which Jacky, laughing with joy, would assist the band. But Patricia checked his enthusiasm. On no account could she risk a meeting with Harry—she even dreaded that he might appear at Monty's,—and her own plan was less ambitious. It was she who named the restaurant—an obscure place to which she knew Harry would never think of going; and Jacky was too mild of spirit to resist. They went therefore to this shabby place—the Axminster—where all was faded cream and gold, with rusty palms and magenta lamp-shades and artificial flowers and vulgar mirrors and English waiters. It is true that Jacky's face fell at sight of the bill of fare, and still more at the meagre printed wine list (with alterations in a crabbed handwriting), but in the midst of his furtive glance round preparatory to suggestion of flight he was diverted by the sound of a popular one-step as played to applause by the restaurant orchestra. He subsided, looking with shallow-pated amusement at all the respectable men and women of middle age who sat around them. If Jacky's simple-minded ingenuity in the matter of painting the restaurant red came to nothing, at least, as Patricia could tell, he was perfectly happy to be dining alone with his goddess; and the meal was carried through, upon his part, with a silence as complete as lack of ideas for conversation could make it.
iv
Patricia liked Jacky. Although silly and lacking in brains, he was very honest and very good-natured. When she said to him that she was out of sorts, and wanted to be quiet, he did not become fussy, and he did not sulk. He did naturally what was the best thing to do in the circumstances. When he thought of anything to say he said it, in his queer unlettered English; and when he had nothing at all to say, he cheerfully allowed himself to be silent. There was no difficulty at all. Patricia, although she was in such a state of advanced conceit, had one sweep of comprehension; and she was touched to the point of moist eyes and an ejaculation.
"You are a sport, Jacky!" she said, impetuously.
Jacky glowed. The colour came creeping up from behind his tall collar, and he jerked his neck out of the collar with a nervous movement, as of one whose throat has suddenly become swollen.
"Er ... Quite all right," he said, in his jargon. "Cheers; and all that...."
No more was said. They ploughed a way unsuccessfully through an ill-cooked meal, of which the major part was encased in thicknesses of flour and water which had been very severely fried.
"Er ... saw old Harry," presently said Jacky. "Last night—yesterday—I forget. He ... thought you were away, or something. Thought you'd forgotten our evening. Jolly glad you turned up. Er.... Must have been your...."
"He's not coming, is he?" Patricia's head was down. She was struggling to remain composed. That was what this meant: wherever she went she would see Harry, would hear of him. And she knew she wanted to see him, wanted to hear of him. It was the strangest sensation. Harry to her was become a stranger; she realised that she knew nothing and always had known nothing of his heart. But all the time she was deeply concerned with him. He was a stranger; but he was the only stranger she knew in that vast crowd of strangers. Patricia awaited Jacky's answer with dread.
"I forget what he said," answered Jacky, slowly and vaguely. "No, I don't think he could come. The old fellow was ... er ... some jolly old thing or other. I quite forget."