They continued for some time on these terms, Dacres forcing Patricia into belief that his intentions were strictly dishonourable; and she countering with the assumption that she was a rank egoist, and was toying with his affections, preparatory at any moment to jilt him in the fashion of the cruellest wanton. Dacres, however, declared on one occasion that it was mere perverted vanity which had caused them to assume such lurid aspects:
"We're quite respectable domestic characters, really.... Come with me to the Censor, Pat, and let me ask him for your hand in marriage. If he sees through your blatant vampire act, and passes you as fit for publication, you'll never be able to impress me again."
"I've heard of those marriages; they're performed under bribery by some wretched hireling who isn't really in holy orders. A pal of yours warned me of just such an attempt to ensnare my girlish confidence."
"Vampires have no girlish confidence. And that pal of mine is a meddlesome and treacherous old bore...."
But he would never let her continue long in any settled faith of his purpose. There was menace to their intercourse—menace which she braved again and again, recklessly, always to find herself saved it would seem by some slender accident ... or was this queer man deliberately playing the guardian angel to her, as well as the silent threatener of evil? Jekyll pitted against Hyde, and Hyde conscious of his Jekyll.... Dacres Upton not yet sure on which side he was ranged himself. And she, for her part, wanted to prove to him once and for all how she joyed in this scrambling slippery contest of their wills; how, challenging all his disguises, she trusted him; would persist in trusting him to the furthest extremes of peril; expose herself to hurt in all vulnerable places—thus forfeiting all right to cry out if her daring were punished. In this spirit would she consent to that breathless week in Switzerland, which they had so often anticipated. And afterwards perhaps, if he still desired it.... He was quartered now with his company at Aldershot; in January his period of home service would be up, and he might be sent abroad at any moment; to Egypt, perhaps. Well—if he still fervently desired it, she might go with him ... his wife. Patricia was twenty, and unwilling to yield up her adventurous girlhood—but Dacres Upton was the mate for her. She would risk her all with him first, for the fun of the risk, and for her own youth's sake.... In spite of her brilliant imagination, she was still funnily possessed of the utterly childish notion that adventure closes perforce with the sound of wedding-bells.
Under his almost obtrusive impassivity of outward bearing, she had discovered a fund of mischief fully rivalling her own; his audacities gained an added spice from the level well-bred tones which he never varied. As for his appearance—Patricia once informed him that he was the Least Common Multiple of every ordinary man that had ever existed: average height; tanned hatchet face; nondescript grey-blue eyes; fawn hair, sleekly brushed backwards.... "I've seen thousands of you, Dacres!"
"It's the Army mould; and originally set up as a protest to the splendid Guardsman of the Victorian era, with flowing chestnut beard and eyes as velvety as a woman's glove and steely withal as the iron hand inside it...."
"Why did you enter the Army?" She had often speculated on this anomaly.
"I was afraid of death."
Patricia questioned no further. Half a year of the man's companionship had taught her that he was no coward by temperament; quite obviously a moral and physical stoic where life was concerned; fearless, too, of all the circumstances of death—suffering, hardship, loss, peril, sudden attack. It must therefore be the actual wrenching apart of flesh and spirit which caused him that sick dread apparent in the one brief phrase just spoken; or perhaps recoil from the after stillness and decay. It was like him, therefore, voluntarily to adopt the profession of arms. Silently she applauded the self-intolerant discipline of his choice.