"And now we're going home," when in the same mood of hectic flippancy, she had retailed her episode with Dacres Upton. Gareth was doubtful whether or not the flippancy were assumed. Nor did he feel safe in an assumption that Patricia had altogether forgiven him for the retention of her book. She was a baffling creature—why had she insisted on hearing him say that he loved her?...
Had he known more of Patricia, it would have been clear to him that she was off again on one of her recurring star-scampers; swept up by an idea to which her entire life of action must swiftly be altered and reset, no matter at what cost of destruction and upheaval.
She was silent all the way home, and abstracted; only seemed to become re-aware of him at parting. "It's—all right, you know, Gareth."
"Is it? Is it? When shall I see you again?"
"Oh, leave it to chance, my dear man!"
He returned to Pacific Villa with the reaction of utter flatness upon him.
He heard no word from Patricia during the next ten days; and tormented himself by the alternate beliefs that he had disgusted her utterly by his confession, that he had merely bored her on that afternoon they had spent together, or that he was expected now to take the initiative—do something vigorous and unexpected—he had not the remotest idea what! She had said: "Leave it to chance"—which might have cloaked the message: "I leave it to you!"
But she must see, surely she must see, that he could not insolently thrust himself upon her presence, now, after the injury she was aware he had done her; by all the rules in the game, it was incumbent upon him to wait her pleasure in the matter. "It's all right, you know, Gareth!"—was that meant for reassurance?
And after all, what had he to do with all this fretting and questioning? He, who since sixteen springs had known that when the girl came along, he was not free. "Grant the path be clear before you...."