“Oh, Mort, it’s inhuman! You only knew Heywood Pennington——”
“Sh——” said Crabb, putting his hand over her lips. “No names——”
“But he——”
“No, no.” And then, after a pause, “He wasn’t even a might-have-been, Patty.” She said no more. They sat hand in hand watching the record of Patricia’s foolishness go up in smoke. And when the last scrap had vanished, he sprang cheerfully to his feet and picked up the scattered bills.
“Come, Patty, luncheon! And after that”—Mortimer Crabb stopped again and blinked quizzically at the fire—“hadn’t we better keep your engagement—with Madame Jacquard?”
CHAPTER XVII
Thus ended the might-have-beens. And the thing that Patricia had taken to be the phantom of romance went up in the smoke of John Doe’s fire. Mortimer Crabb never volunteered any information as to how he got the letters, nor any information as to what became of Heywood Pennington. For one horrible moment the thought crossed Patricia’s brain that perhaps there had never been any letters of hers in the package her husband had burned, but she dismissed it at once as reflecting unpleasantly upon the quality of her intelligence. But one thing was sure, she now had an adequate understanding of the mind of her husband. It was the only misunderstanding they had ever had and Patricia knew there would never be another. Mr. Pennington did not appear again and so far as this veracious history is concerned, after his departure from New York, may have gone at once to Jericho. Patricia ceased to think of him, not because he was not present, but because thinking of him reminded her that she had been a fool, and no woman with the reputation for cleverness which Patricia possessed, could afford to make such an admission even to herself. She was now sure of several things—that she loved Mortimer Crabb with all her heart—and that she would never all her life long love anyone else. She might flirt, yes—nay more, she must flirt. What was the use spending one’s life in bringing an art to the perfection Patricia had attained and then suddenly forswearing it? Fortunately her husband did not require that of her. He never quite knew what she was going to do next, but he never really mistrusted her. And to Patricia’s credit it may be said that she never caused pain and that if she flirted—she sometimes did—it was in a good cause.
The building of the country place had gone forward during the winter, and early summer found them installed there. Beginning with the housewarming, which was memorable, guests came and went and upon them all Patricia practiced her altruism which, since the adventure with John Doe, had taken a somewhat different character. Yet even among these she found work for her busy hands to do.