Patricia meanwhile had ordered the Baron’s suitcase packed and had ’phoned for a station wagon and a while later stood in the hallway speeding the parting guest.
“Must you go, Monsieur? I am so very sorry. I understand, of course. I am the loser.” And with all the generosity of a victorious general whose enemy is no longer dangerous. “If you are nice you may kiss my hand.”
As DeLaunay bent over her fingers he murmured: “If it had only been you, Madame.”
And in a moment he had gone.
CHAPTER XIX
Patricia stood in the hallway a moment looking at the note to Aurora, which she held in her fingers. Then she went to the desk so recently vacated by her guest and wrote steadily for an hour. Her thesis was the international marriage, and she called it Crabb vs. DeLaunay, enclosing two papers, DeLaunay’s note and the newspaper clippings from her adorable printers. Slips of paper were pinned to them, upon one of which she had written “Exhibit A,” and on the other “Exhibit B.” She sealed them all in a long envelope addressed to Miss North and handed it to Aurora’s maid with instructions that it should be given to her mistress when she had gone up to her room.
From her own bed Patricia heard the motor arrive and her husband fuming in the hallway below, the sound of Aurora’s door closing and of Mortimer’s heavy footsteps in his own quarters; then after awhile, silence. She lay on her bed in the dark thinking, listening intently. It was long before she was rewarded. Then her door opened quietly, and in the aperture the night-lamp showed a pale, tear-stained face and a slender, girlish figure swathed in a pale blue dressing gown.
“Patricia!” the girl half sobbed, half whispered, “Patty!”