Patricia rose in her bed and took the slender figure into her sheltering arms. “Aurora—darling. I’ve been waiting for you. Can you forgive me?”
“Yes—yes,” sobbed the girl. “I understand.”
“You were too good for him, Aurora, dear. He wasn’t worthy of you.” And then, as an afterthought. “But then, I don’t know a man who is.”
Patricia breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought it was going to be more difficult. She made room for the girl in the bed beside her and soothed and petted her until she fell asleep.
“Poor Aurora,” she murmured softly to herself. “You were never destined for a life like that, child. The man you marry is to be an American, a fine, young, healthy animal like yourself. I will not tell you his name because if I did, you’d probably refuse him, and of course that would never do. It must be managed some way. He’s poor, you know, dear, but then that won’t matter because you will have enough for both.”
It did not take Aurora a great while to recover from the shock of disillusion and before long she was out on the golf links again, with her usual happy following. Aurora had many virtues as well as accomplishments, and Patricia was very fond of her. During the winter in the city, she had given a dinner for her to which Stephen Ventnor was invited. Patricia’s plan had succeeded admirably, for Ventnor, after several years of indomitable faithfulness to the ashes of the mourned Patricia, had suddenly come to life. He liked Aurora so much that he didn’t even take the trouble to hide his new emotion from Patricia. Patricia sighed, for even now renunciation was difficult to her, but when she moved into the country for the summer, she held out the latch-string to him for the week ends so that he could come out every week and play golf with Aurora, which showed that after all marriage had taught Patricia something.
Patricia had decided that Aurora North was to marry Steve Ventnor, and this resolution made she left no stone unturned to bring the happy event to a consummation. The skilful maker of opportunities she remembered sometimes trusted to opportunity to make itself. Propinquity, she knew, was her first lieutenant and the unobtrusive way in which these two young people were continually thrown together must have been a surprise even to themselves. Ventnor took his two weeks of vacation in July and spent them at the Crabbs’. Patricia had thought that those two weeks would have brought the happy business to a conclusion—for Aurora was just ready to be caught on the rebound, and Ventnor was now very much in love. But when Steve’s vacation was over and he had packed his trunk to go mournfully back to town, Patricia knew that something had happened to change her well-laid plans.
She had never given Jimmy McLemore a thought. She had seen the three many times during the summer from her bedroom windows, Aurora, Steve and McLemore, but the thought of Aurora having a tenderness for the golfing automaton had never for a moment entered her mind. She watched Mr. Ventnor’s departing back with mingled feelings.
“You’ll be out on Saturday as usual, won’t you, Steve?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, thank you, Patty,” he replied, “I’ll be out, if you’ll have me. But there isn’t much use, you know.”