PART ONE
THE HOME AND THE OFFICE
§ 1
January, 1914. A cold, dry, foggy, London evening. The children—after much protesting—safely asleep. All the electric lights in the big first-floor double drawing-room—pink-walled, parquet-floored, elaborately, comfortably, but by no means artistically, furnished—glowing. A red coal-fire heaped profusely on the tiled, steel-fendered hearth. And, standing before the fire, firm fine hands smoothing the folds of her low-neck, black charmeuse evening-gown, Patricia Jameson.
Not a beautiful woman, this Patricia: yet by no means the “bland, blond Kensingtonian nonentity” which Francis Gordon had once called her. Very English in the poise of the quiet head on the white, well-sloped shoulders; in the repose of the full figure; in the lines of the athletic limbs. Very English, too, about the well-formed, almost Roman, nose, the red healthy lips, the perfect teeth, the firm cheeks. Lacking, perhaps, in vivacity—unless the brown slumbrous eyes, dark and dark-lashed, were an index to something deep, something as yet but half-awakened: something which, given but its chance, might yet turn the Mother into the Mate.
But tonight a hint of trouble showed in those eyes. For Patricia was thinking. Her thoughts came to her clear-cut, logical, in orderly and courageous sequence. Sloppiness—owing to her father’s teaching—had no place in this woman’s mental outfit.
And she thought: “I am nearly thirty. . . . I have been married eight years. . . . I like this house, though it takes a lot of running. . . . I have no money troubles. . . . I adore Evelyn and Primula. . . . And I am very fond of my husband. . . .”
But here Heron Baynet’s system of common sense, of reason against sentiment, broke down—as it had broken down once or twice before when applied to the intimate relation of married life. The cold creed of pure reason did not work. It was no good for Patricia’s brain to tell her that she ought to be satisfied: her heart informed her, quite emphatically, that she wasn’t.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Rawlings, ma’m,” announced Smith, the sour-faced but efficient parlour-maid.
Violet came in first—a slightly older, slightly tawdrier edition of her sister; thinner about the lips, fluffier of hair, not so neat in her over-elaborate clothes; but sprightly—unpleasantly sprightly.
“Good evening, darling,” she cried, kissing. “Isn’t it perishingly cold? We walked from the Tube. Do let me come to that gorgeous fire.”