“I’ve no doubt.” Jack relented a little, finding it beyond him to keep off his hobby. “I remember when our battery” (he pronounced it “bettery”) “was in India, we were ordered to demonstrate at dummy targets—just to show the infantry the effect of modern shrapnel-fire.” He paused.
“And . . .” queried his father.
“After inspecting the targets, the General thought it better that the infantry shouldn’t see them. Bad for their morale, you know.”
“If ever we do have this European war that Lord Northcliffe is so fond of talking about,” said the doctor, “it will last about a week. Modern nerves will never stand it.”
“Oh, we shall have war, all right,” announced his son.
The advertising agent and the nerve-specialist smiled cynically; demonstrated—till it was time to join the ladies—that the young man knew nothing whatever about international politics. . . .
They played family bridge, half-a-crown a hundred, Violet and her husband permanently partnered. Patricia—who had cut herself out of the first rubber—stood watching them. And again thought troubled her.
This—family parties, theatre-going, houses in Kensington, five servants, a summer holiday with the children, mornings at home and afternoons at the skating-rink—oh! it was all right, a very reasonable and nice existence. But could it go on? Obviously, it had to go on. . . . Mentally, she shook herself; laughed a little. What did she want? A lover? No, very definitely no. She was not that sort of woman; had too much self-respect. . . . What then? “Colour”—the words came involuntarily to her mind: “Colour! That’s what I need. Colour—and warmth.”
But when her family had departed, and she sat alone again in the drawing-room, Patricia Jameson took herself firmly to task. “If I don’t take more exercise,” she decided, “I shall become like one of those unpleasant creatures one meets in novels: the misunderstood married woman.”
Before going to bed, she tiptoed through the night nursery; looked lovingly down on the two dark-brown heads of Evelyn and Primula; and thereafter slept—even as they—dreamlessly.