“But I thought you didn’t like Hubert,” Pat said to him when they were alone in their bed-room.
“Oh, he’s not a bad chap,” laughed Peter, “not our class of course—I mean, one can’t have any respect for him—still, I daresay he’s all right.”
When she pressed him further on the subject, he said—after a little hesitation: “It’s a question of caste, I think, Pat. One looks upon those sort of people—you know, politicians and the Whitehall gang—as one used to look on the lower orders. One doesn’t dislike them: one’s just sorry for them.”
Arthur Jameson, a taller blonder edition of his brother, came to town on two days’ leave; and she let them make one night of it together. From their boyhood, Arthur and Peter had quarrelled; but now they seemed to see eye to eye on a hundred subjects. As the flying-man—he had passed for his “wings” and was next on the roster for active service—confided to Patricia: “That husband of yours always wanted a good shaking up; and this War seems to have done it for him.”
The swift days fled. They visited Francis; took the delighted children to the Pantomime. She drove him to the City; sat in the office while he talked away half-an-hour with Simpson; whirled him westwards again. . . . “And will you ever go back to Lime Street?” she asked as they sat down to lunch. “I suppose so,” he answered, “if this War ever gets itself over. What shall we do this afternoon, old thing?” . . .
“Was he in love with her?” Patricia asked herself that question more than once during those breathless days: but found no answer to it. Obviously, her companionship, the physical joy of her, moved him as never before. They were pals again, better pals than ever. She told herself to be content with that.
And yet, reason was not content. Reason said: “This is excitement, pleasure at being back with the accustomed luxuries. After what he has gone through—almost any woman of his own class could give him what you are giving him.”
She hated that thought. Moreover something sounder than reason, the instinct of matehood, told her that she misjudged him. In so far as the average man can love the woman he has been married to for nine years, Peter did love her. There had been no other woman in his life. Only, only, she wanted more from him than the average husband gave to the average wife!
And so once again, they came to the last twenty-four hours.