CHAPTER XI
"Let us live happily, free from care among the busy."
There was one of Sylvia's friends who, from the first, caught and held Joan's imagination. That was Patricia Leigh.
Patricia rarely got further than the imagination—after that she was idealized or suspected according to the person dealing with her.
Joan idealized Patricia—"Pat," she was always called.
The girl was fair and delicately frail, but never ill. She wrote verse, when moved to do so, and did it excellently, and she never thought of it as poetry.
When she was not moved to verse—and she had a good market for it—she designed the most astonishing garments for her friends. She could, at any time, have secured a fine position in this line and was frequently turning away offers. When the designing palled upon Pat she fell back upon her personal charm and enjoyed herself!
Patricia had, outwardly, a blood-curdling philosophy which she frankly avowed she believed in, absolutely, though Sylvia warned Joan that it was "bunk!"
What really was the case was this: Patricia was an adept at playing with fire. Lightly she tossed the flame from hand to hand; gaily she laughed, but at the critical moment Patricia ran!
She revelled in portraying the fire danger, but she covered her retreats by masterful silence.