"My heart is just breaking!" she burst out again, her tears and words tumbling over each other. "It—it isn't RIGHT! I want my friends, and I want my youth—I'll never be twenty-six again! I want to put my things into a suit-case and go off with the other girls for country visits—and I want to dance!" She put her head down again, and after a moment Paul ventured a timid, "Patricia, dear, DON'T."
He thought she had not heard him, but after a moment, he was relieved to see her resolutely straighten up again, and dry her eyes, and push up her tumbled hair.
"Well, I really will STOP," she said determinedly. "This will not do! If Alan even suspected! But, you see, I'm naturally a sociable person, and I had—well, I don't suppose any girl ever had such a good time in New York! My aunt did for me just what she did for her own daughters—a dance at Sherry's, and dinners—! Paul, I'd give a year of my life just to drive down the Avenue again on a spring afternoon, and bow to every one, and have tea somewhere, and smell the park—oh, did you ever smell Central Park in the spring?"
Both were silent. After a long pause Paul said:
"Why DO you stay? You've not got to ask a stepfather for a job."
"Alan," she answered simply. "No, don't say that," she interrupted him quickly; "I'm nothing of the sort! But my mother—my mother, in a way, left Alan and me to each other, and I have never done anything for Alan. I went to the Eastern aunt, and he stayed here; and after a while he drifted East—and he had too much money, of course! And I wasn't half affectionate enough; he had his friends and I had mine! Well then he got ill, and first it was just a cold and then it was, suddenly—don't you know?—a question of consultations, and a dry climate, and no dinners or wine or late hours. And Alan refused—refused flat to go anywhere, until I said I'd LOVE to come! I'll never forget the night it came over me that I ought to. I am—I was—engaged, you know?" She paused.
Paul cleared his throat. "No, I didn't know," he said.
"It wasn't announced," said Miss Chisholm. "He's a good deal older than I. A doctor." There was a long silence. "He said he would wait, and he will," she said softly, ending it. "It's not FOREVER, you know. Another year or two, and he'll come for me! Alan's quite a different person now. Another two years!" She jumped up, with a complete change of manner. "Well, I'm over my nonsense for another while!" said she. "And it's getting cold. I can't tell you how I've enjoyed letting off steam this way, Paul!"
"Whenever we feel this way," he said, giving her a steadying hand in the dark, "we'll come out for a jaw. But cheer up; we'll have lots of fun this winter!"
"Oh, lots!" she said contentedly. They entered the dark, open doorway together.