I
The strange depression which had come upon Pat in the shop of Chas. Bywater did not yield, as these gray moods generally do, to the curative influence of time. The following morning found her as gloomy as ever—indeed, rather gloomier, for shortly after breakfast the noblesse oblige spirit of the Wyverns had sent her on a reluctant visit to an old retainer who lived—if you could call it that—in one of the smaller and stuffier houses in Budd Street. Pensioned off after cooking for the Colonel for eighteen years, this female had retired to bed and stayed there, and there was a legend in the family, though neither by word nor look did she ever give any indication of it, that she enjoyed seeing Pat.
Bedridden ladies of advanced age seldom bubble over with fun and joie de vivre. This one's attitude toward life seemed to have been borrowed from her favourite light reading, the works of the Prophet Jeremiah, and Pat, as she emerged into the sunshine after some eighty minutes of her society, was feeling rather like Jeremiah's younger sister.
The sense of being in a world unworthy of her—a world cold and unsympathetic and full of an inferior grade of human being, had now become so oppressive that she was compelled to stop on her way home and linger on the old bridge which spanned the Skirme. From the days of her childhood this sleepy, peaceful spot had always been a haven when things went wrong. She was gazing down into the slow-moving water and waiting for it to exercise its old spell, when she heard her name spoken and turned to see Hugo.
"What ho," said Hugo, pausing beside her. His manner was genial and unconcerned. He had not met her since that embarrassing scene in the lobby of the Hotel Lincoln, but he was a man on whom the memory of past embarrassments sat lightly. "What do you think you're doing, young Pat?"
Pat found herself cheering up a little. She liked Hugo. The sense of being all alone in a bleak world left her.
"Nothing in particular," she said. "Just looking at the water."
"Which in its proper place," agreed Hugo, "is admirable stuff. I've been doing a bit of froth-blowing at the Carmody Arms. Also buying cigarettes and other necessaries. I say, have you heard about my Uncle Lester's brain coming unstuck? Absolutely. He's quite non compos. Mad as a coot. Belfry one seething mass of bats. He's taken to climbing ladders in the small hours after swallows' nests. However, shelving that for the moment, I'm very glad I ran into you this morning, young Pat. I wish to have a serious talk with you about old John."
"John?"
"John."