The hair, scarlet though it was, lost its power to attract. The appeal of the monocle waned. John spun round.
"Pat!"
She was looking lovelier than ever. That was the thing that first presented itself to John's notice. If anybody had told him that Pat could possibly be prettier than the image of her which he had been carrying about with him all these months, he would not have believed him. But so it was. Some sort of a female with plucked eyebrows and a painted face had just come in, and she might have been put there expressly for purposes of comparison. She made Pat seem so healthy, so wholesome, such a thing of the open air and the clean sunshine, so pre-eminently fit. She looked as if she had spent her time at Le Touquet playing thirty-six holes of golf a day.
"Pat!" cried John, and something seemed to catch at his throat. There was a mist in front of his eyes. His heart was thumping madly.
She extended her hand composedly. In her this meeting after long separation had apparently stirred no depths. Her demeanour was friendly, but matter-of-fact.
"Well, Johnnie. How nice to see you again. You're looking very brown and rural. Where's Hugo?"
It takes two to hoist a conversation to an emotional peak. John choked, and became calmer.
"He'll be here soon, I expect," he said.
Pat laughed indulgently.
"Hugo'll be late for his own funeral—if he ever gets to it. He said eleven-fifteen and it's twenty-five to twelve. Have you got a table?"