“We’re a funny family, aren’t we? We’ve just dragged ourselves up anyhow. I went to a lecture on heredity the other day. What do we inherit, I asked myself? Father’s an invertebrate jellyfish, and mother—well, mother’s Circe! Grandfather, on mother’s side, is a gay old dog still, and father’s father was a leader of lost causes and died young. Bit of a jumble, isn’t it? I’ve been puzzling over it for days. I heard someone say of you the other day—of course, they were discussing you in connection with The Girlie Girl—‘she’s Circe’s daughter.’ We’re both Circe’s daughters, and I’m not a bit like her. I say, I’m a throw-back somewhere. Mother always cared for men, never for women. I don’t care a scrap for men in any sexual way—oh, yes! don’t look so wise, I’ve experimented in a few flirtations—and I simply hate them—that way. I like hunting with them and playing golf and wading in the water, fishing, but directly they get sentimental and want to kiss me I curl up inside. Most girls, I’ve found out, like being kissed, even if they are not in love. I nearly murdered Dicky Trevor the other day because he kissed me unexpectedly on the nape of the neck. No, Circe hasn’t given me any heritage, and I don’t think I’m so backboneless as father. I’ve got a scheme growing in my head—I shan’t tell you about it till I’m sure of my own mind—but it doesn’t include a husband.”
Claudia looked attentively at her sister. For the first time it flashed across her that the baffling thing about Pat was that so far she was quite sexless. She had been eager to come out for the fun of the dancing and the parties, but she had never had that shy anticipation of love that makes so many girls of eighteen eager to be presented. The books she read as a child were always stirring adventure stories, travels and records of real achievements. Fairy-tales with the all-conquering prince had bored her, all except the passages that dealt with sanguinary fights and treasure-trove. Later on she had read one or two famous French romances out of curiosity, but they had failed to make any appeal whatever. Her enthusiasms, her outbursts of passion, her thrills, were reserved for golf and hockey, and she had once said that the greatest and most satisfying moments of life to her were when she was on the back of her favourite horse, following the hounds. She liked men. Indeed, on the whole, she preferred them to women, but only because they were better and more vigorous sportsmen and less liable to be petty and jealous. As Claudia surveyed her she realized that she neither could give nor did she wish to proffer advice. Pat must face her own problem. Before her marriage she would have rushed in where experience fears to tread, and talked to Pat of the joys of love, of the folly of the woman who disdained or belittled what man could offer. Now all her landmarks were gone. She had messed up her own life. All she could do was to listen and reflect what an awful muddle and enigma life was for women, and wonder why Providence had given them no chart to steer by.
“You see,” continued Pat, “I’ve thought the thing out, and it wouldn’t be playing cricket to marry a man if you didn’t want him—that way. I tried to tell a man the other day how I felt, and he said he’d be a chum and wouldn’t worry me; but I saw the look in his eyes even then, and I knew it would be hell for both of us. Men always want women that way.”
Who had said something like that recently? Ah, yes! it had been said by Jack, apropos of Colin Paton.
“You are very wise this morning,” said Claudia, with a forced laugh. “If you feel this way there may be men who also are celibates at heart.”
“Haven’t met any,” said Pat laconically, giving Socky a kick to stop his stentorian dreams. “He’s chasing bunnies in the Park.”
“Oh! there are men. A good many women complain of—lack of attention on the part of their husbands.”
“Then the attentions go to some other woman, or he’s an uninteresting money-grabber.”
“Don’t generalize so much.... What about a man like Colin Paton?”