Seated close together, talking very earnestly, Pat more excited than she had ever seen her, were the two whom Frank had seen disappear half an hour before. As a matter of fact, it had only been ten minutes, but Frank had always had his doubts of Colin’s friendship.
“ ... bushels of apples and immense quantities of ...” Pat was saying, when her sister came in. “Oh! Claudia, you have come. We’d almost given you up.”
In an utterly different style from her own, Patricia was looking most attractive that afternoon. She had on a soft white charmeuse gown, which showed the long lines of her figure, and clung around her in a manner calculated to send her admirers crazy. The cool nonchalant look which she usually wore had given place to something more intense, more human. Something seemed to have aroused her from her virginal slumber, and is not that brightness in the eyes, that flush on the cheek, generally aroused by a male? Claudia took all this in at a glance, and it was not till afterwards that she had time to reflect on the odd subject-matter of their earnest conversation.
“I wondered where you were,” said Claudia, rather frigidly. “How do you do, Colin? I think mother wants you, Pat.” It was a fib, but she had to explain her entrance.
Then she turned with a sweet but cold smile to Colin Paton, who had quietly risen.
“I hear you have written a great book and are going to become famous. Congratulations! I must buy a copy as soon as it comes out.... Frank, I want some more tea. I’m so thirsty.”
Pachmann was playing as they made their way back to the tea-room, his fairy-like fingers lightly caressing the keys into exquisite joyousness.
“I want you to come to the studio to dinner next Monday,” said Frank eagerly. “You always said you’d like to meet Henry Bridgeman and his wife if I could arrange it?” Claudia was a great admirer of Bridgeman’s etchings. “Well, they are coming to dinner at the studio on Monday. Will you come too?”
“Of course, I shall be delighted,” returned Claudia, not even troubling to think of her engagements. “I shall love it. And”—with a hard laugh—“I’ll come for a sitting to-morrow if you like, before I go to Fay.... Dear, you mustn’t say such things here. It’s compromising.” A loud chord on the piano, immediately followed by the sound of a man’s voice, made her raise a warning finger. “Hush!”
The words came clearly enough to both of them as they stood together.