Pat and Socky did fall out together, and then Socrates, being a friendly and remembering beast, nearly knocked Claudia down in his demonstration of joy at seeing her and being once more on terra firma.
“Socky, shut up, you beast.... Look out, Claud, he’ll break your string of pearls.... My dear, you are blooming! If I could burst into poetry—Socky, leave my ankles alone—I should say you were like a red, red rose, or an apple-tree, or something equally unlike a woman.... Socky, come away from that pond. Can’t you see Auntie Claudia has got on a nice, white muslin frock? Darling, I’m awfully glad to see you.”
How boyish Pat looked in her grey linen coat and skirt, and neat white silk collar and tie. It seemed almost absurd, the idea of her getting married. One could easier imagine her having a wrestling bout with her lover, as did a certain Cornish heroine of fiction. If she had been espousing some happy-go-lucky, high-spirited youth of her own age it would have seemed more feasible—but Colin Paton!
“Mother has become a Roman Catholic,” chattered Pat, “or she is going to become one when there’s a vacancy, or however they do it. Why? Oh! she’s tired of the professional spooky people, and she now finds that the ‘greatest and only true mysticism’—her words, not mine—is to be found in religion. She’s going into retreat, she says. As a matter of fact, I suspect she is going to have a new skin treatment that Rhoda is raving about, and which takes three weeks, during which time you have to lie perdu. She is going to pray for all of us and repent very picturesquely of her sins in purple and grey, not being able to commit quite so many now. She says that her liking for incense foreshadowed this. I told her she couldn’t become Saint Circe and pose in a stained-glass window, however much she tried; but her new rôle is to be very patient, oh! so sweet and patient.” Pat laughed. “She isn’t a bad sort really—she stumped up for all my bills the other day—only why on earth does she want to pose so much? Ah! the ‘Three Compasses!’ That’s the ducky window—dost see? If there were anyone impressionable about I should do the sentimental act from that window. He would call ‘Let down your hair, let down your hair, Patricia,’ in a sepulchral voice, and I should carefully remove about twenty hairpins, two side-combs and a piece of tape, and then lean out with a fatuous smile.”
“Well, Colin is coming down to-morrow, you tell me. No doubt he will oblige.”
Pat shook her head. “He’s too sensible for those tricks. Besides, he doesn’t admire fair hair. I will not let down my hair to a man who prefers dark hair.”
They entered the inn, and were shown up to a quaint-shaped, homely bedroom.
“Pat, Lady Currey graciously extended an invitation to you for lunch to-day, but I told her a fib. I said I was engaged to you for lunch here.... Now, tell me the—secret.”
“In a minute.... Do you like apples, lots and lots of apples? Would you like to be buried in apples, rosy-cheeked, luscious apples?” Pat grinned at her sister as she threw off her coat and commenced to wash her hands.