From the groping figure below her, glamour fell like a decaying garment. She forgot the genius, the inner fire; beheld only the outer shell, uncouth, pulpy, nauseous to her senses.
With cheeks afire and chin high, she walked up the aisle, turned into the ladies' room and found safe refuge there, until the train moved on. At the South Station she took the next train back to New York. The image of Cary Scott bore her unsolicited company. She went straight to Edna Carroll with the story. Edna was alarmed, relieved, puzzled.
"But, after going so far, why—why—why?" she demanded.
In response Pat delivered one of those final and damning sentences upon man which women express only to women:
"When I saw him that way I knew that his socks would be dirty."
CHAPTER XXXI
"I'm off of men," confidently wrote Pat in her diary. "There's nothing to it for me. From now on I'm going to be so nice and careful and mind-your-steppy that the place won't know me. All the old cats in Dorrisdale will purr when I come around. I think I shall take up slumming. Anyway, no more flutters for little Pat. I've reformed."