"I never met her," Pat heard her voice saying, and quite admired it for its tone of casual interest. "She didn't come to Dorrisdale."
"Speaking of Dorrisdale, I'm at Washington for a while. Mayn't I run up to see you?"
"No. I'm afraid not."
"That's a little—disappointing."
"You see, I'm going to be terribly busy until my wedding."
"Wedding? Oh! All my felicitations. I didn't know."
"Yes. I'm to be married to Monty Standish next month."
Even as her lips spoke the words her soul denied them. In the dominant depths of her, she knew that she could never marry Monty Standish now. Her thoughts, so lightly detached from her fiancé by the easy charm of Warren Graves, had been claimed, coerced, irrevocably absorbed by the swift-passing phantom presentment of her former lover. The bond created when she had given herself to him was as nothing compared to this imperative summons across the spaces.
After a night of passionate struggle, succeeded by resolute thinking, she wired Monty to come on. When he came, she broke the engagement. It was ruthless, cruel, unfair. Pat had no excuses, no extenuations to offer. She simply stood firm. Monty returned to college, failed of his graduation, and let it be known among his indignant friends and relatives that Pat had ruined his career. Hot and righteous though his wrath was, he never so much as hinted at Pat's secret. Stupid, unstable, self-satisfied, spoiled; the plaster idol of an athlete-worshipping age; but nevertheless a gentleman within whom one flame of honour burned clear and constant behind its dull encasement.