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 CHAPTER

XXXII

Tury had been engaged for four months. On the whole Pat found the status highly satisfactory. Everyone heartily approved the match. Because of Monty’s college duties, which pressed sorely upon him as he was having constant difficulty in keeping up, they saw little of each other, a fortunate circumstance, as the glamour

of her lover’s physical beauty and personal charm persisted in her mind when they were separated, creating a romantic figure, to which no special mental attributes

were essential,

Had they been thrown more constantly

together she might have been disillusioned by the torpid and unimaginative quality of his mind. But in their brief association over week-ends they were surrounded by others, and when they were alone his ardent love-making eked out the scantness of his conversational resources. If, sometimes, Cary Scott’s words, “companionship,

the

rarest thing in life or love,” recurred to her, arousing unwelcome questions, she put them away. Scott’s image had dimmed again, in the hot radiance of this new attraction; she determinedly kept it far in the background. But there was one unrelenting memory which refused to be permanently immured in the past. When the time for the wedding was set, mid-June immediately after Monty’s graduation (if he succeeded in graduating), she realised that she must face that memory and dispose of it, for her own peace of mind. Her

uneasy thoughts turned to Dr. Bobs, lay the ghost. 30]

Perhaps he could