Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/108

 dining-room door impressively and speaking with great distinctness he cried:

"Ees Lordship is 'ere, mees," and then after a moment's pause he added, "'E 'as brought 'is car, mees. It is at the door."

Patricia smiled in spite of herself at Gustave's earnestness.

"Very well, Gustave, say I will not be a moment," she replied and, with a muttered apology to Mrs. Craske-Morton, she left the table and the dining-room, conscious of the dramatic tension of the situation.

Patricia ran down the passage leading to the lounge, then, suddenly remembering that haste and happiness were not in keeping with anger and reproach, entered the lounge with a sedateness that even Aunt Adelaide could not have found lacking in maidenly decorum.

Bowen came across from the window and took both her hands.

"Why was she allowing him to do this?" she asked herself. 'Why did she not reproach him, why did she thrill at his touch, why?

She withdrew her hands sharply, looked up at him and then for no reason at all laughed.

How absurd it all was. It was easy to be angry with him when he was at the Quadrant and she at Galvin House; but with him before her, looking down at her with eyes that were smilingly confident and gravely deferential by turn, she found her anger and good resolutions disappear.