Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/176

 thought everything was going to be all right after last night, and now I'm a door-mat again."

"Who inserted that paragraph?" enquired Patricia.

"I rang up The Morning Post office and they told me that it was handed in by Miss Brent, who is staying at the Mayfair Hotel."

"Aunt Adelaide!" There was a depth of meaning in Patricia's tone as she uttered the two words, then turning to Bowen she enquired, "Did you tell them to contradict it?"

"They asked me whether it were correct," he said, refusing to meet Patricia's eyes.

"What did you say?"

"I said it was." He looked at her quizzically, like a boy who is expecting a severe scolding. Patricia had to bite her lips to prevent herself from laughing.

"You told The Morning Post people that it was correct when you knew that it was wrong?"

Bowen hung his head. "But it isn't wrong," he muttered.

"You know very well that it is wrong and that I am not engaged to you, and that no marriage has been arranged or ever will be arranged. Now I shall have to write to the editor and insist upon the statement being contradicted."

"Good Lord! Don't do that, Patricia," broke in Bowen. "They'll think we've all gone mad."

"And for once a newspaper editor will be right," was Patricia's comment.