Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/200

 ask herself indifferently, what did it matter? Bowen was nothing to her. Then back again her thoughts would rush to the inevitable question, what did he really think?

Since the night of her adventure, Patricia had formed the habit of dressing for dinner. She made neither excuse nor explanation to herself as to why she did so. Miss Wangle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe, however, had covertly remarked upon the fact; but Patricia had ignored them. She had reached that state in her psychological development when she neither explained nor denied things.

With delicacy and insight Providence has withheld from woman the uncomfortable quality of introspection. Had Patricia subjected her actions to the rigid test of reason, she would have found them strangely at variance with her determination. With a perversity characteristic of her sex, she forbade Bowen to see her, and then spent hours in speculating as to when and how he would disobey her. A parcel in the hall at Galvin House sent the colour flooding to her cheeks, whilst Gustave, entering the lounge, bearing his flamboyant nickle-plated apology for the conventional silver salver, set her heart thumping with expectation.

As the day on which Bowen was to dine at Galvin House drew near, the excitement became intense, developing into a panic when the day itself dawned. All were wondering how this or