Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/249

 "You're working 'er too 'ard, A. B.," said Triggs with conviction.

"Working who too hard?" Mr. Bonsor looked helplessly at Patricia. He was always at a disadvantage with his father-in-law, whose bluntness of speech seemed to demoralise him.

"Mr. Triggs thinks that you are slowly killing me," laughed Patricia.

Mr. Bonsor looked uncertainly at Patricia, and Mr. Triggs gazed at Mr. Bonsor. He had no very high opinion of his daughter's husband.

"Well, mind you don't overwork 'er," said Mr. Triggs as he rose to go. A few minutes later Patricia was deep in the absorbing subject of the life history of the potato-beetle.

"Ugh!" she cried as the clock in the hall chimed five. "I hate beetles, and," she paused a moment to tuck away a stray strand of hair, "I never want to see a potato as long as I live."

That evening when she reached Galvin House she went to her room, and there subjected herself to a searching examination in the looking-glass. She was forced to confess to the paleness of her face and dark marks beneath her eyes. She explained them by summer in London, coupled with the dreariness of Arthur Bonsor, M.P., and his mania for statistics.

"You're human yeast, Patricia!" she murmured to her reflection; "at least you're paid two-and-a-half guineas a week to try to leaven the unleavenable, and you musn t [sic] complain if