Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/284



HE next day and for many days Galvin House abandoned itself to the raid. The air was full of rumours of the appalling casualties resulting from the bomb that had been dropped in the next street. No one knew anything, everyone had heard something. The horrors confided to each other by the residents at Galvin House would have kept the Grand Guignol in realism for a generation.

Silent herself, Patricia watched with interest the ferment around her. With the exception of Mrs. Craske-Morton, all seemed to desire most of all to emphasize their own attitude of splendid intellectual calm during the raid. They spoke scornfully of acquaintances who had flown from London because of the danger from bomb-dropping Gothas, they derided the Thames Valley aliens, they talked heroically and patriotically about "standing their bit of bombing." In short Galvin House had become a harbour of heroism.

Mrs. Craske-Morton, who had shown a calmness and courage that none of the others seemed 274