Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/299

. Instinctively she began to count the days until this "dire compulsion of infertile days" should end. She could not very well return to London and say that she was tired of holiday-making. Galvin House would put its own construction upon her action and words, and whatever that construction might be, it was safe to assume that it would be an unpleasant one.

There were moments when a slight uplifting of the veil enabled her to see herself as she must appear to others.

"Patricia!" she exclaimed one morning to her reflection in a rather dubious mirror. "You're a cumberer of the earth and, furthermore, you've got a beastly temper," and she jabbed a pin through her hat and partly into her head.

As the days passed she found herself wondering what was the earliest day she could return. If she made it the Friday night, would it arouse suspicion? She decided that it would, and settled to leave Eastbourne on the Saturday afternoon.

As the train steamed out of the station she made a grimace in the direction of the town, just as an inoffensive and prematurely bald little man opposite looked up from his paper. He gave Patricia one startled look through his gold-rimmed spectacles and, for the rest of the journey, buried himself behind his paper, fearful lest Patricia should "make another face at him," as he explained to his mother that evening.

"She's come home in a nice temper!" was Miss