Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/53



HEN Patricia awakened the next morning, it was with the feeling that she had suffered some terrible disappointment. As a child she remembered experiencing the same sensation on the morning after some tragedy that had resulted in her crying herself to sleep. She opened her eyes and was conscious that her lashes were wet with tears. Suddenly the memory of the previous night's adventure came back to her with a rush and, with an angry dab of the bedclothes, she wiped her eyes, just as the maid entered with the cup of early-morning tea she had specially ordered.

With inspiration she decided to breakfast in bed. She could not face a whole table of wide-eyed interrogation. "Oh, the cats!" she muttered under her breath. "I hate women!" Later she slipped out of the house unobserved, with what she described to herself as a "morning after the party" feeling. She was puzzled to account for the tears. What had she been dreaming of to make her cry?

Every time the thought of her adventure 43