iii

Even in her greeting he found Patricia changed, yet he was at the same time puzzled at his sense of the change. She was as unaffected as ever, and almost as fresh. Ah! almost—that was the difference he felt. It was a restlessness in her expression that made Edgar frown, a strain in the eyes, a small and perhaps momentary diminution in the bloom of her cheek. To another there would have seemed no change at all.

"I saw you as soon as I arrived," Edgar said; "but you seemed to have partners for each dance. I've been abroad for a month."

"I wish I had been," answered Patricia.

Again the mark of slight change! And a leaping impulse in Edgar to respond that she had but to be constant in such a wish to make him altogether happy.

"It wasn't really very cheerful," he assured her. "I was very lonely."

"But you were doing something the whole time."

"And what have you been doing? Amusing yourself?"

"Trying to. Oh, yes ... I suppose so." Patricia was listless and unresponsive. Her vivacity had died down. He was seeing her in a moment of discouragement. But even as Edgar received this impression, she brightened, and went on: "That man there—" she indicated a medium-sized man of about thirty, who was describing something to a companion and raising his hands with a grace which suggested that he was not English—"That one ... dances better than anybody I've ever met. If I could dance as well as he does I should be happy."

"Is he happy?" asked Edgar. "I thought you looked as though you were happy and as though you danced about as well as anybody could."

She shook her head.

"What did you see abroad?" she demanded.

"Poverty and glitter; cabs in the streets and jewels at the opera; and everybody wondering how on earth to make both ends meet. Money that didn't buy what it ought to buy. Plenty of misery going on in each corner, and plenty of noise and fuss. The same old contradictions everywhere."

Patricia frowned.

"Worse than here?"

"I couldn't tell. I was busy, and depressed. The men I met were wretched; and I saw the gaiety only in passing. Very much the same, I expect."

"Hm." She made no comment; but she had become grave. "D'you think everybody's mad? I do."

"Perhaps they always are. Perhaps we are."

"Sometimes I feel I shall go mad." There was a discouraged note in Patricia's voice which confirmed Edgar's intuition. She was obviously not in a normal mood; although he had seen her laughing with her partners earlier in the evening.

"Let's dance," he suggested. "Postpone the madness."

"I think," said Patricia, slowly, and as if she were being strangled by some unexpressed emotion, "that ... you're only afraid because ... you think I'm a child to be petted out of...."

She allowed him to make her dance; but she did not respond to him, and there were tears in Patricia's eyes. Edgar did not speak while they danced. Almost, he did not look at her. He was too much disconcerted, too preoccupied with an effort to explain Patricia's mood. Yet to Patricia he appeared immovable.