i

While Edgar speculated, Patricia suffered. Her vanity had been wounded by Harry's silence: the meeting, which showed her that he was solacing himself with Rhoda, wounded her vanity yet more. It was a mortal blow to her sense of power. Parting might have been sweet pain. This was otherwise. It was a shuddering anguish. Soberly Patricia tried to face the truth: her mind could not grasp it. She could not suppose that the romance—so sweet, so almost childish—was concluded. Although her words, and even her thoughts, were frequently those of a woman, her heart was still the easily wounded heart of a child. She had been living in a dream; and nobody would tarry until her due awakening. She found herself in a discouraging world where the grown-up is still all-powerful. Harry was a man, fixed in rigid manhood, without the gift of indefinite spiritual expansion; and she had hoped that he was still a boy, still able to play, still able to postpone his maturity until some vaguely contemplated future. Her dream was shown to have been a folly.

It was to the sense of disaster that Patricia came. Not yet to desperation.