iv

It was then only that she took further notice of Patricia, to whom she made a slight ironic inclination of the head. While Monty stood with that brooding glance of suspicion still directed upon her, his doubt, once awakened not easily to be dispelled, Blanche opened the door.

"You want to go, don't you?" she said. "Well, you can go now. We shall get along better without you now. I hope you've been edified. You've seen Monty, and you've seen me, and you've learnt quite a lot that you won't be able to repeat. It'll do you good. You once said that the world was full of women who had found out too late. I wish that you could be one of them. I should enjoy it. Now go."

Patricia, in silence, passed from the room, and into the hall; and the door was closed again. Monty had not spoken. She was alone in the hall, which rose lofty and spacious above her head to a painted ceiling, the whole in a brilliant blue. Around the ceiling ran a strip of shaded light, the reflection of which made the hall's illumination. The walls were hung with thick brilliant curtains which deadened all sound, and thick rugs lay along the polished parquet flooring. Only by the door stood a single small piece of statuary, a reproduction of a classic fragment. There seemed to be a stifling heaviness in the air, as of scent, so much had she been affected by the late scenes. Patricia paused here as one in a dream, bowed and trembling, but with emotion that was new to her. She was no longer afraid or angry; but she was pierced through and through with the longing for contact with something unquestionably clean.

She had reached the heavy front door. Her hand was outstretched to the catch. And then she hesitated. This poignant desire was irresistible. It was the longing to be assoiled. Only by such contact could she recover purity, could she be at peace. Memory flashed a thought into Patricia's mind. With a glance across her shoulder, a hasty step to the wide staircase, a pause for intent listening, she ran back into the room from which she had a short time before taken her hat and coat.