v

He made no attempt to conceal his pursuit from the other guests. He was too obviously afraid that Patricia might slip out of the house, and so escape him. And the urgency of his desire to speak with her was extreme. He arrived in the hall just as she disappeared into the room where her hat and coat had been left; and Monty waited there in the dimmed light, a sombre figure, with his head lowered and his broad shoulders bowed. To Patricia, emerging, he was like an emissary of the Inquisition, so appalling, even to her expectant eye, was his appearance. She lifted her own shoulders with a slight brusqueness, her head high, and her breath rapid.

"Good-night," said Patricia, quickly. She moved towards the front door.

"Not yet." It was an appeal, a deep whisper.

"No, no. I'm going."

"I must see you—speak to you—for an instant. Patricia...."

Monty had interposed himself in order that she might not reach the door without touching him, and as Patricia could not have borne this contact she was checked instantly. She stood, hesitant; and then with bowed head followed the direction of his entreating arm and stepped into the room at the farther side of the hall. It was the amber-hued drawing-room in which Edgar had seen Monty a few evenings previously, a lofty room which the electric light caused to become faintly and alluringly luminous. There was a fire, and the room was warm; but Patricia was shivering a little as she stood a short distance from the door, facing him. Monty followed her into the room, closing the door.

"Won't you come over to the fire?" he said in his gentlest tone. "I can't let you go like this without a word."

Still that careful modulation, still the raised note at the end of the sentence! She went nearer to the fire, and Monty stood near her, by the table.

"Aren't you going to forgive me?" he asked, suddenly. His manner was slightly changed. A familiarity had entered it, as though they had a secret understanding; but he was still bearing himself with soft respect. Nevertheless, beneath his humility there was ironic contempt for her sex which betrayed him.

Patricia started at the tone, at the discovery. The tears came to her eyes. She felt she had no use at all for such false contrition as he was prepared to display. It was not forgiveness Monty desired. He was deliberately pandering to a mentality which his sensual cynicism led him to despise. Having, apparently, no belief in purity in women, he was prepared elaborately to connive at its cunning or hysterical assumption and to submit to its merely formal placation. He was the diplomat, playing a familiar game, bargaining with vanity; not a penitent. And to Patricia such insolent flattery was more offensive than a brazen making-light of the episode would have been.

"Don't talk like that, Monty," she begged. "It isn't forgiveness you need; and you know it. I can't talk about forgiving. Surely you see that."

"I want you to believe that in asking you here—" began Monty, cajolingly, still with that cringing air which masked watchfulness for any sign of emotion or relenting.

Patricia laughed—uncontrollably.

"Oh, Monty!" she exclaimed; and there were still tears in her voice at the knowledge that he held her to be simply a common piece of woman's flesh, to be won still, so long as he sacrificed to her false delicacy, assumed, perhaps, for the sake of bargaining.

"It's true," he persisted, with more energy. Patricia turned aside, weary of the encounter, sickened at his cynical insincerity.

"I've told you I don't want to talk about forgiveness," she said. "I couldn't forgive you, because there's no question of that. It's myself that I can't forgive. It was idiotic of me to try and play a game I'm not fitted for, and I'm ashamed of myself. Isn't that enough?"

"Then you'll come again?" he questioned, as if puzzled.

"No," she said. "I've had my lesson. I've been silly and wicked; but you've been worse. And you're still being worse, you know. You're under-rating me. You think I'm pretending. You think you've only got to flatter me to find I'm no better than ... the rest—I suppose." She shrugged. "I'm not pretending. I'm going."

"I love you," Monty told her. "You were surprised. You were shocked...." He was still persisting in his former attitude because his imagination was not quick enough to anticipate the changes of this chameleon. But he was admiring her perhaps more than he had already done, and finding her still very desirable.

"I was horrified," Patricia said slowly. "But we're not talking about the same thing." She was very serious now. And the fact that she was serious made her again baffling to Monty, who had expected tears or reproaches or formal forgiveness, and was trying to discover some new point of contact which would at least gain time. Given time, he thought he was always assured of victory; but he was in a difficulty. She had changed, slipping out of his power to dominate her; and he had not the key to the change, for that lay in Patricia's singular vision.

"We're talking about...."

"No," said Patricia. "I came here in a reckless state, because I'd been very miserable; and you asked me to come because you wanted to make love to me."

"And I frightened you," said Monty quickly. "Poor little girl!"

"You did me a lot of good," answered Patricia. "You shocked me into my senses."

Monty stared at her, his dark eyes glowing, and his face once more alight with admiration. She saw him moisten his lips, and saw his hands clenched by his sides. But also, from another point altogether, she heard a faint incomprehensible sound. At once she strained her ears; but Monty had heard no sound, and continued to stare at her. The sound Patricia thought she had heard was a tiny crunching of gravel outside the house. She stared back at Monty, her nerves quivering. Dread was back in her heart.

"There's nothing to fear," said Monty, in his level voice of reassurance. "I'm not going to lose my head again as I did early in the evening. I beg your pardon for that." Patricia bowed her head again in acknowledgment of his apology; but she was no longer heeding his tactical advances. As he spoke, her eyes were glancing from Monty to the window. She looked so slim and fair, with the golden light of the room evoking the gold in her hair and the delicate gleam of colour in her cheeks, that Monty was moved anew as he had been earlier in the evening. He was engrossed in her, his eyes avid and his excitement intense. "By God, you know, you're beautiful, Patricia," he whispered. "Look here, we'll go together to the East, and you shall see all those wonders for yourself." She did not seem to be listening. Monty played his trump card. "We'll be married, d'you see, and go straight to the East together; and you shall have...."

In his eagerness, Monty came towards her, his hands outstretched. He was continuing, with increasing vehemence, when Patricia interrupted him. She would have cried out that what he offered was unthinkable, but, as she made the effort to speak, her eyes were caught by something that stifled the words. She could only stand there, looking beyond Monty, to the doorway, her lips parted as if in the act of speech, her body rigid with amazement. For there, just within the room, silhouetted against the golden door, was another person—a woman, heavily cloaked, with the hood of her dark cloak shrouding her face, a woman who had heard the last speech as she swiftly and silently opened the door, and who stood perfectly white, as if she were stone. Within the fold of the hood Patricia saw two glittering eyes. All else was white, ghastly.

"Really!" said the woman, in a breathless tone, as if she were stricken with illness. "Monty!"

It was Blanche Tallentyre.