e asked. "It seems ages
since I came."

"No; only about five minutes. Oh, Patricia! you won't do it again,
will you?" Bowen drew her nearer to him and upset the glass containing
the remains of the whisky and soda that he had placed on the floor
beside him.

"I didn't quite faint, really," she said earnestly, as if defending
herself from a reproach.

"I mean throw me over," explained Bowen. "It's been hell!"

"Please go and sit down," she said, moving restlessly. "I'm all right
now. I--I want to talk and I can't talk like this." Again she smiled,
and Bowen lifted her hand and kissed it gently. Rising he drew a chair
near her and sat down.

"You see all this comes of trying to be a Mrs. Triggs," she said
regretfully.

"Mrs. Triggs!" Bowen looked at her anxiously.

Slowly and a little wearily Patricia explained her conversation with
Elton. "Didn't he tell you he had seen me?"

"No," replied Bowen, relieved at the explanation; "Godfrey is a perfect
dome of silence on occasion."

"Why did you suddenly leave me all alone, Peter?" Patricia enquired
presently. "I couldn't understand. It hurt me terribly. I didn't
realise"--she paused--"oh, everything, until I heard you were going
away. Oh, my dear!" she cried in a low voice, "be gentle with me. I'm
all bruises."

Bowen bent across to her. "I'm a brute," he said, "but----"

She shook her head. "Not that sort," she said. "It's my pride I've
bruised. I seem to have turned everything upside down. You'll have to
be very gentle with me at first, please." She looked up at him with a
flicker of a smile.

"Not only at first, dear, but always," said Bowen gently as he rose and
seated himself beside her. "Patricia, when did you--care?" he blurted
out the last word hurriedly.

"I don't know," she replied dreamily. "You see," she continued after a
pause, "I've not been like other girls. Do you know, Peter," she
looked up at him shyly, "you're the first man who has ever kissed me,
except my father. Isn't it absurd?"

"It's nothing of the sort," Bowen declared, tilting up her chin and
gazing down into her eyes. "But you haven't answered my question."

"Well!" continued Patricia, speaking slowly, "when you sent me flowers
and messengers and telegraph-boys and things I was angry, and then when
you didn't I----" she paused.

"Wanted them," he suggested.

"U-m-m-m!" she nodded her head. "I suppose so," she conceded. "But,"
she added with a sudde