I?”
“You could try and control it!”
“I have tried—many a time. And it’s no use.”
Pat was silent. It had crossed her mind vividly, for the moment, that perhaps she was making a mistake after all. This intense jealousy in Keith’s make-up was likely to grow deeper as the years passed, and it might lead to unpredictable consequences.
“I sound worse than I am,” Keith added, grinning. “Moody—that’s me! After all, it’s a sure sign that I love you when I’m jealous, isn’t it?”
Pat, realizing how deeply she was involved in this business, gave a faint smile. The thought that none of us is perfect took precedence in her mind again. For all his jealousy, queer little ways, and startling changes of mood, Keith fascinated her. She was still not at an age to adopt searching self-analysis and ask herself whether it was Keith himself, or his handsome looks, which really appealed to her. These considerations apart, the fact remained that she was determined to marry him.…
She saw him each evening thereafter, and at the weekend. Evidently he had smoothed things out at home to a certain extent, for on the Wednesday following, precisely at six o’clock, he arrived with his father at the Taylor home. With a kind of forced cheerfulness he followed his gaunt death’s-head of a parent into the big front room, and then paused. There were so many people present he seemed momentarily to be at a loss.
Pat, fetchingly attired in a frilly party dress and with a gentle perfume clinging about her, came forward to grasp his hand. At the same moment Mr. Taylor, who had been considering the lemonade and glasses on the table, lumbered over and gripped Ambrose Robinson’s bony claw.
“More we are together, eh?” Mr. Taylor exclaimed genially, his round face shining like a cherub’s. “Glad you decided to come, Ambrose. After all, your son and my daughter. It’s a tremendous occasion!”
“I came because I was invited,” Ambrose Robinson told him sombrely. “Certainly not because I think I’ve anything to celebrate. Indeed, I have nothing to celebrate in losing my son.”
“Losing him!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed. “What kind of talk is that? Don’t be so old-fashioned, man!”
“Er—let me introduce you, Mr. Robinson,” Pat intervened.
“This is Miss Banning, a great friend of mine and also a fellow worker; and this is Miss Andrews, an old school friend. Both of them are to be my bridesmaids.”
Ambrose Robinson smiled down gauntly on the two young women and then nodded to Gregory Taylor. Gregory was lounging in a corner armchair, smoking a cigarette impassively without a trace of expression on his wooden-looking face.
“Don’t take it so hard, Ambrose!” Mrs. Taylor murmured, smiling, as he drifted to her side. “It makes it so tough on the young people when their parents don’t agree with the marrying. What in the world have you to object to, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s nothing personal,” Ambrose Robinson responded. “It’s just that I find it hard to lose Keith after all the plans I’d been making to direct his future. I think he’s treading on the wrong path.”
“Not with our daughter!” Mr. Taylor declared. “You’ve been reading your Bible upside down, Ambrose.”
“There is nothing wrong with reading a Bible,” Ambrose Robinson retorted. “You might try it yourself some time!”
Mr. Taylor hesitated and then glanced about him. “Well,” he said, “we all seem to be here except Miss Black.… Oh, Pat, you didn’t invite Billy Cranston or Cliff Evans, those two boy-friends of yours, did you?”
Pat coloured swiftly and Keith’s mouth hardened visibly.
“No,” she responded. “Why should I? They don’t really mean anything.…”
Mr. Taylor winked. “So you say!” He turned to his wife. “Well, Mother, what do we do about the drinks? The longer we delay having them, the longer we’ll be getting to the fun and games. And believe me,” he added, turning to the assembly, “I’ve worked out plenty of fun for this evening. You’ll never forget it.”
“But we can’t have the drinks yet, Dad,” Pat objected. “We really must wait for Miss Black. She ought to be here at any moment.”
“According to her letter,” Gregory said, looking at his wristwatch, “she should have been here forty-five minutes ago.”
Pat shrugged. “Well, you know how it is with a car. Maybe she broke down. Couldn’t be anything else, I imagine, for she’s a terror for punctuality.”
“Miss Black?” repeated Ambrose Robinson vaguely. “Do I know her?”
Pat shook her head. “You’ve never met her. Neither has Keith. She’s the headmistress of Roseway College, where I used to be. I know you’ll like her.…”
There came one of those sudden silences when the ticking clock could be heard distinctly. For a moment or two Mr. Taylor looked at a loss.
“What do we do then?” he complained. “The longer we delay, the less time we’ll have.…”
Since, however, it was Pat’s party she had the authority, and she managed to delay the drinks for another half-hour; then, as there was still no sign of Miss Maria Black she had to give way and the party started in earnest.
It was owing chiefly to the vigorous good nature of Mr. Taylor that the first icy reserve was broken. The Misses Banning and Andrews got to giggling by turns, and Keith seemed to have thrown his moodiness overboard and replaced it with a widely smiling countenance. Even the solemn, funereal gloom of his father broke down somewhat, but to the convulsive delight of Madge Banning, it did not prevent him uttering Biblical phrases at intervals. Only Gregory Taylor remained unmoved, though he drank with the rest and repeated the toast to the engaged pair as though he were taking the oath in court.
The room grew hot and smoky and voices blurred across the clink of glasses. The limitations imposed by austerity had prevented any magnificent spread, but there were mountains of meat-paste sandwiches and homemade cakes and buns, which went the round of the gathering with something of the inevitability of a conveyor belt.
Pat, conversing on some feminine topic with the Misses Banning and Andrews, realized suddenly that she could not see Keith anywhere. His father was still present, discoursing into the unheeding ear of Mrs. Taylor about the flight of the Israelites through the Red Sea. There was Mr. Taylor; trying to make himself heard about some games he had devised in the next room.…
“Where’s Keith?” Pat asked suddenly, getting up and looking about her.
“Eh?” Her father looked surprised. “I dunno. Slipped out for a moment, I suppose. Look, all of you, let’s go in the next room and we can—”
“But I want to ask him something!” Pat insisted. “‘What’s he up to, I wonder?”
“Up to?” repeated Mrs. Taylor. “What should he want to be up to?”
“Last I saw of him he was talking to you, Dad,” Gregory said, from the armchair, and tapped an unlighted cigarette against his thumbnail.
“Yes, but—” Mr. Taylor frowned— “that’s quite a while ago. Ten minutes maybe.…”
Frowning in puzzlement, Pat left the room and the conversation went on, though not quite at the same tempo. Funny where Keith had gone, in the midst of the proceedings, too. From the expressions on their faces everybody seemed to be thinking the same thing. At last Pat came back into the hot, smoky atmosphere.
“He’s nowhere in the house!” she announced in dismay. “I’ve searched every room, upstairs and down—he must have walked out.…”
“He couldn’t have!” Ambrose Robinson declared. “I’ll find him! I know his little tricks.…”
He