FLAMING
YOUTH
141
time; an inexplicable thing between those two who had approached so near to embarkation upon the loveadventure perilous. Had she noticed it? He wondered. Had he been so bold as to put the query to her, she would have hardly known how to reply. She was conscious that at times she failed to hold his interest;
that his mind
seemed to wander away from her; but, in the self-sufficiency of her beauty, she set that down to a quality of vagueness in his character. He was unfailingly gentle, considerate, and helpful wherever, in her luxurious and hard-pressed life, she allowed him to help. And he asked nothing in return.
This piqued, even while it relieved her. For she was no longer adventurous. The layers of fat were insulating that soft and comfort-enslaved soul. Scott, striving to maintain the appearances of a loyalty which he did not really owe (how he thanked his gods for that now!) found her loveliness growing monotonous,
her inertia of mind,
irritant. “Nothing above the ears,” Pat had said; wicked little Pat, whose vividness so far outshone the mere beauty of the elder. The harsh truth of the slang had stuck. His next encounter with the girl was several days later when he was keeping an appointment with Stancia in the library at the Knoll; the merest fleeting glimpse of the boyish girl-figure as it passed through the hallway, followed by the heart-troubling, deep thrill of her voice raised in the Tschaikowsky melody. ... “I’ve asked you twice,” he was conscious of Stancia saying plaintively, “and you don’t pay any attention.” “TI really beg your pardon,” apologised Scott. “Awfully stupid of me. Of course, I shall be delighted to stay to luncheon.” As he was leaving early in the afternoon, Pat hurried after him to intercept the car.
