330
FLAMING
YOUTH
displayed symptoms of weariness. He even hinted that he would be better off for the time without visitors. Pat, with the perverseness of her excitement and antici-
pations, insisted on staying to read to her brother-in-law as usual. This he vetoed outright. “No. I don’t want you. I’m sleepy. Take Scott over to the Knoll for luncheon. He’s probably famished. And Dee had to go to town, so there’s nothing to be had here. Run along.” Her hand being thus forced, Pat issued the invitation, and she and Scott left the sick-room. But they had not reached the front door when she turned and darted upstairs again. Throwing herself down by the cripple’s couch she caught his head to her bosom and cherished it there. “Oh, Jimmie! You promise-breaker. You old lar! I adore you.” She pressed a swift kiss on his cheek and was gone. Mr. T. Jameson James made a face at the Devil and chuckled himself to sleep. Rejoining Scott outside Pat commanded: “Tell me everything you’ve been doing in the big, big world.” He was unprotestingly obedient, cheerfully impersonal throughout the walk to the Knoll. But never had she been more conscious of the quiet compulsion of his charm. Her arms ached for him. They entered the house by the side door. Instinctively Pat turned toward the conservatory, but some inexplicable revulsion of feeling checked her. “No; not there,” she said. “Let’s go to the library.” No sooner had the door closed behind them, than she turned to his embrace not so much yielding to.as claiming
him back. After the long kiss she stood away from him, but with her hands still clinging upon his shoulders, “That makes it seem all real again,” she breathed,
