Читать книгу The Three Lovers - Frank Swinnerton - Страница 28

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On the way home, Patricia thought much of what she had heard during the evening from both Amy and Jack. By a strange chance, she had heard in the same hour both sides of an unhappy conflict; and this must always be a depressing experience. It set a weight upon her heart during the whole of her journey. She saw Jack, incapable of measuring his words with tact; honest, puzzled, commonplace; she saw Amy selfish and short-sighted; without talent, sure of her own rightness and cleverness. Patricia did not know that in each estimate her mind was quite naturally registering the adverse statements which had been made to her by the prejudiced parties.

She turned into the street in which her home lay, and for the first time knew that the hour must be late. The houses were all dark. In her own house, above the door, she could see only the faintest of lights, which must be that of her little bedroom lamp. Patricia shrank, laughing to herself, at the thought of her landlady's views on successive late nights. Disapproval! Well, she must get used to that sort of thing. In future there might be many late nights. Parties of every kind danced before her. Patricia, living for herself, and venturing forth into this new world of vivid personality and adventure, was above fear of what any landlady might think. The lure of anti-conventionality was before her. She laughed quietly in enjoyment of its charm.

Nevertheless, she opened the front door with stealth. Her expectation as to the scene which was to meet her eyes was fulfilled. Before her, upon the hall-table, stood the little lamp, turned very low in case it should smoke. Cavernous blackness lay along the passage, towards the kitchen stairs; and above, where she must herself go, was a drab shadow towards which she must not, for courage's sake, look too sensitively, lest it be peopled with imagined horrors. Grey ceilings receded into the dimmest of distances. Patricia closed the door, feeling upon her cheeks a little warmth from the atmosphere of the house and its most recent meal. Something very small and white lay upon the table immediately beside the lamp; and with the thought that it must concern herself she picked it up at once. Her heart gave a sudden throb. Almost, her lips trembled. She gazed at the card over which she was bending; and the mood of unhappiness swept again upon a heart that had already been deeply troubled in the course of the evening.

Then, slowly, Patricia took her lamp and went up the stairs, Harry's card between her fingers.