"Miss Brent must be losing a lot of relatives, or coming into a lot of fortunes," remarked Mr. Bolton to Mrs. Hamilton.

Patricia preserved an outward calm she was far from feeling. She rose and went up to her room to discover from the three orange envelopes what was the latest phase of Colonel Bowen's madness. Seated on her bed she opened the telegrams.

The first read: "Will you go motoring with me on Sunday peter."No, she would do nothing of the kind.

The second said: "If I have done anything to offend you please tell me and forgive me peter."Of course he had done nothing, and it was all very absurd. Why was he behaving like a schoolboy?

The third was longer. It ran: "I so enjoyed last night it was the most delightful evening I have spent for many a day please do not be too hard upon me peter."This was a tactical error. It brought back to Patricia the whole incident. It was utter folly to have placed herself in such an impossible position. Obviously Bowen knew nothing of women, or he would not have made such a blunder as to remind her of what took place on the previous night, unless--unless---- She hardly dare breathe the thought to herself. What if he thought her different from what she actually was? Could he confuse her with those---- It was impossible!

She was angry; angry with him, angry with herself, angry with the Quadrant Grill-room; but angriest of all with Galvin House, which had precipitated her into this adventure.

Why did silly women expect every girl to marry? Why was it assumed because a woman did not marry that no one wanted to marry her?

Patricia regarded herself in the looking-glass. Was she really the sort of girl who might be taken for an inveterate old maid? Her hands and feet were small. Her ankles well-shaped. Her figure had been praised, even by women. Her hair was a natural red-auburn. Her features regular, her mouth mobile, well-shaped with very red lips. Her eyes a violet-blue with long dark lashes and eyebrows.

"You're not so bad, Patricia Brent," she remarked as she turned from the glass. "But you will probably be a secretary to the end of your days, drink cold weak tea, keep a cat and get hard and angular, skinny most likely. You're just the sort that runs to skin and bone."

She was interrupted in her meditations by a knock at the door.

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