"Who's Miss Sikkum?" 

"Time, in all probability, will show," replied Patricia, seating herself on a settee. Bowen drew up a chair and sat opposite to her. She liked him for that. Had he sat beside her, she told herself, she would have hated him. 

"You're not angry with me, Patricia, are you?" There was an anxious note in his voice. 

"Do you appreciate that you've made me extremely ridiculous with your telegrams, messenger-boys, conservatories, and confectioner's-shops? Why did you do it?" 

"I don't know," he confessed with unconscious gaucherie, "I simply couldn't get you out of my thoughts." 

"Which shows that you tried," commented Patricia, the lightness of her words contradicted by the blush that accompanied them. 

"The King's Regulations do not provide for Patricias," he replied, "and I had to try. That is how I knew." 

"Do you think I'm a cormorant, as well as an abandoned person?" she demanded. 

"A cormorant?" queried Bowen, ignoring the second question. "I don't understand." 

"Within twenty-four hours you have sent me enough chocolates to last for a couple of months." 

"Poor Patricia!" he laughed. 

"You mustn't call me Patricia, Colonel Bowen," she said primly. "What will people think?" 

"What would they think if they heard the man you're engaged to call you Miss Brent?" 

"We are not engaged," said Patricia hotly. 

"We are," his eyes smiled into hers. "I can bring all these people here to prove it on your own statement." 

She bit her Up. "Are you going to be mean? Are you going to play the game?" She awaited his reply with an anxiety she strove to disguise. 

Bowen looked straight into her eyes until they fell beneath his gaze. 

"I'm afraid I've got to be mean, Patricia," he said quietly. "May we smoke?" 

As she took a cigarette from his case and he lighted it for her, Patricia found herself experiencing a new 

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