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Flaming Youth

<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> Coming out of the concert hall after the last, culminating burst of harmony, Cary Scott drew a deep breath of the night air. Lover and connoisseur of music though he had always been, never in his recollection had it so penetrated his being as now. Better programmes he had listened to, more perfectly rendered. But the companionship of the intensely responsive young girl, her superb and poignant vitality concentrated upon the great waves of sensation which had swept over their spirits, interpreted the numbers for him in a new measure. Timidly, tentatively at first, then more boldly as the ardent influences took hold upon her, Pat had yearned to him in the semi-darkness which surrounded them. The sweet, firm curve of her shoulder first, then the close pressure of her knee; soon her fingers, creeping to his hand, clasping and being enfolded, the fragrance of her light, quick breath, rhythmic upon his cheek. It seemed as if she had become subtly the medium and instrument of all the splendour of sound, as if the music were flowing in the currents of her woman's body out upon him and around him in a submerging flood. Now they were in the open air. She walked beside him, her face dreamy and demure, the faintest of smiles implicit in the up-slanted corners of her mouth. "Wasn't it—magic!" she breathed. "Yes, magic," he assented. They located and entered his car. For a time the intricacies of the traffic engrossed his attention. As they passed into the light-shot spaciousness of the park he turned to her. [Pg 138] "Well?" "Don't let's talk. I want to just remember." He nodded and she leaned to him momentarily again, kitten-like, caressing, grateful for his understanding. He, too, was glad of the respite, for, man of the world though he was, he had been strangely, unexpectedly shaken. It was Pat who, long minutes later, sighed and broke the silence with the hoarse, enticing sweetness of her tones. "What did you do it for, Mr. Scott?" "I? Do what?" He was surprised by the directness of the attack. "Oh, well! I, then. You know. What did you let me do it for?" He made no reply. In his stillness was a sense of expectancy to which she responded. "I warned you what music did to me. But you—you needn't have let me——" She paused. "Do you like me a little?" she murmured. "Yes. A little." "Only a little?" she teased, half child demanding the comfort of affection, half conscious coquette. "Not more than that?" "Perhaps a little more," he smiled. "But not half as much as you do Con," she said deliberately. He was silent, his attention apparently engrossed in a heavy truck which gave them bare passing room. "Do you?" she insisted, daring greatly. "Do I what?" "Like me as much as you do Con? Half as much, I mean." "If I did do you think I should tell you?" [Pg 139] "Why shouldn't you? But I thought you were crazy over Con. She thinks so." Scott hummed one of the passages from the final number of the concert. "Oh, very well. I'm only making conversation. I don't really want to talk at all. I'd rather think. All the rest of the way home." Arrived at Holiday Knoll, he stepped from the car and held out a hand to her. "Good-night, Pat." "Aren't you coming in?" "I think not." "Ah, do," she wheedled. "Just for a minute." He turned to look at the broad, rambling house. A dim light burned in the library; a brighter one in Dee's room overhead. Constance's room was dark. He was vaguely glad of that. "I haven't even thanked you yet," she observed. "You needn't." "Then you ought to thank me," she asserted daringly, "for taking Connie's place. Do come in. Perhaps I can find you a drink." "I don't want a drink, thank you," he returned; but he followed her through the door. "It's us, Dee," called the girl, projecting her voice up the stairway as she led the way to the library. "Mr. Scott and me." "All right," Dee responded. "I'm in my nightie or I'd come down. Have a good time?" "Gee-lorious!" said Pat. She took off her hat, fluffed up her short, heavy hair with a double-handed scuffle characteristic of her, and moved forward to the table. In the diffused soft radiance of the one light, Scott stared at her. Her pose was languid, her eyes sombre[Pg 140] with the still passion of lovely sounds remembered. Slowly the lids drooped over them. She tilted her chin and in her effortless, liquid voice of song gave out the exquisite rhythm of a melody from the Tschaikowsky Fifth which they had just heard. "Don't, Pat," muttered Scott. "Don't you like it?" "I love it. So—don't." She moved toward him, her throat still quivering with the beauty of sound, and lifted her hand to the bright, curt waves of hair at his temple, brushing them lightly back. A dusky colour glowed in her cheeks. As the dim echo of the music died, she leaned to him. Her lips, light, fervent, cool, softly firm, met his, lingered upon them for the smallest, sweetest moment as a moth hovers in its flight from a flower. Then she, too, was in flight. "Good-night," she whispered back to him from the doorway. Pat's challenge to Stancia's supremacy gave Scott plenty to speculate about. His first sentiment was amusement that this daring child should have deliberately elected to enter the lists against her older and more beautiful sister. But what was Pat's interest in him? Flirtation? Evidently. He guessed that it was the dash of diablerie in her that had inspired the experiment. Nevertheless, he was conscious of a rather excited interest in and curiosity about her, not as a precocious child, but as a reckonable woman with distinct provocations of person and mind. In comparison with her, Scott reflected (and was shocked at his own disloyalty in so reflecting) Stancia was becoming insipid. He discovered, in thinking it over, that there had grown up an impalpable embarrassment between Stancia and himself, and that it seemed to have been growing for some[Pg 141] time; an inexplicable thing between those two who had approached so near to embarkation upon the love-adventure 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." "I 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. [Pg 142] "Take me down to the village with you, Mr. Scott?" "Indeed I will." She jumped in. "I don't want to go to the village," said she in quite a different tone, as the car took the curve. "I want to talk." "It's a worthy ambition. So do I. Where shall we go?" "Anywhere." He whirled the car around an abrupt corner and headed for the open country. "I cried that night after the concert," Pat informed him. She was staring straight in front of her. "My dear!" he murmured. "I'm not your dear." "No. You're not. I must remember that." "Not a bit—to-day. I've had time to think." "So have I." She whirled on him. "Have you changed, too?" she demanded with animation and dismay, quaintly negligent of the implied inconsistency. "No. I haven't changed." "I'm glad," said she naïvely. Then, stealing a glance at him, "Do you still like me—a little?" A little? How much did he "like" this bewitching child? Was "like" a sufficient word at all for the feeling which had taken such puzzling growth within him? He could not have answered the query to himself satisfactorily, and had no intention of defining his attitude for her benefit. "Tell me," she whispered. "I think you might." "I have many things to tell you, little Pat," he replied with his foreign precision of speech; "but that is not one of them." "It's the one I want to hear," said willful Pat. "First, do you tell me: why did you cry that night?" "Conscience. No," she contradicted herself [Pg 143]thoughtfully; "that's a bluff. I don't know. Sort of nervousness, I expect." "That is what I feared for you; that you would brood over it and make yourself unhappy——" "It wasn't that at all," interrupted Pat simply and promptly. "But I did want to see you again and know that you didn't think—that I wasn't too awfully—that I didn't seem just a fresh kid to you." "No. You didn't." "Was that being 'petite gamine'?" She threw a sidelong glance at him. "Was it? You should know." "After all, it was only a white kiss." "A what?" "White kiss. There are white kisses and red kisses," she explained unconcernedly. "You have no right to that kind of knowledge," said he sternly. "Where did you come by it?" "I told you," she muttered gloomily, "that I used to be a terrible necker." "Yes. But—that sort of thing! Don't you know that's dangerous?" "Would it be with you?" she asked with direct and naïve curiosity. "There is no question of it with me," he answered rigidly. "But, so far as that goes, no. I am old enough to know how to control myself." "Then you're different from most men," she returned bitterly. "Good God, child! Have you learned that already? At your age?" "Since we're telling each other our real names," said Pat in her levelest tones, "the first time I was kissed I was hardly fifteen." [Pg 144] "You seem to have been unfortunately precocious." She flashed a smile at him. "Are you jealous?" The amazing realisation came to him that he was. But he answered steadily: "What right should I have to be jealous of what you might do?" "Suppose I want you to be?" This he chose to disregard. "I don't believe that you understand yourself, your temperament." He was trying to hold himself to a tone of cool diagnosis. "I wish I were your Dr. Bobs for fifteen minutes." "Well, I don't," she retorted. "Bobs's middle names are Sterling Worth; but I'd rather have you lecture me. You understand." "I understand that you are of a very high-strung, neurotic, excitable temperament." Gloom overshadowed her face again. "You're not telling me any news about myself." "Then you must see how perilous it is for a girl like you to be what you call a necker." "Oh, as far as that goes," she answered coolly, "I've always got my foot on the brake. Every minute. If things get too hectic I can always see the ridiculous side of it and get up a laugh. It's a grand little safeguard, being able to laugh at yourself." "I suppose it is. As long as you are able." "Anyway, I've been terribly proper ever since you talked to me that night at the party. Wise virgin stuff! Do you know you've got a lot of influence over me, Mr. Scott?" "Have I? I'm glad of that." "So am I. But I don't quite know why you should have." She pondered. "Unless it's because there's something about you that makes the other men seem clumsy and—and local." [Pg 145] He laughed. "I'm very flattered." "Don't make fun of me," pouted Pat. "I'm serious. Particularly about your having influence over me. Since our talk I've passed up all sorts of chances to have a flutter. I don't believe I've kissed three boys, in all." Despite himself Scott queried acidly: "And were they red or white kisses?" "Well, one of them might have had a dash of pink in it. No; I just said that to tease you," she added impulsively. "I really have been boringly good. It isn't too easy, either." "Pat, why don't you talk to Dr. Bobs about yourself?" "I will if you want me to," said she submissively. "It would be a good thing, assuming that you would talk frankly." "Where shall I begin? By telling him about us?" she inquired demurely. Upon this Scott's inner commentary was, "You little devil!" Aloud he said composedly: "If you think it significant. But what I said was about yourself." "Oh, I'm well enough," said she carelessly. "Are you happy enough?" She gave him a startled glance. "Why should you think I'm not happy?" "I didn't say I thought so. I simply asked you." "Well, I am." But there was a hint of defiance in her tone. "And you do think I'm not." "I think you're restless and discontented." "What makes you think that?" she asked, curiously, leaning over to him so that the warm curve of her arm pressed his. He glanced not at her but at her encroaching shoulder. "Because of just that sort of thing." She snatched her arm away. "I hate you!" [Pg 146] "Better hate me than yourself. As you did that night at the club." Tears welled up in her eyes. Her chin trembled and there was a soft, heart-thrilling catch in the huskiness of her voice, barely controlled enough to enunciate: "I don't see why you're so mean to me." "Why, it's a child!" he exclaimed in mock self-reproach. "And I keep forgetting and treating it like a grown-up." "That's why I love to be with you. I want to be treated that way." "Oh, no! You merely think you do. In reality you want to be petted and flattered and coddled and approved in all your cunning and silly little ways. That would be very easy. Only—it isn't part of our compact." With one of her mercurial changes she flashed a smile at him. "I'd nearly forgotten. You were to be my wise and guiding friend, weren't you? Is that why you're telling me that I'm restless and discontented?" "Well, aren't you?" "Not more than the other girls." "Is that an answer?" "No. Yes, it is, too! Why should I be different?" "Because you're you." "'Be-cause you're you,'" she sang gaily to the measure of an elderly but still popular song. "I like to have you say that. How do you think I'm different?" "Ah, that I can't say. You see, I don't know the girls of your age much." "No; you're always playing around with the married women," she remarked calmly. "Well, you don't miss much. They're a lot of dimwits, the girls of my age here. No snap. If they can get a couple of rounds of bridge in the afternoon and a cocktail before dinner and a speed-limit whizz around the country in somebody's car, or a[Pg 147] few hours of jazz, or a snuggling party with some good-looking boy on the porch, that'll keep them from suicide for quite a spell." "I see. They seek the same distractions from the prevailing restlessness——" "You needn't finish," she broke in. "Yes; we're all alike. There isn't a girl that doesn't go in for spooning if she likes the boy—and a lot of 'em aren't even too particular about that—except maybe the Standish girls, and they've been brought up as if their house was a convent. At that, Ailsa Standish told me the conundrum about why girls wear their hair covering their ears. D'you know it?" she enquired with a palpable effect of brazen hardihood. But she turned her head away from the quiet disgust of his look as he answered: "Yes, I know it. But you've no business to. It strikes me that you're in a pretty rotten set." "It's the only set in Dorrisdale," defended Pat sullenly. "And we're slow compared to some of the other towns." "Well, if you think it's worth it," he began slowly when she cut in, with a sort of cry, throwing out her hands, those large, supple, shapely, capable hands, in a gesture of despair and appeal. "But what's a girl to do?" "Doesn't your school give you anything?" "Not a dam' thing that I don't want to get and get easy. All they try to do is make it easy for you to get through. They won't even issue diplomas for fear some of the girls couldn't pass the exams and their people would get sore on the school. I study when I feel like it, and that isn't too often." "Will you do something for me, Pat?" "Yes; I'd love to," was the eager reply. "Make something of your voice. You can do it with a little work." [Pg 148] At the last word she assumed an expression of distrust. "How much work?" "Two hours a day, perhaps." "Two hours a day! For how long?" "A year of it would give you a start." "Two whole hours out of every day for a year? What do you take me for; a machine?" Scott's nerves quivered with the strident rasp of the voice, like the squawk of a dismayed and indignant hen. "Why, I wouldn't have any time for anything else." "Some days have as much as twenty-four hours in them," he pointed out. "However, you might make a start with an hour." "I might," she admitted dubiously, "while I'm in school. But when I get out I want to have some fun. And I'm going to." "So, it seems this influence which I am supposed to have over you doesn't go very far." "Now you're disgusted with me again. But I can't help it. I'm not going to be a slave just to be able to sing a little." "It might be more than a little. And it seems to be the one quality you have which might be susceptible of development." "Now you're talking like a school teacher. And you're not too flattering, are you? Don't you think I've got any brains?" "Yes. But I don't think you're going to find them of much use." "I suppose you'd like me to go to college," said Pat contemptuously, "and learn the college cheer and how to play basketball." "You might even learn more than that. However, if[Pg 149] you're satisfied with your present status, that settles that. Suppose we talk of something else." This did not suit Pat at all. She promptly said so. "I want to talk about me. You almost always do talk to me about myself. I wonder if that's why I like to be with you more than anyone else," she concluded with one of her accesses of insight. "It's an extremely interesting subject." "Now you're laughing at me again. And a moment ago you were angry. But you're still disappointed, aren't you?" "A little." "I think that's rotten of you!" she murmured. "I suppose we ought to be going back." She sighed. "I don't want to a bit. Can you turn here?" It was a narrow and tricky road. As the car came to a stop after backing she laid her hand on his. "Kiss little Pattie and tell her to be a good child and she'll be awfully good," she murmured elfishly. Scott completed the turn before he answered: "No, little Pat. No more of that between you and me." On the return journey she was silent and thoughtful. At the post office in the village she asked to be set down, and, getting out, looked up at him, her eyes limpid with sincerity. "Please, Mr. Scott, keep on liking me," she said. "It's awfully good for me." <hr /> [Pg 150] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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