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Flaming Youth

<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> Moth-like, Patricia hovered around the mystic radiance of Constance's wedding festivities. They had let her come home from school for the occasion. Reckoned too young for a bridesmaid and too old for a flower-girl she occupied an anomalous and unofficial position in the party. Dee, who, as maid of honour, had opportunity to exercise her executive faculties in managing the details, found her irritatingly in the way. "Under your feet all the time," said she to the bride. "The kid is crazy with curiosity. I never heard so many questions." "Yes," assented Constance fretfully. "She keeps asking me how I feel and staring at me as if I were going to die or have an operation or something." Dee laughed. "She got hold of Fred yesterday and put him through a catechism while he was waiting for you to come down. He actually looked rattled." "She's a pest, that child! School doesn't seem to have toned her down a bit." "At least it's taken the slump out of her shoulders. She's got a kind of boyish swagger that isn't bad. For her kind of style, I mean." "Oh, style!" repeated the elder sister contemptuously. "She'll never have any more style than a kitten. I wish you'd keep her out of my way." To accomplish this, however, would have entailed an almost continuous vigilance. The elaborate ceremonial of marriage and giving in marriage with its trappings and appurtenances, its vestigial suggestions of [Pg 56]sexual-sacrificial import, its underlying and provocative symbolism had stirred in the youngest member of the family an imagination as inflammable as it was unself-comprehending. Constance's matter-of-fact mind could not interpret the eager and searching scrutiny of her sister, though it made her restless and uneasy and vaguely shamed her. The afternoon before the wedding, Pat tiptoed in upon her as she was resting on Mona's sleeping-porch. "Connie," she half whispered. "Well?" returned the bride crossly. "Where are you going?" "Going? I'm trying to rest." "Where are you going after you're married? To a hotel?" "What do you want to know for?" demanded the elder sister, raising herself on her elbow to look at the younger. "Nothing. I just wanted to know." "Well, you won't. Not from me." "Oh, verra-well! You needn't get all fussed up about it." "Oh, don't be hateful, Pat. I want to rest." "I'll go in just a minute. But—— Con?" The bride sighed, a martyrized sigh. "What is it?" "When you get back—when I get back from school, will you tell me?" "What is the child getting at! Tell you what?" "Everything." "I don't know what you mean," fended Constance. "Yes, you do. You know." The older girl flushed a slow pink, then laughed. "You're a funny little monkey! Why should you want to know?" "Well, I've got to go through it sometime, myself, haven't I?" reasoned the girl. [Pg 57] "Oh, have you! Well, you can find out then." "I think you're mean. You'd tell Dee if she asked you." "I wouldn't tell anyone. It's disgusting to be so—so prying. Where do you get such ideas?" Pat reflected before answering. "Don't all girls have 'em?" "If they do, they don't talk about them." "Oh, that's all bunk," declared the cheerful Pat. "If you've got the idea inside you, you might as well spit it out.... I'll bet men tell." The bride looked at the clever, eager, childish face with sudden panic. "If I thought they did," she began, but immediately broke off, taking a plaintive, invalidish tone. "Do go away, Scrubs! You're making my head ache. And for heaven's sake, don't stare at me to-morrow like you have to-day. It gives me the creeps." "It gives me the thrills," returned the alarmingly outspoken ingénue, as she danced out. Throughout the ceremony of the following day, Pat's interest was divided between the bride and an equally absorbing prepossession. She had, so she told herself, fallen desperately in love with one of the ushers, a Boston man named Vincent. To her infatuated eyes he was adorably handsome, and so romantic looking, though quite old. Probably thirty! On the previous evening he had chatted casually with her for five minutes, finding the odd, eager child with the sombre eyes and the effortful affectation of grown-up-ness mildly amusing. Going up the aisle he had made her heart leap by giving her a little friendly nod. During the ceremony she brooded on him, building up the airiest of vague and roseate sentimentalities for the far future, and for the near, nursing the belief that he would surely seek her out as soon as[Pg 58] possible at the reception. When she saw him, later, quite forgetful of her in his interest in Virginia Platt, a slight, flashing brunette of the wedding party, she was both chilled and infuriated. He did not even ask her to dance, though once he crossed the floor toward her, only to turn aside at the last, hopeful moment. It was terrible to be young and queer looking, though she had done her careful best for her elfish little face and immature figure. Others came for dances, however; Selden Thorpe, the rector's son, the most often. Him she deemed "interesting looking," with his pale face, bristly hair, and hard, grey eyes, typical of the unconscious egotist. Though he danced well, here Pat could overmatch him, for she had the passion of rhythmic movement in her blood. "You've got the fairy foot all right, little one," said he, investing the epithet with his conscious sophomoric superiority. Pat felt offended. She wanted so much to be grown-up that evening. But she feared to alienate her escort's budding interest if she showed any resentment. "Anyone can dance with as good a dancer as you are," she replied sweetly. He gave her an appreciative glance. "Can they? I guess we could enter for a prize all right." "We could make some of 'em hustle to beat us," she declared gaily. "Could you make a getaway some evening, and we'd slip over and try it out at one of the big places?" "Would you take me?" she cried, delighted. But her face fell. "There won't be time. I'm going back to school." The talk languished after this disappointment. The number was over and they were seated in a remote corner[Pg 59] of the little conservatory. Thorpe wondered what he could find to talk to this kid about. "Engine completely stalled," he thought ruefully. On her part, Patricia experienced a sense of dismal vacancy. What was there in her mental repertoire to interest this worldly collegian? The memory of the party at which she had seen him gambling came to mind as a hopeful bridge over the widening conversational chasm. "Been winning much lately?" she asked brightly. "Winning?" He looked puzzled. "At what?" "Craps. I heard you stung the crowd for a hundred dollars at our party." He was flattered and lofty. "Oh, I did pretty well. Where'd you hear about it? You weren't at the party." "Not for long," confessed Pat. "But I was among those present for a little while." Connection of ideas recalled to her Warren Graves and his light-hearted allure. She wished he were beside her on the settee instead of Selden. She could almost hear his voice, bantering and tender, "Sweetie," and feel the warm pressure of his arm. With him there would have been no anxious necessity of searching for topics of conversation, whereas with Selden—— Why not experiment a little, she thought, daringly. She let her hand slip carelessly from her lap to her side. It came into touch with his. The contact gave her a shock as unexpected as it was painful. She had failed to notice that he held a lighted cigarette. "Ouch!" said Pat, and licked the wounded knuckle with a sharp, pink tongue like a young animal's. "Let's see," said the youth. He took her hand, glanced at it, and set his lips to the reddened skin cavalierly enough. "That better?" he asked. [Pg 60] Pat nodded. She stared intently at the solaced spot wondering what the progress of the game would be. In Thorpe's inured mind there was no room for surmise. To him this was all formula, the parliamentary procedure of casual love-making. He drew the yielding fingers into his left hand and slipped his right arm across the slim, girlish shoulders. She leaned back a little from his embrace. "Well?" he questioned, an easy laugh on his lips. "Well, what?" she whispered. He bent and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, adventurous and playful. Not so had Warren Graves's eager and searching lips closed down upon hers. Pat was both disappointed of her expected thrill, and unaccountably relieved and reassured. A queer, inward fluttering which had unbalanced her thoughts for the moment when the appropriative arm encircled her, was stilled. Suddenly she felt quite mistress of herself and the situation. She proceeded now according to a formula which she was improvising, and which millions of girls had improvised before her. "What did you do that for?" she murmured. "Didn't you want me to?" Pat abandoned her formula before it was fairly under way. "I suppose I did," she admitted. Expectant of the usual "No," he was startled, amused, and a little roused. "Did you?" he said. He drew her closer, bent his mouth to hers again, felt a swift stir at the sweet, soft pressure, followed by a sensible chilling as she turned away to say thoughtfully: "I wonder why I did." "You're a queer kid," he observed genuinely. "But there's something mighty sweet about you." "Is there?" she cried, charmed with the direct flattery. [Pg 61] "I suppose you wanted me to because you like me," he pursued. "Wasn't that it?" "I don't know. I like being petted." "Oh! Do you? By any-old-body?" "I don't know," she repeated. "I've never been but once before." "Did you like that better than this?" "It was different." "Different?" His interest and curiosity were piqued; his vanity, too. "Well, I can make it different, too." "No," choked Pat in sudden panic as she felt his lean, sinewy arms encircle her crushingly. "Don't, Sel!" She twitched her face away from his. Immediately her alarm gave place to a stimulus of sheer delight. She had distinctly felt him tremble. An epochal discovery! For she was, herself, quite cool. She possessed then the mysterious power to arouse men out of themselves, while remaining self-possessed, to affect them in this strange manner more than she herself was moved. "Pat, dear!" whispered the youth, avid and insistent. He had ceased to seem formidably old to her now; she was his superior. She kissed him again, but lightly and pushed him back. "Bad bunny!" she mocked. "We ought not to, Sel." "Oh, what's the harm?" "Someone might come in." "Come outside, then." "Oh, let's go back and dance. I'm afraid of you." She gave him a sidelong glance with this gratuitous lie. "Come, I love this trot." They danced it out, he holding her closer than before, she letting her cheek press his from time to time. She yearned to the feeling of his young strength, yet was quite content for the time, with the experience of the[Pg 62] evening as far as it had gone. When they returned to the conservatory again, she made him sit in a chair opposite to her. His sophomoric assurance was quite tempered down; the unformed child whom he had danced with condescendingly and as a kindness earlier in the evening, was become imperatively desirable now. He chafed at her aloof attitude. "I'm coming to see you," he said with an attempt at masterfulness in his tone. "I'll come to-morrow. Keep the evening open." She shook her head. "I'm going back to school." "Are you?" He looked dispirited. "Will you write to me, Pat?" "Can't." "Well—you'll be home for vacation, won't you?" "Of course." "So'll I. I was going to a house party on Staten Island. But if you'll be here I'm coming back." "Will you?" Her tone was almost indifferent, though she was aflame with triumph, inwardly. "That's nice of you." "I will if you'll be glad to see me." "Of course I will." "Awfully glad?" he pressed. "Oh, I don't know about all that," replied Pat, the coquette. "You're going to kiss me good-bye?" he pleaded. "Perhaps. Just a little one." When she had slipped from his embrace, her gaze was far away. "What are you thinking of now?" he asked jealously. "Of Connie." "What of her?" "I wonder where they are now. I was thinking," she[Pg 63] continued as if speaking to herself, "that I'd like to see her to-morrow morning." "Why to-morrow morning?" asked Thorpe. He was a youth of slow imagination, but he was not stupid. Suddenly he laughed. "Oh!" he cried. "So that's the idea! You little devil!" "No; it isn't," denied Pat, her cheeks flaming, and ran back to the ballroom. At the entrance she collided with Scott Vincent, who was looking for a vanished partner. "Pardon!" he said, cleverly saving her from a recoil against the door! "Oh; it's the infanta!" He looked into her vivid face with appreciative amusement. "Don't you want to give me this dance?" he asked. Her hot cheeks cooled. She considered him appraisingly though her heart beat quicker. He was so very good to look at! "No; I don't," she replied. "No?" he laughed. "You're frank, at least. Perhaps you'll be franker and tell me why." "Because you didn't ask me earlier." "Indeed! But I hadn't seen you," he protested, surprised at himself at being put upon the defensive by this child. "I don't like not being seen," retorted Pat, with a calmness worthy of an experienced flirt. "Well, I'm damned!" said Vincent softly, under his breath. He began to be interested in this quaint specimen. "Oh! come! Give me a chance to make amends. How about a little supper?" "No," answered Pat with perverse satisfaction. "I'm going to bed. Good-night, Mr. Too-late." She darted away from him, triumphantly satisfied of having left a barb behind her. He wouldn't forget her[Pg 64] soon, she'd bet! At the turn of the stairs she peeped down expectantly. Sure enough! there he stood staring after her, his comely face clouded with perplexity and disappointment. It gave Pat a sudden heating of the blood; but this was the thrill of satisfaction, of something achieved, quite different from the unsated yet delicious longing experienced when she had looked down before from that same vantage point upon Warren Graves. Even more than before she was aware of a power within herself, perhaps greater than herself, to allure men. And subtly, profoundly, she felt that the touchstone of that power was denial. Scott Vincent would remember her, Selden Thorpe would think of her with longing, because she had denied them both. Pat slept happily that night, the sleep of a little Venus Victrix. <hr /> [Pg 65] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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