ted. She did not want to go to a
restaurant with him, she wanted merely to talk and see how she was to
get out of the difficulty with Aunt Adelaide. The car seemed to offer
a solution. They could drive out to some quiet place and then talk
without a chance of being overheard.

"Yes, please, I think that will do admirably."

"Mind you bring a thick coat. Won't you let me pick you up? Please
do, then you can bring a fur coat and all that sort of thing, you know."

Again Patricia hesitated for a moment. "Perhaps that would be the
better way," she conceded grudgingly.

"Right-oh! Will half-past eight do?"

"Yes, I'll be ready."

"It's awfully kind of you; I'm frightfully bucked."

"You had better wait and see, I think," was Patricia's grim retort.
"Good-bye."

"Au revoir."

Patricia put the receiver up with a jerk.

She returned to her room conscious that she was never able to do
herself justice with Bowen. Her most righteous anger was always in
danger of being dissipated when she spoke to him. His personality
seemed to radiate good nature, and he always appeared so genuinely glad
to see her, or hear her voice that it placed her at a disadvantage.
She ought to be stronger and more tenacious of purpose, she told
herself. It was weak to be so easily influenced by someone else,
especially a man who had treated her in the way that Bowen had treated
her; for Patricia had now come to regard herself as extremely ill-used.

Nothing, she told herself, would have persuaded her to ring up Bowen in
the way she had done, had it not been for Aunt Adelaide. In her heart
she had to confess that she was very much afraid of Aunt Adelaide and
what she might do.

Patricia dreaded dinner that evening. She knew instinctively that
everybody would be full of Miss Wangle's discovery. She might have
known that Miss Wangle would not be satisfied until she had discovered
everything there was to be discovered about Bowen.

As Patricia walked along the hall to the staircase, Mrs. Hamilton came
out of the lounge. Patricia put her arm round the fragile waist of the
old lady and they walked upstairs together.

"Well," said Patricia gaily, "what are the old tabbies doing this
afternoon?"

"My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Hamilton gently, "you mustn't call them
that, they have so very little to interest them that--that----"

"Oh, you dear, funny little thing!" said Patricia, giving Mrs. Hamilton
a squeeze which almost lifted he