words: "Good night peter."

"Of all the ridiculous creatures!" she murmured, laughing in spite of
herself.

CHAPTER V

PATRICIA'S REVENGE

Galvin House dined at seven-thirty. Miss Wangle had used all her arts
in an endeavour to have the hour altered to eight-fifteen, or
eight-thirty. "It would add tone to the establishment," she had
explained to Mrs. Craske-Morton. "It is dreadfully suburban to dine at
half-past seven." Conscious of the views of the other guests, Mrs.
Craske-Morton had held out, necessitating the bringing up of Miss
Wangle's heavy artillery, the bishop, whose actual views Miss Wangle
shrouded in a mist of words. As far as could be gathered, the
illustrious prelate held out very little hope of salvation for anyone
who dined earlier than eight-thirty.

Just as Mrs. Craske-Morton was wavering, Mr. Bolton had floored Miss
Wangle and her ecclesiastical relic with the simple question, "And
who'll pay for the biscuits I shall have to eat to keep going until
half-past eight?"

That had clinched the matter. Galvin House continued to dine at the
unfashionable hour of seven-thirty. Miss Wangle had resigned herself
to the inevitable, conscious that she had done her utmost for the
social salvation of her fellow-guests, and mentally reproaching
Providence for casting her lot with the Cordals and the Boltons, rather
than with the De Veres and the Montmorencies.

Mr. Bolton confided to his fellow-boarders what he conceived to be the
real cause of Mrs. Craske-Morton's decision.

"She's afraid of what Miss Wangle would eat if left unfed for an extra
hour," he had said.

Miss Wangle's appetite was like Dominie Sampson's favourite adjective,
"prodigious."

So it came about that on the Friday evening on which Colonel Peter
Bowen had announced his intention of calling on Patricia, Galvin House,
all unconscious of the event, sat down to its evening meal at its usual
time, in its usual coats and blouses, with its usual vacuous smiles and
small talk, and above all with its usual appetite--an appetite that had
caused Mrs. Craske-Morton to bless the inauguration of food-control,
and to pray devoutly to Providence for food-tickets.

Had anyone suggested to Patricia that she had dressed with more than
usual care that evening, she would have denied it, she might even have
been annoyed. Her simple evening frock of black voile, unrelieved by
any colour save a ribbon of St. Patrick's green that bound her h