Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XXX

The episode between Leo Stenak and Patricia Fentriss was headlong as a torrent. She heard him before she saw him; heard, rather, his violin, expression and interpretation of his innermost self. The raucous sweetness of his tone, which he overemphasises and sentimentalises, and which is the cardinal defect of his striking and uneven style, floated out to her as she stood, astonished, in the exterior hallway of Edna Carroll's flat.

When it died into silence, she supposed that the number was over and entered just as he was resuming. Her first impression was of a plump, sallow, carelessly dressed youth with hair almost as shaggy as her own, and the most wildly luminous eyes she had ever looked into, who turned upon her an infuriated regard and at once pointedly dropped his bow. His savage regard followed her while she crossed the room to speak to her hostess.

This was no way to treat high-spirited Pat. Quite deliberately she took off gloves and wrap, handed them to the nearest young man and remarked to the violinist:

"It's very nice of you to wait. I'm quite fixed now, thank you."

A vicious snort was the only response. The accompanist who had trailed along a bar or two before appreciating the interruption, took up his part, and the melody again filled the air. In spite of her exacerbated feelings, Pat recognised the power and distinction of the performance. Nevertheless, she refrained from joining in the applause which followed the final note.

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At once the musician crossed to her, which was exactly what she had intended.

"You don't like music," he accused, glowering.

"I love it," retorted Pat.

"Then you don't like my music."

"Better than your manners."

"I care nothing for manners. I am not a society puppet."

"If you were, perhaps you would have waited to be presented."

"I am Leo Stenak," said he impressively.

If not unduly impressed, Pat was at least interested. She remembered the name from having heard Cary Scott speak of a youthful violinist named Stenak who had appeared at a Red Cross concert the year before and for whom he had predicted a real career, "if he can get over his cubbish egotism and self-satisfaction."

"I've heard of you," she remarked.

"The whole world will hear of me presently," he replied positively. "Where did you hear?"

"From a friend of mine, Cary Scott."

Stenak searched his memory. "I never heard of him. An amateur?"

"Yes."

"Amateurs don't count," was his superb pronouncement.

"Any friend of mine counts," said Pat coldly, and turned her back upon him. He flounced away exactly like a disgruntled schoolgirl.

"Don't mind Leo, Pat," said her hostess, coming over to her with a smile of amusement. "He's a spoiled child; almost as much spoiled as you are."

"I don't mind him," returned the girl equably, but inside she was tingling with the sense of combat and of the[Pg 287] man's intense and salient personality. She was sure that he would come back to her.

Late in the evening he did, with a manifest effect of its being against his judgment and intention, which delighted her mischievous soul. Most of the others had left.

"They tell me you sing, Miss Fentriss," he began abruptly.

"A little," replied Pat, who had been devoting what she regarded as hard and grinding work to her music for a six-month.