Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XXXIII

From the time when Dr. Osterhout assured her of her secret's safety, Pat knew that she must tell her fiancé, before the wedding. Some quirk of feminine psychology would have justified her in concealment, so long as there was risk. The chances of the game! But to go forward upon the path of marriage in perfect safety and with an unsuspecting mate—that was, in her mind, mean. Curiosity, too, that restless, morbid craving to know what exciting thing would result, pressed her. The daring experimentalist was rampant within her. How would Monty take it? What would he do?

... How should she tell him?...

Opportunity paved the way. A group of her set were at Holiday Knoll on a Saturday evening, discussing the local sensation of the day. Generously measured highballs had been distributed, and in the dim conservatory, lighted only by the glow of cigarettes, they discussed the event. A betrothed girl of another suburb had committed suicide after the breaking of her engagement and gossip ascribed the tragedy to the inopportune discovery of an old love affair. With the freedom of the modern flapper, Margaret Thorne, half lying in the arms of Nick Torrance on the settee, declared the position:

"It was the Teddy Barnaby business. Two years ago we all thought they were engaged."

"Weren't they?" asked someone.

"More or less," asseverated the sprightly Miss Thorne. "Chiefly more, from all accounts. Then Johnny Dupuy came here to live, and she shifted her young affections to him and caught him."

[Pg 312]
"Do you think he found out about Teddy?"

"Sure—like—a—Bible."

"How?"

"Why pick on me for a hard one like that?"

"Perhaps she told him," suggested one of the other girls.

"She wouldn't be such a boob; no girl would," offered a languid girlish voice.

"It'd be the square thing to do." This was a masculine opinion, and jejune, even for that crowd.

"Don't know—yah!" declared Miss Thorne, meaning to express her contempt for this view. "It was up to Dupuy to look in the mare's mouth before he bought."

The discussion played about the subject with daring sallies and prurient relish, the final conclusion of the majority being that the fiancé had "got wise" and the girl had killed herself because he broke the engagement, "as any fellow would" (Monty Standish's contribution, this last).

"What if she did go to him and own up?" suggested Selden Thorpe.

"It'd be just the same," opined Standish. "He'd have to quit."

"Oh, I don't know. It doesn't follow."

"Wouldn't you?"

"I don't know that I would. It depends."

"You'd be a pretty poor sort of fish if you wouldn't."

"Maybe, if I thought as you do. But we don't all think the same."

"Some of us don't think at all," put in Pat acidly. "We just talk."

"Meaning which, Treechy?" inquired Torrance.

"Oh, nothing!"

[Pg 313]
"I know John Dupuy," proceeded Thorpe. "He isn't just exactly the one to draw lines too strictly."

"I grant you that Johnnie would never win the diamond-set chastity belt of the world's championship," said the daring Miss Thorne, and elicited a chorus of appreciative mirth.

Pat did not join in it. She was thinking fast and hard.

After the rest had gone Monty stayed on, as of right. Something in Pat's expression struck even his torpid perceptions, as he put his arm around her and drew her to him for the customary "petting party."