For the first few days she watched eagerly for letters. None came. She would return to the hotel several times a day, look at the letter-rack, then, to hide her disappointment, make a pretence of having returned for some other purpose. "Why had not Bowen written?" she asked herself, then a moment after she strove to convince herself that he had forgotten, or at least that she was only an episode in his life. His sudden change from eagerness to indifference caused her to flush with humiliation; yet he had gone to Galvin House during the raid to assure himself of her safety. Why had he not written after what had occurred? Perhaps Aunt Adelaide was right about men after all. Patricia wrote to Lady Tanagra, Mrs. Hamilton, Lady Peggy, Mr. Triggs, even to Miss Sikkum. In due course answers arrived; but in only Miss Sikkum's letter was there any reference to Bowen, a gush of sentiment about "how happy you must be, dear Miss Brent, with Lord Bowen running down to see you every other day. I know!" she added with maidenly prescience. Patricia laughed. Mr. Triggs committed himself to nothing more than two and three-quarter pages, mainly about his daughter and "A. B.," Mr. Triggs was not at his best as a correspondent. Lady Tanagra ran to four pages; but as her handwriting was large, five lines filling a page, her letter was disappointing. Lady Peggy was the most productive. In the course of twelve pages of spontaneity she told Patricia that the Duke and the Cabinet Minister had almost quarrelled about her, Patricia. "Peter has been to lunch with us and Daddy has told him how lucky he is, and how wonderful you are. If Peter is not very careful, I shall have you presented to me as a stepmother. Wouldn't it be priceless!" she wrote. "Oh! What am I writing?" She ended with the Duke's love, and an insistence that Patricia should lunch at Curzon Street the first Sunday after her return. Patricia found Lady Peggy's letter charming. She was pleased to know that she had made a good impression and was admired--by the right people. Twenty-four hours, however, found her once more thrown back into the trough of her own despondency. Instinctively she began to count the days until this "dire compulsion of infertile days" should end. She could not very well return to London and say that she was tired of holiday-making. Galvin House would put its own construction upon her action and words, and whatever that construction might be, it was safe to assume that it would be an unpleasant one. There were moments when a slight uplifting of the veil enabled her to see herself as she must appear to others. "Patricia!" she exclaimed one morning to her reflection in a rather dubious mirror. "You're a cumberer of the earth and, furthermore, you've got a beastly temper," and she jabbed a pin through her hat and partly into her head.