Page:Restless Earth.djvu/164

“You have listened to spiteful women, sir. There is no more to be said. Queenie, come along!”

Mrs. Langham made one feeble attempt to recapture her domination.

“Indeed, I will not be treated so———”

“Come along!” commanded Mr. Langham angrily.

Mrs. Langham obeyed, passing through the doorway under the eye of the worm which had suddenly developed some of the most unpopular traits of the sergeant-major.

She passed Patricia in the passage with head held high. The girl, who was loitering in an aimless way, would not have spoken had not the older woman sniffed disdainfully .

“Shall we call it a draw, Mrs. Langham?” asked Patricia sweetly.

Mrs. Langham passed down the stairs and into the street in silence.

Her carriage was even more regal in defeat than it had been in her days of triumph.

Mr. Langham noticed it, and revealed a slight panic in his hurried words to Patricia as he hastened after her.

“Good luck, little lady,” he said, in a subdued voice. “Remember me in your prayers lest I have another relapse.”

Patricia went out into the sunlight, and was angry when she found that her eyes were wet.

“I must be growing soft,” she thought with scorn.

Patricia Weybourn’s departure from New Plymouth savoured of flight. Within two hours after her final encounter with Mrs. Langham she was seated in a service car headed for the south, and in her heart was fierce resolution never again to set eyes upon, or foot in, the town which had torn her life to tatters.