Page:Restless Earth.djvu/189

Harley and I have quarrelled, irrevocably. He—he struck me. Any decent man would have done so under the circumstances.”

“Pat———”

“I’m not altogether respectable, you know. Many people will tell you that. All New Plymouth will testify to the fact, I imagine. Mr. Harley was bound to find it out, sooner or later. He found out rather sooner than I had expected—that’s all.”

She spoke with intense bitterness, and Grace turned her head as though to look at her.

“You tell me this to comfort me, Pat.”

“I tell you this because it is the truth,” corrected Patricia flatly. “Your husband hates me. He hates me for destroying his contentment; for smashing his home; for killing his wife and child———”

Grace Harley shook her head slowly. Her scarred lips smiled faintly.

“He could never hate you, Pat. If he struck you, it was when he bitterly accused himself. He should have struck himself. He will know that now. He is a just man, Pat, and he must know that you were not to blame. My dear, none of us is to blame. We were driven by something stronger than convention to act as we did—all of us. Oh, I don’t want Jimmy to sacrifice himself for me, Pat. I don’t!”

Patricia seated herself upon the bed.

“Grace,” she said softly and earnestly, “there are two kinds of love—the constant, which burns with a steady flame, a comforting thing like a fire on a hearth, and the inconstant, which flames and destroys and leaves no ashes. Some people have one, some the other. Most people are subject to both. Your husband is subject to both. You have the constant—I know only the inconstant. I’m always falling in love, and out of it. I don’t wish to, but I just don’t seem able to help it. Men find me attractive, and I—well, I suppose I like playing with them. It is in my blood. But, as God’s my judge, Grace, I did not wish to attract your husband. I tried to avoid him.