It will be, I think,
     for the last time. "Tonight, and tomorrow night, and as many nights to follow as I
     can, I'll sit on a bench in the park near the place where I kissed
     you that first time. There will be people passing there, and cars
     driving by; you need fear nothing from me. I choose the place to
     bridle my own actions, Pat; nothing can happen while we sit there
     in the view of the world. "To write you more than this is futile. If you come, I'll be
     there; if you don't, I'll understand. "I love you." The letter was signed merely "Nick." She stared at the signature with
feelings so confused that she forebore any attempt to analyze them. "But I can't go," she mused soberly. "I've promised Dr. Carl. Or at
least, I can't go without telling him." That last thought, she realized, was a concession. Heretofore she
hadn't let herself consider the possibility of seeing Nicholas Devine
again, and now suddenly she was weakening, arguing with herself about
the ethics of seeing him. She shook her head decisively. "Won't do, Patricia Lane!" she told herself. "Next thing, you'll be
slipping away without a word to anybody, and coming home with two black
eyes and a broken nose. Won't do at all!" She dropped her eyes to the letter. "Explanations," she reflected. "I
guess Dr. Carl would give up a hole-in-one to hear that explanation. And I'd give more than that." She shook her head regretfully. "Nothing
to do about it, though. I promised." The sun was slanting through the west windows; she sat watching the
shadows lengthen in the room, and tried to turn her thoughts into more
profitable channels. This was the first Sunday in many months that
she had spent alone in the house; it was a custom for herself and her
mother to spend the afternoon at the club. The evening too, as a rule;
there was invariably bridge for Mrs. Lane, and Pat was always the
center of a circle of the younger members. She wondered dreamily what
the crowd thought of her non-appearance, reflecting that her mother
had doubtless enlarged on Dr. Carl's story of an accident. Dr. Carl
wouldn't say much, simply that he'd ordered her to stay at home. But
sooner or later, Nick would hear the accident story; she wondered what
he'd think of it. She caught herself up sharply. "My ideas wander in circles," she
thought petulantly. "No matter where I start, they curve around back to
Nick. It won't do; I've got to stop it." Nearly time for the evening meal, she mused, watching the sun as it
dropped behind Dr. Horker's house. She didn't feel much like eating;
there was still a remnant of the exhausted, dragged-out sensation,
though the headache that had accompanied her awakening this morning had
disappeared. "I know what the morning after feels like, anyway," she reflected with
a wry little smile. "Everybody ought to experience it once, I suppose. I wonder how Nick--"

She broke off abruptly, with a shrug of disgust. She slipped the letter
back into its envelope, rose and deposited it in the drawer of the
night-table. She glanced at the clock ticking on its shiny top. "Six o'clock," she murmured. Nick would be sitting in the park in
another two hours or so. She had a twinge of sympathy at the thought of
his lone vigil; she could visualize the harried expression on his face
when the hours passed without her arrival. "Can't be helped," she told herself. "He's no right to ask for
anything of me after last night. He knows that; he said so in his
letter." She suppressed an impulse to re-read that letter, and trotted
deliberately out of the room and down the stairs. Magda had set the
table in the breakfast room; it was far cozier than the great dining
room, especially without her mother's company. And the maid was away;
the breakfast room simplified serving, as well. She tried valorously to eat what Magda supplied, but the food failed
to tempt her. It wasn't so much her physical condition, either; it
was--She clenched her jaws firmly; was the memory of Nicholas Devine to
haunt her forever? "Pat Lane," she said in admonition, "you're a crack-brained fool! Just
because a man kicks you all over the place is no reason to let him
become an obsession." She drank her coffee, feeling the sting of its heat on her injured
lips. She left the table, tramped firmly to her room, and began
defiantly to read. The effort was useless; half a dozen times she
forced her attention to the page only to find herself staring vaguely
into space a moment or two later. She closed the book finally with an
irritable bang, and vented her restlessness in pacing back and forth. "This house is unbearable!" she snapped. "I'm not going to stay shut up
here like a jail-bird in solitary confinement. A walk in the open is
what I need, and that's what I'll have." She glanced at the clock; seven-thirty. She tore off her robe
pettishly, flung out of her pajamas, and began to dress with angry
determination. She refused to think of a lonely figure that might even
now be sitting disconsolately on a bench in the near-by park. She disguised her bruised cheek as best she could, dabbed a little
powder on the abrasion on her chin, and tramped militantly down the
stairs. She caught up her wrap, still lying where the Doctor had
tossed it last night, and moved toward the door, opening it and nearly
colliding with the massive figure of Dr. Horker! "Well!" boomed the Doctor as she started back in surprise. "You're
pretty spry for a patient. Think you were going out?" "Yes," said Pat defiantly. "Not tonight, child! I left the Club early to take a look at you." "I am perfectly all right. I want to go for a walk." "No walk. Doctor's orders." "I'm of legal age!" she snapped. "I want to go for a walk. Do I go?" "You do not." The Doctor placed his great form squarely in the doorway. "Not unless you can lick me, my girl, and I'm pretty tough. I put you
to bed last night, and I can do as much tonight. Shall I?" Pat backed into the hall. "You don't have to," she said sullenly. "I'm
going there myself." She flung her wrap angrily to a chair and stalked
up the stairs. "Good night, spit-fire," he called after her. "I'll read down here
until your mother comes home." The girl stormed into her room in anger that she knew to be illogical. "I won't be watched like a problem child!" she told herself viciously. "I know damn well what he thought--and I wasn't going to meet Nick! I
wasn't at all!" She calmed suddenly, sat on the edge of her bed and kicked off her
pumps. It had occurred to her that Nick had written his intention to
wait for her in the park tomorrow night as well, and Dr. Horker's
interference had confirmed her in a determination to meet him. 14

Bizarre Explanation


"I won't be bullied!" Pat told herself, examining her features in the
mirror. The two day interval had faded the discoloration of her cheek
to negligible proportions, and all that remained as evidence of the
violence of Saturday night was the diminishing mark on her chin.