Culpeper would have regarded as the most reprehensible of deceptions. He
was happier simply because, in spite of everything he had done to
prevent it, Fate had decreed that he was soon to see Patty again. The
longing of the past few weeks was to be appeased, if only for an hour,
and he was to see her again! He did not look beyond the coming night. He
did not attempt to analyse either his motive or his emotions. The future
was still obscure; life was still evolving its inscrutable problem; but
it was enough for him, at the moment, to know that he should see her
again. And this certainty, coming after the hungry pain of the last
three weeks, brought a glow to his eyes and that haunting smile, like
the smile of memory, to his lips.
The light that Corinna had kindled illumined not a political career, but
the small vivid image of Patty. Wherever he looked he saw her flitting
ahead of him, a figure painted on sunlight. He had never found her so
desirable as in those few days since he had irrevocably given her up.
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