



Produced by Al Haines









PATRICIA BRENT, SPINSTER



BY

HERBERT JENKINS




HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED

3 YORK STREET, LONDON S.W.1

1918




  A
  HERBERT
  JENKINS'
  BOOK


_Fifteenth printing completing 153,658 copies_


MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY

PURNELL AND SONS, PAULTON (SOMERSET) AND LONDON




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I.  PATRICIA'S INDISCRETION
    II.  THE BONSOR-TRIGGS' MENAGE
   III.  THE ADVENTURE AT THE QUADRANT GRILL-ROOM
    IV.  THE MADNESS OF LORD PETER BOWEN
     V.  PATRICIA'S REVENGE
    VI.  THE INTERVENTION OF AUNT ADELAIDE
   VII.  LORD PETER PROMISES A SOLUTION
  VIII.  LORD PETER'S S.O.S.
    IX.  LADY TANAGRA TAKES A HAND
     X.  MISS BRENT'S STRATEGY
    XI.  THE DEFECTION OF MR. TRIGGS
   XII.  A BOMBSHELL
  XIII.  A TACTICAL BLUNDER
   XIV.  GALVIN HOUSE MEETS A LORD
    XV.  MR. TRIGGS TAKES TEA IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
   XVI.  PATRICIA'S INCONSTANCY
  XVII.  LADY PEGGY MAKES A FRIEND
 XVIII.  THE AIR RAID
   XIX.  GALVIN HOUSE AFTER THE RAID
    XX.  A RACE WITH SPINSTERHOOD
   XXI.  THE GREATEST INDISCRETION




WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT

Patricia Brent is a "paying guest" at the Galvin House Residential
Hotel.  One day she overhears two of her fellow "guests" pitying her
because she "never has a nice young man to take her out."

In a thoughtless moment of anger she announced that on the following
night she is dining at the Quadrant with her fiance.  When in due
course she enters the grill-room, she finds some of Galvin Houseites
there to watch her.  Rendered reckless by the thought of the
humiliation of being found out, she goes up to a young staff-officer,
and asks him to help her by "playing up."

This is how she meets Lt.-Col. Lord Peter Bowen, D.S.O.  The story is a
comedy concerned with the complications that ensue from Patricia's
thoughtless act.




PATRICIA BRENT, SPINSTER


CHAPTER I

PATRICIA'S INDISCRETION

"She never has anyone to take her out, and goes nowhere, and yet she
can't be more than twenty-seven, and really she's not bad-looking."

"It's not looks that attract men," there was a note of finality in the
voice; "it's something else."  The speaker snapped off her words in a
tone that marked extreme disapproval.

"What else?" enquired the other voice.

"Oh, it's--well, it's something not quite nice," replied the other
voice darkly, "the French call it being _tres femme_.  However, she
hasn't got it."

"Well, I feel very sorry for her and her loneliness.  I am sure she
would be much happier if she had a nice young man of her own class to
take her about."

Patricia Brent listened with flaming cheeks.  She felt as if someone
had struck her.  She recognised herself as the object of the speakers'
comments.  She could not laugh at the words, because they were true.
She _was_ lonely, she had no men friends to take her about, and yet,
and yet----

"Twenty-seven," she muttered indignantly, "and I was only twenty-four
last November."

She identified the two speakers as Miss Elizabeth Wangle and Mrs.
Mosscrop-Smythe.

Miss Wangle was the great-niece of a bishop, and to have a bishop in
heaven is a great social asset on earth.  This ecclesiastical
distinction seemed to give her the right of leadership at the Galvin
House Residential Hotel.  Whenever a new boarder arrived, the
unfortunate bishop was disinterred and brandished before his eyes.

One facetious young man in the "commercial line" had dubbed her "the
body-snatcher," and, being inordinately proud of his _jeu d'esprit_, he
had worn it threadbare, and Miss Wangle had got to know of