CHAPTER IVTANCREDI'S TWO PUPILS
And something did actually happen. It was in the most unexpected way and it came from a quarter that caused Patricia to believe in modern miracles.
She had gone with some quaking to her appointment with Madame Tancredi, and she was waiting alone in the anteroom—Elinor having left her for some necessary shopping until the lesson should be over—when the maid ushered in a girl in sumptuous street clothes, carrying a music roll of extravagant design.
Patricia loved pretty clothes and pretty people, and the girl was undeniably pretty in a dark, tropical way. She moved with graceful, gliding steps and her face under the wide drooping velvet hat looked amiable as well as comely.
Patricia wanted to speak to her, but was uncertain as to the propriety of the act.The girl solved her difficulty, however, by choosing a chair near Patricia's, and, settling easily in it with an accustomed air of being agreeable, smiled pleasantly and spoke in a most melodious voice.
"Are you the new pupil?" she asked, apparently less from curiosity than a desire to break the silence. "I have heard that Madame was expecting someone recommended by Milano, but since she didn't tell me any more than just that much, I may be mistaken."
Patricia eagerly assured her that she was indeed the expected student, adding a rather anxious question as to the manner of instructor she was to have in Madame Tancredi.
The girl laughed a tinkling laugh which showed her faultless little white teeth and waved her hand in quite the foreign manner.
"Tancredi is very well as teachers go," she said with an indifference that seemed superhuman to the quivering Patricia, who immediately set her up in her mind as authority on matters musical.
"I've never studied before," she confessed,with a tinge of confusion. "I am afraid Madame will find me awfully stupid."
The girl looked at her with a lightening of her amiable, indifferent air. "Are you really so very young as all that?" she asked in some surprise. "You look very childish in this dim light, but I thought you must be old enough to have studied somewhere before this. Tancredi doesn't usually take rank amateurs."
Patrica felt very small indeed before this calm criticism, but she confessed bravely, though with flushing cheeks. "I am past seventeen," she said resolutely. "And I've been waiting six months to begin study."
And then at the encouraging look on the other's face she rushed into a rather jumbled account of her aspirations, her trials and lastly her disappointment of yesterday in being refused admittance at Artemis Lodge on the score of lack of room.
The girl listened closely, and Patricia thought she nodded approval at the names of Bruce Hayden and Greycroft, and showed a keener interest when Milano's visit to Rockham was hastily mentioned. Shemade few comments, however, and when the gong rang, rose to go into the studio with graceful alacrity.
At the threshold she paused to say, "If you are here when I come out, I should like to see you again," and then with a return of her amiable, indifferent air, she passed into the inner sanctum, leaving the impulsive Patricia worshiping at her shrine.
Some sounds of liquid melody found their way out through the heavy doors, and helped to make the tedious half hour pass like magic. Patricia was thankful she had made a mistake in the time and had arrived so much too soon, since it gave her the opportunity of having even this small glimpse into the world of music before she ventured into it herself.
The girl came out, and her expression was heightened into positive radiance. Evidently her lesson had been a good one and she had been praised.
Coming over to where Patricia still sat, she stood for a moment looking down on her. Then she smiled her slow smile and held out her hand.
"I am Rosamond Merton," she said, "and I know that you are Patricia Kendall. I am living at the Lodge while I study with Madame. I have three rooms there. Will you come and stay with me for a month?"
Patricia gasped. "Why—" she began in some confusion. "Oh, you're awful kind, but—but—you don't know me at all."
Rosamond Merton smiled again, but did not withdraw her hand. "Which means that you don't know me," she replied, not at all affronted. "Ask Tancredi who I am, and—if you are still in doubt, come to see me at the Lodge. I like you, Miss Patricia Kendall, and I mean that you shall like me."
Patricia was so overcome by these magnanimous words that she shook hands with great heartiness, promising to visit Miss Merton and vowing appreciation of her kindness.
"Though I can't come and stay with you, you know," she said as she rose in response to the gong which was now summoning her. "I'm simply crazy to stay at Artemis Lodge, but I couldn't sponge on a perfectly absolutely strange girl." Thenfearing that this might sound ungracious, she added hastily, "Though there isn't anyone I'd like to visit better than you."
The frank admiration in her tone pleased the girl and she took up her muff and gloves with a gratified air. "I warn you that I am hard to discourage when I've set my mind on a thing," she said lightly as she turned to go. "You will come to see me this afternoon, I am sure."
She was gone before Patricia could reply and since the door into the studio was opening softly, there was no other course for Madame Milano's protégé than to walk as calmly as she might straight into the fiery furnace, leaving all thoughts of Rosamond Merton behind her.
Tancredi proved a rather good-natured portly woman with a taste for exaggerated garments which suggested the operatic stage. She met Patricia on the threshold, and patted her shoulder kindly as she led her into the large bare apartment.
"So, so. You are a very young one," she said with a strong foreign accent, yet with great kindness. "Milano did not prepareme for this. Sit there, little one, while I look thee over."
She pushed Patricia to the piano bench, and settled herself on the opposite settee by the music stand, and though her scrutiny was amazingly thorough, Patricia was surprised to find that it did not disconcert her in the least. Madame Tancredi was the exact opposite of her friend Milano in all save the kindly spirit of the true artist. She was stout and heavy, where Milano was swift and graceful; she was frankness itself where Milano was cryptic; and, finally, she was the owner of a very lively curiosity.
Patricia feared lest her precious half hour go by in catechism, and was beginning to feel a bit downcast over the length and variety of the questions put to her by the smiling Tancredi, when suddenly, with a jingle of her chatelaines and bangles, she rose and beckoned to a screened corner where, unnoticed by Patricia, a dark-haired young woman had been copying music.
"The Heather Song, Marçon," she said briefly. "This young lady requests the Heather Song."
As a matter of fact, Patricia had done no more than to confess with reluctance that she had tried it by herself at Greycroft, strumming the accompaniment with careless fingers. She heard, with a sort of dismay, the dashing introduction rendered faultlessly by the competent Marçon, and she stood beside the shining grand piano in no very pleasant frame of mind.
Her throat grew dryer with every moment and when it was her time to burst into the rippling, tender song, she heard a trembling little voice, which she could hardly recognize for her own, stumble faintly into the melody.
It was too much for her tried nerves. She broke down utterly, turning away from the piano with a sob, and, flinging out her hands in a despairing gesture, cried out that she could not sing, that she never should be able to sing and that she might as well go.
Tancredi was too much used to the emotions of the geniuses and near-geniuses, whose temperamental outbreaks she had learned by heart, not to understand what was the matter.
Waving the composed Marçon out of herroom, she pushed Patricia to the stool with no very gentle hand. "There now, my little one. Sing for me in your own way," she commanded. "Rome was not builded in one day. You are too much excited—and you so young," she ended with a softening of pity in her rich tones.
Somehow that accusation of youthfulness was the spur that drove Patricia to victory. Raising her head with a toss of determination, she ran her hands over the keys first lightly and then with growing certainty of herself, while, unseen by her, Tancredi nodded and smiled to herself in high good humor.
The song bubbled out in Patricia's best notes, rippling in silver waves through a golden atmosphere of pure melody. She sang it to the end and then sat mutely on the bench, with her anxieties returning slowly as the silence grew.
When she could bear it no longer she turned a pale face to where Tancredi sat staring into space.
"S—shall I try it again?" she faltered uncertainly.
Tancredi shook her head silently. "That will be enough of songs for the present, my treasure," she said, in a strange tone, of which Patricia could make nothing.
Presently she rose and walked the length of the apartment with something very like triumph on her heavy face, at which the puzzled Patricia wondered all the more, though she waited docilely enough on her stool in front of the great shining piano.
After a few turns, Tancredi came suddenly to her where she sat and took her chin in her warm, soft padded fingers, staring sharply into her face as though to read her whole being at a glance. Decidedly, she was a woman of unusual moods, for she stooped and kissed the anxious, girlish face, first on one cheek and then on the other.
"There, my little one, we are friends now," she said, releasing her, "and you shall sometimes sing for me some of those songs when it is needed to cheer your heart. But otherwise you shall not sing—no, not for the king himself should he ask it."
Patricia's hopes went down with a flop! Was she being told that she could not study?Had the end come so swiftly? She had a hard time not to cry out with the pain of this horrible fear, and the kind eyes of the experienced Tancredi caught her despairing look.
"Ah, no. It is not that you shall not sing at all," she said hurriedly. "It is only that you shall sing the exercises only as yet. We must walk ere we may run. Come, let us see about the breathing now," and she stood erect and vigorous, motioning Patricia to face her and follow her every movement.
Patricia came out from that interview so bewildered yet so happy that she forgot completely about questioning the teacher as to Rosamond Merton. Elinor, who was waiting for her in the anteroom, saw her shining face before she spoke, and knew that all had gone well with her.
"Dear Miss Pat," she said softly, slipping her arm into Patricia's as they went out of the wide front door. "So it has all come out well, and you are really going to be a singer some day! How glad I am that you have passed this first test."
Patricia was still slightly puzzled, thoughmore confident than she had been before Tancredi had begun her instructions.
"I've had a mighty lucky day, Norn," she said with real thankfulness. "I've been put down on the books as a regular pupil at Tancredi's, and—oh, I forgot all about it—I've had a sort of a chance to go into Artemis Lodge, though of course I couldn't take it."
Elinor agreed with her after hearing the incident. "Though it is certainly very sweet of her to be so generous," she said thoughtfully. "Rosamond Merton, you say her name is. We'll have to ask Doris Leighton about her."
But, as it happened, they did not have time to put any questions to Doris Leighton. Rosamond Merton was not the sort of girl who cares to postpone interesting events. Miss Pat had piqued her fancy and she took a very determined course to gain her point.
Bruce handed Elinor a note when they reached the studio.
"Messenger boy brought it ten minutes ago," he explained. "Said it was urgent, but as I didn't know where to find you, I had to leave it till you came in."
CHAPTER VROSAMOND INSISTS
"What is it, Norn?" asked Patricia rather anxiously.
She eyed the note with an unspoken fear that it might be a message from her new instructor canceling her enrolment, though Elinor's face did not show any consternation as she swiftly ran her eye over the brief sheet.
"Of all things!" she murmured with an amused smile, and then read more carefully, breaking into a ripple of laughter as she finished.
"You certainly have charmed this Rosamond Merton, Miss Pat," she said with a fond look at the amazed Patricia. "Listen to this."
Patricia's look of amazement grew as Elinor read. Rosamond Merton invited them to tea with her in her rooms that afternoon, very prettily insisting that thesmall sister whose name she thought was Julia, might make one of the party, since it was to be merely a cosy cup of tea to better acquaintance.
"I must say she writes very agreeably," commented Elinor, scanning the lines critically.
"That's just what she is—agreeable," declared Patricia, nodding at the word. "She seems as though she would never take the trouble to be cross with anyone. And she's very pretty."
"That settles it," laughed Elinor. "No matter what must be set aside for it, I see that we must take tea with Rosamond Merton. We must look her over, Judy, and see if we can let our Miss Pat fall in love with her, as I perceive she is on the brink of doing."
Judith's anxious look made Patricia laugh. "Don't be afraid I'll make a silly of myself like I did over Miss Warner and Doris Leighton," she said lightly. "I'm done with that sort of thing ages and ages ago."
Elinor was deeply interested in this new adventure, and after a late luncheon and ahasty half hour of breathing practice for Patricia, they got into their afternoon clothes and went to Artemis Lodge again.
"How familiar it looks today," said Patricia as they rang the shining brass bell. "Isn't it queer how soon you get used to places? I feel quite like an old inmate already."
"That's always the way with me, too," agreed Judith. "I felt as though I'd always lived on that corner near the Dam, just because we spent an half hour there on each of those two mornings we were in Amsterdam."
The opening of the door put an end to their chat and they followed the respectable woman through the courtyard again, feeling quite at home with its quaint quadrangle.
They did not wind their way through any intricate passages, however, for Rosamond Merton's rooms were near the main entrance at the head of a little flight of winding stairs, very easy of access from the courtyard and quite remote from the various offices and salons.
She opened the door immediately on theirknock, and there was such a pretty warmth of welcome in her tranquil manner that Elinor was won at once, though Judith, who prided herself on her discrimination, did not completely thaw out until the visit was nearly over.
The rooms, three in number, were furnished with a simple elegance that appealed strongly to them all, and the undemonstrative manner with which Rosamond Merton pursued her purpose gave her persistence a charm that robbed it of all crudity.
"You see, Mrs. Hayden," she said, after tea had been served and they were chatting comfortably before a small fire in the pleasant sitting room, "I am really quite selfish in wishing your sister to come with me for a while—as long as she will, in fact. I am very much alone here, being the only Tancredi pupil in the house, and I have more room than I need. I can't possibly use more than two of this suite, one for my bedroom and the other for a sitting-room. So the small room there is practically going to waste."
"Do you have to keep it?" asked Elinor,"I should think Miss Ardsley would be glad to have it——"
"But it belongs with this suite," urged Rosamond quietly. "It has no door except into these other rooms."
This was so evident a reason for her being burdened with an unnecessary room that Elinor fell silent for a little space while the others moved to the other side of the room to look over some fine photographs of the old French chateaux. Presently her face cleared and she went over to the table where they were busy with the views.
"Why wouldn't you consent to Patricia having the little room until there is a vacancy?" she inquired with a tinge of hesitation. "She could pay you the rent——"
Rosamond Merton broke in with such a decided negation that Patricia gave up hope, but Elinor persisted gently.
"Really, you know, Miss Pat couldn't possibly come under any other conditions," she said with sweet finality. "We are very anxious for her to be here, of course, since Madame Milano urged it; but if you feel that you can't have her under such circumstances,there's nothing for it but to wait till someone leaves and she can get a room from Miss Ardsley."
Rosamond Merton was silent for a long minute, and then she suddenly smiled her slow smile.
"Since you speak so very positively," she said with a graceful gesture of resignation, "there is nothing more for me to do than to give in. I will rent the room——"
"At the rate which they charge you," Elinor gently insisted.
"At the regular Artemis Lodge rates," agreed Rosamond Merton with a little helpless laugh. "She shall have it entirely to herself as long as she wants it, and I promise never to intrude unless I'm asked."
This considerate speech so moved Patricia that she burst out with a grateful offer to obliterate herself part of the time so that her generous hostess might not feel the loss of the room; but a nudge from Judith's rather angular elbow curtailed her gratitude, and she allowed Elinor to voice her thanks, while she tried to catch Judith's eye and understand the meaning of the prod. Judithturned to the photographs again and was not to be understood so quickly.
It was decided that the furniture should remain in the little room, Patricia merely adding her own desk, and that she should retain it until another room might be secured from Miss Ardsley. Patricia was to move in the next day and, most alluring of all, Rosamond Merton told her that she should have regular hours of use of the fine grand piano which stood in the sitting-room, thereby taking a great load off Patricia's excited mind.
"I've been wondering how I was to get a piano in that little scrap of a place," she confessed, "and I didn't see how it could be done, unless I slept on it at nights and practiced by day. A bed and a piano both simply couldn't be crammed in."
They parted in great good humor and Patricia felt that she was treading on air as she went down the winding stair to the courtyard.
"This certainly is my lucky day," she said exultantly, as the gate closed behind them. "Here I am, a pupil of Tancredi anda member of the illustrious band of inmates of Artemis Lodge—all at one fell swoop. Elinor, you've made me tremendously happy by sticking to the point like you did. I'd never have got the room if it hadn't been for your hanging on so."
"I tell you what it is, Miss Pat," said Judith with sudden decision in her tone. "You need somebody to take care of you. If Elinor hadn't insisted on paying, you'd have lost that room, and if I hadn't stopped you after you did get it, you'd have thrown away most of the good of it by making yourself a perfect door-mat."
Patricia gazed with astonishment at this amazing young sister of hers. "A door-mat?" she repeated blankly. "A door mat?"
"For Miss Merton to walk in upon as often as she liked," retorted Judith with calm finality. "She's a very encroaching sort of person, Miss Pat. I can see that. And you want to be sure you are going to be real friends with her before you let her get too chummy with you."
Patricia burst into a merry peal and evenElinor rippled with amusement at this way of looking at the matter.
"'Chummy' isn't exactly the word that fits Miss Merton, Ju," she said gayly. "It sounds suspiciously like unimposing me, rather than the elegant young lady of the three-room apartment. The only thing I'm afraid of is that she'll get tired of her bargain before the week is out. I may be an awful nuisance with my scales and strummings."
Then Judith was scandalized in earnest. The idea of anyone finding Miss Pat a nuisance was beyond her powers of thought, and she could not even find words to express her scorn of such an impossible state of things.
Patricia rippled again at the sniff of disgust which Judith made so prodigious. "Never mind, Judy-pudy, you shall come and look me over every once in a while and see that I am being well treated. Miss Merton may be a perfect monster, after all."
Judith was not to be won to speech by any such bald nonsense, and stalked homeward in thoughtful silence, hardly seemingto hear the gay chat of the other two in regard to what Miss Pat should or should not take with her to Artemis Lodge.
At the door of their own apartment Patricia stood quite still with a rather blank expression.
"We forgot all about asking Doris Leighton," she said. "How perfectly stupid of us."
Elinor had her key in the door and she flung it open on an unlighted interior as she spoke.
"Very stupid indeed, my dear," she admitted cheerfully, "but it's too late to remedy it now. Besides, I don't see how you'd have got a room in Artemis Lodge in any other way."
"And that was the most important thing, after all," agreed Patricia, stumbling over a stool in the dimness. "Mercy! What's that?"
The small figure which rose at their approach gave a familiar chuckling laugh and before it could speak, Judith exclaimed, "Marty Sneath, all by herself, too!"
And Marty Sneath it proved to be, aheadof her schedule by nearly twenty-four hours and very much pleased with the chance to be installed in her new quarters that much sooner than had been planned.
After the lights were turned on and they had all commented encouragingly on the improvement in Marty's dress and appearance, she gave them an enlivening account of all that had happened in the village since their departure, particularly dwelling on the changes in the modest home of the Sneath family since Danny's removal to the far-away school where Mr. Long had sent him.
"I tell you it ain't like it used to be," she said with a shake of her elfish head and a twinkle in her brilliant eyes. "Clara's got real well and Pop's swore off, and there ain't no lively times like there used to be. Of course," she prophesied cheerfully, "Pop'll fall off in about a week—he ain't one to stick to water long, you know. Then I bet there'll be some scrimmages. He's dead set on Clara goin' for service and she wants to be a typewriter. And they're both awful set. But it won't be nothin' without Danny. It's awful flat at home now."
It was rather hard to sympathize with this peculiar point of view, so they kept to the safer side by asking about Danny, whether he liked the school, how he was getting on, and what Mr. Long said about him now.
Marty's reports were very satisfactory. Danny was doing finely and Mr. Long was delighted with his experiment. "He's as braggity about him as if he'd made our Danny up out of his head," she said with a tinge of ruffled family pride. "He better look out, though, 'fore he crows too loud. Our Danny is mighty cute and maybe he's only fooling them teachers. He ain't no lamb, you know," she ended with an earnestness that made Patricia uncomfortable for her former favorite.
"He's never had half a chance to want to be good," defended Patricia warmly. "I've always believed he was better than he behaved."
This seemed to be too deep for Marty, and she turned the subject by producing a letter from the pocket of her neat blue dress.
"Mrs. Spicer sent this," she said, handingit to Patricia. "She gave me a whole dollar, too, to spend just as I liked. My, but I felt grand comin' down on that train with a whole dollar in my purse. I kept holt on it all the way. I've read about pickpockets, and I ain't forgot Danny's ways this soon, neither."
Patricia could not deny that Danny must have been a liberal education in that sort of sleight of hand, but the letter saved her the painful confession. While Elinor took Marty to her room and Judith explained the uses of the various conveniences, push buttons and the like, Patricia devoured the scribbled note.
"Oh, Norn, listen to this," she cried, following the others into Elinor's room. "Mrs. Nat met a house-party who were going down to Mr. Long's on the train last night and she was telling them about taking tea at Artemis Lodge, and Miss Chapin, the senator's daughter Mr. Long is so devoted to, told her she had a cousin there, who was studying with Tancredi, and she hoped we'd meet and be friends. Her name—think of it—her name is Rosamond Merton!"
Elinor looked pleased. "It doesn't really enlighten us much as to her," she said. "But it's rather nice to locate her even in that remote way."
Judith tossed her pale mane in quite her old superior manner. "How childish you are, Elinor," she commented. "Cousins aren't much alike. Miss Warner wasn't a scrap like Mr. Bingham. Patricia will have to find out everything for herself—everything that Doris Leighton can't tell her."
"Pooh, I shan't bother Doris now," said Patricia easily. "I'm in for a while at least, and it would seem like spying to ask questions. I'm too thankful to be in Artemis Lodge to be so awfully finicky."
Judith tossed her head again.
"Oh, well, you never are very sensible, Miss Pat," she returned loftily. "You never see beyond a pretty face. It takes others to watch over you."
The ripples which greeted this somber speech did not seem to be wholly distasteful to her, though she hid her exact state of mind by taking Marty off to exhibit thestudio to her and to explain the mysteries of oil cups and brush pots.
Patricia looked lovingly after her. "Judy's up to some of her old tricks, Norn," she hazarded. "I shouldn't be surprised if she set up a regular detective agency around my new friend and made a whole set of new thrilling tales about her."
CHAPTER VIPATRICIA MAKES ANOTHER FRIEND
"Isn't it really lovely and cozy?"
Patricia was seated on the side of her narrow bed and Elinor occupied the one easy chair by the casement window.
The little room had been transformed into a perfect bower by Elinor's good taste and Patricia's eager fingers. The small iron bed was hidden by a canopy of frilly lace and a coverlet of transparent, delicate mull with an underslip of blue. The dresser, improvised from a chiffonier, had a quaint mirror from Bruce's studio, with two silver candlesticks, to serve Patricia for all purposes of dressing. A small reliable table held a golden-shaded brass student lamp, a gift from Elinor, who knew how Miss Pat disliked the white, cold light of the electric bulbs. Some magazines, a tiny bookshelf, and a dainty tea-tray peeping from theunder shelf of the reliable table, gave an air of great coziness to the whole.
Elinor looked about with much satisfaction. "Yes, it's dear," she admitted. "I don't think Miss Merton will be disappointed in her new room-mate when she sees this. It's a pity she isn't here to see it when it's absolutely crisp."
"It seems queer that she should have gone out to Rockham with her cousin to stay at Red Top, doesn't it?" said Patricia. "It's awfully nice, though, for we shall have so much more to talk about now. I felt rather stupid with her at first, when I met her at Madame's last week. She seemed so grown-up that I hardly knew how to get along with her—much less live in the same rooms with her."
"You didn't show any shyness that I could discover," smiled Elinor. "I'm sure you'll get on famously with her now that you're installed. I wish I didn't have to go," she added, rising reluctantly. "But I promised Bruce to go to the Salimagundi show with him and he'll be waiting for me if I don't fly."
Patricia went as far as the green entrance door with her and kissed her warmly.
"I begin to feel like a pilgrim and a stranger," she laughed. "To be in town and not be with you and Bruce seems too queer for words."
"You'll have splendid times as soon as you get acquainted," said Elinor brightly. "I envy you the fun you're going to have among all these attractive girls. Good-bye once again. Bring Doris over to supper with you on Sunday if she is back by then. Be sure to take good care of yourself and have a good time."
Patricia watched her till she turned the corner, and then she closed the door and went slowly across the wide paved courtyard and up the little private stair, smiling to herself.
As she closed the door of the sitting-room behind her, she could not resist a prance of joy. "I'm here!" she told herself rapturously. "Oh, how glorious it is to have really started in earnest!"
She practiced her breathing exercises and tried a few three-note vocal exercises, andwas delighted that her voice seemed clearer than it had ever sounded to her.
"It must be because I am so happy," she told herself. "I wish I had a lesson this afternoon. I hate to wait till the morning."
After she had sung as long as she dared, she practiced some accompaniments till her fingers tired, and then she took up a magazine and read a couple of stories, becoming so absorbed in the last one that she hardly heard a clock below striking loudly, though some sense of its strident tones made her start from her chair in dismay lest she should have missed the tea-hour.
"How stupid of me—" she began, glancing at her plain little wrist-watch. Her face fell as she looked unbelievingly at the hands pointing to three o'clock.
"It must be run down," she said, frowning and holding the watch to her ear. "No, it's going. It must be slow."
A glance at the big clock in the tower opposite her bedroom window convinced her that her watch was to be taken seriously. There was nearly an hour and a half before she might venture down into the tea-roomand make such acquaintances as she could without the aid of Doris Leighton or Rosamond Merton.
"I wish I hadn't been so particular about that mending," she thought ruefully. "It was a shameful waste of time to do it at the studio. I was so particular to have everything done up to the last notch that there isn't a single letter to write, or button to sew on, or—or—anything. I simply can't sit down like a tame tabby this first exciting afternoon, when all sorts of wonderful things may be going to happen to me after while."
She sighed over the prospect of being bottled up for such an interminable period and regretted that Milano's orders were so strict in regard to her intercourse with her family.
"It's a perfect shame that I can't go home every day," she thought suddenly, rather pitying herself for the privations she was suffering. "I am going to miss them terribly and I shouldn't wonder if I'd get rather hard-hearted and self-centered, living this way just for myself."
She never thought of seeking Miss Ardsley,although that lady had given her the most cordial invitation to visit her in her own rooms any time that she wished, particularly insisting on her bringing Mrs. Bruce Hayden in to call at any time she might be in the building. Somehow, the atmosphere of Miss Ardsley's luxuriant rooms had rather stifled Patricia on her one admission to them when she went with Elinor and Rosamond Merton to make the necessary arrangements for procuring the little room.
"If Doris Leighton hadn't gone off for a week just as we got that first glimpse of her," she mourned, fussing about the trifles on the dainty dresser. "Or if I only knew someone to say a word to. It seems like a week since I heard a human voice. I'd go out and take a walk if——"
Rap-a-tap! Someone was using the diminutive knocker on the sitting-room door.
Patricia flew to open it, and a dark, medium-sized girl in a shabby bronze velveteen frock stood on the threshold, looking very much surprised indeed.
"Is Miss Merton in?" she asked, looking beyond Patricia into the vacant rooms.
Patricia was sorry to have to confess that Miss Merton was away for the rest of the week. She hoped the girl might come in notwithstanding, but she turned to go without much ceremony and was half-way across the hall when she suddenly paused and came back to where Patricia lingered on the the sill.
"Are you the new girl?" she asked with surprising directness. "Pupil of Tancredi?"
Patricia answered eagerly that she was very new and that she had taken two lessons from the noted teacher.
The other girl turned and walked into the room, selecting an easy chair and seating herself with every appearance of meaning to stay.
Patricia was delighted.
"I'm so glad you came," she said with great cordiality, seating herself near the other and beaming on her. "I haven't seen a soul since one o'clock and I was beginning to petrify."
"First day?" inquired the girl laconically.
On Patricia admitting it was not only her first day, but first afternoon, having parted from her sister only after a light and early lunch in her own room, the newcomer nodded.
"H—h'm. It gets you, doesn't it? The first time you're stranded on a lonely shore certainly makes home look good," she said thoughtfully. "Funny thing is, that no matter how dressy the shore happens to be," she threw a glance about the luxuriant room, "it's just as lonely—the first time. Ever been away from home before?"
Patricia explained that she had never had a real home till nearly two years ago, but that she had never been entirely separated from both her sisters and friends until now.
"Plenty of nice girls here," the girl acknowledged. "But you have to pick out your own sort for yourself. Have you known Merton long?"
Patricia recognized the art student in the use of the last name, and she said eagerly, "I hardly know her at all. You aren't studying with Tancredi, are you?"
As she expected, the girl laughed a quicknegative. "Not me," she returned, ungrammatical and emphatic. "I can't croak a note and my fingers never would make melody if I tried till I were a hundred. I'm doing the other side—paint and the like."
"I knew it!" cried Patricia, much pleased by her own perception. "I was sure I smelled paint when you came in. Have you a studio, or are you studying at one of the schools?"
"Both," answered the other, briskly. "I have a sort of studio across the hall here, and I am going to night life at the only school in New York. How did you recognize the hall-marks? I thought you were vocal and Tancredi?"
Patricia told her that she had spent some months at the Academy in another city, and that both her sister and brother-in-law were artists, and though she had just started in as a music student, she was much more familiar with the fraternity than with the song birds.
"I see," said the girl. "You must be worth while, even though you are located in these fluffy apartments with the ultraMerton. I think I shall become better acquainted. What's your name?"
Patricia was much diverted by this direct address. "I am Patricia Kendall," she returned with equal candor. "I like your looks, too, and I'm quite willing to be as chummy as you like."
"H—h'm," said the girl again. "Don't bank on me. Merton isn't in my class, and if you're her chum, I'll have to decline anything more than mere acquaintance."
Patricia began a hasty explanation of her presence in the luxurious rooms, but the girl waved her words aside with abrupt good humor. "You may not know her well," she insisted, smiling a pleasant wide smile. "But you simply must be some sort of a bob or she wouldn't take to you. Merton is not a wasteful child."
Patricia understood that the girl was entirely in earnest, and the idea that she was committed to an exclusive and perhaps unpopular set among the democracy of talent at Artemis Lodge rather chilled her.
"You are a friend of hers yourself," she accused with a trace of indignation. "Youwouldn't be coming in here to see her if you weren't."
"Oh, am I, indeed?" grinned the girl. "Don't jump at conclusions at that reckless rate, Miss Patricia Kendall. I'm merely connected with the ultra Merton by means of a piece of canvas and some paint tubes. In other words, I'm at work on a panel of peacocks and goldy sunbeams for her music room at home, and am only tolerated because I can draw little birdies with pretty eyes in their tails better than anyone who happens to be here now."
Patricia forgot Miss Merton in her sudden interest. "Oh, are you doing some panels for her?" she asked, leaning forward with shining eyes. "You must be awfully clever. Will you let me see them? I want to tell Bruce all about them, if I may."
Her interest seemed to please the girl. She rose abruptly and held out her hand. "Shake on good fellowship," she said heartily, and Patricia accepted the queer invitation with great good will.
"Come along over," invited the girl, jerking her head toward the opposite sideof the hall. "Everything's in a mess, but you won't mind. You'll have to put up with that sort of things if we're to be friends."
"Indeed, I'll love it!" said Patricia enthusiastically. It was very good to be taken into fellowship so informally. "Bruce and Elinor mess up their studios terribly and I used to trail clay all over the place when I had the modeling mania."
The girl threw open the door of a large bare, well-lighted room, that somehow managed, in spite of rather poor furniture and much disorder, to look attractive and inviting; and Patricia saw on a huge easel a tall canvas with beautiful, gorgeous peacocks strutting proudly against a background of ruddy gold.
"How stunning!" she cried with such conviction that the girl smiled and then grew serious. "How wonderful! How can you do it, when you're so young? Where did you learn to make such lovely things?"
"My father was an artist and he taught me when I was a little tad," replied the girl in a subdued tone which made thesympathetic Patricia's heart warm toward her.
"Was he—" began Patricia, hesitating.
"He was Henry Fellows. He died three years ago," said the girl quietly, and as though closing the subject, she added, "My name is Constance. I am nearly twenty years old, though I look younger." And then in a changed tone she added, "Tell me who this Bruce and Elinor are. I ought to know them if they aren't the rankest newcomers."
Patricia was gratified at the expression which Bruce's name brought to the clear hazel eyes.
"You're a fortunate piece," commented Constance Fellows, with a familiarity which was not too intimate. "Tancredi and Bruce Hayden and a real family of your own—not to mention being a chum of Rosamond Merton."
Patricia thought she caught a flavor of sarcasm in the last name, but instantly decided that it was her own suspicious nature that suggested the thought. She was beginning to like Constance Fellows ina sincere and unaffected way that could not be compared with the ardent admiration she had felt for Miss Merton, and, as she always attributed the best motives to those she liked, she felt quite ashamed of her ungenerous thought.
The hall clock sounded again, this time heard clearly through the open door, and Patricia was astonished to find that the tea-hour had arrived without her knowing it.
"Am I all right to go down just as I am?" she inquired rather anxiously of her new friend. "Ought I put on a hat or something?"
"Put on anything you please. Take a parasol or a pair of galoshes if you feel that your system craves them," replied Constance calmly. "I am going just as I am. We girls who are in the house usually are glad to sneak in without prinking."
Patricia giggled. "Lead me down," she commanded briskly. "I'm perfectly crazy to see what's what and who's who. I was going to find out all about the various girls from Doris Leighton, but I'm sure you'll do very well in her place."
"I call that a real compliment," declared Constance with evident sincerity. "Leighton is the squarest damsel in the whole troupe and she isn't spoiled by her beauty either."
They found the tea-room filled as on the other day, and Patricia, thanks to Constance Fellows' kindness, found herself one of a gay group near the piano, as much at home among the chattering girls as though she had known them for weeks.
"I tell you what it is, Avis Coulter," Constance was saying to a very plain, angular girl with large spectacles when the tea was almost over, "we've got to show this budding genius a little friendly attention, or she'll get homesick and mopey before the resplendent Merton returns to coddle her. What are you going to do to liven her dragging days?"
The spectacled girl rubbed her nose thoughtfully. "I've tickets for a concert at Carnegie Hall tomorrow afternoon," she hazarded doubtfully.
"And I have a perfectly good studio party at my cousin Emily's," said another girl.
"And I'm going to have a spread in my room tomorrow night," volunteered a third member of the party.
Constance Fellows nodded approval. "That sounds very well to me," she said. "I accept for Miss P. Kendall and myself. Who's to bring the chaperone for these festivities?"
Avis Coulter, on the score of the concert being in the afternoon, declared that it was all stuff to think of such a thing, while Marie Jones said that her cousin Emily was chaperone enough for an army of buds, and Ethel Walters sniffed at the idea of a chaperone for a spread in one's very own room, under the roof with Miss Ardsley and the dependable Miss Tatten, the house-keeper, whom Patricia had not yet seen.
Constance would have none of their reasoning, however, and insisted that one of the older students at Artemis Lodge be in charge of all the festivities shown Patricia in the interval of Miss Merton's absence.
"I am responsible for her," she said firmly, "and I am not going to present her to Merton with the slightest social blotupon her dazzling whiteness. Chaperoned she must and shall be, or she doesn't budge a step."
Patricia was very much amused and surprised to see that Constance had her way. Instead of rebelling, as she had expected, the girls gave in at once, showing as much meekness in fulfilling the wishes of this decided young person as though it were she and not they that was granting the favors.
Patricia went back to her room cheered and exhilarated, and found the brief time before the dinner hour all too short for the necessary amount of practicing she had portioned off for herself.
Dinner in the gay little restaurant with its decorated walls and sociable small tables was a far more enjoyable affair than she had thought it could be when she had looked forward to it in her lonely interval, and after another half hour of chat by the fire-side in the library she went to her room highly delighted with her first day at Artemis Lodge.
Stopping at the public telephone in the hall—she decided not to use the one inMiss Merton's sitting-room until the owner was at home again—she called up Elinor and gave her a brief report.
"I'm having a perfectly lovely time," she told her. "And as Doris isn't coming back till next week, I am going to bring someone who has been very nice to me home to supper on Sunday, in her place. I know you'll like her, and," here she laughed a little, "tell Judy she isn't at all pretty."