"What a crowd!" exclaimed Elinor, as they pushed their way to the cloak room. "I hope the floor won't be too full for dancing!"
"Don't give way to despair so soon—lots of these are maids and chaperones. Naskowski told me when we squeezed past him at the door that the rooms upstairs weren't half filled yet," said Patricia, hopefully. "Here, Miss Jinny, squeeze in before me—there's a chance to get inside if we form a flying wedge."
"Mercy sakes, we'll be torn to tatters!" cried Miss Jinny from behind her veil. "Good thing we're done up good and tight. Lands! There goes my whisk—no, they don't either, it's only the veil. Oh, for pity's sake, woman, let me through without any palaver! Can't you tell I'm a female?" The attendant, who at the sight of Miss Jinny's bushy beard had thrust a sturdy arm across the door, dropped the barrier with a snort of laughter, and they were inside the swinging door of the cloak room, with a flushed maid waiting for their wraps, and an edge line of muffled newcomers pushing at their backs.
"It's a blessing we finished ourselves up to the last notch at home," said Patricia, with wide eyes of dismay for the throngs at the two mirrors. "We haven't a chance to get a peep here, unless we stay all night. Is my headpiece on all right, Elinor? I feel all askew after that crush."
"You're as sweet as can be," answered Elinor, with a fond pride in voice and eyes. "You make the dearest Fairy Banou, with these filmy scarfs and draperies! Doesn't she, Miss Jinny?"
Miss Jinny, who was still enshrouded save for the torn veil, gave the last pat to Patricia's gauzes, and handed the pink silk cloak to the admiring maid, before she spoke. Then she looked Patricia over thoroughly and gave her husky chuckle.
"I declare if I ain't a firm believer in fairies after this," she said with frank affection. "There isn't anything prettier nor sweeter in the whole ball, I'll warrant!"
Patricia laughed and blushed with pleasure, preening herself a little and stretching on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse in the crowded mirror; there was a movement as a sultana who had been carmining her full lips gave place to a dark beggar maid, and Patricia caught the vision of a slender, airy figure, glittering beneath its gauzy draperies with the sparkle of bright gold, and with the glint and shimmer of rosy clanking bracelets and anklets, and the spangled glory of the rose-crowned headpiece stirring a magical memory of Persia.
"Why, I am awfully nice!" she cried, delighted with the picture. "I'll never know myself! Do get off your things, Norn, I'm crazy to see how you look."
Elinor, helped by Miss Jinny, shed her wrappings and stood revealed as a lovely Princess of China, with billowing draperies and flashing glass jewels and a tiny filet sparking on her dark hair. Some of the swarm about the mirrors turned at Patricia's exclamation, and with generous admiration pressed back upon themselves so that for a moment the dark, serious beauty of the Princess of China flashed out at Elinor from the long oblong of the glass, filling her lovely eyes with a gratified light and flushing her tinted cheeks a deeper pink.
"How sweet of you to let me see!" she cried impulsively to the houris and queens and beggar-maids that had given her the brief tribute. "I don't believe I know any of you, but I'm just as much obliged as——"
She broke off in amazement at the familiar grin of one of the most glittering queens. "Griffin, of all people!" she cried, delightedly, and held out an eager hand.
The sultana, speaking with decidedly un-oriental diction, came shimmering over to them, and shook hands with occidental heartiness.
"This is what I call luck," she said, genially. "I'm going to steer you two peaches right into the thick of the tumult, and if you don't have the time of your sad young lives, my name's not—well, here, you'd better pronounce it for me," and she handed out a card on which was printed in clear black letters,
Patricia and Elinor puckered their brows over it, but Miss Jinny, craning her head over their shoulders, gave a snort.
"Pooh, that's as easy as rolling off a log," she said, with a toss of her turban. "If you'd added acetylene and alcohol you'd made it a bit longer."
Griffin grinned amiably at the whiskered countenance. "Good for you, old top," she responded, cheerfully. "You ought to go into the Sunday puzzle department. You'd be hung all over with gold-filled watches. Where did you blow in from?"
Miss Jinny had been quietly removing her outer coverings and as Griffin spoke she dropped her last concealing wrap, and stepped out in turban and embroidered jacket, vermillion girdle and wide, baggy blue trousers whose voluminous folds almost hid the vermillion and gold tips of her curling slippers. A simitar was thrust fiercely through the flaming girdle, and a gaudy hookah cuddled in the crook of her arm, while the bristling whiskers and encarmined cheeks and nose of the weather-beaten seafarer proclaimed a strong masculine personality in striking contrast to the pretty young men Turks and Persians that tittered in feminine fashion all about her.
"Upon my soul!" cried the sultana of the inflammable name. "You're a corker! Do you mean to say, Miss Pat, that this buccaneer is the lady from the rural districts you were spouting about?"
Miss Jinny gave her husky chuckle.
"I'm the only original Sinbad," she declared with a very un-Persian hitch to her flowing trousers. "I've got tales that'll make you creep, and as for hairbreadth escapes—why, I'm so full of 'em that I can't see a tumbler of water but that I make a noise like a shipwreck."
"Come along upstairs with me!" cried the sultana, excitedly, hooking her arm in that of the embroidered jacket. "You're too good to waste! I need you in my business."
Patricia and Elinor followed, rejoicing in Miss Jinny's instant success, for, as Elinor whispered to Patricia, if Griffin took Miss Jinny about, she would be one of the features of the evening.
They went slowly up the palm-banked, stately stairway, through a dim ante-chamber where a line of twinkling barbaric lamps led to the great curtained arch of the entrance to the main assembly room.
"Isn't it lovely and mysterious?" murmured Elinor, pausing to enjoy the sense of isolation that the obscurity of the blurred lamps emphasized. "I almost hate to lift the curtain. It may be so disappointing."
Patricia set her spangled roses twinkling with a nod of comprehension, but she did not pause.
"This is nice enough," she said incisively. "It takes away the taste of the jumbled dressing room, but it makes me all the readier for the real thing—the people and the lights and the dancing. I simply can't waste another instant," and she parted the heavy fold and they slipped into the radiant Arabian land of fairy.
Lights were flashing everywhere, and everywhere silks and jewels shimmered in oriental profusion, striking the eye with a bewildering medley of color.
Patricia drew in her breath with a sharp little sigh of satisfied anticipation, but had no more than a murmur for Elinor's rapturous exclamations, so busy was she with the brilliant scene before her.
Among the palms and costly rugs that backgrounded a marvelous regal dais occupying one long end of the great room, sat the glittering figure of the portly Haroun-al-Raschid, Sultan of Bagdad and husband of many lovely wives, whose multi-colored costumes made a glowing garden on the rugs at the foot of the dais, while on the embroidered cushions at the side of the monarch a lovely Scheherazade in shimmering white satin with strings of glistening gems in her hair, on her breast, on her arms and ankles, made an alluring picture of the new-made bride. Tall palms reared their stately fronds above the group and slave girls, with fierce Nubians in attendance, waited in mute homage at either side of the throne. Lamps of brass glittered in the alcoves back of the great dais, and above it all the roofs and minarets of the ancient city gloomed in the moonlight of the thousand and second night.
All about the spacious hall were groups of Arabians, of fair Circassians, of dusky Nubians and turbaned Turks, while the rustle of costly fabrics and the odor of heavy Eastern perfumes floated in the air; the modern city outside in the wintry electric lights was well forgot in the enchantment of the moment, and Patricia lost count of time and sense of self in the pageant that swept across the lofty chamber to make its obeisance at the imperial divan.
"Look, Norn, look," she whispered, as Aladdin and his mother, in rustling native embroidered silks, led another Princess of China in bridal procession across the center of the scene, their rich dresses making a bright spot in the shifting medley of color. "She's not half so lovely as you, for all her things are so fine. I wonder who—why, it'sDoris Leighton! She never told us what she was going to be; and she knew you were to be the Princess. Isn't it queer?"
"We didn't many of us tell, you know," returned Elinor absently, with her eyes on Morgiana meekly following her master with the basket of fruit which was to be such a feature in her triumphant dance after the robbers had been boiled alive in their own panniers. "There's Margaret Howes. Isn't she lovely in that pomegranate and gold? What queer slippers she has—just like the ballet dancers. And there's Ali Baba with the forty thieves, all the portrait class men in a bunch."
"And the young king of the Black Isles and his wife!" cried Patricia, giggling. "That's Jeffries, the modeling-room pet, and Miss Green. She'll exercise the black art in earnest. Did you ever see such paralyzing expressions as she can call up! That pastry cook is Peacock, the assistant in the antique. I know him by his red hair."
As the procession wound to its finish the Sultan arose and with many courteous speeches in the eastern phraseology welcomed the company to the night's entertainment, explaining that the first half would be employed in various acts by those who had appeared in the procession, with an intermission when refreshments would be served by slaves, after which there would be a general dance followed by supper in the antechamber.
A space was cleared in the center of the room, and there was a general rush to secure good positions. Patricia found herself separated from Elinor by a broad-shouldered Moslem whose slow speech revealed him as the good-natured Naskowski.
"I did work in the clay room till the hour for this ball," he said, replying to her surprise. "And after I speak to you on the hall I become a good Mohammedan very rapid—so rapid I see you and your most beautiful sister come in by the great door. Many others seealso. We say she make a more fine Princess than the one——"
"Oh, hush!" cautioned Patricia, grasping his arm in her agitation. "She'll hear you! She's just back of us this minute."
Doris Leighton, with a rather flushed face, leaned forward as Patricia spoke and touched her on the shoulder.
"I must congratulate you, Peri Banou," she said with sharp gayety. "Everyone is saying that the Princess—your sister—is theclouof the ball.",
Patricia had an uneasy sense of insincerity in the light tone, but a swift glance into the wide eyes of the smiling Doris reassured her.
"Sheislovely, isn't she?" she replied ardently. "But her dress isn't half so gorgeous as yours," she added heartily.
Doris Leighton's lashes drooped till her eyes were a narrow line of inscrutable blue.
"Thank you so much," she said in a tone of such even sweetness that Patricia felt uncomfortable, though she did not know why.
Doris sank back to her place and Patricia turned her attention to the laughable parodies and excellent dances and necromancy that filled the first half of the program. It was all hugely diverting, and she laughed and applauded with the rest, but all the while at the back of her mind there was a little uneasiness, a sense of insecurity and disillusionment that flavored all the gayety with its fleeting bitterness. She was uneasy till she had found Elinor and in the telling of the insignificant incident had regained enough confidence to laugh at her foolish disquiet.
"I'm always making mountains out of mole-hills, and having you level them for me, Norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "I wish I wasn't such an alarmist. I felt as frantic as though Doris Leighton had drawn a dagger, and now I can see what a goose I am."
"That's because you expect people to be perfect and then, when they show the tiniest human weakness, you declare them demons at once," said Elinor, gayly. "You couldn't expect her tolikeoverhearing them praise me, could you? I think she tried to be very kind, and I admire her tremendously for it."
Patricia puckered her brows judicially.
"I do, too,now," she declared. "But I've been paid up for my evilmindedness by losing half my good time. I think I'll try to find her and be awfully agreeable to her. I'll feel better for it, I'm sure."
The dancing was beginning as Patricia made her way slowly across the great room to the laughing group where she had seen Doris Leighton but a moment ago, and before she was halfway across Doris and a tall Turk swung past her in the whirl of the newest dance, followed by Elinor and Aladdin, and then by Griffin and the young king of the Black Isles. Patricia stood still in sudden swift contrition.
"If I haven't forgotten all about Miss Jinny!" she thought remorsefully. "How fearfully self-absorbed I'm getting to be. I'm a perfectpig!"
She had a long search before she discovered the valiant Sinbad in a far corner of the now deserted divan surrounded by a circle of kindred spirits to whom Griffin had delivered her, holding her own with great spirit and enjoyment among the dashing wit and pungent repartee.
Miss Jinny, at the sight of Patricia fluttering in among them in her white gauzy draperies like some dainty moth, held out a reproving finger.
"Why aren't you dancing?" she demanded sternly, her whiskers trembling with the fervor of her interest. "What is Elinor up to that you're not dancing?"
Patricia, abashed by being thus publicly admonished, murmured something about its being only the first dance, and not knowing many people, but Miss Jinny cut her short.
"Don't tell me," she said abruptly. "You ought to be dancing instead of wasting your time on old ladies like me." Here there was a burst of mirth at the incongruity of the words with Miss Jinny's ferocious masculine aspect, but she silenced it with a wave of her hookah stem. "Let me introduce the Second Calendar, who I hope knows enough respectable young men here to see that you aren't a wall flower."
A good-natured, whole-some looking young man in the clothes of a calendar, with a patch on his right eye, laid aside his long-necked lute and rose with a bow.
"I'm usually known as Herbert Lester, Miss Kendall," he said, smiling as he led her to the dancing floor. "Sinbad can tell you that my mother was an old friend of your aunt. I've just learned that you and your sister are students here. Have you seen the Haldens? They were asking me about you a moment before the intermission, and I was commissioned to hunt you up when I ran into the circle there in the divan and was hypnotized by Sinbad's wonderful sea tales."
He rattled on all through the dance, Patricia getting in only a few words here and there, and when the music stopped he steered her to a particularly gay group under a big palm in a corner, and introduced her to the two Halden girls and their mother, and then went off in search of Elinor and Miss Jinny.
Patricia found the Haldens, mother and daughters, so much to her mind that she was full of regret that she had not met them earlier. They were kindly, whole-hearted people who lived without any quarrel with life, and Patricia, as well as Elinor and Miss Jinny, rejoiced openly in the prospect of a summer together in dear old Rockham.
They parted, at the end of the sumptuous supper in the transformed ante-chamber, with a thousand plans for the coming season and a strong sense of enrichment in the friendship of these sincere and attractive neighbors.
"What do you think of the artistsnow?" asked Patricia, leaning back in the carriage as they were being whirled homeward. "Are they such serious people as you thought them, Norn?"
"They're so mighty much in earnest that they'll break their necks to do a thing right," retorted Miss Jinny with spirit. "It's their being so serious that makes them play so well."
Elinor smiled assent, and Miss Jinny went on.
"When folks are sure a thing's worth while, they make itgo. Think of how that same party would have slumped if everybody hadn't felt it was the most serious thing in the world to make it real." Then, with a sudden pounce, she changed the subject. "I've seen your wonderful Doris Leighton, Miss Pat, and I must say I don't take very much stock in her."
Patricia felt that same indefinite sense of loss and disillusionment which had haunted her earlier in the evening, and she shrank back into her corner without a word, fearing that Miss Jinny's clear vision might after all substantiate her shadowy misgivings.
It was Elinor who rushed to the defense. "We've always found her sweet-tempered and kind, haven't we, Patricia? She's very popular and perhaps you thought her spoiled, but I'm sure, dear Miss Jinny, if you knew her better you'd like her as much as we do."
Miss Jinny gave a snort that almost shook her whiskers off.
"I'll be bound for you, Elinor Kendall, to find the sweetness in every sour apple. Not that your Doris Leighton is sour on the outside. She's much too sweet for my taste. I don't trust them when they're so unearthly sweet."
Patricia recalled Griffin's remarks on the same subject, but she loyally suppressed the memory and called up instead the radiant vision of Doris as she had first seen her in her green apron, smiling back at her eager whisper of admiration, and her heart warmed to the memory.
"First impressions are always best, I find," she said sagely. "I won't believe I've been mistaken till I have to. What did she do that made you dislike her?"
Miss Jinny, cornered, had to admit that there was nothing she could put her finger on. "But I don't trust her eyes," she ended obstinately. "You have been deceived before, Miss Pat, and you may be again. However, I won't say another word against her. If you like her, that's enough. Now, let's talk about the nice people. How did you like that Lester boy? His mother was your Aunt Louise's chum at school."
"He was awfully nice," said Patricia enthusiastically. "Architects are so much better scrubbed than art students. He has lovely hair, too. He's tremendously fond of Miriam Halden, did you notice?"
Miss Jinny gave her husky chuckle. "Trust your eyes for spying out secrets," she said. "That boy has been devoted to Miriam all his life. She refused him when she was ten, and has kept on ever since. It's got to be a habit, he says. He's as jolly as a grig, but he doesn't give up, and I suppose some day Miriam will give in."
Patricia thrilled with interest.
"Oh, I hope it happens next summer, when we're home!" she cried. "I've always been perfectly crazy to know an engaged couple and I never have—except Mr. Bingham and Miss Auborn, and they weren't so very interesting anyway."
"They won't be of much use to you if they do get engaged," returned Miss Jinny sententiously. "'Two's company' after the ring appears."
"David says they'reslushy," pursued Patricia, meditating. "But he's only a boy."
She was silent for a while, and then she sat up alive with enthusiasm.
"I've got it!" she exclaimed. "I'll make a study of a man and girl for the prize design, and I'll call it 'Two's company.' I'll have them looking at the ring on her hand, with a lovely rapt expression. Oh, how I wish it weren't Sunday tomorrow. I'm crazy to begin it."
"You'd better be thanking your stars for a day of rest, you incorrigible kitten," said Miss Jinny as the carriage stopped at the curb. "You'll need an extra nap after all these fandangos."
Patricia, however, was unconvinced.
"I'll show you when Monday comes!" she exulted, stepping lightly out into the frosty night. "You'll see if it isn't worth while."
"It doesn't seem to come right," said Patricia, rumpling her hair with the back of one soiled hand and staring ruefully at the lumpy, meaningless group of two stiff figures in modeling-wax that stood stolidly on a thick little board on top of the piano stool.
"They do look a bit queer," admitted Elinor, reluctantly. "Perhaps when you've worked on them more——"
Patricia interrupted her hotly. "I won't waste another hour on them!" she declared vehemently. "I've slaved and slaved all my spare time, I missed the last of Miss Jinny's visit, and I didn't have time to hear a word of Judy's tales about Greycroft and the village, and I haven't taken a moment to myself this whole week! I've done with it now for good and all. I was an idiot to think I could do anything, anyway."
"I believe if you tried something that was more simple, you'd do better," said Elinor sympathetically. "You've taken such a tremendously elusive sort of thing in this. Why not try something that either Judith or I could pose for? That would help a lot, you know."
Patricia gave the stool a whirl, staring discontentedly at the afflicting group.
"It's a sorry mess," she commented dejectedly. "I don't believe I want to make a goose of myself again. No, I won't try, Norn. You're awfully good to offer to pose, but I'm done with prize designs till I've had more experience," and with a swoop she crumpled the two little stolid figures into an indistinguishable mass, pounding them fiat with her pink palm.
"There! That's the last ofyou!" she said vindictively. "Let's see what you've been working on, Elinor. Ju said it was 'very satisfactory.'"
Elinor smiled. "I only started this afternoon while you were in class," she replied, bringing out a fair-sized canvas with a rough charcoal drawing on it. "I'm just blocking in the outlines, as you see; but I've made a little color study that shows you how it will go."
Patricia took the bit of canvas board, and held it at arm's length, squinting at it with eyes that gradually brightened.
"Why, it's dandy, Elinor Kendall!" she cried. "It'll be perfectly lovely if you can put it through even as well as you've managed it here. Judy was drawing it mild!"
Judith, who was studying under the lamp at the center table with her fingers screwed into her ears and her mouth twisted intently in pursuit of knowledge, came abruptly back to life.
"Well, I didn't want you to expect too much," she said, with a gentle impatience. "If I'd praised it too much, you'd have been disappointed with the thing itself."
"Right-o, Miss Judith," laughed Patricia, flinging an arm about the young sage. "My word, but you're a crafty young one! I'd have raved about it till even Michael Angelo or Raphael couldn't have satisfied the expectations of the beholder. How do you come by so much wisdom, Miss Minerva?"
Judith tossed her mane. "Don't call names," she responded, hiding the gratified smile that lurked in the corners of her mouth. "You'd think of things, too, if you didn't talkquiteso much, Miss Pat. It's dreadfully hard to talk and think at the same time."
"Is it?" cried Patricia, delighted as usual with Judith's maxims. "Hear that now, will you, Norn? Ju's going to reform me. I hope I'll be a satisfactory subject, Judy darling. 'Thinking Taught While You Wait.' It's a great idea and it may lead to a new school of mental science. Ju would look fine in cap and gown as president of the college——"
Patricia broke off laughing at Judith's absolutely unconscious face, as, with fingers once again screwed into her ears and mouth twisted intently, she immersed herself in the dignified oblivion of study.
Patricia looked at her with laughing eyes that gradually grew sober.
"I've got it!" she said, eagerly turning to Elinor. "I've got the idea for the sort of thing you meant. I'll do Judy just as she is—you'll pose, won't you, Ju? I won't be too hard on you."
"Don't I always study like this?" replied Judith without looking up. "Go ahead as long as you like—only don't talk. I want to study."
"Good girl, Judith!" cried Patricia, pulling the stool with its burden nearer to the light. "I'll plunge in right away and get it blocked in tonight. Do you know where I put that other package of modeling-wax, Elinor?"
She set to work with a will, humming to herself as she worked, the failure of her more ambitious undertaking forgotten in the joy of renewed hope, and her intimate knowledge of Judith's face and figure helping unconsciously to better work than she could have done in the schools.
When nine o'clock rang from the church tower across the park she laid down her tools with an air of great content.
"I believe it's going to go," she announced to the absorbed pair of workers before her. "Wake up, Norn, and give me a criticism. Ju has to go to bed and can't hold the pose much longer anyway."
"Pooh, I'm not a bit tired," protested Judith. "I sit this way every night forhours."
Elinor laid down her brushes and turned in her chair. Her face lighted as she saw the rough, vigorous outlines of Patricia's latest effort.
"That's the real thing, Miss Pat!" she said enthusiastically. "If you can keep it up like that, you won't have to be ashamed of it, I can tell you!"
She came and stood behind Patricia, her hands on her shoulders, eager and interested.
"That shoulder is a little too high, and the head needs more fullness at the top—Ju has lots of hair—but it's going along splendidly,splendidly! Don't touch it again till Judith poses tomorrow. You want to keep close to life and not make up anything."
Patricia, meek in experience of past failure, covered her work and put it safely away.
"I'll go on with it when I'm rested and Judy is fresh," she said contentedly. "If it goes on as rapidly as it has tonight, it will be ready to turn in at the end of the week. We have until Saturday night to put in our stuff, you know. You have to get yours in by noon, don't you?"
Elinor nodded. "But I shan't have any trouble finishing in time, I'm sure," she said with bright confidence. "I feel as though it were almost going to do itself."
The spare hours of the rest of that week were devoted to the prize designs, and both progressed so happily that their authors were filled with a greater measure of content as the days sped.
"I'm going to take mine in to the Academy to work on this afternoon while I wait for the night life," said Elinor on Thursday as they were leaving the breakfast room. "I want to see how it looks among the big casts and life studies. I'm afraid it won't show up very well among the real things, but it may help me to see its faults and remedy them while I still have time."
Patricia gazed approvingly at the dim, shadowy study of graceful figures grouped in attentive attitudes about a reader in a landscape of suggested loveliness that spoke to any observer with delicate symbolism.
"It's the best ever," she declared. "I'll 'wagger,' as Hannah Ann says, that you lift the medal."
Elinor gave a gently contemptuous sniff as she stowed it away in its corner. "No doubt—with all those experienced students competing! Some of them have been there ten years, Miss Pat. I simply haven't the ghost of a show, and you know it."
Patricia was silenced, though unconvinced. "Don't you let any of those hyenas see it, all the same," she cautioned. "I know them better than you do. They'd rush another version in before yours, and then where would you be?"
"I don't believe anyone would be so low minded!" cried Elinor, shocked and reproachful. "How can you say such things, Miss Pat?"
"Take my advice, my dear," grinned Patricia. "You're too good to see through some of those fakes, and this is one instance when my eyes are clearer than yours. It isn't often I can give you points, so do be grateful. Don't let those long-haired boys get a glimpse of it, or it's all up with you."
Elinor promised, smiling at Patricia's vehemence, and went off with her canvas, securely wrapped against curious eyes, held firmly in one gray-gloved hand.
Patricia looked after her with loving pride. "How pretty she is, and how clever," she thought tenderly. "And the best part of it is that she doesn't know what an adorable dear she is. I hope she gets an honorable mention, even if she can't hit the prize. She deserves a lot of good times, after all those lean years when she took such good care of us."
When Patricia came home from the library at half-past five, she was surprised to find Elinor stretched on the couch, with a thick comfortable drawn up to her chin, and her face gray and haggard.
"What in the world—" she began in alarm, but Elinor silenced her questioning with a weak wave of one tired hand.
"I'm not really sick," she said, in a faint tone, as Patricia cuddled down on the floor beside her and took the chilly hand in her warm one. "I have one of my old headaches. I forgot to get any lunch. I had just put the key in my locker, when everything grew black and I'd have collapsed if Doris Leighton hadn't helped me to a chair. She gave me some milk and got my things for me, and when I felt well enough, she came over here with me. She's certainly the sweetest thing. She had to miss getting her criticism, too. Mr. Benton had just gone in when I crumpled up."
"She's a perfect angel," cried Patricia, her heart warming at the thought of Doris' genuine sweetness of nature. "If Miss Jinny really had known her, she'd been the last to suspect her."
"She's coming over after life class," Elinor went on, closing her eyes wearily. "I found I'd forgotten my keys when I got home, and she's going to bring them over for me on her way home."
"You'd better go to sleep," said Patricia, smoothing the white brow with deft fingers. "I'll keep everything quiet, so that you can sleep it off as you used to be able to. I hope you'll be all right in the morning."
Elinor nodded mutely, and Patricia, pulling down the shades so that the street light did not flicker on the pale wall, tiptoed out of the room, to caution Judith and await the coming of Doris Leighton.
Dinner was long over, Judith's lessons done and bed-time come, when at last Patricia hurried down to the long parlor where Doris sat in the dim light.
She was very pale and tired looking, but as graceful and charming as ever. She inquired after Elinor with a profuse sympathy that more than satisfied the warm-hearted Patricia, whose compassion stirred at her look of fatigue.
"You ought to be taking more care of yourself," she said, with concern. "You're tired to death, and yet you come out of your way to see about Elinor. You look dreadfully fagged."
Doris smiled wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently shut out from her real confidence.
"I've been working on my panel study," she said, with an effort at brightness. "I don't seem to get it finished to my liking, and the time is getting perilously short, you know."
Patricia looked her surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't started it yet. You said you'd rush it off at the last moment without a bit of trouble."
"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I shan't see you perhaps before I go."
She said good-night absently, and Patricia, watching her hurry down the frosty street, found herself wondering at the subtle barrier that she could feel so keenly, while she yet tried to disbelieve.
"I wonder what she was going to say?" she thought, as she went slowly up to Judith's room, where she was to spend the night. "It can't be my imagination this time, for she actually did start to speak, and then stopped." She frowned and then her face cleared. "What a stupid I am—always getting up in the air about trifles! Doris Leighton is tired to death, and wanted to get home. She was just as pleasant as ever, even though she didn't have time or strength to be as sociable as she'd liked. If she hadn't felt an interest in Elinor, she'd not troubled to bring her keys back tonight. I hope she makes good with her prize study, now that she's gotten an idea for it. She's a stunning worker when she goes at it."
She tiptoed softly in to Elinor, who was sleeping quietly, and she stood looking down at the sweep of eyelash and rounded cheek that the low-turned light caught out from the jumbled masses of dark hair.
"Dear old Norn," she thought fondly. "You'll be at the head of the night life, too, some day, like Doris is now, and you'll be cleverer than any of them, for you aren't ever a bit cocked up about yourself." Her eyes grew wide with thought. "That's the reason," she whispered triumphantly, "that you're going to be a howling success—you've got time to care about all the other things in life first, to think about them and to enjoy them. And that means O-RIG-INAL-ITY. You've got more ideas now than any of those old stagers, you adorable duck!" she ended, so overcome by her feelings that she dropped on her knees by the couch and pressed her warm lips on the dark hair.
Elinor merely stirred and mumbled something indistinct, much to the contrite Patricia's relief.
"I'll never learn to be composed and considerate," she sighed as she crept in beside the slumbering Judith. "I'm crazy for Elinor to finish that lovely study of hers, and yet I'd wake her up just for my silly whims. She's got to get it done tomorrow if she can. Wish I could help her. Thank goodness, mine's done at last," and she drifted off to sleep with a jumble of prize designs and golden dreams for the future mingling with that recurring memory of Doris Leighton's hardening face as she spoke of her study for the library panel.
The next afternoon when Elinor, completely restored after a day's rest, took out her drawing-board and began to work, Patricia brought out her own study for a final criticism before laboriously lugging it up to the Academy.
Elinor and Judith were very enthusiastic over the intent, studious figure that bent over its book in such lifelike fashion.
"It's that air of real hard study that makes it so good," said Elinor, twirling the stool to catch every view of the figure. "I don't know how you managed to get it so well."
"Well, Ju was studying hard and not merely posing," returned Patricia seriously. "Somehow it gets into the work. There isn't anything that tells the truth so straight as our sort of work, Norn. You simply can't fake. Judy deserves part of the credit. And then, I liked it so, I couldn't help getting on with it. It's so fearfully jolly to aproducer."
Judith gave her pale locks a toss. "Why, we're all doing it!" she crowed. "You two in the Academy, and I at home here in my diary and my stories! Aren't we a talented lot!"
"Stuff!" said Patricia disgustedly. "You and I needn't brag yet a while, Judy. Elinor's the only one that's got a ghost of a showing. You've a long lane to run before you can even be considered, and I'm just common, every-day stuff like everyone else. This is just a flyer I'm taking in the company of my betters," and she gave a whimsical glance at Elinor with the insight that was occasionally hers in brief glimpses. "I can't fly far, I warn you, but it's simply ripping while I'm on the wing!"
"Judy likes to see herself go by in the mirror," smiled Elinor leniently. "I suppose that's the literary mind."
"Literary grandmother!" exclaimed Patricia scornfully. "She's a conceited chicken that thinks she's a nightingale because she can peep louder than some. Wait till you've had some of your stuff printed, Judy, before you boast. Anyone can scribble——"
"You'll hurt her feelings, Miss Pat," protested Elinor, as Judith's dignified back disappeared into her own room and the door closed firmly. "She doesn't mean to be boastful."
"Nonsense! I'm her only hope," returned Patricia with spirit. "She won't amount to a row of pins if she goes on this way. Don't you worry about her feelings. She's got sense enough to know I'm right. Come along over to the Academy with me now. The walk will do you good, and I'll feel more respectable with a good-looking escort while I'm lugging this huge thing."
They met Doris Leighton coming out of the students' door, and after a few inquiries found that she had just accomplished the same errand that Patricia was bent on. Her study for the prize panel was safely stowed away in the office of the curator.
"What was it like?" eagerly demanded Patricia. "It doesn't matter now, you know, if you tell. We won't tell, and it's too late, anyway, to make any difference."
Doris hesitated, undergoing again that subtle change that Patricia had seen before.
"I think I'll wait till they're all in," she replied softly. "It will be better for us all to be able to say truthfully that we had no idea of what the others were like till after ours were in. Don't you think so?"
"Of course it will," agreed Elinor heartily. "I'm glad you thought of it. I'd much rather not know. Mine isn't finished yet, and I'm so new at the work that I might be influenced."
"I thought about that," said Doris with veiled eyes on Elinor's pale face. "I know how the same thought wave will pass through peoples' minds when they're working together, and I feel that one should be very careful not to influence another, particularly in a case like this."
"I'm not so sure that it makes a bit of difference," said Patricia carelessly. "I've heard of people miles apart having the same idea at the same time. Patents are always being duplicated, you know."
"Indeed they are!" cried Doris with singular fervor. "But the one who gets the idea first is always the real inventor. The jury wouldn't hesitate to decide on that, I'm positive, if anyone was so unfortunate as to turn in a duplicate of any of the studies."
After she had said good-bye and they Were waiting at the curator's desk, Elinor spoke musingly.
"I wonder," she said, wrinkling her brows, "if Doris Leighton was afraid I'd garnish my panel with any of her ideas; she was so unnaturally stirred up about it."
Patricia, with her mind wholly on her own absorbing business, gave scant attention.
"She's rattled for fear she won't take the prize as usual," she said, gayly. "I bet she opens her eyes when she sees yours, Norn. Hers may be lots better done, but it simply can't be as lovely and asdifferent."
She pushed her bulky package carefully across the curator's counter, with an eager request that it be tenderly treated, and that official reassured her as to its entire safety by placing it at once in the locked ante-room where the modeling competition studies were stored.
"When will the prizes be announced?" she asked breathlessly, as the door clicked in its lock. "Shall we have to wait long?"
The curator smiled at her eagerness. "The library panel will be announced at noon on Tuesday in the first antique room," he said. "And the modeling class will be notified immediately before, while the class is still in session."
Patricia shivered with excited anticipation as they closed the heavy outer door of the Academy after them.
"Jiminy, I wish Tuesday were here and over!" she said fervently. "I'm scared stiff when I think of my poor little study with all those artists focusing their eagle eyes on it."
"It does seem ages to wait," agreed Elinor. "After I turn mine in tomorrow morning, I'll be consumed with curiosity to see the others—particularly Doris Leighton's."
"What do you think?" cried Patricia radiantly, swooping down on Elinor as she came slowly out of the portrait room at high noon on the momentous Tuesday. "Whatdoyou think, Elinor Kendall? I've gotten 'Honorable Mention' for my silly little old head! Isn't it wonderful? I'm so stunned I can't talk. I never dreamed it could have the ghost of a show," she rattled on ecstatically. "Miss Green was paralyzed, and Naskowski kept nodding till I thought he'd loosen his brain, and Griffin—she got first prize you know—cheered right out loud before them all. I was simply too limp for words, and I rushed out to tell you right away."
Elinor's eyes filled with a glad light, and she took Patricia in her arms. "It's perfectly glorious, Miss Pat, darling," she said with a rapturous squeeze. "I'm so delighted I can't help kissing you on the spot," and she did it with a heartiness that made Patricia wriggle.
"Ouch, that's my loose wisdom-tooth you're pushing against!" she protested plaintively. "You've wobbled it all out of place, you reckless thing. There goes the crowd into the first antique. Come along or we'll be too late!"
The doors of the exhibition room were pushed quickly open as Mr. Benton led the expectant band of students in for their first sight of the prize designs, and Patricia's heart beat fast with the thrilling hope that Elinor's might be among the first in rank.
Her eyes swept one wall and then the other, searching for the familiar canvas, but all in vain, until she lifted them to the screen which stood in the center of the room, and where three canvases were hung, Elinor's below the other two.
"There it is!" she whispered eagerly, nudging Elinor to make her see. "It's on the screen. Oh, Norn, itmusthave——"
"Hush!" said Elinor in an undertone. "Don't make a fuss. There's Doris Leighton waving to us from the model stand. She looks awfully well, doesn't she? Her little vacation——"
But Patricia was impatiently deaf. "Why doesn't he get on?" she whispered testily. "We know all about the conditions of the prize. What we want to know is—oh, Elinor, I'm horribly disappointed. I was afraid Doris Leighton would get it, but you ought to have had Honorable Mention. Griffin's isn't half so good as yours; she said so herself. Can you see what their canvases are like? I'm just so that the light glares on them for me. What's that he's saying now? He's talking about your study."
The words cut the air with an incisive clearness that left no shadow of a doubt, though Patricia could scarcely credit her own ears.
"I regret to say that the third study on the screen," said Mr. Benton, toying with his eyeglass ribbon, "is merely placed there as a warning to students of all classes to stick to their own ideas and imaginations, and not to attempt the hazardous task of copying stronger and more experienced workers. This canvas shows so much delicacy of appreciation of the subject that, had no other of absolutely the same design been previously turned in earlier, the jury should have given it the prize. Miss Leighton's cleverly executed study of precisely the same subject, while more finished in treatment, is far below this one in feeling, and it is a matter of regret to me that the student who executed it should not have possessed more originality and self-reliance. Miss Leighton will please come forward to receive the Roberts prize."
Of what followed—the bestowing and graceful acceptance of the pretty purse with the hundred dollars, the congratulations and murmurs of surprise that ran about the assembly—Patricia had little knowledge. Those astonishing words of Mr. Benton had so stung and bewildered her that the room swung about her dizzily and she clutched the back of a chair for support. Elinor's stricken face faded in the blurred background of all the other faces, as she flung out vain hands of protest.
"Oh, it isn't fair—" she broke out, but the words that boomed so loudly in her ears were only a faint whisper, and she staggered blindly for a moment.
When she recovered herself in the dim corridor, Elinor, calm and reassuring, was on one side of her, while her other arm was in the firm grip of the cheery Griffin.
"That's all right, old pal," Griffin encouraged her. "You're almost into port now. Keep a stiff upper lip till we land you."
Patricia saw that they were steering for the dressing-room couch, and meekly allowed them their way.
"Now you're safe and sound, with no bones broken," said Griffin, as Patricia sank down on the roomy couch. "You're a nice one, you are, scaring us into a blue fit just when we were about to blister our paws with applause for the heroine of the day."
Patricia looked inquiringly at Elinor, who smiled at her serenely in return, much to Patricia's bewilderment.
"But," she protested, raising herself on one elbow. "It wasn't true, what Mr. Benton said about your design. Why don't you tell him so, Elinor?"
Elinor merely shook her head gently, while Griffin stood in embarrassed silence.
"Why don't youdosomething?" cried Patricia again. "Why don't you tell him? Griffin, it wasn't true—that she copied it! You know she'd not do a thing like that!"
"Any fool knows that," replied Griffin gruffly. "If Leighton had any stuff in her, she'd have spoken up. I was just going to when I saw you begin to crumple. It wasn't etiquette for me to speak, but I'd have given them something to think of!"
"It's too late now to bother about denying it, Miss Pat dear," said Elinor soothingly. "It doesn't really matter much, you know, since we three know I didn't copy. After all, it's a very little thing. I'd rather be blamed unjustly than have done such a poor act. Don't feel so badly about it, dear. We can tell our friends that it was a mistake on Mr. Benton's part, and they'll believe us, I'm sure. It doesn't matter for the rest."
"Doesn't it, really?" blazed Patricia, sitting up very stiff and straight. "Well, it may not to you, but to my mind it's as bad as telling any other untruth. You're not guilty of it, and if you let the accusation pass unnoticed, you are party to the falsehood."
Griffin, who was winking at her behind Elinor's back in a particularly portentous fashion, turned to the door.
"Calm down, Miss Pat," she said, with her hand on the knob. "I'm going to corral a few of the elect and put it to them. Brace up and look pleasant by the time I get back."
Patricia was about to break into angry tears on Elinor's neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch watching her with fond anxiety.
Not a word was spoken till the door opened again, and Griffin with Doris Leighton and Miss Green came quickly in.
Doris Leighton, who was flushed and animated, went directly up to Elinor.
"It's a shame," she said, with a marked effort to subdue her own complacency. "Everybody knows you are much too conscientious to do such a thing. I've told everybody how shocked I am that Mr. Benton should make such a horrid mistake. It's simply a thought wave, and I've told everyone that you're not at all to blame."
Elinor looked at her very calmly, and said with a tinge of amusement in her level voice, "You must be very thankful that you got your study in first, for then you would have had to congratulate me instead of commiserating me."
Patricia felt rather ashamed of Elinor's lack of response to what she considered Doris' loyal support, and she broke out gratefully, "You'll tell them all, won't you? They'll soon understand if you tell them!"
She had her reward in Doris' dazzling smile, and her assurances that she would do all she could to make Elinor's vindication speedy and thorough.
Elinor was more cordial to Miss Green's solemn and indignant protest against the powers that be. The stout monitor had so much genuine good feeling that the sincerity of her wrath could not be doubted.
"It is most unfair, unfair, Miss Kendall," she reiterated, with her two dewlaps solemnly wagging to and fro. "It is most unprofessional of Mr. Benton, and, even if you had copied (which of course no one dreams of saying), it would still be most indelicate to expose a student directly to the publicity of such a reprimand. I deplore it. I deplore it most heartily. And your manner of receiving the unmerited rebuke has made me admire you more than I can say."
Elinor thanked her with pretty gratitude.
"I shall make it a personal matter to report to the committee," said Miss Green, as she prepared to follow the vanishing skirts of the prize bearer. "I shall certainly bring the matter to their notice before the next meeting," and with a cordial shake of Elinor's hand she sailed out, with her black cloak billowing behind her and her plume quivering with suppressed indignation.
"Isn't she the good old sport?" cried Griffin, in lively admiration. "She'll do the work of a half dozen niminy-piminy dolls like Leighton. Margaret Howes and your humble servant will back her up, too, and that committee will sit up and take notice before it's a week older, or my name's not Virginia Althea Frigilla Griffin—just like that."
It was hard work later on, when they had to face the inquiries of the wrathful Judith, to convince her that the whole thing was not a plot against Elinor by some envious rival.
"Mark my words, Elinor Kendall," she said impressively. "Some one is at the bottom of this, and I have my suspicions, too, who that someone is. I'm not going to tell, for you girls always laugh at me, but I'm going to prove it to you before that committee meets that you're the victim of a conspiracy."
The relish with which Judith pronounced these ominous words made Elinor smile, but Patricia felt only aggravation at what she considered airs on Judith's part.
"Stuff and nonsense, Judy!" she said, impatiently. "You've been soaking your brain in fiction till you can't see straight. Don't you meddle with Elinor's affairs unless she gives you permission. You'll only make her ridiculous."
Judith, ignoring Patricia's pungent remarks, turned her calm eyes inquiringly to Elinor.
"You don't mind if I can help prove that someone else was the deceiver, do you, Elinor?" she asked with such seriousness that Elinor rippled with enjoyment:
"Bless your heart, kitten, make yourself as happy as you please with my affairs; only, I beseech of you, do it quietly and with as little martial music as possible."
Judith pulled herself free from Elinor's circling arms and made for the door, pausing on the threshold.
"As if I'd publish it on the housetops!" she cried in infinite disdain. "It's plain you aren't much up in detective stories."
After their laughter at her dramatic disappearance had died down, they sat quietly in the twilight watching the lamps flicker into life across the park, each one busy with her own thoughts.
"Do you know, Miss Pat," said Elinor, breaking a long silence "that I don't like Doris Leighton any more. It isn't because she got the prize—you know me better than to think that—but I've been noticing her more closely recently and I don't think she rings true."
"Oh, I wish you wouldn't, Norn," protested Patricia, in a small voice. "I do so want to have her for a friend. She's so lovely and talented and attractive. What is the matter with her now that you say such things? You didn't use to feel like that."
Elinor hesitated. "I don't know," she replied slowly, measuring her words. "I can't put my finger on it, but she doesn't seem the same to me as she did at first. She isn't jealous of my poor work, of course, but I can feel a something—a wall or barrier—that she raises up between us whenever my work is spoken of. I felt it when we talked about the subject of the prize designs, and I felt it today more clearly than ever. We can't be friends any more as we were, I'm afraid. Something has come between us. 'The little rift within the lute,'" she quoted sorrowfully.
"'That by and by will make the music mute,'" ended Patricia dismally. "Oh, I hope not, Norn. I hope it'll all turn out well and we can go on pleasantly and peaceably for the rest of the term. I hate rows and suspicions. I'd like to live 'in charity and love to all men,' but I'm always getting into scrapes. I no sooner learn to like a person than they turn out to be fakes."
"I haven't gone that far," Elinor gently reminded her. "I didn't mean to say that Doris Leighton was a fake. I only meant that my feelings toward her had changed. You don't have to give up your admiration for her, Pat dear."
Patricia shook her head slowly from side to side. "'Whither thou goest I will go,'" she quoted. "I won't have her for a friend if she gives you the creeps, Norn, and you know it. I've been mistaken in people before, but you've always been the same old true blue. You and Miss Jinny know better than I do, and I give in. I won't be an enemy—you wouldn't want that—but I won't be a real friend like I have been, doing errands and helping her stretch canvases and all that. You and I will stand together always, old lady, and if the Roberts prize has done nothing but show us how very nice we each think the other is, it will have had its uses as far as we are concerned."
They sat in comfortable silence till they heard the front door slam and Judith's feet on the stair.
"I wonder what that young monkey is up to?" laughed Patricia as they heard Judith moving about in her room, preparing for dinner with the alacrity of hungry virtue. "She won't let on for the world, but I know she's feeling mighty important about something. I can tell by the way she whisks about that she's enjoying herself immensely."