Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Part 13

"I shouldn't wonder if she were going to be a great opera singer like Madame Milano," she thought, somewhat awed by this high fate for Rosamond, and she went to the sick room with more anxiety for the future prima donna than she had felt even for her friend.

Constance Fellows was still in charge and tremendously relieved at her appearance. "She's keen enough now," she replied to Patricia's eager questions. "She won't hear to a nurse, and the doctor doesn't insist. I fancy he knows her better than we do. I'd stay longer, but there's something I have on hand--but I'll be back later if you want me."

Patricia thought she could manage the rest of the day very well, and as soon as the medicines were explained and the diet understood, Constance hurried off.

Rosamond was looking much better when Patricia went to her, and she improved so rapidly that her objection to the nurse was justified.

Patricia found her an easy patient, though to her inexperience the hours for medicine came swiftly and the nourishment seemed to be always waiting to be administered. By the time night came she was completely exhausted, but she bore up gallantly, love of her gifted friend giving her strength and courage in the long hours before the happy moment when she felt safe in going to bed.

She wakened a great many times in her short night, to sit up and listen or to steal to the door of Rosamond's room and noiselessly peep in to see how she fared; but Rosamond was sleeping heavily each time she listened, and after the dawn came she gave herself up to the deep fatigue which overpowered her.

The sun was shining into her room when she awoke to hear someone knocking on the outer door. It was Constance on her way up from breakfast, bringing some flowers from Tancredi and the mail.

Flowers from Tancredi! Patricia thought that must rouse any pupil of her's, even from the dead!

But no, the gifted Rosamond lifted them to her face as indifferently as if they had been common weeds and sighed as she turned her pale face away from the insistent odor of the jasmine.

"How suggestive to send white ones," she murmured with half a smile, and Patricia, who had been half-way to the skies at this condescension on the part of Tancredi, became aware that she was making a mountain out of a very mediocre mole-hill.

She took the flowers and laid them in the box while she could fill a vase with water, and when she lifted them again she saw an envelope cuddling under the green paper. It was addressed in Tancredi's hand, and she looked at it reverently despite herself.

Rosamond waved her to read it and she had the fun, at any rate, of seeing the actual words.

"I have news to cheer the invalid," wrote the good-natured Tancredi after a few phrases of regret. "The Milano was asking about you at luncheon today, and if you are able, I am to bring you to her next 'Hour' when she returns to New York within the fortnight."

Patricia beamed. She knew that it was her account of her friend which had brought this honor to Rosamond and she was eager to hear her grateful acknowledgment. She looked expectantly at Rosamond, who was on fire at last.

She sat up in her dainty bed and she actually clapped her hands.

"Oh, how lucky I got that embroidered crepe!" she cried, out of the fullness of her heart. "Oh, Miss Pat, my dear, I must order the stockings dyed to match! I will surely be well--I'll _have_ to be well. Get the paper and see when she sings again."

Not a word about the loving praise which had won her this. Not a single syllable of grat.i.tude for the generous love that had so forgotten self in admiration for another. But Patricia was so happy in what she felt she had helped bring about that she flew for the paper and found the advertis.e.m.e.nt for the coming operas with as much speed as though she herself were to be the guest.

After they found that it would be exactly eleven days till the next opera Milano was appearing in, Rosamond lay back with a sigh of relief.

"I'll surely be well by that time," she said positively. "I am feeling so much better this morning, and I always get over things very rapidly."

Patricia was bubbling with sympathetic pleasure. "I'll take the sample of the dress and get the stockings this morning," she offered. "Is there anything else you want me to do?"

Rosamond pondered for a moment and then replied amiably, "I can't think of anything else just now, but I'll be glad to have you go as soon as you can with the sample. One never knows how long those stupid stores may take. It's awfully good of you, Miss Pat," she ended carelessly.

"Oh, I just love to do it!" cried Patricia. "I love to do anything for you--you've been so nice to me. I'll go the very first minute after I've straightened you up and had some breakfast. I'm so glad it isn't my lesson morning."

Rosamond's improvement delighted her, and she danced off to attend to her various duties with a light heart. Breakfast over, she did her errand, and after a short walk in the Park she came back to find Rosamond in a flush of fever.

The doctor, when he came at her anxious bidding, a.s.sured her it meant nothing, that Miss Merton was recovering as rapidly as possible; but Patricia was so disturbed and unhappy over her friend's condition that she sat down and telephoned to Elinor that she could not go to the opera with them and that she had asked Constance Fellows and Marie Graham--the shabby entertaining friend--to go in the place of Rosamond and herself.

To Elinor's expostulations and arguments, she had one answer: "She has been too good to me for me to leave her now," and her disappointed sister was forced to be content with that.

When, the next morning, she found that Rosamond was fulfilling the doctor's predictions and getting well by leaps, she was not sorry for her self-denial.

"I'm glad I could do it for her," she said, nodding at herself in the quaint mirror above her dresser. "I shall always do things for her, because I just _love_ to."

CHAPTER XI

THE REWARD OF THE FAITHFUL

"I think Miss Pat is simply foolish over Miss Merton," said Judith, with an uneasy note in her calm voice. "We haven't seen anything of her for a week, and now she's trying to back out of coming Sunday night, just because her Rosamond is going to sing at Mrs. Filmore's and they've asked Miss Pat to come and worship."

Elinor had just come in. Her cheeks were tinted with the crisp air and her eyes were dancing with the brisk walk home through the Park. She tossed her m.u.f.f on the divan and made a laughing face at her disturbed small sister.

"Never mind, Judy, you still have us," she said brightly. "Constance is coming and Doris Leighton too, and we'll have to give Miss Pat up to such a fine opportunity. Rosamond has not been singing 'publicly,' as she calls it, so it will be a great treat, no doubt."

"Yes, but she will simply have to miss it," declared Judith firmly.

"Tell her, will you, Elinor, when she comes in that she must come tomorrow?"

Elinor hesitated, and Judith burst out, "Well, then, if I have to tell!

Mrs. Sh.e.l.ly told me that Mrs. Nat was coming in to surprise us, and of course Miss Pat must be here."

"What's that about me?" asked Patricia, appearing in the doorway from the bedroom, where she had been sewing a b.u.t.ton on her glove while she waited for Elinor to come home. "Who's requesting the pleasure of my society?"

"Judith was telling me some very good reasons why you should come to the Sunday spread," answered Elinor quietly. She scanned her sister's face while they talked and her own was none the brighter for what she saw there.

Patricia tossed her head impatiently, as though to evade Judith's persistent attacks.

"You know I can't come," she said with that petulance which had grown upon her recently. "I have to go with Rosamond. I've been fixing my dress, and everything's ready. Besides," she added, "I promised Madame Milano I would only come home once a week, and as I've been here today, I couldn't very well come tomorrow again."

"Been here today?" echoed Judith, shaken out of herself by this unexpected reasoning. "You've barely stopped five minutes, and you haven't taken off your hat!"

Patricia looked as nearly sulky as she could ever manage to be. "I can't help it; I simply won't come," she said without concealment. "I'm going to Filmore's and that's an end of it."

Judith fired her last gun. "Mrs. Nat is coming as a surprise and we've asked Doris and Constance, too," she said reproachfully.

Patricia faltered and then recovered her firm stand. "I'm sorry, but I have accepted," she replied.

"But Mrs. Filmore doesn't care a snap whether you come or not,"

persisted Judith with flaming cheeks. She was making a fight for her old-time sunny Miss Pat against this careless devotee of Rosamond Merton's, but she had not counted on the days of intimate companionship with the alluring Rosamond which had been Miss Pat's in the past fortnight of illness and convalescence.

Patricia was silent.

"They didn't even ask you to come with your Rosamond," rushed on Judith.

"You're only invited with the outsiders, after the dinner is over."

Elinor's scrutiny told her it was time to interfere. Patricia was not the forbearing joyful Miss Pat of yore. Since the spell of Rosamond Merton had fallen so strongly upon her, she was growing--of all things for merry Miss Pat--strangely self-centered. The life at Artemis Lodge, with its gay comradeship of restaurant and tea-room, of dim library and cosy salons, seemed to have pa.s.sed her by, and Rosamond Merton filled her heart and mind. Swiftly, while she was speaking, Elinor determined that some change must be made, yet all she said was in her gentlest tone and with an arm about Patricia's shoulder.

"We'll have to give her up this time, Judy dear, though we'll all miss her more than we can say; but we won't let her off next time, I promise you that."