Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Part 14

Patricia was touched by the fondness in the sweet voice, though she was immensely relieved, too, for she knew that if Elinor vetoed her plan she must give it up.

"I might come over after I'm dressed," she suggested gratefully, with a smile at the discomfited Judith. "I wanted to ask if Bruce would walk over with me--it's in one of those old houses across the Square--but Ju was so fierce I was afraid to open my lips."

Elinor promised for Bruce and after a little chat Patricia left, feeling that she was making quite a concession to the family tie.

"As Rosamond says, I can't give up everything to other people, or I'd lose my personality," she mused as she went briskly along the frosty streets toward the Lodge. "And personality means so much to a singer."

She felt rather proud of herself now. It had been difficult for her to come to this point of view and Rosamond had rambled on in her amiable fashion many a time on the subject before she had brought her impressionable room-mate to see it as she did.

"If I merely went to the studio and nowhere else, I'd grow one-sided,"

thought Patricia, cheerfully ignoring the fact that she spent most of her time nowadays between her lessons and practicing either at home with Rosamond or doing errands for that luxuriant young lady.

In the weeks she had been in Artemis Lodge she had been absorbing Rosamond, living, breathing and sleeping Rosamond, until she was merely a variation of the older girl's charming self. She did not see that Rosamond was more self-centered than anyone she knew. She forgot how eager she had once been, and how proud, to mingle with the people who were always dropping in to see Bruce and Elinor. In a word, she was, for the time, like the man who points his telescope at the flower by his side and cries out that the world is made of pink petals and yellow stamen. She was no longer Patricia--she was Rosamond Merton's version of Patricia.

And the most remarkable part was that she had come to this state of mind through her best impulses and by the way of her generous admirations.

The manner of her coming had been so whole-souled and liberal, too, that she deserved to have arrived at more than this.

She went to the studio on Sunday evening and showed her pretty simple evening frock, decorated with a wide band of glittering tr.i.m.m.i.n.g from Rosamond's ample store, and she had the one real quarrel of her life with Elinor because that tender sister made her rip it off before she would consent to her either appearing at the studio spread or going to the musical.

Patricia never forgot that evening.

The supper, with its merry chat, was gall and wormwood to her. Mrs.

Nat's kind eyes seemed probing for something Patricia could not show her. Doris Leighton's quiet pleasantries and Constance's gay quips were dust and ashes in her mouth, and when finally she had walked across the Square to the big brick house and the door had closed on Bruce and the outside world, she was actually ready for tears.

"I'll never go anywhere again, if this is the way they are going to fuss about it," she said to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to the dressing-room. "I don't see how they can be so mean."

The brilliance of the house and the guests, together with Rosamond's gracious greeting as she met her and led her to be introduced to the hostess, soon worked a cure for her low spirits and she began to enjoy herself at once.

"This is real life," she thought joyfully.

"Milano was asking me about you," said Rosamond as they threaded their way through the crowded rooms.

Patricia nodded. "I know," she returned brightly. "At her tea-party the other day. You told me about it."

She was so taken up with the delightful agitation of finding herself in such a large and imposing a.s.sembly that she scarcely thought of her words.

Rosamond laughed her slow laugh. "No, tonight," she corrected. "She is here, you know. Mrs. Filmore is giving the dinner in her honor."

Patricia had room for swift surprise. "Why, you never told me!" she exclaimed impetuously. "How strange!"

"I imagine it slipped your mind," suggested Rosamond carelessly. "I am sure I told you. Come, let us speak to her before she sings. Mrs.

Filmore has persuaded her to give just one song, and I don't know when she will choose."

Patricia demurred, feeling suddenly rather small and insignificant in her girlish white net frock among all the glittering costumes about her.

It is sad to confess that her anger at Elinor returned hotly as she thought of the forbidden tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. That Rosamond had tactfully ignored to speak of its absence made her more angry at Elinor.

"I'd rather sit down here and look about for a while," she said, dropping into a tiny divan in a half-deserted corner with such a determined air of gayety that Rosamond, after a rather weak protest, went off by herself to make one of the group about the prima donna.

Patricia watched her moving across the crowded room with all the a.s.surance of long experience of such scenes, and admired her more than ever. Her perfect gown and the graceful way she carried her dark head with its jeweled band convinced the impressionable Patricia that this sumptuous creature was far too high above her for criticism, and her cheeks flushed at Judith's presumption.

It was delightful to her to see how agreeable everyone was to Rosamond.

She was stopped a dozen times in her pa.s.sage of the wide apartment, and she joined the group about Madam Milano with three attractive men in her wake. Patricia found it very exciting. She thought of the dances at the Tennis Club with something like scorn, and even the parties at the studio last winter seemed to pale before this splendid entertainment.

After an hour she began to change her mind, however, and she looked about for any sign of Rosamond in vain. There was no one in the rooms she knew. She could not even see her hostess, whose peculiar head-dress and angular shoulders she was sure she could recognize at any distance.

Madame Milano had not sung and there seemed, from the lively hum of conversation that rose above the music of the famous orchestra, little hope of it.

She felt suddenly very lonely. These strangers with their indifferent stares made her more uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life.

She longed to be able to speak one word to some friendly creature. And then, just as she was actually about to rise and flee to the shelter of the dressing-room, there was a stir, and the soft undertone of the orchestra stopped in the middle of a Hungarian Czarda.

Patricia leaned forward. Rosamond was going to sing!

Her loneliness dropped from her and her face shone. She drank in the trills and flourishes of the selection which her friend had chosen as though the notes were golden ambrosia. After Rosamond had ended her song and gracefully yet firmly declined an encore Patricia was still glowing.

She came to herself, though, when a woman near her, without lowering her voice, said with an amused look, "I'm glad that nice child in the corner is looking happier. It's positively cruel to allow so young a girl to mope about like that."

Patricia retained enough of her spirit to look the amused lady calmly in the eyes, while her pretty tipped-up nose a.s.sumed a more sprightly angle. That made her feel much better, and after Madame Milano had poured out the liquid jewels of her faultless voice, she felt better still.

She waited then in expectancy that now Rosamond would appear to take her to Madame Milano, but no one came, and in a shorter time than it seemed to her she rose, spurred by the amused lady's eyes, and made her way among the chatting throngs straight to the dressing-room, where she ordered her wraps and made her way downstairs with the calm of hope destroyed.

She pa.s.sed the footmen at the door, quite aware of their stares and equally undaunted by them. Through the lane of canvas she gained the pavement and so was out in the night streets--alone for the first time in her sheltered life.

Artemis Lodge was only a few squares distant and she almost ran the short blocks, arriving at the green entrance door out of breath and suddenly realizing that the custodian left at eleven o'clock and Rosamond had the night key which Miss Ardsley allowed only to privileged ones.

As she hesitated, a couple of figures came toward her, and she was overjoyed to recognize Mary Scull, one of the oldest residents, and little Rita Stanford, whom she had been chaperoning to a concert given by the blind. They were so full of the wonderful work done by these afflicted musicians that they scarcely listened to her limping explanation of her dilemma.

They took her in with them and left her at the foot of her own stair, and she could hear them as they went across the courtyard in the quiet starlight, discussing the difficulties of song-reading by the blind.

She rushed upstairs and undressed hastily, flinging off her clothes and dropping into bed without brushing her hair, so afraid was she that Rosamond might come in before her light was out.

She cried softly in the dark because she could not say her prayers. The tumult in her heart was too loud.

CHAPTER XII

PATRICIA MOVES

She received Rosamond's careless chiding for her unconventional behavior with an uneasy feeling. Her divinity was showing the first flaw.

"I don't think I was entirely to blame, even though I did feel shy at first," she defended herself with some hesitation. "Couldn't you have sent for me, even if you didn't want to come yourself? The footmen were going about constantly with those cute little ices."

Her sense of justice was not appeased by her friend's evading this very reasonable statement, and Rosamond's laughing indifference to her disappointment in not meeting Madame Milano again stung her to the quick.

She was too proud to show her feelings openly, however, and she went to her lesson very miserable indeed, feeling that she had lost both the splendid Rosamond's interest and her dear Elinor's sympathy.

That was one of the worst mornings Patricia ever knew. She sang so unevenly that Tancredi scolded her and put her back in her first exercises for punishment. She was longing to ask about Madame Milano, but her lips were sealed by her own fault. She would not trespa.s.s on her teacher's indulgence and she left the house so wretched that she hated even the dear music she had so longed for and lived in.