Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Part 15

"I'll never be a real singer," she thought dolefully, as she walked slowly towards Artemis Lodge. "Tancredi doesn't care a rap about my voice and I don't believe she'd have bothered with me if it hadn't been to please Madame Milano, and Madame Milano only told me to go on because she wanted to please Elinor and Bruce because they are friends of the Van Kelts, who are such chums with her Dutch friend."

If she had not been so woebegone she would have laughed at this string of disheartening reasons for her being so falsely encouraged to compete with gifted creatures like Rosamond Merton, but her gloom was too deep and too real to see the funny side of anything just then.

The clock in the tower was pointing to twelve as she pa.s.sed along on the other side of the Square, and she looked wistfully up at the big window of the studio, where she knew that Elinor or Bruce would be just dismissing a model and making ready to clean their brushes and tidy up for the one o'clock luncheon which they always had sent in to them.

"I wonder if they'd care if they never saw me again," she thought with what she instantly knew to be shallow sentimentality. "I suppose they would care," she acknowledged, and her sense of justice saved her from any more silly speeches like that. "They think I'm an awful goose, though," she amended, and she knew she was rather safe in this.

As she turned the corner toward her own street, she saw a couple of figures come out of the rather imposing entrance of the studio building, and her dejection deepened. She could easily recognize Elinor's blue coat and Doris Leighton's black suit with the white fur collar. They were coming briskly toward her and she hastily turned on a sudden impulse and crossed the Square in the opposite direction.

"I simply can't see anyone just now," she told herself miserably.

She walked with her head up, though the tears were in her eyes, and she went along very briskly, not caring at all where she went, so that it was away from Artemis Lodge and her troubles.

She walked for more than an hour, and found that her troubles would not leave her so readily, so she turned toward the down-town section again and went resolutely back to them.

It was one of those days when spring seems to leap suddenly into the sunshine, and Patricia, though very miserable indeed, could not help responding a little to the waking season.

"Perhaps I was a bit hard to manage last night," she thought, as she reached the green door, and the fact that the caretaker smiled at her added to her conviction that she had been hasty.

She ran up the stairs and with a light tap came into the room where she expected to find Rosamond, but the words of contrition died on her lips, for the room was filled with a litter of lovely gowns, hats and slippers, in the midst of which sat Rosamond criticising and selecting, while a deferential young woman in correct black made notes on a little pad. The name of an exclusive outfitter was on the box-lids and wrappers.

Rosamond looked up smiling at Patricia. She seemed to have forgotten that there had been any coolness between them.

"Come and help me select some of these things, Miss Pat," she said amiably.

And Patricia was instantly ashamed of her resentment.

Rosamond, it seemed, had received an unusually large remittance from home, and was employing it in enlarging her wardrobe, which she declared was scandalously shabby. She bought recklessly, while Patricia sighed over the beautiful things and felt that she must have been childish and unreasonable indeed to accuse this friendly, chatting girl of wilful neglect or unkindness.

They were pleasantly engaged in this delightful fashion when the knocker tapped and Constance Fellows' bright face appeared in the doorway.

"Ods-bodikins! What have we here?" she asked with a twinkle in her clear hazel eyes. "Going to be married, Fair Rosamond, or is it merely preparation for the dance next week?"

Rosamond disclaimed either. "I'm just getting a few things to freshen up my old clothes," she said with a tinge of ostentation, which was not lost on Constance.

"My word, but you need a lot of freshening," she said gayly, glancing at the array on chairs and divan. "One quarter of this would make me absolutely over. That's what it is to be ambitious."

Patricia thought Rosamond seemed vexed at this free speech, but Constance gave her no time for reply.

"Your sister is in Miss Ardsley's rooms and they would like to speak to you," she said to Patricia. "They were coming up here, but they saw the dray-load of hats being taken in, and they concluded there would be more breathing room downstairs."

Patricia had a sudden misgiving that something might be wrong at the studio--Judith or Bruce ill. Constance saw the thought in her face and shook her hand.

"Everything's O.K." she a.s.sured her. "Miss Ardsley's got a room for you at last, that's all. They want you to come down and deliver sentence."

To Patricia this seemed a veritable finger of destiny.

"Shall I bother you if I move out?" she asked Rosamond rather wistfully.

If she had hoped for comfort, she got very little. "Why should you go at all?" asked Rosamond, while she held a hat up for inspection, viewing it first on one side and then on the other. "I thought you were very well as you are."

"But," faltered Patricia. "I was only to stay till I could get a room."

She hoped Rosamond would lay down the hat and look at her with friendly eyes. Rosamond kept on with her scrutiny.

"Stay as long as you will. I'm sure we've got on beautifully together,"

she said with her air of amiable indifference.

After that Patricia felt she had no choice.

She followed Constance into Miss Ardsley's rooms without knowing how she got there, and even Elinor's gentle words of greeting sounded stiff and formal to her quivering, over-wrought humor. Miss Ardsley's genteel accents grated horribly on her. She was anxious to have the interview over and she readily agreed to take the room at once, without evincing any interest in it or anything else. All that she wanted just then was to get away by herself, so afraid was she that the tears so near her eyelids might pop out at any moment.

Elinor very properly put her changed manner down to the incident of the night before, and she did not insist on going up with her to talk it over with Miss Merton, as she would have done if all had been as usual between Patricia and herself.

She sighed a little as she kissed her good-bye in the corridor, and wondered sadly at the stony face her dear Miss Pat turned to her at parting.

"You'll want me to come over and help you move?" she asked, with a world of tender concern in her tones.

Patricia heard only the mere words. She was wild to get away before she disgraced herself before the others. "I'll move in tomorrow. Constance will help me if you're busy," she said, hardly knowing how her words sounded.

Elinor went home too hurt to reply and too generous to insist on intruding, while Patricia ran upstairs and shut herself in her room, where she could hear the murmur of Rosamond and the saleswoman going on monotonously.

"I won't wait another moment; I'll go straight down and get the key,"

she said, springing up after a bad quarter of an hour, wherein all her idols had tottered from their pedestals. "I can't stand being cooped up forever like a mummy!"

Miss Ardsley gave her the key most willingly, even going so far as the courtyard to point out the windows of the room, which was on the opposite side of the quadrangle, recommending her to call on Martha or Christine if there were anything she needed.

Patricia found the room and opened the door with a sense of relief at finding a shelter for her wounded feelings. She liked the queer shape of it, with the two odd windows giving toward the sunset, and the angle where her cosy corner seemed already to have appropriated.

"It's perfectly dear, and I'll love it!" she said pa.s.sionately. "I'll move in this very instant, no matter what Rosamond may say."

Rosamond had very little to say, though that little was regretful and apparently sincere. Patricia suspected her now of insincerity, but that was not one of Rosamond Merton's faults. Had she feigned more, Patricia would never have left her. She was sorry for Miss Pat to go, but since she seemed so eager for it, there was nothing else to be done.

"We'll see just as much of one another," she said, still absently intent on her purchases. "You'll practice here, of course."

Patricia had forgotten the piano, but she was not given to retreat.

"There's plenty of room for one of my own over there," she said with a forced smile. "I'll miss hearing you sing, though." She was afraid she was going to break down, but she didn't. "I'll get my things out now, so that you can have the little room for cold storage," and she motioned to the jumble which lay gloriously about.

Rosamond made the best of it. "It will be hard to get anyone to help now," she said, rising. "It's just tea-hour and the maids will be busy.

I'll see that you have someone at once."

Patricia wanted to protest, but the words stuck in her throat and she was forced to accept the st.u.r.dy charwoman whom Rosamond's telephone secured.

The moving was over sooner than she had thought possible. She was settled in her room, and Rosamond had come over to declare it the cosiest spot in the world, while Constance Fellows and Doris Leighton had been in a couple of times on visits of congratulation before the clock across the housetops spelled out her usual bed hour on its illuminated face.

Patricia felt very strange as she put out the light and got into the narrow bed with its transplanted canopy and frills, yet there was a feeling of independence that was perhaps all the sweeter because she would not acknowledge it.