Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Part 5

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 pa.s.sed this first test."

Patricia was still slightly puzzled, though more 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 V

ROSAMOND 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 the small 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 a hasty 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 bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sages, 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 their knock, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 grat.i.tude, and she allowed Elinor to voice her thanks, while she tried to catch Judith's eye and understand the meaning of the prod. Judith turned 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 sc.r.a.p 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 and a member of the ill.u.s.trious 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?"