Miss Pat at School Part 17

"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 artists _now_?" 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 a.s.sent, and Miss Jinny went on.

"When folks are sure a thing's worth while, they make it _go_. 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 ap.r.o.n, 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're _slushy_," 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."

CHAPTER X

THE PRIZE DESIGNS

"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 ma.s.s, pounding them fiat with her pink palm.

"There! That's the last of _you_!" 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 cla.s.s," 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?"