Part 16 (1/2)

”I'm more lonely than I ever was in my life,” she told herself as her head sank against her pillow.

But she forgot that she had said her prayers very thoroughly tonight, which showed that she had pa.s.sed the darkest spot of her loneliness, for no one is quite desolate who can talk to G.o.d.

The next morning she awoke with a start, thinking she heard Rosamond calling her, but all she saw was the bright spring suns.h.i.+ne flooding into her pleasant, queer room, and all she heard was the trilling of the girl across the hall, little Rita Stanford, whose mother had died since Patricia had come to Artemis Lodge.

”Poor little brave thing,” she thought with a warm rush of feeling, ”I'll ask her over to practice as soon as I get my piano.”

All about her she heard sounds of life that the private stair had shut her away from. Someone was unlocking her door and going whistling down the corridor, and in the room next to her the girl was rus.h.i.+ng about in great haste, banging doors and slamming down the windows.

Rosamond would have sighed over such intimate contact with the rank and file of student life. It charmed Patricia. She loved democracy, although she had been shunning it ever since she had come to room with Rosamond Merton, and she jumped out of bed with a lighter heart than she could have dreamed possible the night before.

Unconsciously she had begun to fulfill Madame Milano's purpose in sending her to Artemis Lodge.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TURNING POINT

It was very hard for Patricia to go over to Rosamond's room after breakfast for her hour at the piano, but she did it so bravely that the self-centered Rosamond never guessed how much it cost her.

That was her first unconscious victory over herself.

Next she found that the other girls, from whose comrades.h.i.+p Rosamond's constant presence had barred her, now made room for her in the jolly, hail-fellow style which went straight to her bruised heart and soothed her wounded feelings sooner than she knew.

She kept her place at the little table in the cafe with Rosamond, of course, but after the first day she did not go into her room at tea-time, going instead into the big room downstairs where the girls and their guests came every afternoon to consume thin bread and b.u.t.ter, and innumerable cups of tea and packs of pet.i.te-beurres. Rosamond had thought her own dainty service with an exclusive friend all that could be desired, but Patricia rejoiced in the atmosphere of the club room with its great grand piano and the groups of interested girls, with a sprinkling of equally interested and clever guests. The steaming, gleaming samovar with Doris Leighton's friendly face behind it brought a warmth to her heart the first afternoon that Constance had insisted on her cutting the hour with Rosamond and going with her to the tea-room below.

She found the easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne--with an _e_ as she always explained carefully--was being shown the purchases which had seemingly consoled Rosamond for her withdrawal.

Mary Browne, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking girl with a bored manner, was lounging in a chair, looking with reverent yearning at the articles as they were exhibited--Rosamond trying each on and enlarging on its points of excellence.

Mary Browne, though of the purest blood, was, as she put it, ”rather strapped,” and wore her shapely garments longer than even Patricia did.

Her soul was in the matter, as anyone could see by the way in which she looked at each article, murmuring tensely through her aristocratic teeth, ”It's a stair. It's a _star_.”

Patricia had just come from a flying visit to little Rita Stanford, whom she had suspected, from certain little sounds coming over her open transom, to be crying, and the contrast to that heroic little person putting aside her fresh grief to try to be entertaining to the newcomer in her hall made Patricia suddenly rather contemptuous of this wors.h.i.+pful att.i.tude toward the mere accessories of life.

She had sprung up with relief when Constance's knock gave her the chance to escape, and in spite of Rosamond's rather absent protests, she had gone downstairs with Constance.

The tea-room was very full that afternoon and Doris had little time for talk, but she asked Patricia to stay for a chat after the samovar was taken away, and Patricia very willingly promised. The guests left at the proper time, but the girls seemed loath to leave. They lingered, talking about all sorts of glorious futures they were planning and discussing the eager present with great animation.

”Tancredi says that Rosamond Merton is going into opera as soon as she is done with her,” a girl whose name Patricia did not know leaned across a s.p.a.ce to tell her. She knew that Patricia was Rosamond's closest a.s.sociate and she was following the social impulse to please.

Her friendly action brought the color to Patricia's cheeks and her eyes shone.

”How splendid!” she said ardently. ”How did you hear it? Do you know Tancredi?”

The girl shook her head. ”My sister knows her,” she replied, ”and she told her that Carneri, the director of the Cosmopolitan Company, told her she should have a place whenever she was p.r.o.nounced fit by Tancredi.

Pretty great for the Fair Rosamond, isn't it? They say she met him at a luncheon she gave to Milano and her teacher at the Ritz last week. It pays to be rich as well as talented, you see.”

”Is she really very rich?” asked Patricia, and then was sorry she had spoken. It seemed as though she were prying into Rosamond's private affairs.