Part 17 (2/2)
The haunting sense of failure was with her, but she would not stop to listen to it. She practiced her exercises with the greatest care, she went to the concerts for which she had cards, and, remembering Madame Milano's song at the Filmore evening, she bought the music and learned the thing by heart. She was afraid this might not be strictly honorable, since Tancredi had forbidden her to sing songs, but she had such a strong conviction that she was already a failure that she hoped she might be pardoned this solace to herself.
”You're looking a lot gayer since you got settled,” said Constance Fellows one afternoon as she sat in Patricia's room, mending the russet frock. It looked odd to see Constance with a needle, but she was deft with it.
”I guess I'm more used to being by myself,” replied Patricia, not wis.h.i.+ng to go into details. ”I'd never been alone, you know, and it was strange at first.”
Constance nodded, but her clear eyes showed she understood. As she went on with her sewing she said cheerfully:
”It _is_ better to rub up against all sorts of people. You don't come to realize what living means till you've seen what the rest of them are up to. Cotton-wool isn't the environment to bring out beauty, after all.”
Patricia smiled absently. ”But all the pretty things are put in nice pink cotton-wool,” she said, thinking of the jeweler's boxes in Rosamond's case.
”Ah, but that's when the pretty things are finished and done,” cried Constance, dropping her work and leaning forward with fire in her eyes.
”How about when they are being shaped? There are hammers there then, and fires, too, and they are battered into their beautiful shapes with cruel blows. My word, Patricia Kendall, can't you see it? It takes plenty of hammering and burning before it gets to the cotton-wool stage.”
Patricia caught her earnestness. ”The trees and flowers and skies aren't hammered into shape,” she argued, with half a vision of what Constance meant.
”They are the result of hammering, perhaps,” returned Constance quickly, ”but that doesn't matter so much. They're the works of G.o.d, and that sort of thing can just grow, like a lovely disposition, but the things of earth have to be made into shape with rough hands. Look at the people you know. How many of the selfish, pampered ones amount to a row of pins? Can you honestly say that you know anyone who hasn't been the better for a little hammering?”
Patricia thought swiftly of Doris Leighton, of Mrs. Nat, and she shook her head.
”That's all that's the matter with the Fair Rosamond,” Constance explained. ”She's been in cotton-wool all her life, and it's going to rob her of her chance to give something to the world----”
She broke off abruptly, seeming to be much moved, and, rising with a disturbed air, walked up and down for a few minutes while Patricia tried to go on with her own darning as though nothing unusual had happened.
Constance dropped into her chair with a low laugh. ”Don't mind my preaching, Miss Pat,” she said without any suggestion of apology in her candid tone. ”I always get so excited when I'm proclaiming human rights.”
Patricia looked puzzled and she answered quickly: ”Human rights--my rights to the bit of hammering that belongs to me. Auntie, you know, advocates cotton-wool so strongly that I suppose I'm a bit daft on my end of the argument.”
Patricia had been silent, but she spoke slowly and with a light breaking on her face. ”I believe it's true, Constance,” she said earnestly. ”I can see now that it's the only way. I was getting terribly spoiled in cotton-wool, and----” She stopped because she did not want to seem to complain of Rosamond. ”I'm glad Miss Ardsley got this dear room for me,” she ended brightly, ”I've had such fun since I've been here.”
She saw that Constance was not too much deceived, and to turn the talk she seized the first thing that came into her mind.
”Does your aunt still object to your living here?” she asked, and then was annoyed with herself for her own lack of tact, for she recalled that it was not Constance but Rosamond who had told her of the aunt's objections to Artemis Lodge.
Constance laughed easily. ”She's coming around,” she replied as though she were used to discussing her private affairs with Patricia. ”She is so pleased with my altar-piece in All Saints that she's ready to forgive me anything. Auntie is really awfully good.”
Patricia was alight at once. ”Your altar-piece, Constance?” she cried.
”Oh, how splendid! When did you do it? Why didn't you tell me about it sooner? Where is it now?”
Constance laughed, yet she was deeply gratified, for she had been more drawn to Patricia than to any of the others. ”It's in All Saints, of course, where it should be. You didn't think it was in the Bandbox or the Comique, did you?” she bantered. ”Auntie paid for it, and so she's privileged to criticise, you know.”
”Do let me see it,” begged Patricia. ”I haven't a thing to do this afternoon. Let's go and see it.”
Constance demurred at first and then gave in. ”The air will do us good, anyway,” she said, ”We've been cooped up here for an hour or more.”
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