Part 19 (1/2)

It was Shubert's Fantasia Impromptu this time, and there was absolute silence as it ended.

The little shabby countess gave them a moment for recovery, and then, whirling about on the stool, she said, with only a trace of accent:

”That is my farewell. Tomorrow I leave for the home-land.”

There was a chorus of questions at this and that ended the music.

Patricia enjoyed the humorous chatter of the experienced, happy-go-lucky countess, and she laughed over her accounts of her travels and privations while lecturing in the West and writing books at odd times, but she did not want to rub out the ”Papillion” and she soon left the Red Salon and took her way to her own room, thinking of a number of things.

”She's had a hard time, too,” she thought. ”I suppose she'd never have played so if she hadn't known trouble and tragedy, too, perhaps. Oh, dear, it's very comforting when one is rather in low spirits and things have gone wrong, but it doesn't look half so attractive when there's fun ahead.”

She shook her head and then laughed her rippling laugh at herself. ”I'm getting too deep,” she warned herself. ”I've got to stay where I can touch bottom. Constance may go far ahead, but I've got to go slow or I'll be getting silly again on the other side.”

She kept to this wise decision and whenever she found herself beginning to pose as a being enlightened through suffering she made a face at herself in the quaint mirror and ran away to do something ”plain and practical” for someone.

And so the days sped and Judith came back from Rockham full of news and wondering greatly at the change in her dear Miss Pat.

”You're awfully meek now, aren't you?” she asked her suddenly, after Judith's little trunk had been unpacked and the things stowed in the most convenient drawers. ”You used to be nice, but you didn't give up to younger persons like you do now.”

Patricia started to say that she had learned a great lesson, but she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and she said instead that she was treating Judith as a guest now, and so she had to be polite.

Judith was only half convinced. She had not been studying people's faces and searching for meanings in their expressions all these months for nothing. The tales about Rockham alone would have sharpened her to that extent.

”You're different,” she said positively. ”And I don't know whether I like you better or not. You seem too good to be true, somehow.”

Patricia's derisive laughter only made her more emphatic. ”You aren't half so gay as you were, and you practice as though you were doing a lesson instead of because you couldn't help it, like you used to,” she declared. ”You're nice to that gorgeous Rosamond Merton and you let her wipe her feet on you every time you go in there. I've seen how meek you are. If it wasn't you,” she said with a pucker in her brow, ”I'd think you were up to something. Why don't you sing like you used to?”

Patricia said that she had been at a song, but it was not to be known, and she made Judith promise not to tell Constance or anyone else at home before she would sit down at the s.h.i.+ning piano Bruce had got a musical friend to select for her, and sang the song through to its end.

Judith still looked puzzled. ”It's lovely, of course. Your voice always is,” she said loyally. ”But somehow it doesn't _ring_. The glad sound has gone out of it. That's it!”

Patricia had been knowing it herself ever since she had realized that Tancredi was only keeping her for friends.h.i.+p's sake, and it had been almost too much to bear alone. Without thinking, she blurted it out.

”I can't really sing, after all, Ju,” she told her pa.s.sionately.

”Tancredi is only keeping me on for this quarter and then she'll let me down.”

Judith was aghast, but she kept her head. ”When did she tell you?” she demanded sharply.

”She hasn't just exactly told me in words,” confessed Patricia. ”But she's shown me very clearly. And Madame Milano hasn't ever asked to see me again, though I know she's seen Rosamond twice since I went to the 'Hour' at her hotel. If I hadn't been with Bruce and Elinor to hear her in opera every time she sang, I'd never known she was in New York at all.”

Judith was very white and still. At last she said with conviction, ”I think you're making a mistake, Miss Pat. I don't believe it's true that you aren't going to be a success. You know how you tried and tried to make yourself ready and fit for the music, and I don't believe that all that hard work is going to be wasted.”

Patricia smiled with the new knowledge that had so recently come to her.

”Oh, Judy dear, you are too young to understand,” she said with serene satisfaction; ”but it will not be wasted. One must suffer to grow glad.”

Judith opened her eyes. ”Now I know you're queer,” she declared with a wag of her head that made her uneven mane quiver. ”You didn't use to talk such stuff.”

Patricia wanted to tell her it wasn't stuff, but somehow she could not find the right words to explain her feelings, and so she left it go, feeling very old and wise indeed beside the crude, inexperienced Judith.