Part 19 (2/2)

They had a very good time together, nevertheless, and Judith made friends with the girls in a way that pleased and surprised Patricia.

”That kid sister of yours is a wonder,” said the slangy ones, and the others declared that Judith was a dear. Altogether, Patricia had never enjoyed Judith's company so much.

”I'm sorry you can't come to the dance,” she told her with regret, but Judith did not care in the least, she said. She was going to spend the night with Rita Stanford, with whom she had struck up a close friends.h.i.+p--the first that Patricia had known her to make.

She seemed much absorbed in Rita. She took walks with her while Patricia was at her lesson or otherwise occupied, and she went to afternoon service with her. She was so much with Rita when not with Patricia that it was a surprise to Patricia to see her coming in the afternoon of the dance entirely alone and wearing a rapturous expression. She said she had been doing an errand and Patricia was too much occupied with the finis.h.i.+ng touches to her white net--she was putting the dearest bunches of apple blossoms at odd places on the skirt and waist--to be too inquisitive.

She noticed that Judith hung about her, seeming to be trying to make up her mind to say something, but she did not stop to ask what it was, as she supposed it merely a trifling comment or criticism on her dress.

She sent Judith over to Constance's room to borrow a spool of pink silk and then forgot her in the delightful task of deciding whether the apple blossoms ought to go on the sleeves or not.

Judith came back with the spool and a yellow envelope which she had signed for. ”That's what made me so long,” she explained, but Patricia had hardly missed her.

The telegram was from Elinor. They were coming back and would be at the dance. ”Coming home tonight. Save a dance for Bruce. Love. Elinor.”

Patricia was wild with delight. ”Oh, Judy, won't it be fine?” she cried with quite her old gay laugh. ”I'm so glad they're coming.”

But before Judith could add her rejoicings the bright look had died into a quieter expression and Patricia said, ”I was forgetting that you weren't going to be there. I wish, oh, I wish you could go.”

”Well, I can't and there's an end of it,” said Judith calmly. ”And I hear Rita beginning to get things ready. We're going to make fudge, so I'll have to be off.”

She was at the door before she remembered. ”Constance told me she'd stop on her way down for you if you changed your mind about going late,” she said briskly. ”She wants you to see her dress, anyway, before anything happens to it. She says she's sure to wreck it. She's so used to good tough stuff that she'll walk right through this one.”

Patricia nodded brightly and Judith hurried off across the hall, where Rita's welcome reached Patricia's ears. ”Dear old Ju,” she thought fondly. ”She's always doing the right thing. She's such a comfort.”

Then she smiled to herself at Constance's message. ”It's good of her to come away over here, when the ball-room is so near her,” she said gratefully. ”I'll be glad to see her dress. She's been so secret about it.”

Her face grew wistful as she thought of the dance. ”I'll have a good time, I suppose,” she said slowly. ”Rosamond will sing, and that will make me remember I'm a failure. But Bruce and Elinor and Constance will be there, and I can have the fun of showing Doris to Mr. Long without her knowing it.”

This brought the light into her eyes again, and she held up her golden head very bravely.

”I'll have a good time,” she said again, with a nod at the mirror. ”I may be a failure as a singer, but I needn't be as a human critter, as Hannah Ann calls us.”

CHAPTER XVI

THE DOOR OPENS AGAIN

Patricia had got into her apple-blossom dress and had smiled at herself with a good deal of real satisfaction.

”You do look very nice,” she said to the girl in the mirror. ”If you were only a little bit less addicted to yourself, my child, you'd not be half bad. That's a thing you're going to get over, though, so I won't scold you tonight about it.”

She shut off the light and sat down by the window to watch the first arrivals. The night was warm, even for spring, and the window was open.

”It's just like being at the play,” she told herself, smiling into the warm darkness. ”I'm glad I had to wait for Doris.”

The courtyard was light with torches and the entrance was ablaze with torches and the windows across the quadrangle she could see figures moving to and fro, shadows fell on the curtained oblongs and inside the open ones she saw girls who were late in dressing getting frantically ready, others who were putting on their gloves, and still others with their guests even making ready to go down to the ball-room, which was the transformed tea-room not to be seen from Patricia's point of vantage.

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