PATRICIA MAKES ANOTHER FRIEND
"Isn't it really lovely and cozy?"
Patricia was seated on the side of her narrow bed and Elinor occupied
the one easy chair by the casement window.
The little room had been transformed into a perfect bower by Elinor's
good taste and Patricia's eager fingers. The small iron bed was hidden
by a canopy of frilly lace and a coverlet of transparent, delicate mull
with an underslip of blue. The dresser, improvised from a chiffonier,
had a quaint mirror from Bruce's studio, with two silver candlesticks,
to serve Patricia for all purposes of dressing. A small reliable table
held a golden-shaded brass student lamp, a gift from Elinor, who knew
how Miss Pat disliked the white, cold light of the electric bulbs. Some
magazines, a tiny bookshelf, and a dainty tea-tray peeping from the
under shelf of the reliable table, gave an air of great coziness to the
whole.
Elinor looked about with much satisfaction. "Yes, it's dear," she
admitted. "I don't think Miss Merton will be disappointed in her new
room-mate when she sees this. It's a pity she isn't here to see it when
it's absolutely crisp."
"It seems queer that she should have gone out to Rockham with her cousin
to stay at Red Top, doesn't it?" said Patricia. "It's awfully nice,
though, for we shall have so much more to talk about now. I felt rather
stupid with her at first, when I met her at Madame's last week. She
seemed so grown-up that I hardly knew how to get along with her--much
less live in the same rooms with her."
"You didn't show any shyness that I could discover," smiled Elinor. "I'm
sure you'll get on famously with her now that you're installed. I wish I
didn't have to go," she added, rising reluctantly. "But I promised Bruce
to go to the Salimagundi show with him and he'll be waiting for me if I
don't fly."
Patricia went as far as the green entrance door with her and kissed her
warmly.
"I begin to feel like a pilgrim and a stranger," she laughed. "To be in
town and not be with you and Bruce seems too queer for words."
"You'll have splendid times as soon as you get acquainted," said Elinor
brightly. "I envy you the fun you're going to have among all these
attractive girls. Good-bye once again. Bring Doris over to supper with
you on Sunday if she is back by then. Be sure to take good care of
yourself and have a good time."
Patricia watched her till she turned the corner, and then she closed the
door and went slowly across the wide paved courtyard and up the little
private stair, smiling to herself.
As she closed the door of the sitting-room behind her, she could not
resist a prance of joy. "I'm here!" she told herself rapturously. "Oh,
how glorious it is to have really started in earnest!"
She practiced her breathing exercises and tried a few three-note vocal
exercises, and was delighted that her voice seemed clearer than it had
ever sounded to her.
"It must be because I am so happy," she told herself. "I wish I had a
lesson this afternoon. I hate to wait till the morning."
After she had sung as long as she dared, she practiced some
accompaniments till her fingers tired, and then she took up a magazine
and read a couple of stories, becoming so absorbed in the last one that
she hardly heard a clock below striking loudly, though some sense of its
strident tones made her start from her chair in dismay lest she should
have missed the tea-hour.
"How stupid of me--" she began, glancing at her plain little
wrist-watch. Her face fell as she looked unbelievingly at the hands
pointing to three o'clock.
"It must be run down," she said, frowning and holding the watch to her
ear. "No, it's going. It must be slow."
A glance at the big clock in the tower opposite her bedroom window
convinced her that her watch was to be taken seriously. There was nearly
an hour and a half before she might venture down into the tea-room and
make such acquaintances as she could without the aid of Doris Leighton
or Rosamond Merton.
"I wish I hadn't been so particular about that mending," she thought
ruefully. "It was a shameful waste of time to do it at the studio. I was
so particular to have everything done up to the last notch that there
isn't a single letter to write, or button to sew on, or--or--anything. I
simply can't sit down like a tame tabby this first exciting afternoon,
when all sorts of wonderful things may be going to happen to me after
while."
She sighed over the prospect of being bottled up for such an
interminable period and regretted that Milano's orders were so strict in
regard to her intercourse with her family.
"It's a perfect shame that I can't go home every day," she thought
suddenly, rather pitying herself for the privations she was suffering.
"I am going to miss them terribly and I shouldn't wonder if I'd get
rather hard-hearted and self-centered, living this way just for myself."
She never thought of seeking Miss Ardsley, although that lady had given
her the most cordial invitation to visit her in her own rooms any time
that she wished, particularly insisting on her bringing Mrs. Bruce
Hayden in to call at any time she might be in the building. Somehow, the
atmosphere of Miss Ardsley's luxuriant rooms had rather stifled Patricia
on her one admission to them when she went with Elinor and Rosamond
Merton to make the necessary arrangements for procuring the little room.
"If Doris Leighton hadn't gone off for a week just as we got that first
glimpse of her," she mourned, fussing about the trifles on the dainty
dresser. "Or if I only knew someone to say a word to. It seems like a
week since I heard a human voice. I'd go out and take a walk if----"
Rap-a-tap! Someone was using the diminutive knocker on the sitting-room
door.
Patricia flew to open it, and a dark, medium-sized girl in a shabby
bronze velveteen frock stood on the threshold, looking very much
surprised indeed.
"Is Miss Merton in?" she asked, looking beyond Patricia into the vacant
rooms.
Patricia was sorry to have to confess that Miss Merton was away for the
rest of the week. She hoped the girl might come in notwithstanding, but
she turned to go without much ceremony and was half-way across the hall
when she suddenly paused and came back to where Patricia lingered on the
the sill.
"Are you the new girl?" she asked with surprising directness. "Pupil of
Tancredi?"
Patricia answered eagerly that she was very new and that she had taken
two lessons from the noted teacher.
The other girl turned and walked into the room, selecting an easy chair
and seating herself with every appearance of meaning to stay.
Patricia was delighted.
"I'm so glad you came," she said with great cordiality, seating herself
near the other and beaming on her. "I haven't seen a soul since one
o'clock and I was beginning to petrify."
"First day?" inquired the girl laconically.
On Patricia admitting it was not only her first day, but first
afternoon, having parted from her sister only after a light and early
lunch in her own room, the newcomer nodded.
"H--h'm. It gets you, doesn't it? The first time you're stranded on a
lonely shore certainly makes home look good," she said thoughtfully.
"Funny thing is, that no matter how dressy the shore happens to be," she
threw a glance about the luxuriant room, "it's just as lonely--the first
time. Ever been away from home before?"
Patricia explained that she had never had a real home till nearly two
years ago, but that she had never been entirely separated from both her
sisters and friends until now.
"Plenty of nice girls here," the girl acknowledged. "But you have to
pick out your own sort for yourself. Have you known Merton long?"
Patricia recognized the art student in the use of the last name, and she
said eagerly, "I hardly know her at all. You aren't studying with
Tancredi, are you?"
As she expected, the girl laughed a quick negative. "Not me," she
returned, ungrammatical and emphatic. "I can't croak a note and my
fingers never would make melody if I tried till I were a hundred. I'm
doing the other side--paint and the like."
"I knew it!" cried Patricia, much pleased by her own perception. "I was
sure I smelled paint when you came in. Have you a studio, or are you
studying at one of the schools?"
"Both," answered the other, briskly. "I have a sort of studio across the
hall here, and I am going to night life at the only school in New York.
How did you recognize the hall-marks? I thought you were vocal and
Tancredi?"
Patricia told her that she had spent some months at the Academy in
another city, and that both her sister and brother-in-law were artists,
and though she had just started in as a music student, she was much more
familiar with the fraternity than with the song birds.
"I see," said the girl. "You must be worth while, even though you are
located in these fluffy apartments with the ultra Merton. I think I
shall become better acquainted. What's your name?"
Patricia was much diverted by this direct address. "I am Patricia
Kendall," she returned with equal candor. "I like your looks, too, and
I'm quite willing to be as chummy as you like."
"H--h'm," said the girl again. "Don't bank on me. Merton isn't in my
class, and if you're her chum, I'll have to decline anything more than
mere acquaintance."
Patricia began a hasty explanation of her presence in the luxurious
rooms, but the girl waved her words aside with abrupt good humor. "You
may not know her well," she insisted, smiling a pleasant wide smile.
"But you simply must be some sort of a bob or she wouldn't take to you.
Merton is not a wasteful child."
Patricia understood that the girl was entirely in earnest, and the idea
that she was committed to an exclusive and perhaps unpopular set among
the democracy of talent at Artemis Lodge rather chilled her.
"You are a friend of hers yourself," she accused with a trace of
indignation. "You wouldn't be coming in here to see her if you
weren't."
"Oh, am I, indeed?" grinned the girl. "Don't jump at conclusions at that
reckless rate, Miss Patricia Kendall. I'm merely connected with the
ultra Merton by means of a piece of canvas and some paint tubes. In
other words, I'm at work on a panel of peacocks and goldy sunbeams for
her music room at home, and am only tolerated because I can draw little
birdies with pretty eyes in their tails better than anyone who happens
to be here now."
Patricia forgot Miss Merton in her sudden interest. "Oh, are you doing
some panels for her?" she asked, leaning forward with shining eyes. "You
must be awfully clever. Will you let me see them? I want to tell Bruce
all about them, if I may."
Her interest seemed to please the girl. She rose abruptly and held out
her hand. "Shake on good fellowship," she said heartily, and Patricia
accepted the queer invitation with great good will.
"Come along over," invited the girl, jerking her head toward the
opposite side of the hall. "Everything's in a mess, but you won't mind.
You'll have to put up with that sort of things if we're to be friends."
"Indeed, I'll love it!" said Patricia enthusiastically. It was very good
to be taken into fellowship so informally. "Bruce and Elinor mess up
their studios terribly and I used to trail clay all over the place when
I had the modeling mania."
The girl threw open the door of a large bare, well-lighted room, that
somehow managed, in spite of rather poor furniture and much disorder, to
look attractive and inviting; and Patricia saw on a huge easel a tall
canvas with beautiful, gorgeous peacocks strutting proudly against a
background of ruddy gold.
"How stunning!" she cried with such conviction that the girl smiled and
then grew serious. "How wonderful! How can you do it, when you're so
young? Where did you learn to make such lovely things?"
"My father was an artist and he taught me when I was a little tad,"
replied the girl in a subdued tone which made the sympathetic
Patricia's heart warm toward her.
"Was he--" began Patricia, hesitating.
"He was Henry Fellows. He died three years ago," said the girl quietly,
and as though closing the subject, she added, "My name is Constance. I
am nearly twenty years old, though I look younger." And then in a
changed tone she added, "Tell me who this Bruce and Elinor are. I ought
to know them if they aren't the rankest newcomers."
Patricia was gratified at the expression which Bruce's name brought to
the clear hazel eyes.
"You're a fortunate piece," commented Constance Fellows, with a
familiarity which was not too intimate. "Tancredi and Bruce Hayden and a
real family of your own--not to mention being a chum of Rosamond
Merton."
Patricia thought she caught a flavor of sarcasm in the last name, but
instantly decided that it was her own suspicious nature that suggested
the thought. She was beginning to like Constance Fellows in a sincere
and unaffected way that could not be compared with the ardent admiration
she had felt for Miss Merton, and, as she always attributed the best
motives to those she liked, she felt quite ashamed of her ungenerous
thought.
The hall clock sounded again, this time heard clearly through the open
door, and Patricia was astonished to find that the tea-hour had arrived
without her knowing it.
"Am I all right to go down just as I am?" she inquired rather anxiously
of her new friend. "Ought I put on a hat or something?"
"Put on anything you please. Take a parasol or a pair of galoshes if you
feel that your system craves them," replied Constance calmly. "I am going
just as I am. We girls who are in the house usually are glad to sneak in
without prinking."
Patricia giggled. "Lead me down," she commanded briskly. "I'm perfectly
crazy to see what's what and who's who. I was going to find out all
about the various girls from Doris Leighton, but I'm sure you'll do very
well in her place."
"I call that a real compliment," declared Constance with evident
sincerity. "Leighton is the squarest damsel in the whole troupe and she
isn't spoiled by her beauty either."
They found the tea-room filled as on the other day, and Patricia, thanks
to Constance Fellows' kindness, found herself one of a gay group near
the piano, as much at home among the chattering girls as though she had
known them for weeks.
"I tell you what it is, Avis Coulter," Constance was saying to a very
plain, angular girl with large spectacles when the tea was almost over,
"we've got to show this budding genius a little friendly attention, or
she'll get homesick and mopey before the resplendent Merton returns to
coddle her. What are you going to do to liven her dragging days?"
The spectacled girl rubbed her nose thoughtfully. "I've tickets for a
concert at Carnegie Hall tomorrow afternoon," she hazarded doubtfully.
"And I have a perfectly good studio party at my cousin Emily's," said
another girl.
"And I'm going to have a spread in my room tomorrow night," volunteered
a third member of the party.
Constance Fellows nodded approval. "That sounds very well to me," she
said. "I accept for Miss P. Kendall and myself. Who's to bring the
chaperone for these festivities?"
Avis Coulter, on the score of the concert being in the afternoon,
declared that it was all stuff to think of such a thing, while Marie
Jones said that her cousin Emily was chaperone enough for an army of
buds, and Ethel Walters sniffed at the idea of a chaperone for a spread
in one's very own room, under the roof with Miss Ardsley and the
dependable Miss Tatten, the house-keeper, whom Patricia had not yet
seen.
Constance would have none of their reasoning, however, and insisted that
one of the older students at Artemis Lodge be in charge of all the
festivities shown Patricia in the interval of Miss Merton's absence.
"I am responsible for her," she said firmly, "and I am not going to
present her to Merton with the slightest social blot upon her dazzling
whiteness. Chaperoned she must and shall be, or she doesn't budge a
step."
Patricia was very much amused and surprised to see that Constance had
her way. Instead of rebelling, as she had expected, the girls gave in at
once, showing as much meekness in fulfilling the wishes of this decided
young person as though it were she and not they that was granting the
favors.
Patricia went back to her room cheered and exhilarated, and found the
brief time before the dinner hour all too short for the necessary amount
of practicing she had portioned off for herself.
Dinner in the gay little restaurant with its decorated walls and
sociable small tables was a far more enjoyable affair than she had
thought it could be when she had looked forward to it in her lonely
interval, and after another half hour of chat by the fire-side in the
library she went to her room highly delighted with her first day at
Artemis Lodge.
Stopping at the public telephone in the hall--she decided not to use the
one in Miss Merton's sitting-room until the owner was at home
again--she called up Elinor and gave her a brief report.
"I'm having a perfectly lovely time," she told her. "And as Doris isn't
coming back till next week, I am going to bring someone who has been
very nice to me home to supper on Sunday, in her place. I know you'll
like her, and," here she laughed a little, "tell Judy she isn't at all
pretty."