A DINNER FOR TWO
Rosamond Merton came home unexpectedly to find Patricia grown very much
at home indeed during the four days of her absence.
She opened the door of the sitting-room, after a light tap of the tiny
brass knocker, to find Patricia rising from the piano-stool with pleased
expectation in her face, an expression which rapidly became one of
joyful surprise. Rosamond was so much prettier than Patricia had been
picturing her that she fairly beamed as she came to greet her.
"How lovely of you to come back so soon," she said with such warmth that
Rosamond Merton felt glad that she had been compelled to cut her visit
short.
"It's lovely to be welcomed home," she returned, beginning to pull off
her gloves. "I always dreaded the empty rooms after I had been away.
Have you been quite comfortable? I left so hurriedly that I hadn't time
to arrange for your arrival."
Patricia assured her that she was absolutely in clover, and she showed
her the little bedroom as a proof, exhibiting the easy chair, the cosy
table and all her other small comforts with a great deal of pride.
Rosamond was genuinely interested in all the contrivances which had been
installed for Patricia's well-being and she showed so much of what
Patricia called "human" feeling that she won the last citadel in that
young lady's affections.
"Do you know I was dreadfully afraid of you that day at Tancredi's?" she
confessed when they were once more in the sitting-room by the fire.
Rosamond had laid aside her traveling dress and slipped on a soft
fur-trimmed crepe lounging robe with her feet in embroidered satin
mules, and the impressionable Patricia was feasting her eyes on her. She
was used to beauty--and beauty of a much higher class--in her own sister
Elinor, and every day her mirror reflected quite as attractive features
as those of her new companion, but the extreme luxury with which
Rosamond indulged her fancy in the matter of clothing was a revelation
to her.
She looked at the shimmering cloudy-blue folds of the robe, at the soft
dark edges of fur with their under-ruffles of pink chiffon, at the lace
and ribbons of the petticoat which showed where the robe fell away, and
she forgot they were merely outer trappings, to be bought from any
department store or private shop. They seemed part of a superior charm
belonging exclusively to Rosamond Merton, and Patricia sighed as she saw
in the mirror over the mantel-shelf the image of a fluffy-haired girl in
an unpretentious blouse.
"I wonder that she can put up with me," she thought ruefully, smoothing
down the folds of her simple corduroy skirt. "She must be very
kind-hearted indeed. I wish that I might do something to show how I feel
about it."
As Rosamond chatted on, telling of her visit to Red Top and describing
the house party with a good deal of cleverness, Patricia became so
interested that she forgot her grateful intentions in listening to the
gossip which her new friend retailed so sparklingly. She laughed over
the description of the model poultry farm and chaffed Rosamond quite
freely on her lack of technical terms; she smiled a little uneasily over
the dinner party at the rectory, feeling a bit guilty that she should
find matter for mirth in the precise and dainty entertainment offered
impartially by the gentle rector and his ladylike maiden sisters; and
she was frankly disturbed by the careless fashion of treating the attack
of measles which had disbanded the house party a week earlier than
planned.
"Of course, you weren't in any danger," she said, more to herself than
to Rosamond. "Measles aren't much to be afraid of, anyway, unless one is
a perfect Methuselah. I think it was hard on Mr. Long to have his nice
party broken up after all his planning, just because a lot of grown-ups
got scared about _measles_. If I were the girl he's in love with, I'd
stayed and helped nurse Danny, instead of running away from the place."
Rosamond laughed her indolent laugh. "And been quarantined for three
weeks out there in the desolate country," she mocked. "My cousin isn't
that heroic sort, even if she were devoted to a man. She doesn't care
two pins for your Mr. Long, and I fancy he knows it by this time."
"Not care for him?" cried Patricia in amazement. "Why in the world did
she and her mother come to see him then? I thought they were engaged."
Rosamond shook her head slowly and emphatically. "Not at all," she said
calmly. "She thought she might like him well enough last fall, but he
has developed such queer tastes recently--burying himself on that
ridiculous chicken-farm and taking up with stupid little boys who
develop measles when they run away from school to visit their
benefactor, that she really has had quite enough of him without marrying
him."
Patricia was silent, puckering her brows over the problem of unrewarded
virtue, while Rosamond Merton watched her with something like a twinkle
in her long eyes.
"It seems pretty hard that Mr. Long has to lose his happiness just
because he's done right and been kind," she said finally, with a little
sigh at the topsy-turvy ways of this wilful world. "He's saving Danny
Sneath from growing up a horrid worthless man like his father--that's
plain from Danny coming back on the sly to see him--and he's doing
splendidly with Red Top, and yet he doesn't get what he wants."
"He shouldn't want what he can't get then," smiled Rosamond, indulgent
as far as Patricia was concerned. "Don't worry your pretty head about
such stupid things--men always get over disappointments like that. He'll
probably be in love with the next girl who happens to look at him twice.
Tell me how you've been putting in the time since I ran off so
unceremoniously. Have you been fearfully homesick?"
Patricia abandoned Mr. Long and his deserts reluctantly. "He ought to be
happy and I am sure he will," she insisted warmly. "People always get
paid back in the same coin they use." A sudden memory of her own debt
made her add, more shyly, "You ought to believe in that--after all the
kindness you've shown me. And I do want you to know that I'm going to
pay you back just a tiny bit some day. I don't know how, but I'm going
to do it."
Rosamond's slow smile answered her fully, and she plunged into an eager
account of the way in which she had been taken into the inner circles of
Artemis Lodge and made to feel so entirely at home. "They've been
wonderfully nice to me," she said gayly. "I've had a splendid time each
day, and my lessons have gone beautifully, too. I haven't had a single
dull moment. I'm so grateful to you for taking me in."
The little cloud which had slightly dimmed Rosamond's smile faded at
these words and left her face serene. "We will have better times yet,"
she promised as she rose to glance at the clock in the tower across the
housetops. "Let's begin by having dinner upstairs here by ourselves.
I'll phone down to the office at once. Isn't it stupid to have to call
up Tatten every time one wants a tray in one's room? They take great
care of us here," and she shrugged her shoulders gracefully.
Patricia feared that the expense of such select dining might be too much
for her small store of funds and she was determined not to sail under
false colors with this luxuriant companion.
"It would be jolly enough, but how about the cost?" she asked frankly.
"I can't stand many extras, you know. I'm rather poor as far as cash is
concerned."
Miss Merton paused with her hand on the receiver. "You surely didn't
think I was intending you to pay for my treat," she said in such a
gently grieved tone that Patricia became most uncomfortable.
"It's sweet of you to ask me," she said with a good deal of courage.
"And I can't be horrid enough to refuse this first time, but I do want
you to understand that I can't spend money like you do. I'm not really
stingy, as you may think--I'm only trying to be careful. I'm so afraid
of being selfish."
Her speech was rather unintelligible to Rosamond, who could not know of
Bruce's compact with Patricia, but she smiled pleasantly and took down
the receiver.
"I don't think you could be stingy or selfish or anything that wasn't
sweet," she said and then proceeded to announce to Miss Tatten that Miss
Kendall and she were dining in their own rooms that evening, and would
she please see that dinner was sent up promptly at six-thirty, adding a
list of dishes that seemed to the anxious Patricia recklessly expensive.
The dinner was great fun, however, and Patricia felt very pleasantly
luxurious as she slipped into her new kimono, a poor affair indeed
compared to the fur and crepe robe, and lounged before the fire
listening to Rosamond's accounts of the travels and studies which had
filled her life.
"You must have been almost everywhere," she murmured admiringly. "You
have seen such a lot--for a girl. I'm only two years younger, but I've
never been to Niagara Falls, nor Hot Springs, nor the Tower of
London----"
A ripple of laughter broke in on her confession. "What a delicious
jumble!" cried Rosamond, springing up to adjust a lock that had fallen.
"One can't tell which is the place of confinement and which the
playground. For Heaven's sake, though, don't _complain_ that you've
never seen Niagara Falls, no self-respecting person nowadays is willing
to confess that such a place even exists. It went out of date with the
bridal bonnet and the what-not."
Patricia laughed, but this troubled her, and later on she recurred to it
while they were beginning on their salad.
"Why shouldn't one see all the wonderful places and things in the
world?" she asked. "I should think Niagara Falls was quite as important
as those snippy little falls at that camp in the Adirondacks that you
said were so much admired."
Rosamond laid down her fork and looked at her very carefully. "Are you
actually in earnest?" she inquired with a polite repression of any hint
of a smile. "My dear Miss Patricia Kendall, you forget that the most
exclusive families have their camps near that snippy falls, while only
the cheap tourist makes the pilgrimage to Niagara."
Patricia was obstinate. "I don't see what that has to do with it. The
falls were there before the exclusive families were thought of, and
it's a wonderful, wonderful falls. It seems rather stupid to me to
ignore such a big thing in nature," she insisted with flushing cheeks.
Rosamond waved the argument away. "Never mind the falls, large or
small," she said, with unruffled amiability. "Tell me some more about
yourself and your doings."
Patricia was won instantly. She was to learn later on in her friendship
with Rosamond Merton that this was one of her readiest answers to
argument, particularly when she was not faring so well as she would
like. As yet, however, she had not learned the skilled defences which
Rosamond kept for her protection against better logic than her own, and
she responded with her usual impetuous generosity.
"I've told you almost everything," she said brightly. "I'd rather hear
about you. It's twice as exciting as my humdrum accounts of myself. Tell
me about your studio at home. Is it so gorgeous as the peacock panels
that Constance Fellows is doing for you?"
"It's hardly gorgeous, but it's rather good." Rosamond's interest was
plainly forced. "Constance is getting on with them, is she? I must see
them in the morning. How do you like her? I suppose you have heard that
she is very eccentric. She refused to live in a perfect palace with an
aunt of hers, merely because the aunt objected to her going to life
class. Fancy her giving up such a life for a mere trifle."
"She didn't feel that it was a trifle, I suppose," replied Patricia
lightly. She did not sympathize with Rosamond's view of the matter, but
she had learned in this short hour to steer her bark away from the
shoals.
"I think she showed very little judgment," said Rosamond, selecting a
bonbon with care. "She should have lived peaceably with her aunt and had
her own models in her own studio, and she'd have been comfortable and
the aunt would have been happy. There is always a way of doing as one
wishes if one will only take the trouble to look it up."
Patricia hid her uneasy feelings as best she could, but her face was
never hard to read, and Rosamond shook her head at her with the slow
smile curving her red lips.
"You think me a monster of deceit," she accused. "Your big eyes are
quite horrified at such shallow cunning. Don't worry, my dear Miss
Kendall. I'm not half so bad as you think me."
Patricia flushed. "I know you are far above any such mean doings," she
said stoutly, "but I wish you wouldn't talk that way. It makes me
feel--but I'm not going to be such a goose as to preach. Do go on about
the yachting trip. You were in the middle of it when dinner came in."
Rosamond, always graceful, responded readily enough, and the evening
sped rapidly. Patricia had enjoyed herself tremendously, as she very
truthfully told her hostess when she said good-night and shut herself
into her own snug little room, and she looked forward to the morrow with
Rosamond Merton with a thrill of pleasure.
She could not help wondering, though, as she shook out the kinks and
tangles of her bright hair, why she had not told about the Sunday
evening supper in the studio, nor the spread in Ethel Walters' room.
"I must be getting terribly secret and crafty," she thought with some
surprise. "I suppose that's the effect of being thrown with so many
strangers all at once."
She did not realize that it was Rosamond Merton's slow smile that had
held her confidences back and if anyone had told her so, she would have
denied it most emphatically.
Ethel Walters' spread had consisted of crackers and sardines, with
olives and oranges and walnut bars for side dishes. The studio supper,
though beautifully correct in most details, had Constance Fellows and a
very shabby yet delightfully entertaining friend of hers, as chief
guests. And how was anyone to know what Rosamond Merton might think of
such swift intimacies?