THE REWARD OF THE FAITHFUL
"I think Miss Pat is simply foolish over Miss Merton," said Judith, with
an uneasy note in her calm voice. "We haven't seen anything of her for a
week, and now she's trying to back out of coming Sunday night, just
because her Rosamond is going to sing at Mrs. Filmore's and they've
asked Miss Pat to come and worship."
Elinor had just come in. Her cheeks were tinted with the crisp air and
her eyes were dancing with the brisk walk home through the Park. She
tossed her muff on the divan and made a laughing face at her disturbed
small sister.
"Never mind, Judy, you still have us," she said brightly. "Constance is
coming and Doris Leighton too, and we'll have to give Miss Pat up to
such a fine opportunity. Rosamond has not been singing 'publicly,' as
she calls it, so it will be a great treat, no doubt."
"Yes, but she will simply have to miss it," declared Judith firmly.
"Tell her, will you, Elinor, when she comes in that she must come
tomorrow?"
Elinor hesitated, and Judith burst out, "Well, then, if I have to tell!
Mrs. Shelly told me that Mrs. Nat was coming in to surprise us, and of
course Miss Pat must be here."
"What's that about me?" asked Patricia, appearing in the doorway from
the bedroom, where she had been sewing a button on her glove while she
waited for Elinor to come home. "Who's requesting the pleasure of my
society?"
"Judith was telling me some very good reasons why you should come to the
Sunday spread," answered Elinor quietly. She scanned her sister's face
while they talked and her own was none the brighter for what she saw
there.
Patricia tossed her head impatiently, as though to evade Judith's
persistent attacks.
"You know I can't come," she said with that petulance which had grown
upon her recently. "I have to go with Rosamond. I've been fixing my
dress, and everything's ready. Besides," she added, "I promised Madame
Milano I would only come home once a week, and as I've been here today,
I couldn't very well come tomorrow again."
"Been here today?" echoed Judith, shaken out of herself by this
unexpected reasoning. "You've barely stopped five minutes, and you
haven't taken off your hat!"
Patricia looked as nearly sulky as she could ever manage to be. "I can't
help it; I simply won't come," she said without concealment. "I'm going
to Filmore's and that's an end of it."
Judith fired her last gun. "Mrs. Nat is coming as a surprise and we've
asked Doris and Constance, too," she said reproachfully.
Patricia faltered and then recovered her firm stand. "I'm sorry, but I
have accepted," she replied.
"But Mrs. Filmore doesn't care a snap whether you come or not,"
persisted Judith with flaming cheeks. She was making a fight for her
old-time sunny Miss Pat against this careless devotee of Rosamond
Merton's, but she had not counted on the days of intimate companionship
with the alluring Rosamond which had been Miss Pat's in the past
fortnight of illness and convalescence.
Patricia was silent.
"They didn't even ask you to come with your Rosamond," rushed on Judith.
"You're only invited with the outsiders, after the dinner is over."
Elinor's scrutiny told her it was time to interfere. Patricia was not
the forbearing joyful Miss Pat of yore. Since the spell of Rosamond
Merton had fallen so strongly upon her, she was growing--of all things
for merry Miss Pat--strangely self-centered. The life at Artemis Lodge,
with its gay comradeship of restaurant and tea-room, of dim library and
cosy salons, seemed to have passed her by, and Rosamond Merton filled
her heart and mind. Swiftly, while she was speaking, Elinor determined
that some change must be made, yet all she said was in her gentlest tone
and with an arm about Patricia's shoulder.
"We'll have to give her up this time, Judy dear, though we'll all miss
her more than we can say; but we won't let her off next time, I promise
you that."
Patricia was touched by the fondness in the sweet voice, though she was
immensely relieved, too, for she knew that if Elinor vetoed her plan she
must give it up.
"I might come over after I'm dressed," she suggested gratefully, with a
smile at the discomfited Judith. "I wanted to ask if Bruce would walk
over with me--it's in one of those old houses across the Square--but Ju
was so fierce I was afraid to open my lips."
Elinor promised for Bruce and after a little chat Patricia left, feeling
that she was making quite a concession to the family tie.
"As Rosamond says, I can't give up everything to other people, or I'd
lose my personality," she mused as she went briskly along the frosty
streets toward the Lodge. "And personality means so much to a singer."
She felt rather proud of herself now. It had been difficult for her to
come to this point of view and Rosamond had rambled on in her amiable
fashion many a time on the subject before she had brought her
impressionable room-mate to see it as she did.
"If I merely went to the studio and nowhere else, I'd grow one-sided,"
thought Patricia, cheerfully ignoring the fact that she spent most of
her time nowadays between her lessons and practicing either at home with
Rosamond or doing errands for that luxuriant young lady.
In the weeks she had been in Artemis Lodge she had been absorbing
Rosamond, living, breathing and sleeping Rosamond, until she was merely
a variation of the older girl's charming self. She did not see that
Rosamond was more self-centered than anyone she knew. She forgot how
eager she had once been, and how proud, to mingle with the people who
were always dropping in to see Bruce and Elinor. In a word, she was, for
the time, like the man who points his telescope at the flower by his
side and cries out that the world is made of pink petals and yellow
stamen. She was no longer Patricia--she was Rosamond Merton's version of
Patricia.
And the most remarkable part was that she had come to this state of mind
through her best impulses and by the way of her generous admirations.
The manner of her coming had been so whole-souled and liberal, too, that
she deserved to have arrived at more than this.
She went to the studio on Sunday evening and showed her pretty simple
evening frock, decorated with a wide band of glittering trimming from
Rosamond's ample store, and she had the one real quarrel of her life
with Elinor because that tender sister made her rip it off before she
would consent to her either appearing at the studio spread or going to
the musical.
Patricia never forgot that evening.
The supper, with its merry chat, was gall and wormwood to her. Mrs.
Nat's kind eyes seemed probing for something Patricia could not show
her. Doris Leighton's quiet pleasantries and Constance's gay quips were
dust and ashes in her mouth, and when finally she had walked across the
Square to the big brick house and the door had closed on Bruce and the
outside world, she was actually ready for tears.
"I'll never go anywhere again, if this is the way they are going to fuss
about it," she said to herself, as she went slowly upstairs to the
dressing-room. "I don't see how they can be so mean."
The brilliance of the house and the guests, together with Rosamond's
gracious greeting as she met her and led her to be introduced to the
hostess, soon worked a cure for her low spirits and she began to enjoy
herself at once.
"This is real life," she thought joyfully.
"Milano was asking me about you," said Rosamond as they threaded their
way through the crowded rooms.
Patricia nodded. "I know," she returned brightly. "At her tea-party the
other day. You told me about it."
She was so taken up with the delightful agitation of finding herself in
such a large and imposing assembly that she scarcely thought of her
words.
Rosamond laughed her slow laugh. "No, tonight," she corrected. "She is
here, you know. Mrs. Filmore is giving the dinner in her honor."
Patricia had room for swift surprise. "Why, you never told me!" she
exclaimed impetuously. "How strange!"
"I imagine it slipped your mind," suggested Rosamond carelessly. "I am
sure I told you. Come, let us speak to her before she sings. Mrs.
Filmore has persuaded her to give just one song, and I don't know when
she will choose."
Patricia demurred, feeling suddenly rather small and insignificant in
her girlish white net frock among all the glittering costumes about her.
It is sad to confess that her anger at Elinor returned hotly as she
thought of the forbidden trimming. That Rosamond had tactfully ignored
to speak of its absence made her more angry at Elinor.
"I'd rather sit down here and look about for a while," she said,
dropping into a tiny divan in a half-deserted corner with such a
determined air of gayety that Rosamond, after a rather weak protest,
went off by herself to make one of the group about the prima donna.
Patricia watched her moving across the crowded room with all the
assurance of long experience of such scenes, and admired her more than
ever. Her perfect gown and the graceful way she carried her dark head
with its jeweled band convinced the impressionable Patricia that this
sumptuous creature was far too high above her for criticism, and her
cheeks flushed at Judith's presumption.
It was delightful to her to see how agreeable everyone was to Rosamond.
She was stopped a dozen times in her passage of the wide apartment, and
she joined the group about Madam Milano with three attractive men in her
wake. Patricia found it very exciting. She thought of the dances at the
Tennis Club with something like scorn, and even the parties at the
studio last winter seemed to pale before this splendid entertainment.
After an hour she began to change her mind, however, and she looked
about for any sign of Rosamond in vain. There was no one in the rooms
she knew. She could not even see her hostess, whose peculiar head-dress
and angular shoulders she was sure she could recognize at any distance.
Madame Milano had not sung and there seemed, from the lively hum of
conversation that rose above the music of the famous orchestra, little
hope of it.
She felt suddenly very lonely. These strangers with their indifferent
stares made her more uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life.
She longed to be able to speak one word to some friendly creature. And
then, just as she was actually about to rise and flee to the shelter of
the dressing-room, there was a stir, and the soft undertone of the
orchestra stopped in the middle of a Hungarian Czarda.
Patricia leaned forward. Rosamond was going to sing!
Her loneliness dropped from her and her face shone. She drank in the
trills and flourishes of the selection which her friend had chosen as
though the notes were golden ambrosia. After Rosamond had ended her song
and gracefully yet firmly declined an encore Patricia was still glowing.
She came to herself, though, when a woman near her, without lowering her
voice, said with an amused look, "I'm glad that nice child in the corner
is looking happier. It's positively cruel to allow so young a girl to
mope about like that."
Patricia retained enough of her spirit to look the amused lady calmly in
the eyes, while her pretty tipped-up nose assumed a more sprightly
angle. That made her feel much better, and after Madame Milano had
poured out the liquid jewels of her faultless voice, she felt better
still.
She waited then in expectancy that now Rosamond would appear to take her
to Madame Milano, but no one came, and in a shorter time than it seemed
to her she rose, spurred by the amused lady's eyes, and made her way
among the chatting throngs straight to the dressing-room, where she
ordered her wraps and made her way downstairs with the calm of hope
destroyed.
She passed the footmen at the door, quite aware of their stares and
equally undaunted by them. Through the lane of canvas she gained the
pavement and so was out in the night streets--alone for the first time
in her sheltered life.
Artemis Lodge was only a few squares distant and she almost ran the
short blocks, arriving at the green entrance door out of breath and
suddenly realizing that the custodian left at eleven o'clock and
Rosamond had the night key which Miss Ardsley allowed only to privileged
ones.
As she hesitated, a couple of figures came toward her, and she was
overjoyed to recognize Mary Scull, one of the oldest residents, and
little Rita Stanford, whom she had been chaperoning to a concert given
by the blind. They were so full of the wonderful work done by these
afflicted musicians that they scarcely listened to her limping
explanation of her dilemma.
They took her in with them and left her at the foot of her own stair,
and she could hear them as they went across the courtyard in the quiet
starlight, discussing the difficulties of song-reading by the blind.
She rushed upstairs and undressed hastily, flinging off her clothes and
dropping into bed without brushing her hair, so afraid was she that
Rosamond might come in before her light was out.
She cried softly in the dark because she could not say her prayers. The
tumult in her heart was too loud.