Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge Part 7

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 b.u.t.ton 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 sh.o.r.e certainly makes home look good," she said thoughtfully.

"Funny thing is, that no matter how dressy the sh.o.r.e 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 cla.s.s, 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 peac.o.c.ks 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 fellows.h.i.+p," 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 peac.o.c.ks 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.