It was very hard for Patricia to go over to Rosamond's room after breakfast for her hour at the piano, but she did it so bravely that the self-centered Rosamond never guessed how much it cost her.

That was her first unconscious victory over herself.

Next she found that the other girls, from whose comradeship Rosamond's constant presence had barred her, now made room for her in the jolly, hail-fellow style which went straight to her bruised heart and soothed her wounded feelings sooner than she knew.

She kept her place at the little table in the cafÉ with Rosamond, of course, but after the first day she did not go into her room at tea-time, going instead into the big room downstairs where the girls and their guests came every afternoon to consume thin bread and butter, and innumerable cups of tea and packs of petite-beurres. Rosamond had thought her own dainty service with an exclusive friend all that could be desired, but Patricia rejoiced in the atmosphere of the club room with its great grand piano and the groups of interested girls, with a sprinkling of equally interested and clever guests. The steaming, gleaming samovar with Doris Leighton's friendly face behind it brought a warmth to her heart the first afternoon that Constance had insisted on her cutting the hour with Rosamond and going with her to the tea-room below.

She found the easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne—with an e as she always explained carefully—was being shown the purchases which had seemingly consoled Rosamond for her withdrawal.

Mary Browne, a slim, dark-eyed, good-looking girl with a bored manner, was lounging in a chair, looking with reverent yearning at the articles as they were exhibited—Rosamond trying each on and enlarging on its points of excellence.

Mary Browne, though of the purest blood, was, as she put it, "rather strapped," and wore her shapely garments longer than even Patricia did. Her soul was in the matter, as anyone could see by the way in which she looked at each article, murmuring tensely through her aristocratic teeth, "It's a stair. It's a star."

Patricia had just come from a flying visit to little Rita Stanford, whom she had suspected, from certain little sounds coming over her open transom, to be crying, and the contrast to that heroic little person putting aside her fresh grief to try to be entertaining to the newcomer in her hall made Patricia suddenly rather contemptuous of this worshipful attitude toward the mere accessories of life.

She had sprung up with relief when Constance's knock gave her the chance to escape, and in spite of Rosamond's rather absent protests, she had gone downstairs with Constance.

The tea-room was very full that afternoon and Doris had little time for talk, but she asked Patricia to stay for a chat after the samovar was taken away, and Patricia very willingly promised. The guests left at the proper time, but the girls seemed loath to leave. They lingered, talking about all sorts of glorious futures they were planning and discussing the eager present with great animation.

"Tancredi says that Rosamond Merton is going into opera as soon as she is done with her," a girl whose name Patricia did not know leaned across a space to tell her. She knew that Patricia was Rosamond's closest associate and she was following the social impulse to please.

Her friendly action brought the color to Patricia's cheeks and her eyes shone.

"How splendid!" she said ardently. "How did you hear it? Do you know Tancredi?"

The girl shook her head. "My sister knows her," she replied, "and she told her that Carneri, the director of the Cosmopolitan Company, told her she should have a place whenever she was pronounced fit by Tancredi. Pretty great for the Fair Rosamond, isn't it? They say she met him at a luncheon she gave to Milano and her teacher at the Ritz last week. It pays to be rich as well as talented, you see."

"Is she really very rich?" asked Patricia, and then was sorry she had spoken. It seemed as though she were prying into Rosamond's private affairs.

"Of course. She's old Cedar-tank Merton's only thing," replied the girl rather flippantly, Patricia thought. "She's hordes and gobs of coin, as well as being gifted with a voice and a family tree that makes the California redwoods look like mere bushes. You're with Tancredi, too, aren't you?"

Patricia nodded.

"I suppose she has a name, though I haven't heard it," the girl said to Constance, who was chatting with someone at an opposite table.

Constance did not hear her, but Patricia readily supplied the deficiency.

"I'm Patricia Kendall," she said, feeling rather apologetic for herself, though she did not know quite why.

"I'm Louise Woods," replied the other. "I'll look you up some time after I've spotted you and tell you what Tancredi says about you."

"Oh, it couldn't be much," cried Patricia in dismay. "I've just begun to study and Tancredi only bothers with me because a friend of hers asked her to."

The girl seemed not much impressed. "You've got something up your sleeve, I think," she smiled as she rose. "Tancredi doesn't cast her pearls before swine that way."

Patricia watched her making her sociable way out of the room, and she decided that she liked her.

"I wonder why I never met her before?" she thought, and then realized how completely Rosamond had blocked her view of all the other girls. "I guess I'll not be half so lonely as I thought. They all seem so kind."

She felt still better content when, as the twilight gathered and Doris came to make one of their group, one of the girls went to the big piano and illustrated her idea of the Swan Song in Lohengrin, striking passionate chords with her finger-tips and throwing her full-toned contralto into the dimness with an effect that was thrilling to Patricia.

Then another girl pushed her from the seat and, interrupting herself from time to time with explanations of the method, sang part of the scene where Louise leaves her home.

The magic of the dim hour was on them and they gave themselves to the music entire. The great winged Victory above the bookshelf showed back of the singer's dark head. The real everyday world dropped away and a more real and vital world took its place. One after another, the music students took their place eagerly on the seat, and sang or played the melody that was surging within them, to which the magic moment had given utterance.

Patricia never knew how it ended or if it were herself that was back in the everyday world of the cafÉ, eating dinner with Rosamond as usual, or whether she was still in that twilit world of melody listening to the voices, until Rosamond said rather sharply for her:

"Are you ill, Miss Pat, that you look so strange?"

Then Patricia drew herself together and managed to appear as normal as she could, but her one desire was to get away by herself to gloat over the riches that had been flung in her lap.

"I'd never, never known how splendid it was if I hadn't left Rosamond," she marveled. "Oh, how much I've been missing all this time!"

She was so taken out of herself by the beautiful experience that she hurried to her room and sat down to write a note to Elinor, begging her to forgive her silly conduct and her rank ingratitude for all their care. She made it as strong as that, and when she had sealed it she went down and put it in the mail-box herself, so eager was she that it should speed on its way.

She went to her room with a lighter heart and the day ended triumphantly with her. She counted the good things that had come to her on her fingers. First, she had cheered Rita Stanford—that she was sure of. Next, she had not shown any ill feeling towards Rosamond—her visits in morning and afternoon proved that. And third, she had been received into the fellowship of the musical set in a way that set her dreaming of the hour when she, too, might take her place on the seat of the grand piano in the twilight and sing out what was in her heart. Then, she had conquered her reluctance to make the first overtures to Elinor, and she had discovered that the girls in the next room were going to be worth while.

That finished off one hand and she paused as she began on the other. What was it the Woods girl had said about Rosamond entertaining Madame Milano at luncheon last week? Patricia would have thought it a mistake a week ago, but now she believed Rosamond capable of forgetting to tell her such a momentous fact.

"She doesn't care for me at all any more," she thought, with a sort of slow contempt rising through the sadness that the memory had brought back to her.

"I don't believe she ever did care for me," she said, a few minutes later. "I think she only tolerated me because she thought that I must be going to have a wonderful voice since Milano recommended, but when she found that I was only a stupid beginner, and not worth bothering with, she forgot I was in existence except when I was in sight."

She had so loved and admired the sumptuous Rosamond and in spite of the break had felt so little resentment that her feelings were now a surprise to her.

"I'm getting dreadfully cross-grained, I suppose," she said sadly, as she sat down again to write to Mrs. Spicer. "I quarreled with Elinor—of all people—and I've broken off with Rosamond. I must be growing horrid."

This dismal idea took full possession of her and she sat staring at the papers strewn on her table, seeing a tragic picture of herself grown desolate and lone in the long years wherein she lost, one by one, the friends who had once loved her. Mrs. Nat's puzzled face rose vividly before her as it had looked across the studio table, and she shook her head dolefully.

It was not often that Patricia had given way to such a mood, and if there had been anyone within reach to talk to, she would have shaken it off before it took full possession of her. But she was alone for the evening and it had free access. She actually believed that she was grown unlovable, and the conviction that her voice was not worth considering haunted her morbidly.

She had, without knowing it, a touch of grippe. Not enough to make her feel really ill, but merely sufficient to emphasize her dismal sensations into actual mental misery, and she lay awake half the night wondering mournfully why she had been allowed to leave the country and thrust herself among the talented and fortunate. She was really quite thorough in her distrust of herself.

In the morning she found a messenger with two notes, one from Elinor and one in Bruce's strong hand, waiting her as she went down to her late breakfast. Elinor's was very loving, ignoring the disagreeable Sunday night and telling her that they were suddenly called away on business of Bruce's, and that Judith, after spending a few days at Rockham with Mrs. Shelly, was to come to share her room at Artemis for the rest of the time. All had been arranged with Miss Ardsley by telephone while Patricia was yet in bed.

Patricia was so excited by this surprising news that she hurried off to Miss Ardsley's rooms with Bruce's unopened letter still in her hand.

Miss Ardsley explained that Elinor had called up about eight o'clock and as the Directress had been positive she had seen Patricia cross the courtyard on her way out just before that hour, she had told Elinor that her sister was not in.

Patricia had to go away without expressing her indignation at the mistake, and after she had read Bruce's short note in her own room, she was glad to remember that she had not sinned again.

"Small Sister Pat," the note ran. "I know it isn't time for the puncture you requested, but would it bother you if I asked when our own Miss Pat is coming back? We're mighty lonesome for her. Elinor is dropping some big tears while she thinks I am not looking, and I know it is because she misses her old chum. Judy is divided between the desire to go to her Mama Shelly's and her wish to find her jolly sister Pat. Do you think you could look her up and tell her we're all sure that she wants to see us as much as we want to see her?"

Patricia sat for a long time with the note in her hand, and then she put her golden head down on it and cried heartily.

Then she sat up, and her face showed that the mists were beginning to clear from that doleful future which had haunted her since last night.

"What a goose I've been, and what a perfect duck Bruce is," she said heartily and then laughed out loud at her zoological titles. "Oh, how I wish I'd had a chance to talk to Elinor. She couldn't have my letter by the time she left, and she must still think me horrid."

She rose and stood looking out of the window at the blue expanse above the housetops, with part of the smile still lingering on her pink lips. She knew that she had come back, as Bruce called it, and a delightful sense of relief stole over her.

"I'm so glad, glad," she whispered, clasping her hands tight against her breast. "I'll have a chance to show them that I'm really sorry for my silliness. I'll do something, I'll have something ready for them when they come back that will prove I'm done with sentimental nonsense now and for always."

She could not think what it should be, but she knew she could find out and she turned from the window with the old sunny expression on her face.

"I'll try to be unselfish, even though I am a failure," she said determinedly. "Bruce never guessed that it might be quite as hard for a failure to be unselfish as for a successful person. He's always been successful, thanks to Aunt Louise and his own splendid self."

The memory of her unknown aunt's secret disappointment came to her now with a throb of understanding love. The dark, brave face over the desk in the library at Greycroft rose vividly before her, and, as at other moments of need, courage and determination flowed from the serene eyes into Patricia's wistful ones.

"I'll bear my troubles, too," she whispered, smiling back at the vision. "I'll remember that I am your namesake."