"Did you see the Haldens on the train, Frad?" asked Patricia as she and David were talking aside by the studio window while Elinor was welcoming Tom Hughes and Griffin, Margaret Howes and Mr. Spicer, who had all arrived in a bunch, Tom having lagged behind to get a big sheaf of roses for Elinor, whom he admired immensely.
"No, we looked for them high and low, but didn't see hide nor hair of them," he answered, ruffing his hair in a way that Patricia, who was very proud of his straight, shining locks.
"I wonder what keeps them?" she said anxiously. "They'd surely phone if they were detained or weren't coming. All of Bruce's friends are here, and Hannah Ann is on pins and needles for fear we'll be delayed and not get through in time for the four-forty. She was glad to see you, wasn't she?"
"Yep," replied David, grinning. "I was afraid she'd regard me as an interloper in the family , but she gave me the glad hand in great shape. I didn't think it was in her to be so . She's taken me in, all right."
"She had your room all with the best covers, but Elinor persuaded her to reconsider it," smiled Patricia. "You're going to be as much at home as any of us, Frad dear, and I'm glad the time will soon be here for your school to shut up and let you come H-O-M-E, home."
The clock on St. Francis' tower boomed the hour.
"I think we'll have to begin with the feeding," said Bruce, as Miss Jinny and Mrs. Shelly, gorgeous in their very best raiment, entered from their bedroom. "Madam, may I have the privilege of escorting you to the head of the table?"
Mrs. Shelly made him a pretty little bow.
"I shall be delighted, Mr. Haydon," she said , to the great gratification of Judith, who had arranged this incident.
Elinor followed with Mr. Grantly, and Miss Jinny came next with Mr. Spicer, who was very ceremonial and splendid in new clothes of the latest pattern. Patricia thought he looked particularly radiant, and wondered how he could be so glad to say good-bye. She was about to whisper to Tom Hughes, who was next in the merry that followed the first three precise couples, when there was a tremendous rapping at the studio door, and Hannah Ann in her treasured new hat rushed from Miss Jinny's room, where she had been in , to the portal.
Patricia, Hannah Ann, and the Haldens met on the blue rug, and Patricia was the first to find her voice.
"Well, of all people in the world!" she cried delightedly to the newcomers. "Where did you come from? Why aren't you in Paris? And where's Mr. Bingham?"
A tall, good-looking man in tweeds was shaking hands with Hannah Ann, while an esthetically dressed, rather languid young lady in pastel green was trying to introduce a pretty, smiling blond girl in black furs whom Patricia easily recognized as the original of the photograph that had stood on Mr. Lindley's desk at Greycroft, and the Haldens were explaining how they heard that the Lindleys were in town and so had come in on an earlier train to capture them for the house-breaking.
Patricia bubbled with of the surprise. She kissed Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. Lindley, too, though she had never laid eyes on her before, and she came near kissing the tall Mr. Lindley, much to the edification of the others who had rushed from the at the sound of the outcry.
Griffin and other intimates were introduced to the late Miss Auborn and the professor, both of whom had starred as boarders in the past summer at Greycroft when, at Judith's suggestion, the three girls had tried to their broken fortunes by means of "paying guests."
"Mr. Bingham will be along presently," said the late Miss Auborn with great composure, arranging her draperies with a careful hand. She was looking smart and it was evident that the Mr. Bingham had totally eclipsed Art for her. "We only met the Lindleys by chance and Ferdinand had some business to that could not wait."
Patricia studied her with eager interest. The bride of half a year was still a bride to her, and the of the limp, bedraggled art student into this languid, elegant young lady was an affair that had its beginnings at Greycroft, for it was under that roof that Mr. Bingham had first seen Miss Auborn. In the merry Babel of the studio party Mrs. Bingham held her own with a calm assurance that Miss Auborn had not , and when Mr. Bingham, pink and smiling as ever and just a bit more bald, joined them, the air of mild authority with which she welcomed that gentleman impressed Patricia even more strongly.
As they went back to the flower-decked sitting-room, Judith edged close to whisper in her ear.
"I think Miss Jinny has hurt her hand, Miss Pat," she said with exaggerated anxiety. "She's got her handkerchief wrapped about it. I hope it isn't badly hurt—she doesn't look as if it were inimical, does she?"
Patricia made a gesture of amused . "You monkey, you aren't thinking of Miss Jinny's hand at all. Where did you get that word?"
"It isn't stuffy," defended Judith with a flash. "It's a nice, crackling word, and I got it from Arnold Bennet, if you want to know. He uses it all the time. And I've got another, too—'inept'—and that's what you are now, Patricia Kendall. I'm ashamed of your extreme to the beauties of your own language."
Patricia halted by the chair at a side table where her name card lay. Her eyes were fastened on Judith with a peculiarly gaze, and her firm grasp detained the arm that would have escaped.
"Judith, my child, there's something up, and you'd better confess at once," she said gravely. "No one will hear you now while we're getting our places. What is it you're plotting?"
Judith from her with an expression of injured that almost satisfied her.
"I'm not going to do anything, Miss Pat," she declared with emphasis. "You can ask Bruce if I'm 'up to' anything, as you call it."
Patricia reluctantly released her and she slipped away to her own table with Madalon Halden, Tom Hughes, and little Grantly, a nephew of the , who had been invited specially for Judith's sake, and who was set down by that young person as being much too young for the high post of companion to her.
Miriam Halden, Mr. Hilton, Griffin, Margaret Howes, Herbert Lester and David—officially known as Francis Edward, but particularly recognized by his twin as Frad—all sat at the same rose-decked table with Patricia, and, as Griffin put it, they made the other tables look "like thirty cents in pennies." The candle light sparkled on laughing eyes and white teeth, and of merriment enlivened every mouthful of the dishes that Dufranne's François, aided by the radiant Henry, served continuously.
Patricia felt sorry for Elinor and Bruce that they should be among the elder and more serious members of the party, but, as David out to her in an answering whisper, they seemed satisfied where they were and not at all in need of sympathy.
"We're going to see the decoration—the one Elinor made for the church, you know," said Patricia to Miriam as they left the , disheveled sitting-room to the hands of Hannah Ann and Henry, and went with the chatting crowd into the big studio again. "Bruce wouldn't have the in here because we couldn't get a good view of it if the place was up with tables and things. He's fearfully proud of it. He says it's as good as lots of regular artists could do."
"She hasn't been studying long, has she?" asked Miriam, with her eyes intent on the long blue curtain that screened the decoration from sight.
"Just last summer with Miss Auborn and Bruce, and then three months at the Academy and with Bruce again," replied Patricia proudly. "Bruce wouldn't let her stay at the Academy all the time. He thinks it's best to work like the old masters used to, in the studio of some artist, doing things right away. He didn't want Elinor's to get barnacles, he said."
Bruce stepped to the space that had been with difficulty kept at the west side of the studio, and stood before them with his hand raised.
"We asked you today to help us break up housekeeping," he said with his winning smile; "but I must confess that I for one have deceived you. I planned to get you all here for a totally different purpose, and I trust you will approve of my when you have seen what I have to show you."
"Sure we will," interposed Tom Hughes in an unexpectedly audible stage whisper, which greatly confused him, but delighted Patricia and David.
"You all know," Bruce went on, "that I have been trying an experiment of my favorite theory of art education, but very few of you know how it has progressed. And it is to show you the result that I have you here today—to crow over some of you, in fact. The canvas I am going to show you was designed, executed as far as it has gone, by Miss Elinor Kendall, a student of hardly more than nine months' study. The subject is the 'Nativity' and it is designed for a chancel in a small church."
As the curtain was from the long canvas Patricia's eyes were on the faces of those in whose impressions she was most interested, and they gave her great satisfaction. Mrs. Bingham's eyes were wide and startled as those of the small hen who discovers that her ungainly child is really a white swan.
"She won't be patronizing Elinor after this," thought Patricia with a . "And Mr. Grantly has to swallow himself, too. He'll hate to have to............