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 y