door with a little bang.

"Won't Rosamond be surprised?" she smiled to herself, seeing the light
in the windows which told that their rooms were occupied.

She found Rosamond wrapped in a sumptuous down quilt, sitting over the
fire in a drowsy state, and she had to repeat the glorious news twice
before her friend responded. Even then she was not as interested as
Patricia had hoped.

"Yes, it's lovely," she said, slowly, "and I'm sure you'll have a good
time. Do you mind getting out my night things? I'm awfully sleepy and
I'm going straight to bed."

Patricia did as she was asked and then helped the heavy-lidded Rosamond
to her rose-and-gold room, saying good-night a little coolly.

"She might have tried to wake up for such splendid news," she thought, a
little dampened by this casual reception of her glad tidings.

The next morning Rosamond was still too sleepy and tired to rise and
Patricia was afraid that she might be really ill. But she denied more
than a slight cold--a "sleepy headache," as she called it--and asked to
be left alone to sleep it out.

Patricia left her still in bed when she started to the studio in the
afternoon, though she seemed almost herself again.

"Come in and tell me all about it the moment you get back," she called
as Patricia left her.

And Patricia promised blithely.

CHAPTER IX

ROSAMOND'S FRIEND

Patricia kept her promise. She ran upstairs to the pretty rooms in
Artemis Lodge with such a radiant face that Rosamond, who was sitting up
trying to get interested in a magazine story, laid down the book with a
sigh of relief.

"You've had a wonderful time, I know," she said expectantly. "Throw your
things on the couch and tell me all about it."

Patricia complied joyfully. "Do you want to hear every scrap, just as it
happened," she asked, "from beginning to end?"

"From the very beginning to the very end," nodded Rosamond.

"Well, then, I hustled over to the studio," Patricia told her, "and
found them waiting for me. Elinor looked as sweet as ever and Bruce, of
course, was just as he should be. We took the car to the hotel and just
as we were going in, a violet-man pushed his tray right in front of me,
and I must have looked at it pretty hard, for Bruce bought me the
dearest duck of a bunch with cords and tassels on it. And, of course,
that made me feel better still, for my suit isn't terribly gay, you
know, having been selected when I was expecting to spend the whole