the feast was half over when patricia, who sat between margaret howes and griffin and opposite to the adorable doris leighton, got a distinct shock.
the girls had been talking of the initiation and the part that elinor had played.
"your sister has covered herself with glory by the way she took her hazing," said margaret, deftly winding a long string of the rarebit around a bread stick and popping it in her mouth.
"she certainly saved us from a fluke by the nice fashion in which she turned the popular attention from that idiot who was leading the band," added griffin, reaching for the mustard.
patricia longed to ask a question, but margaret howes saved her the necessity.
"who was it, do you know, griffin?" she inquired in a lowered tone.
"can't be certain, of course, but i have my doubts," replied griffin, in the same pitch. "i think that i recognized the silvery tones of a fair one who is not too far away from us," and she glanced significantly across the table to where doris leighton sat with the candle-light shining in her bright hair and a little smile curving her pink lips.
patricia caught the look, and was instantly both astonished and indignant.
"i don't see how you can think that!" she cried hotly, and then hastily lowering her voice, she added: "you must have known who they chose for leader, even if you both were at the tail of the march."
griffin grinned good-naturedly. "keep your righteous wrath for the right fellow, young 'un. when you've been in the night life as many years as i have, you'll know that we don't choose a leader—she simply elects herself by taking the head of the procession. we never know who's who after we rig up. that's part of the game. so, you see, it may have been the charming doris, or howes here, or my unworthy self, that put those obnoxious questions to your sister—no one knows for sure, and the mean cuss won't tell."
"why should she want to be horrid to elinor?" persisted patricia, frowning a little in her earnestness. "we don't know her very well yet, but she's been perfectly sweet to us both."
"that describes her to a t, doesn't it, howes?" grinned the imperturbable griffin. "that's the way we find her—so sweet that she is sickening, eh?"
"hush, she'll hear you!" warned howes, laughing a little, nevertheless, whereupon patricia instantly decided that she had been mistaken in margaret howes' character, and that she was less open-minded and warm-hearted than she had believed.
"i can't see why you should pitch on her," insisted patricia, kneading her cake into pills in her agitation. "what could she have against elinor?"
griffin yawned elaborately and then addressed margaret howes with lifted eyebrows.
"this young person, though evidently of an investigating turn of mind, has not quite fathomed the nature of the reigning beauty of our little coterie. being of a candid and affable nature herself, she fails to comprehend how the fangs of the green-eyed monster, once fastened in the tender heart of said beauty, make the said beauty so mortally uncomfy that she's bound to take it out on somebody—and who so natural or convenient as the critter who sicked the serpent on her."
"you mean that she is jealous of elinor?" asked patricia, opening her eyes very wide. "why, elinor is only a beginner, and she's studied abroad!"
"all the same, she sees that kendall major is about to snatch the laurel wreath from all our heads, and she doesn't want to do without any of her ornaments."
"but elinor didn't even get a criticism in the head class yet," protested patricia, unconvinced. "mr. benton didn't get around to her this morning, and she doesn't get any criticism in the night life till tomorrow afternoon. i don't see how she could be jealous."
griffin made a face over a sip of over-heated cocoa. "just as you please," she murmured benevolently. "make the best of it, like a good child. charity is the chief christian virtue and an ornament to all. are you going in for the prize design, howes? i hear that it's open to the whole class."
"haven't heard of it," replied margaret howes, with eager interest. "what is it? and who's giving it?"
"roberts, the big new york decorator. he's offering a hundred dollars for the best design for a panel for a library—originality to be the chief feature. popsy brown told me. i thought it had been announced."
"it wasn't on the bulletin board this afternoon," said a girl across the table, who had been listening to this last speech. "tell us about it, griffie dear. we're all dying to hear."
"spout it out loud!" called another from the end of the table. "we can't catch your muffled accents down here."
the announcement of the prize was received with such lively interest that it routed all other subjects, and even patricia caught the enthusiasm.
"i hope elinor tries for it," she said excitedly. "she'll say she's too green, i suppose."
"tell her to make a hack at it anyway," urged margaret howes earnestly. "originality is the thing that counts, and she's got as good a chance as any of us there."
"better," said griffin tersely. "we're so filled with other people's ideas that we've degenerated into regular copy-cats. i can't undertake any subject but that i have a lot of designs by famous painters popping into my mind and mixing me up horribly."
"i wish i could draw," mused patricia, absently sugaring her frankfurter. "i've got tons of ideas already."
"that reminds me," broke out griffin. "there's a prize for the mud larks, too. i've forgotten what it is, but it'll be posted in the morning. there's your chance, young 'un. you're eligible for it."
patricia was about to speak, but there was a general stir and a voice cried, authoritatively:
"eight o'clock. time to break up! three cheers for kendall major and her candy toys. the academy howl, ladies, if you please!"
a space was hurriedly cleared at the other end of the table, a chair placed and patricia saw elinor, blushing and protesting, thrust into it by a dozen laughing students.
patricia stood to one side, as they formed a hasty group in the open space by the door, and, with griffin beating time, stretched their mouths to the utmost and gave the academy howl with a vim that was deafening, drawing out the final deep growling notes to a weirdly wailing finish that sent patricia and elinor into gales of mirth.
"how in the world did you make up such an unearthly yodel?" demanded elinor, preparing to descend from her chair of state. "i hope i'm not expected to answer in kind."
"you don't budge from there, young lady, till you've given us a song," declared griffin, vigorously. "we know your dark secrets. we've heard that you can warble a bit."
elinor sat down in surprise. "oh, but i can't," she protested. "i can't sing at all. miss pat——"
a glare from patricia stopped her, but it was too late. a chorus of laughing voices took up the demand, "a song, miss pat!" "don't be stingy, kendall minor; tune up!" "give us a sample, miss pat!" until griffin, with a bow, offered her arm to the rebellious patricia and led her, protesting and abashed, to the chair whence elinor had escaped.
once on the impromptu platform, patricia's embarrassment dropped from her, and she smiled a ready acknowledgment to the shouts that demanded a dozen different songs at once.
"i can't sing them all at once," she said, gayly. "but if you'll settle on one that i know, i'll do my best for you. you've given me an awfully good time tonight, and i'm only too glad to sing for you."
after a great deal of good-humored bickering and sifting of requests to suit patricia's repertoire, the tumult gradually quieted and patricia rose.
"i'll sing 'mary of argyle' first, and then a new little song, but it won't sound very well without any accompaniment," she said simply, and then, folding her hands before her and tilting her head like a bird, she began to sing, softly at first and then louder till her voice soared and rang echoing through the bare, empty rooms that flanked the lunch rooms.
"i have watched thy heart, my mary,
and its goodness was the wile,
that has made me thine forever,
bonnie mary of argyle."
patricia's voice swelled and sank on the last lines of the old song, and the girls broke into hearty applause, which was startlingly reinforced from the doorway of the lumber cellar. the janitor's sallow face appeared from the gloom and his deep voice boomed an encore.
"fine! fine!" he cried, nodding his head approvingly. "that beats them all! my wife, she used to sing that song, and i liked it fine, but you beat them all!"
patricia blushed with pleasure, and griffin called out heartily, "bring her in, eitel. there's going to be another!"
as the janitor padded away to the domestic portion of the basement to fetch his smiling wife, griffin added to patricia, "they're an awfully good sort. you don't mind, do you?"
"no, indeed!" cried patricia. "it's sweet of them to like it!"
doris leighton smiled at elinor in the crowd and murmured a word of praise for the singing, adding, however, that she was afraid that the janitor could hardly appreciate it.
"what's that?" asked griffin, whose quick ear had caught the last words. "not appreciate it? why, do you know that eitel used to be butler for patti in his youth? fie, fie, my child; likewise, go to."
patricia caught her breath. "i hope he likes the next one," she said anxiously, whereat griffin chuckled.
"don't be too scared," she said in a quick undertone. "it's forty years since he served the diva, and he only stayed a month. i merely exploited him musically to bluff off the class beauty. hush! here they are, large as life. now, warble your prettiest, for mrs. eitel really knows good stuff when she hears it."
so patricia flung her whole self into the sparkling "april girl," and at the finish had the reward of an ovation. the students clapped and the eitels applauded with hands and feet, and cried "encore!" till they were red in the face.
"i'll sing just one more, and then i'll have to stop," she said with eager brightness. "my voice isn't strong enough to do much, you know, though i'm awfully glad you like the songs."
so she sang another, a lullaby, that sank to its finish in flattering silence. not a word was spoken as she stepped to the floor, but elinor put out her hand and gave patricia's a hard squeeze.
mrs. eitel broke the silence. "that music has made me strong," she declared, beaming. "these dishes i will now wash up for the reward of those songs. go along now, young ladies, and think nothing about the disorder and the scrappishness, for it is i who will make them to come to order."
there were a few feeble protests, but mrs. eitel bore them down, and the students trooped off upstairs to their lockers and the dressing room, well pleased to escape the prosaic end to their fun.
on the way home patricia told elinor of the suspicions that had been whispered about doris leighton's part in the initiation, and, much to her satisfaction, elinor was as indignant as she had been.
"i can't see how they can be so unfriendly to her," she said warmly. "she is so kind and agreeable. of course, she doesn't associate with everybody, but neither does margaret howes nor griffin either, for that matter. so far from being jealous, she's been specially sociable with me, and i felt quite flattered by it."
"i knew you'd feel just that way about it," said patricia, relieved and triumphant. "i told them she'd been awfully sweet to us."
"i think it more likely that it was griffin herself," said elinor with spirit. "she's such a wild, harum-scarum thing, and she does love to tease."
patricia was silent, weighing this suggestion. they both broke into negation at once as they reached their own front door.
"it couldn't be griffin," said patricia earnestly. "she was too disgusted with it."
"no, i didn't really mean that," cried elinor, repentantly. "it wasn't a bit like her teasing. her's always has a good flavor."
"i wonder who it could have been," they both murmured as they went upstairs to their rooms.
judith was deeply interested with their recital of the whole affair, and grew quite excited in the discussion as to the identity of the leader of the ghost dance.
"if i were there enough to know the different girls, i'd know who it was without much trouble," she declared.
"how would you manage it, sherlock?" asked patricia. "give us a hint of your method, and we may be able to locate the fiend ourselves."
judith tossed her head.
"oh, you may laugh, miss pat. but all the same, i'd know. i could tell by the little things that you grown-ups don't notice."
"mercy, judy!" cried patricia in genuine consternation. "you mustn't examine us all with your private microscope. it isn't fair!"
elinor put an end to the discussion by pointing to the clock.
"do you see the hour, infants?" she demanded. "tomorrow is a full day, and we must get to our beds. toddle, judy dear. if you aren't asleep in ten minutes you'll have to take a nap in the afternoon."
"oh, but miss jinny's coming at five, and david won't leave till half-past four!" protested judith, horrified at such a prospect, and beginning to scramble out of her clothes with lively haste. "and you promised to show me the night-life room, too, when all the students were there and the model wasn't posing! oh, dear elinor, you're a very agitating person! i'm twice as wide-awake as i was a minute ago!"
when elinor and patricia were alone, patricia opened the subject that had been occupying her thought for the last few minutes.
"you'll try for that library panel prize, won't you, norn?" she asked, pleadingly. "griffin and margaret howes both say you ought. i know you could do something worth while."
elinor paused in her hair brushing, and sank down on the stool, absently propping her chin on her brush.
"it doesn't seem worth while," she began, but patricia broke in impatiently:
"you never know what you can do till you try. i'd try for anything i was eligible for, if i couldn't draw a stroke, just to be in with the rest."
elinor smiled and pulled patricia down beside her on the stool.
"don't be too hard on your lazy old sister, miss pat," she said with a kiss. "i'll promise to go in for it if you won't scold any more. if i disgrace the family, you mustn't cast it up to me."
patricia tossed her bright head scornfully.
"'disgrace!'" she repeated hotly. "why, do you know, elinor kendall, that they're all saying already that you're a wonder?" then with a swift change, she broke into a giggle. "wait till you lay eyes on my contribution to the modeling competition. you'll have the treat of your young life then!"
"what's it to be?" asked elinor, releasing her and beginning to braid her dark hair.
"don't know," replied patricia gayly. "don't care, either. whatever it is, i'm going into it tooth and nail. i'll show them that i'm on the turf even if i can't win a ribbon."
judith's voice came plaintively from her room.
"i don't think it's fair," she faltered. "you girls keep chattering so i can't go to sleep, and the ten minutes are up long ago."
"bless your heart, infant, you're a martyr to our long tongues!" cried patricia, jumping up and putting out the light. "go to sleep now. we won't chirp a single note. good-night, and happy dreams!"
