But she got no farther. To her intense amazement and dismay, Virginie suddenly threw herself across the couch in a passion of wild and violent weeping. It was several moments before Patricia could soothe her back to a state where she was able even to speak.
"Oh, I knew you would think this! I knew it. I knew it!" she sobbed. "I knew the time would come when I must explain—or lose your friendship. If you only could trust me. If you only knew—"
Patricia, at a loss for words, could only squeeze her hand in silent assurance.
"But you never will know—and I never can tell you!" she went on wildly. "I love you—I love you—as I love no one else on earth now—beside my father. Do you believe that?"
"I believe it if you say so," Patricia assured her quietly. "I feel sure you are telling me the truth." Her calm, soothing manner was having its effect on the girl's hysterical condition. Virginie herself suddenly became calmer.
"I wish you would make a promise," she continued. "If you knew my life and all that I have to endure,—all the puzzling, bewildering things that are pulling me this way and that—things that I perhaps can never tell you, because they would concern others,—I know that you would promise me this, never to care whether my manner seems cold toward you; never to think unkind thoughts of me, no matter how I may act—to say to yourself always, when I seem the worst, 'Virginie loves me; she does not mean this mood for me!' Could you make me that promise, Patricia? Some day, if God wills, I may be able to explain."
"Indeed, Virginie," cried her companion, sincerely touched, "I trust you every way and always! I'll never be annoyed any more, no matter how you act. I'll understand that it's something quite outside of myself that is causing it. Will that make you feel any better?"
Virginie did not answer in words, but the grateful pressure of her hands was sufficient response. The atmosphere having thus been cleared, Patricia abandoned the subject and plunged gaily into something quite different.
"You told me once, Virginie," she began, "that you had done a good deal of work in water-colors at various times, but you have never shown me any of your sketches. Have you any here with you, and if so, could I see them? I'm awfully interested in that sort of thing, though I don't do much of the kind myself."
"Ah, yes!" cried Virginie, brightening at once. "I have a whole portfolio in my room. I will go to fetch it. I love the work, and I turn to it whenever I have an opportunity." She ran out of the room and hurried back with a batch of color sketches that she spread out on the couch. They were really exceedingly clever, as Patricia recognized at once.