Patricia loved pretty clothes and pretty people, and the girl was undeniably pretty in a dark, tropical way. She moved with graceful, gliding steps and her face under the wide drooping velvet hat looked amiable as well as comely.
Patricia wanted to speak to her, but was uncertain as to the propriety of the act. The girl solved her difficulty, however, by choosing a chair near Patricia's, and, settling easily in it with an accustomed air of being agreeable, smiled pleasantly and spoke in a most melodious voice.
"Are you the new pupil?" she asked, apparently less from curiosity than a desire to break the silence. "I have heard that Madame was expecting someone recommended by Milano, but since she didn't tell me any more than just that much, I may be mistaken."
Patricia eagerly assured her that she was indeed the expected student, adding a rather anxious question as to the manner of instructor she was to have in Madame Tancredi.
The girl laughed a tinkling laugh which showed her faultless little white teeth and waved her hand in quite the foreign manner.
"Tancredi is very well as teachers go," she said with an indifference that seemed superhuman to the quivering Patricia, who immediately set her up in her mind as authority on matters musical.
"I've never studied before," she confessed, with a tinge of confusion. "I am afraid Madame will find me awfully stupid."
The girl looked at her with a lightening of her amiable, indifferent air. "Are you really so very young as all that?" she asked in some surprise. "You look very childish in this dim light, but I thought you must be old enough to have studied somewhere before this. Tancredi doesn't usually take rank amateurs."
Patrica felt very small indeed before this calm criticism, but she confessed bravely, though with flushing cheeks. "I am past seventeen," she said resolutely. "And I've been waiting six months to begin study."
And then at the encouraging look on the other's face she rushed into a rather jumbled account of her aspirations, her trials and lastly her disappointment of yesterday in being refused admittance at Artemis Lodge on the score of lack of room.