"Do you know I was dreadfully afraid of you that day at Tancredi's?" she confessed when they were once more in the sitting-room by the fire.
Rosamond had laid aside her traveling dress and slipped on a soft fur-trimmed crepe lounging robe with her feet in embroidered satin mules, and the impressionable Patricia was feasting her eyes on her. She was used to beauty—and beauty of a much higher class—in her own sister Elinor, and every day her mirror reflected quite as attractive features as those of her new companion, but the extreme luxury with which Rosamond indulged her fancy in the matter of clothing was a revelation to her.
She looked at the shimmering cloudy-blue folds of the robe, at the soft dark edges of fur with their under-ruffles of pink chiffon, at the lace and ribbons of the petticoat which showed where the robe fell away, and she forgot they were merely outer trappings, to be bought from any department store or private shop. They seemed part of a superior charm belonging exclusively to Rosamond Merton, and Patricia sighed as she saw in the mirror over the mantel-shelf the image of a fluffy-haired girl in an unpretentious blouse.
"I wonder that she can put up with me," she thought ruefully, smoothing down the folds of her simple corduroy skirt. "She must be very kind-hearted indeed. I wish that I might do something to show how I feel about it."
As Rosamond chatted on, telling of her visit to Red Top and describing the house party with a good deal of cleverness, Patricia became so interested that she forgot her grateful intentions in listening to the gossip which her new friend retailed so sparklingly. She laughed over the description of the model poultry farm and chaffed Rosamond quite freely on her lack of technical terms; she smiled a little uneasily over the dinner party at the rectory, feeling a bit guilty that she should find matter for mirth in the precise and dainty entertainment offered impartially by the gentle rector and his ladylike maiden sisters; and she was frankly disturbed by the careless fashion of treating the attack of measles which had disbanded the house party a week earlier than planned.
"Of course, you weren't in any danger," she said, more to herself than to Rosamond. "Measles aren't much to be afraid of, anyway, unless one is a perfect Methuselah. I think it was hard on Mr. Long to have his nice party broken up after all his planning, just because a lot of grown-ups got scared about measles. If I were the girl he's in love with, I'd stayed and helped nurse Danny, instead of running away from the place."
Rosamond laughed her indolent laugh. "And been quarantined for three weeks out there in the desolate country," she mocked. "My cousin isn't that heroic sort, even if she were devoted to a man. She doesn't care two pins for your Mr. Long, and I fancy he knows it by this time."
"Not care for him?" cried Patricia in amazement. "Why in the world did she and her mother come to see him then? I thought they were engaged."
Rosamond shook her head slowly and emphatically. "Not at all," she said calmly. "She thought she might like him well enough last fall, but he has developed such queer tastes recently—burying himself on that ridiculous chicken-farm and taking up with stupid little boys who develop measles when they run away from school to visit their benefactor, that she really has had quite enough of him without marrying him."
Patricia was silent, puckering her brows over the problem of unrewarded virtue, while Rosamond Merton watched her with something like a twinkle in her long eyes.