Elinor had just come in. Her cheeks were tinted with the crisp air and her eyes were dancing with the brisk walk home through the Park. She tossed her muff on the divan and made a laughing face at her disturbed small sister.
"Never mind, Judy, you still have us," she said brightly. "Constance is coming and Doris Leighton too, and we'll have to give Miss Pat up to such a fine opportunity. Rosamond has not been singing 'publicly,' as she calls it, so it will be a great treat, no doubt."
"Yes, but she will simply have to miss it," declared Judith firmly. "Tell her, will you, Elinor, when she comes in that she must come tomorrow?"
Elinor hesitated, and Judith burst out, "Well, then, if I have to tell! Mrs. Shelly told me that Mrs. Nat was coming in to surprise us, and of course Miss Pat must be here."
"What's that about me?" asked Patricia, appearing in the doorway from the bedroom, where she had been sewing a button on her glove while she waited for Elinor to come home. "Who's requesting the pleasure of my society?"
"Judith was telling me some very good reasons why you should come to the Sunday spread," answered Elinor quietly. She scanned her sister's face while they talked and her own was none the brighter for what she saw there.
Patricia tossed her head impatiently, as though to evade Judith's persistent attacks.
"You know I can't come," she said with that petulance which had grown upon her recently. "I have to go with Rosamond. I've been fixing my dress, and everything's ready. Besides," she added, "I promised Madame Milano I would only come home once a week, and as I've been here today, I couldn't very well come tomorrow again."
"Been here today?" echoed Judith, shaken out of herself by this unexpected reasoning. "You've barely stopped five minutes, and you haven't taken off your hat!"
Patricia looked as nearly sulky as she could ever manage to be. "I can't help it; I simply won't come," she said without concealment. "I'm going to Filmore's and that's an end of it."