Patricia felt very strange as she put out the light and got into the narrow bed with its transplanted canopy and frills, yet there was a feeling of independence that was perhaps all the sweeter because she would not acknowledge it.
"I'm more lonely than I ever was in my life," she told herself as her head sank against her pillow.
But she forgot that she had said her prayers very thoroughly tonight, which showed that she had passed the darkest spot of her loneliness, for no one is quite desolate who can talk to God.
The next morning she awoke with a start, thinking she heard Rosamond calling her, but all she saw was the bright spring sunshine flooding into her pleasant, queer room, and all she heard was the trilling of the girl across the hall, little Rita Stanford, whose mother had died since Patricia had come to Artemis Lodge.
"Poor little brave thing," she thought with a warm rush of feeling, "I'll ask her over to practice as soon as I get my piano."
All about her she heard sounds of life that the private stair had shut her away from. Someone was unlocking her door and going whistling down the corridor, and in the room next to her the girl was rushing about in great haste, banging doors and slamming down the windows.
Rosamond would have sighed over such intimate contact with the rank and file of student life. It charmed Patricia. She loved democracy, although she had been shunning it ever since she had come to room with Rosamond Merton, and she jumped out of bed with a lighter heart than she could have dreamed possible the night before.
Unconsciously she had begun to fulfill Madame Milano's purpose in sending her to Artemis Lodge.