"I'm sorry you can't come to the dance," she told her with regret, but Judith did not care in the least, she said. She was going to spend the night with Rita Stanford, with whom she had struck up a close friendship—the first that Patricia had known her to make.
She seemed much absorbed in Rita. She took walks with her while Patricia was at her lesson or otherwise occupied, and she went to afternoon service with her. She was so much with Rita when not with Patricia that it was a surprise to Patricia to see her coming in the afternoon of the dance entirely alone and wearing a rapturous expression. She said she had been doing an errand and Patricia was too much occupied with the finishing touches to her white net—she was putting the dearest bunches of apple blossoms at odd places on the skirt and waist—to be too inquisitive.
She noticed that Judith hung about her, seeming to be trying to make up her mind to say something, but she did not stop to ask what it was, as she supposed it merely a trifling comment or criticism on her dress.
She sent Judith over to Constance's room to borrow a spool of pink silk and then forgot her in the delightful task of deciding whether the apple blossoms ought to go on the sleeves or not.
Judith came back with the spool and a yellow envelope which she had signed for. "That's what made me so long," she explained, but Patricia had hardly missed her.
The telegram was from Elinor. They were coming back and would be at the dance. "Coming home tonight. Save a dance for Bruce. Love. Elinor."
Patricia was wild with delight. "Oh, Judy, won't it be fine?" she cried with quite her old gay laugh. "I'm so glad they're coming."
But before Judith could add her rejoicings the bright look had died into a quieter expression and Patricia said, "I was forgetting that you weren't going to be there. I wish, oh, I wish you could go."
"Well, I can't and there's an end of it," said Judith calmly. "And I hear Rita beginning to get things ready. We're going to make fudge, so I'll have to be off."
She was at the door before she remembered. "Constance told me she'd stop on her way down for you if you changed your mind about going late," she said briskly. "She wants you to see her dress, anyway, before anything happens to it. She says she's sure to wreck it. She's so used to good tough stuff that she'll walk right through this one."