Patricia studied her with eager interest. The bride of half a year was still a bride to her, and the transformation of the limp, bedraggled art student into this languid, elegant young lady was an affair that had its beginnings at Greycroft, for it was under that hospitable roof that Mr. Bingham had first seen Miss Auborn. In the merry Babel of the studio party Mrs. Bingham held her own with a calm assurance that Miss Auborn had not possessed, and when Mr. Bingham, pink and smiling as ever and just a bit more bald, joined them, the air of mild authority with which she welcomed that gentleman impressed Patricia even more strongly.
As they went back to the flower-decked sitting-room, Judith edged close to whisper in her ear.
"I think Miss Jinny has hurt her hand, Miss Pat," she said with exaggerated anxiety. "She's got her handkerchief wrapped about it. I hope it isn't badly hurt—she doesn't look as if it were inimical, does she?"
Patricia made a gesture of amused impatience. "You monkey, you aren't thinking of Miss Jinny's hand at all. Where did you get that stuffy word?"
"It isn't stuffy," defended Judith with a flash. "It's a nice, crackling word, and I got it from Arnold Bennet, if you want to know. He uses it all the time. And I've got another, too—'inept'—and that's what you are now, Patricia Kendall. I'm ashamed of your extreme indifference to the beauties of your own language."
Patricia halted by the chair at a side table where her name card lay. Her eyes were fastened on Judith with a peculiarly penetrating gaze, and her firm grasp detained the arm that would have escaped.
"Judith, my child, there's something up, and you'd better confess at once," she said gravely. "No one will hear you now while we're getting our places. What is it you're plotting?"
Judith wriggled from her with an expression of injured innocence that almost satisfied her.
"I'm not going to do anything, Miss Pat," she declared with emphasis. "You can ask Bruce if I'm 'up to' anything, as you call it."
Patricia reluctantly released her and she slipped away to her own table with Madalon Halden, Tom Hughes, and little Jack Grantly, a nephew of the sculptor, who had been invited specially for Judith's sake, and who was promptly set down by that discriminating young person as being much too young for the high post of companion to her.