"So that was what you were up to?" she said. "I knew you had something on your mind, Judy Kendall, you crafty, clever thing. How perfectly glorious to think you're really in print!"
Judith pulled out of her embrace.
"Don't make a show of me, Miss Pat," she commanded reproachfully. "It isn't correct to show that you are so delighted."
She turned to receive the congratulations that crowded on her, and Patricia, with a gay little ripple of amusement, watched the slender childish figure straighten to its utmost height and assume an air of grave affability as Judith responded to her ovation.
"That kid is a born actress," said David in her ear. "Look at her, Miss Pat. Isn't she the picture of an eminent authoress at a club reception?"
Patricia smiled and opened her lips, but the words died away, as Bruce, now with a gayety that bespoke a different sort of announcement, mounted the model stand in the middle of the room, and rapped loudly for attention. Miss Jinny had vainly tried to grab his sleeve as he slipped past her and now stood with an expression of grim martyrdom glaring at Mr. Spicer, who was smiling at her openly and, Patricia thought, heartlessly.
"I have a postscript to add," smiled Bruce. "Sometimes, as you know, the postscript is of great importance."
He paused a moment till the silence was perfect and then he said, with a pretense of reading a notice from a sheet of paper:
"Mrs. Virginia P. Shelly announces the engagement of her daughter Virginia E. to Mr. Nathaniel Spicer, late of the Geological Survey——"
He got no further. Miss Jinny, who had won first place in the interest of the art community as Sinbad and kept it by her own wholesome goodness, was surrounded and overwhelmed. Patricia was the first to seize her unwilling hand.