"I'm awfully glad," said Patricia, recovering herself first and beginning to realize the joyfulness of the astounding news. "Let me tell them, will you?"

It was not until all the guests had gone, and David and his friends had taken their reluctant leave with fervid promises of speedy reunion at Greycroft, and the packers had disappeared with the big canvas and the cartoons [Transcriber's note: cartons?], and Hannah Ann and Henry had reduced everything to a state of perfection that even the most critical Symons in the world could not cavil at, and Bruce had said his last farewells and was on the blue rug at the studio door with his hand on the knob to usher them out, that Patricia found utterance for her seething thoughts.

"I may be a believer in votes for women," she said solemnly, clasping her vanity case so hard that she unconsciously shattered its clasp. "I may be a yellow suffragist, as Judy calls me, but I must say, men can make things mighty comfortable for you."

There was a shout of amazed laughter, but Patricia persisted:

"Look at us last fall before we discovered David; look at us now; look at Miss Jinny; look at Elinor's canvas—which she couldn't have dreamed of doing if Miss Auborn had been chaperoning her! I tell you, men have ways of doing things that hit the spot, and I think it's a shame they don't get the credit for it."

Bruce cocked his head mischievously at her.

"Are you going to promulgate that doctrine at the Suffrage League?" he asked, beginning to turn the knob.

"Yes, I am—if I ever go there," returned Patricia with great spirit. "But I shan't have time for a long while. I'm going to raise chickens with Miriam Halden this summer, and I've got to start in right away with the plans for the houses and yards."

Bruce flung the door wide.

"Well, we're turning another page of our lives," he said with a backward glance at the rooms where they had been so busy and so happy. "Who can say what will be written there?"