A good-natured, whole-some looking young man in the clothes of a calendar, with a patch on his right eye, laid aside his long-necked lute and rose with a bow.
"I'm usually known as Herbert Lester, Miss Kendall," he said, smiling as he led her to the dancing floor. "Sinbad can tell you that my mother was an old friend of your aunt. I've just learned that you and your sister are students here. Have you seen the Haldens? They were asking me about you a moment before the intermission, and I was commissioned to hunt you up when I ran into the circle there in the divan and was hypnotized by Sinbad's wonderful sea tales."
He rattled on all through the dance, Patricia getting in only a few words here and there, and when the music stopped he steered her to a particularly gay group under a big palm in a corner, and introduced her to the two Halden girls and their mother, and then went off in search of Elinor and Miss Jinny.
Patricia found the Haldens, mother and daughters, so much to her mind that she was full of regret that she had not met them earlier. They were kindly, whole-hearted people who lived without any quarrel with life, and Patricia, as well as Elinor and Miss Jinny, rejoiced openly in the prospect of a summer together in dear old Rockham.
They parted, at the end of the sumptuous supper in the transformed ante-chamber, with a thousand plans for the coming season and a strong sense of enrichment in the friendship of these sincere and attractive neighbors.
"What do you think of the artists now?" asked Patricia, leaning back in the carriage as they were being whirled homeward. "Are they such serious people as you thought them, Norn?"
"They're so mighty much in earnest that they'll break their necks to do a thing right," retorted Miss Jinny with spirit. "It's their being so serious that makes them play so well."
Elinor smiled assent, and Miss Jinny went on.
"When folks are sure a thing's worth while, they make it go. Think of how that same party would have slumped if everybody hadn't felt it was the most serious thing in the world to make it real." Then, with a sudden pounce, she changed the subject. "I've seen your wonderful Doris Leighton, Miss Pat, and I must say I don't take very much stock in her."
Patricia felt that same indefinite sense of loss and disillusionment which had haunted her earlier in the evening, and she shrank back into her corner without a word, fearing that Miss Jinny's clear vision might after all substantiate her shadowy misgivings.