"You ought to be taking more care of yourself," she said, with concern. "You're tired to death, and yet you come out of your way to see about Elinor. You look dreadfully fagged."
Doris smiled wanly. She laid an impulsive hand on Patricia's arm and opened her pretty lips, but before the words came she evidently obeyed another differing impulse, for she underwent a subtle change, an imperceptible hardening that was so delicately veiled by her still gracious manner that Patricia had only a baffling sense of being gently shut out from her real confidence.
"I've been working on my panel study," she said, with an effort at brightness. "I don't seem to get it finished to my liking, and the time is getting perilously short, you know."
Patricia looked her surprise. "Why, I thought you hadn't started it yet. You said you'd rush it off at the last moment without a bit of trouble."
"That's the way I usually do," assented Doris evenly. "But I'm going out of town on Saturday, and I have to turn it in before I leave tomorrow night. I'll stay home and work on it in the morning, so I shan't see you perhaps before I go."
She said good-night absently, and Patricia, watching her hurry down the frosty street, found herself wondering at the subtle barrier that she could feel so keenly, while she yet tried to disbelieve.
"I wonder what she was going to say?" she thought, as she went slowly up to Judith's room, where she was to spend the night. "It can't be my imagination this time, for she actually did start to speak, and then stopped." She frowned and then her face cleared. "What a stupid I am—always getting up in the air about trifles! Doris Leighton is tired to death, and wanted to get home. She was just as pleasant as ever, even though she didn't have time or strength to be as sociable as she'd liked. If she hadn't felt an interest in Elinor, she'd not troubled to bring her keys back tonight. I hope she makes good with her prize study, now that she's gotten an idea for it. She's a stunning worker when she goes at it."
She tiptoed softly in to Elinor, who was sleeping quietly, and she stood looking down at the sweep of eyelash and rounded cheek that the low-turned light caught out from the jumbled masses of dark hair.
"Dear old Norn," she thought fondly. "You'll be at the head of the night life, too, some day, like Doris is now, and you'll be cleverer than any of them, for you aren't ever a bit cocked up about yourself." Her eyes grew wide with thought. "That's the reason," she whispered triumphantly, "that you're going to be a howling success—you've got time to care about all the other things in life first, to think about them and to enjoy them. And that means O-RIG-INAL-ITY. You've got more ideas now than any of those old stagers, you adorable duck!" she ended, so overcome by her feelings that she dropped on her knees by the couch and pressed her warm lips on the dark hair.
Elinor merely stirred and mumbled something indistinct, much to the contrite Patricia's relief.