"Nonsense! I'm her only hope," returned Patricia with spirit. "She won't amount to a row of pins if she goes on this way. Don't you worry about her feelings. She's got sense enough to know I'm right. Come along over to the Academy with me now. The walk will do you good, and I'll feel more respectable with a good-looking escort while I'm lugging this huge thing."
They met Doris Leighton coming out of the students' door, and after a few inquiries found that she had just accomplished the same errand that Patricia was bent on. Her study for the prize panel was safely stowed away in the office of the curator.
"What was it like?" eagerly demanded Patricia. "It doesn't matter now, you know, if you tell. We won't tell, and it's too late, anyway, to make any difference."
Doris hesitated, undergoing again that subtle change that Patricia had seen before.
"I think I'll wait till they're all in," she replied softly. "It will be better for us all to be able to say truthfully that we had no idea of what the others were like till after ours were in. Don't you think so?"
"Of course it will," agreed Elinor heartily. "I'm glad you thought of it. I'd much rather not know. Mine isn't finished yet, and I'm so new at the work that I might be influenced."
"I thought about that," said Doris with veiled eyes on Elinor's pale face. "I know how the same thought wave will pass through peoples' minds when they're working together, and I feel that one should be very careful not to influence another, particularly in a case like this."
"I'm not so sure that it makes a bit of difference," said Patricia carelessly. "I've heard of people miles apart having the same idea at the same time. Patents are always being duplicated, you know."
"Indeed they are!" cried Doris with singular fervor. "But the one who gets the idea first is always the real inventor. The jury wouldn't hesitate to decide on that, I'm positive, if anyone was so unfortunate as to turn in a duplicate of any of the studies."
After she had said good-bye and they Were waiting at the curator's desk, Elinor spoke musingly.