"I wonder," she said, wrinkling her brows, "if Doris Leighton was afraid I'd garnish my panel with any of her ideas; she was so unnaturally stirred up about it."
Patricia, with her mind wholly on her own absorbing business, gave scant attention.
"She's rattled for fear she won't take the prize as usual," she said, gayly. "I bet she opens her eyes when she sees yours, Norn. Hers may be lots better done, but it simply can't be as lovely and as different."
She pushed her bulky package carefully across the curator's counter, with an eager request that it be tenderly treated, and that official reassured her as to its entire safety by placing it at once in the locked ante-room where the modeling competition studies were stored.
"When will the prizes be announced?" she asked breathlessly, as the door clicked in its lock. "Shall we have to wait long?"
The curator smiled at her eagerness. "The library panel will be announced at noon on Tuesday in the first antique room," he said. "And the modeling class will be notified immediately before, while the class is still in session."
Patricia shivered with excited anticipation as they closed the heavy outer door of the Academy after them.
"Jiminy, I wish Tuesday were here and over!" she said fervently. "I'm scared stiff when I think of my poor little study with all those artists focusing their eagle eyes on it."
"It does seem ages to wait," agreed Elinor. "After I turn mine in tomorrow morning, I'll be consumed with curiosity to see the others—particularly Doris Leighton's."