The moving was over sooner than she had thought possible. She was
settled in her room, and Rosamond had come over to declare it the
cosiest spot in the world, while Constance Fellows and Doris Leighton
had been in a couple of times on visits of congratulation before the
clock across the housetops spelled out her usual bed hour on its
illuminated face.

Patricia felt very strange as she put out the light and got into the
narrow bed with its transplanted canopy and frills, yet there was a
feeling of independence that was perhaps all the sweeter because she
would not acknowledge it.

"I'm more lonely than I ever was in my life," she told herself as her
head sank against her pillow.

But she forgot that she had said her prayers very thoroughly tonight,
which showed that she had passed the darkest spot of her loneliness, for
no one is quite desolate who can talk to God.

The next morning she awoke with a start, thinking she heard Rosamond
calling her, but all she saw was the bright spring sunshine flooding
into her pleasant, queer room, and all she heard was the trilling of the
girl across the hall, little Rita Stanford, whose mother had died since
Patricia had come to Artemis Lodge.

"Poor little brave thing," she thought with a warm rush of feeling,
"I'll ask her over to practice as soon as I get my piano."

All about her she heard sounds of life that the private stair had shut
her away from. Someone was unlocking her door and going whistling down
the corridor, and in the room next to her the girl was rushing about in
great haste, banging doors and slamming down the windows.

Rosamond would have sighed over such intimate contact with the rank and
file of student life. It charmed Patricia. She loved democracy, although
she had been shunning it ever since she had come to room with Rosamond
Merton, and she jumped out of bed with a lighter heart than she could
have dreamed possible the night before.

Unconsciously she had begun to fulfill Madame Milano's purpose in sending
her to Artemis Lodge.

CHAPTER XIII

THE TURNING POINT

It was very hard for Patricia to go over to Rosamond's room after
breakfast for her hour at the piano, but she did it so bravely that the
self-centered Rosamond never guessed how much it cost her.

That was her first unconscious victory over herself.

Next she found that the other girls, from whose comradeship Rosamond's
constant presence had barred her, now made room for her