Rosamond shook her head slowly and emphatically. "Not at all," she said calmly. "She thought she might like him well enough last fall, but he has developed such queer tastes recently--burying himself on that ridiculous chicken-farm and taking up with stupid little boys who develop measles when they run away from school to visit their benefactor, that she really has had quite enough of him without marrying him." Patricia was silent, puckering her brows over the problem of unrewarded virtue, while Rosamond Merton watched her with something like a twinkle in her long eyes. "It seems pretty hard that Mr. Long has to lose his happiness just because he's done right and been kind," she said finally, with a little sigh at the topsy-turvy ways of this wilful world. "He's saving Danny Sneath from growing up a horrid worthless man like his father--that's plain from Danny coming back on the sly to see him--and he's doing splendidly with Red Top, and yet he doesn't get what he wants." "He shouldn't want what he can't get then," smiled Rosamond, indulgent as far as Patricia was concerned. "Don't worry your pretty head about such stupid things--men always get over disappointments like that. He'll probably be in love with the next girl who happens to look at him twice. Tell me how you've been putting in the time since I ran off so unceremoniously. Have you been fearfully homesick?" Patricia abandoned Mr. Long and his deserts reluctantly. "He ought to be happy and I am sure he will," she insisted warmly. "People always get paid back in the same coin they use." A sudden memory of her own debt made her add, more shyly, "You ought to believe in that--after all the kindness you've shown me. And I do want you to know that I'm going to pay you back just a tiny bit some day. I don't know how, but I'm going to do it." Rosamond's slow smile answered her fully, and she plunged into an eager account of the way in which she had been taken into the inner circles of Artemis Lodge and made to feel so entirely at home. "They've been wonderfully nice to me," she said gayly. "I've had a splendid time each day, and my lessons have gone beautifully, too. I haven't had a single dull moment. I'm so grateful to you for taking me in." The little cloud which had slightly dimmed Rosamond's smile faded at these words and left her face serene. "We will have better times yet," she promised as she rose to glance at the clock in the tower across the housetops. "Let's begin by having dinner upstairs here by ourselves. I'll phone down to the office at once. Isn't it stupid to have to call up Tatten every time one wants a tray in one's room? They take great care of us here," and she shrugged her shoulders gracefully. Patricia feared that the expense of such select dining might be too much for her small store of funds and she was determined not to sail under false colors with this luxuriant companion.