"It would be jolly enough, but how about the cost?" she asked frankly. "I can't stand many extras, you know. I'm rather poor as far as cash is concerned." Miss Merton paused with her hand on the receiver. "You surely didn't think I was intending you to pay for my treat," she said in such a gently grieved tone that Patricia became most uncomfortable. "It's sweet of you to ask me," she said with a good deal of courage. "And I can't be horrid enough to refuse this first time, but I do want you to understand that I can't spend money like you do. I'm not really stingy, as you may think--I'm only trying to be careful. I'm so afraid of being selfish." Her speech was rather unintelligible to Rosamond, who could not know of Bruce's compact with Patricia, but she smiled pleasantly and took down the receiver. "I don't think you could be stingy or selfish or anything that wasn't sweet," she said and then proceeded to announce to Miss Tatten that Miss Kendall and she were dining in their own rooms that evening, and would she please see that dinner was sent up promptly at six-thirty, adding a list of dishes that seemed to the anxious Patricia recklessly expensive. The dinner was great fun, however, and Patricia felt very pleasantly luxurious as she slipped into her new kimono, a poor affair indeed compared to the fur and crepe robe, and lounged before the fire listening to Rosamond's accounts of the travels and studies which had filled her life. "You must have been almost everywhere," she murmured admiringly. "You have seen such a lot--for a girl. I'm only two years younger, but I've never been to Niagara Falls, nor Hot Springs, nor the Tower of London----" A ripple of laughter broke in on her confession. "What a delicious jumble!" cried Rosamond, springing up to adjust a lock that had fallen. "One can't tell which is the place of confinement and which the playground. For Heaven's sake, though, don't _complain_ that you've never seen Niagara Falls, no self-respecting person nowadays is willing to confess that such a place even exists. It went out of date with the bridal bonnet and the what-not." Patricia laughed, but this troubled her, and later on she recurred to it while they were beginning on their salad. "Why shouldn't one see all the wonderful places and things in the world?" she asked. "I should think Niagara Falls was quite as important as those snippy little falls at that camp in the Adirondacks that you said were so much admired." Rosamond laid down her fork and looked at her very carefully. "Are you actually in earnest?" she inquired with a polite repression of any hint of a smile. "My dear Miss Patricia Kendall, you forget that the most exclusive families have their camps near that snippy falls, while only the cheap tourist makes the pilgrimage to Niagara."