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 in the jolly, hail-fellow style which went straight to her bruised heart and soothed her wounded feelings sooner than she knew. She kept her place at the little table in the cafe with Rosamond, of course, but after the first day she did not go into her room at tea-time, going instead into the big room downstairs where the girls and their guests came every afternoon to consume thin bread and butter, and innumerable cups of tea and packs of petite-beurres. Rosamond had thought her own dainty service with an exclusive friend all that could be desired, but Patricia rejoiced in the atmosphere of the club room with its great grand piano and the groups of interested girls, with a sprinkling of equally interested and clever guests. The steaming, gleaming samovar with Doris Leighton's friendly face behind it brought a warmth to her heart the first afternoon that Constance had insisted on her cutting the hour with Rosamond and going with her to the tea-room below. She found the easy chat and gay banter of the friendly groups the more to her taste, because she had come from a rather trying quarter of an hour in Rosamond's room, where Mary Browne--with an _e_ as she always explained carefully--was being shown the purchases which had seemingly consoled Rosamond for her withdrawal.