She kept to this wise decision and whenever she found herself beginning to pose as a being enlightened through suffering she made a face at herself in the quaint mirror and ran away to do something "plain and practical" for someone. And so the days sped and Judith came back from Rockham full of news and wondering greatly at the change in her dear Miss Pat. "You're awfully meek now, aren't you?" she asked her suddenly, after Judith's little trunk had been unpacked and the things stowed in the most convenient drawers. "You used to be nice, but you didn't give up to younger persons like you do now." Patricia started to say that she had learned a great lesson, but she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and she said instead that she was treating Judith as a guest now, and so she had to be polite. Judith was only half convinced. She had not been studying people's faces and searching for meanings in their expressions all these months for nothing. The tales about Rockham alone would have sharpened her to that extent. "You're different," she said positively. "And I don't know whether I like you better or not. You seem too good to be true, somehow." Patricia's derisive laughter only made her more emphatic. "You aren't half so gay as you were, and you practice as though you were doing a lesson instead of because you couldn't help it, like you used to," she declared. "You're nice to that gorgeous Rosamond Merton and you let her wipe her feet on you every time you go in there. I've seen how meek you are. If it wasn't you," she said with a pucker in her brow, "I'd think you were up to something. Why don't you sing like you used to?" Patricia said that she had been at a song, but it was not to be known, and she made Judith promise not to tell Constance or anyone else at home before she would sit down at the shining piano Bruce had got a musical friend to select for her, and sang the song through to its end. Judith still looked puzzled. "It's lovely, of course. Your voice always is," she said loyally. "But somehow it doesn't _ring_. The glad sound has gone out of it. That's it!" Patricia had been knowing it herself ever since she had realized that Tancredi was only keeping her for friendship's sake, and it had been almost too much to bear alone. Without thinking, she blurted it out. "I can't really sing, after all, Ju," she told her passionately. "Tancredi is only keeping me on for this quarter and then she'll let me down." Judith was aghast, but she kept her head. "When did she tell you?" she demanded sharply. "She hasn't just exactly told me in words," confessed Patricia. "But she's shown me very clearly. And Madame Milano hasn't ever asked to see me again, though I know she's seen Rosamond twice since I went to the 'Hour' at her hotel. If I hadn't been with Bruce and Elinor to hear her in opera every time she sang, I'd never known she was in New York at all."