CHAPTER III

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      For two midnight black minutes the gay little throng at Mary Elizabeth’s popular tea-room vanished into a medley of color and sound without meaning to Patricia Merrill's startled ears and eyes, while the chrysanthemums in the many paned windows swam like motes in the color of the room. Her head began to reel, and a queer faintness and fright possessed her, as one who finds herself suddenly upon the brink of a bottomless abyss, with more momentum on than can be instantly controlled. It was as if she swayed there uncertainly for long fractions of time anticipating a fatal plunge, which was inevitable, no matter how hard she tried to save herself. Then, gropingly, her fingers found the glass of ice water just replenished by an observing attendant who was a judge of duvetyne and moleskin and had an eye for high finance.

      The cold touch of the glass to her lips, the frosty trickle of the water down her newly parched throat, brought her back to her senses once more to ask herself what had brought her to this startled brink of fear. Then over her wearied senses rolled the answer almost stalely. Why! It was only that she was alone in a great and strange city without funds! Ten cents between her and starvation! A paltry dime between her and the street! It seemed somehow trifling beside the great sorrow that had brought her on this sudden pilgrimage. After all, what was money? Just a thing with which you bartered for more things! One could get along without things. At least without many of them! Hadn't she always managed without pocket money when her allowance ran out before the month was up, and without borrowing, too! Her father had hated borrowing and had succeeded in making her hate it also. Of course she had her board at the school, but surely there must be a way for an able-bodied girl to earn her bread in a great city. Of course there would be! She had once helped another girl with her lessons at school and earned enough to get through till allowance time without asking her father for any in advance. There would surely be some way. Of course there were friends to whom she might apply, but they were out of the question because her hiding might be revealed, and father wouldn't like it to have any one know she had come away so peculiarly. No, she must meet the emergency herself, and she would!

      She set her firm young lips and straightened up self-reliantly the warm blood rushing back into its normal course once more as her fears vanished into the sunshine of the day, and the chrysanthemums and pretty ladies resolved themselves sanely into their proper relations. She was able to look about her calmly, and face the situation. She had been a fool, of course, to be so absent minded as to let her money all get away from her so swiftly. She just hadn't been thinking of money. Of course if she had counted it at the start and set out to save, she might have eaten toast and tea on the train, and have even traveled in the common car. That was probably what people did who earned their own living. She would have had enough to carry her through the first day or two comfortably if she had done that. But there was no use crying over spilled milk. The money was gone and she must get out and find a way to earn her living. She had not an idea in the world what she could do, for she had not been educated with such an end in view. She had fluttered about in her studies from science to literature, and arts, about as a butterfly in a garden goes from flower to flower, looking at them all as curious amusements, not at all connected with her daily living. She had never really taken an hour of her schooling seriously, although she had been a bright student as students go. But as for any practical knowledge that she could turn to now as a help in her need, it was as alien to her as a strange tongue. She tried to think what she could do – what other girls did who had to earn their living. Anne Battell had been a statistician, and was now in a fine position, getting a fabulous salary. But Anne had been training all her school life with this object in view. Norah Vance was doing interior decorating with a big department store in Chicago. Elinore had gone to China to teach music in a college. Theodora and Emilie Whiting were in some social work, and that plain little Mary Semple, who worked in the college office for her board, was a stenographer somewhere. But they all had got ready for some life work, while she, Patty Merrill, had only been getting ready to go home and have a good time. It seemed she had for years just been existing till she could get home and enjoy being with her people, and now that she had got there, there wasn’t any home nor any love nor any people for her. Even her father was away off in almost another world, and there was no telling whether they, any of them, even really belonged to her at all more than in name. It was all dreadful and suffocating and she must not think about it. There were tears swelling up her throat and bursting into her eyes, and that good-looking young man at the second table to the right was looking curiously at her. In a moment he would see those tears – he half-suspected them now – he had no right to look at her so curiously! She must brace up and stop the tears! It was all nonsense anyway! There was work somewhere for her and she would just go out and find it! She would scare up something just as she used to scare up a costume out of nothing in a sudden emergency for a play sometimes only three minutes before the curtain rose. She would go out and try the first thing she came to. Maybe she would go up some front steps and ring a doorbell and ask for something! Why not! Anyhow she must get out of here into the cool air and conquer those foolish tears!

      With a little motion of proud self-reliance she gathered up her gloves smilingly, paid her check with a curious glance of awe at the lonely silver piece sliding about in the otherwise empty purse and calmly made her way out of the crowded room, head held high, followed by the admiring glance of the aforesaid young man. There was not a sign about her from the tip of her coral and fur toque to the tip of her suede-shod feet that she was going out to seek her fortune, else I'm sure from his eyes he might have followed her. Coolly she turned up the avenue when she reached the door, and made her way as if she had had it all planned out beforehand, and walked on up among the gay shoppers.

      The way seemed interesting and beautiful, and she was not unduly impressed by her situation, now that she was out in the sunshine again with the clear, bright autumn air tingling her cheeks. There would be a way, and this was an adventure. Since home was not what she had hoped and she needs must have come away alone, why not make a game of it? There would be a way out somehow. There always had been, although, truth to tell there had never been anything really terrible to face before. Somehow that very fact made it hard to believe that this was a truly serious occasion. She felt as though perhaps it might be just a long dream after all and she might wake up soon and find Evelyn calling her to get ready for that house party. Things were queer anyway. Here she was away off here, and but for her own act of going away – but for her having come downstairs at that very minute when Evelyn thought she was gone and began to speak – she would have been at that house party at this very minute, smiling and talking and having a good time with a lot of nice people and never thinking of such a thing as that some people in the world had to earn their living. It was queer, too, that she had to be bothered just now with finding some work to do when she needed all her time and faculties to think about what had happened to her. Queer that she couldn't have time to feel bad when a terrible thing had happened just because she had to find things to put in her mouth, and a place to sleep nights. The whole world was a queer place. It had often struck her so before, at odd times, when things hadn't gone just right and when that ache for home had come in and spoiled things; but now it seemed that everything was queer, and hard, and always had been.

      On up the avenue the shops grew less fascinating, and churches lifted frequent spires with fretwork of marble, and gothic arch. And now great piles of marble, ornate and stately, cluttered up a whole block here and there, intruding on the busy life, like selfish canines who have squatted in the way of traffic, and are too indifferent to care that they are impeding progress. Indifferently she recognized that these were mansions where her kind condescended to spend a few days or weeks now and then when business or pleasure caused them to alight briefly from their flitting pursuit of pleasure. What if she should walk up to one of them and demand employment? Well,