"See here," interrupted Miss Jinny, cocking her eyes severely at Bruce. "I'm not going to have Patricia hobnobbing with those _Bohemians_!"
Bruce roared with laughter. "My dear Dragon!" he cried, "don't you be afraid of your precious charges. Grantly hasn't any time to waste on young 'uns like Miss Pat. He's _working_, I tell you, and he doesn't like young ladies, anyway. Her only chance would be to overhear him spouting to me, which if she's discreet she may occasionally be able to do."
"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Jinny subsiding. "Well, that's another matter. I don't object to that."
"Hope not," retorted Bruce amiably. "Now as to Elinor." He stopped for so many rings that Judith stirred and cleared her throat impatiently, whereon he grinned cheerfully at her and went on. "As to Elinor. She will keep on with the night life, but the rest of her time will be spent in the studio here, working on studies and cartoons for a big wall decoration for a church, and a stained glass window for the same church--a purely mythical one, my dear Dragon, but intended to develop our promising student more rapidly than the easygoing method of the schools. What do you say to the program, young ladies?"
Patricia smiled at Elinor's fervid response and Judith's calm approval, but she uttered never a word, though Bruce looked at her inquiringly.
"Well?" he said at last. "What's the verdict?"
"I think it is simply great," replied Patricia with a ripple of mirth. "I honestly do, Bruce. I'm going to have a gorgeous time, and I'm awfully grateful to you for it."
"Well?" he repeated. "That's not all you're thinking, Miss Pat. You're simpering at some hidden invention of your own, and you know it. Out with it or we'll put the X-rays on it."
Patricia flung a look at Miss Jinny. "Really and truly I haven't any secret to confess, Bruce. I was only thinking how very nice it was for us, Judy and me, that we had such a genius for a sister."
Miss Jinny's eyes twinkled, but Bruce flushed and flicked his cigar ash into the fire with a dexterous finger.
"What has that to do with your meek and lowly gratitude?" he asked with the trace of a smile.
"It has everything to do with all of us," responded Patricia promptly. "We're just the tail of the comet, you know."