“Now where in the name of fortune have I heard that voice before?” mused Patricia aloud. “Those thin high tones sound oddly familiar. I know! It was Mrs. Brock! But why should she telephone Rhoda?”
Patricia was still puzzling over the question when the door opened to admit Clarice in a dull rose dinner gown and a black fur jacket, followed by Mrs. Vincent, closely wrapped in a long, grey coat, her face drawn with pain.
“Clarice,” the chaperon was saying, as they paused to close the door, “tell Ivan when he comes that I’m sorry to break my engagement with him, but that I’m ill and have gone to bed.”
She hurried to her room, without even a glance at Patricia.
“How gay you are tonight,” observed Patricia, eyeing the rose-colored gown admiringly as the girl came over to the table.
“Isn’t the dress darling?” inquired Clarice, opening her jacket to display more fully the charms beneath it. “My father just sent it to me. You see,” perching on the corner of the table, and swinging her feet, “he’s just crazy for me to make good here, and graduate; and so long as I manage to stick, he’ll send me pretties every once in a while. On the other hand, if I’m flunked out,” with a careless laugh, “he threatens to send me off into the country to live with some old maid cousin whom I’ve never seen.”
While Patricia was searching for a suitable reply to this unusual confidence, the doorbell rang, and Clarice flew to answer it. A short, dark youth with bold black eyes, which were everywhere at once, stepped familiarly in as soon as the door was opened.
“Oh, Mr. Zahn,” said Clarice, without preamble, “Mrs. Vincent is sorry; but she has a bad tooth, and has gone to bed. So she won’t be able to go out with you.”
There was the faintest accent on the word she, as Clarice smiled mischievously upon the young man. Without a moment’s hesitation, he caught the suggestion and replied suavely:
“Then perhaps you would take her place?”
“Oh, I’ve got to work tonight,” laughed Clarice, “unless—” turning to glance inquiringly at Patricia, “are you going to be here all the evening?”
“Yes,” was the brief reply, as Patricia turned over the pages of a magazine, trying not to listen in on the conversation going on near the door.
“Then you wouldn’t mind taking my place, would you?” begged Clarice, clattering noisily across the polished floor on her high-heeled rose slippers to lean on the table and smile coaxingly at Patricia. “I’ll do the same for you some time.”
“All right,” replied Patricia, without enthusiasm, for she did not at all approve of Clarice’s going off with Mrs. Vincent’s friend; yet did not feel at liberty to try to dissuade the girl.
“Thanks, darling!” was Clarice’s grateful response. A hasty kiss on the tip of Patricia’s nose, a dash across the hall, the opening and closing of a door, and they were gone.
“I hope to goodness Mrs. Vincent doesn’t come out and ask for Clarice! I don’t know what I’d ever tell her,” said Patricia to herself, as she settled down to work.
An hour later when she went to her room for a note book, she paused to look out of the window at the big snowflakes which were floating lazily down from a partly clouded sky. To her intense surprise, she saw a man slinking along the path beside the dormitory, glancing up at its windows as he passed. A grey hat was pulled so far down on his head that she could not get a good look at his face; but his size, clothing, and general make-up led her to believe it was Norman Young. Since she had not turned on her light, it was safe to watch the man until he crossed the back yard and disappeared among the trees on Mrs. Brock’s lawn. That practically settled his identity.
Catching up the note book from her desk, she hurried back to the hall. What was Norman doing out there? Why did he look up at all the windows? Was there any connection between his actions and the mysterious telephone call earlier in the evening? No satisfactory answers presented themselves; so Patricia tried to force the troublesome problem out of her mind by settling to work in real earnest on the essay.
Half an hour later the sound of a door knob turning made her jump so violently that she knocked a big reference book onto the floor. Mrs. Vincent had opened her door and was crossing the hall.
“Now I’m in for it,” thought Patricia, stooping to pick up the heavy volume; but the chaperon seemed oblivious to the change of girls at the Black Book.
“My tooth is so bad,” murmured Mrs. Vincent, pressing her hand to her right cheek, “that I’m going over to my cousin’s,—he’s a dentist,—to see what he can do for it. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried out.
“Well,” thought Patricia, “now I certainly am alone here. The girls on the third floor are all up at Fine Arts making scenery for the play; and those from the second are ushering at the concert—all except Tiny.”
A little black-haired girl, whose size and delicate features suggested nothing so much as a lovely doll, had promptly been nicknamed by the girls of Arnold Hall. Nobody ever thought of calling her by her right name, Evelyn Stone.
“Seems to me I heard someone say she was ill. If I get this finished in time, I’ll run up and see her. No, I can’t either. I’ll have to stay with the Book and the telephone,” thought Patricia, writing rapidly.
Presently she stopped, sat up straight, and sniffed.
“I smell smoke!” she said aloud, getting up from the table and walking down the hall.
CHAPTER XIII
A FIRE
Patricia thrust her head into each room on her way down the corridor, but no trace of fire did she find until she reached the very end. There, in the room occupied by Frances and Katharine, flames were flickering around the window frames, apparently coming from outside. Quickly closing the door again to prevent a draft, she dashed to the telephone and called the Fire Department. Then she ran into her own room to look out of the window and see how much space the fire covered. The side of the house below Frances’ window was ablaze, and tongues of flame were creeping steadily up the frame building.
“Tiny’s room is directly over Frances’!” was the thought which flashed through Patricia’s brain.
Darting back into the hall and up the stairs, two steps at a time, Patricia burst into Evelyn’s room crying:
“Get up quickly!” She pulled the covers off of the astonished little girl. “There’s a fire.”
“I can’t get up; I’m too weak!” whimpered Evelyn.
“You’ve got to!” replied Patricia, snatching up a heavy bathrobe, pulling the girl up from her pillows, and forcing her arms into the sleeves. “Now come—quick.”
Still Evelyn hesitated; so Patricia literally dragged her out of bed, and, grasping her firmly from behind, pushed the reluctant girl out to the stairs. There, overcome by fright and weakness, Evelyn sat down on the top step. Without wasting any more words, Patricia grabbed her by the ankles, pulled her all the way down the long, straight flight of stairs, and landed her on the rug at the foot of them just as the fire apparatus clattered up to the house. Clutching Evelyn under the arms, Patricia dragged her into the parlor, rolled her onto some cushions before the fireplace, threw a rug over her, and ran out to consult with the Fire Chief who was already in the hall.
“Shall we have to get out?” inquired Patricia, somewhat breathlessly.
“Hardly think so. Seems to be confined to back corner. Keep all doors closed,” was the man’s curt reply, as he directed his assistants who were bringing in extinguishers and hose.
Immediately a huge crowd assembled and some policemen were trying to keep the excited people far enough away from the house; even the students who lived in the Hall were not allowed