“No,” murmured the matron, still with that look of doubt and distaste. “This isn’t one of my girls at all. Are you—perhaps—a friend of Miss Hazeltine’s?”
“I hope I’m one of her best friends,” said Peggy quickly. “And”—with a quick smile that said it all—“I’m a freshman.”
“Well, I—don’t know,” hesitated the matron.
The other woman frowned. “I want my money to-day,” she demanded.
Peggy shivered as if she had suddenly been brought in touch with something ugly and sordid, something meant to remain without her share of experience.
She was torn between the feeling that she had no business, in justice to Gloria, to listen to any more—and the desire, the need to keep Gloria away from the menace of this woman’s eyes.
She felt that Gloria was even less able to meet and cope with this strange un-college-like situation than she, Peggy.
For Gloria seemed of finer clay, and she herself—what was she but just an everyday young person, glad to be alive and curious about everything that life might hold,—happy or otherwise?
Perhaps Gloria would hate her for stumbling upon a situation like this which didn’t concern her.
“I think,” she said to the pained matron, “I think I’d better get Gloria. She’s in there——” Then, with an inspiration, she turned suddenly upon the unpleasant woman.