“Yes, and they couldn’t have a better pattern, Gloria.”
“Oh, well, you are as bad as the rest. Please go and leave me. There’s no use. I haven’t anybody—go quickly, please——”
“Now, Gloria, you’ve been saying the strangest things. From your very odd remarks I gather that if I—didn’t like you much, you’d think that made me a better confidante. Now, I can’t hate you even to please you. I like you—awfully much—and did from the moment you came into our room at the beginning of the year——”
“It has nothing to do with my being president?”
“Not a thing in the world!”
With a little shuddering sob, Gloria reached for Peggy’s hand, and in an instant her shaking shoulders were held fast in Peggy’s reassuring clasp.
“Everybody looks up to me so——”
“Yes,” said Peggy, “and they ought.”
“They ought not! Peggy, it wasn’t good for me, such sudden prominence! At home where I lived I was just one of a good many. I went abroad and traveled around and did not have an opportunity to establish much of a place for myself with any group. My father and mother are indulgent, but I’ve often heard my mother say she wished I didn’t have red hair. And here the girls are crazy about it——”
Peggy smoothed the radiant hair in question, while a sudden smile curved her crooked little mouth.