And Gloria’s face was swept with sudden color.
She turned startled eyes on Peggy’s laughing face. Then she shook her shoulders as if she might free herself from some unpleasant thought.
“I—wouldn’t be anywhere else—for a farm,” she said.
“Oh, well,” murmured Peggy to herself, “it wasn’t anything but my imagination. What could Gloria possibly have to bother her? Maybe she didn’t have her history or her Greek to-day. She’s just the one to mind it a lot, if she didn’t always excel in the classroom.”
After the wonderful ice-cream and the dear little French pastries had been consumed, with much delight by the girls and with wistful enjoyment on the part of Mrs. Moore, the check was laid by Gloria’s plate, with the deferential air the waitresses always used to a very good customer.
Gloria, without glancing at the total, motioned for a pencil, and scribbled her name and the name of her house across it.
Then she slid into the soft coat Katherine held for her, and while Peggy and Hazel and Myra were still busy patting Mrs. Moore into her things, she moved idly toward the stairs, her eyes glancing over the crowded dining-room as listlessly as if she were not a celebrity at all. Hushed groups watched her pass and admiration and affection shone in fifty pairs of eyes.
“Honestly, girls,” she caught a distinct murmur, “I just can’t talk while she’s going by. Did you ever see anything so wonderful?”
“She’s the best-looking girl in college,” came the rapt answer from another girl at the same table.
But this incense drifted past Gloria without making any particular impression.