"But, my dear child, you know she won't make either society! She's too indifferent—she doesn't care enough. And she's off the campus, and she doesn't go out anywhere, and she is always alone, and that speaks for itself—"
"Oh, I'm tired of talking about her! Stop it, Kate, and get some crackers, that's a dear! Or I'll get them myself," and Patsy was in the hall.
Kate shook her head wisely at the bureau. "Something's in the air," she said softly. "Patsy is bothered. So is Neal. And there are plenty of crackers on the window-seat!"
Miss Margaret Sewall Pattison sauntered slowly down the stairs. For one whose heart was set on crackers she seemed strangely indifferent to the hungry girls standing about the pantry with fountain pens and lecture books and racquets and hammocks under their arms. She walked by them and out of the door, stood a moment irresolutely on the porch, and then, as she caught sight of Cornelia Burt coming out of the dormitory just beyond, she hurried out to meet her.
"Busy this hour, Neal?" she said.
"No," said Cornelia, briefly. "Where shall we go?"
"We can go to the property box and get some clothes," said Patsy, "and talk it over there."
In the cellar of the gymnasium it was cool and dim. The beams rose high above their heads, and a musty smell of tarlatan and muslin and cheese-cloth filled the air. Patsy sat on an old flower-stand, and pushed Cornelia down on a Greek altar that lay on its side with a faded smilax wreath still clinging to it.
"What did she say to you, Neal?" she asked.
Neal looked at the floor. "She was lovely, but I didn't half appreciate it. I was so bothered and—vexed. Pat, I didn't know the Faculty ever did this sort of thing, did you?"