But nevertheless prayer.

All that day she went about quietly, almost humbly, feeling a strange uncertainty in herself. It was as if somehow she had discovered depths in herself that had never been sounded. She even went to church, though there was nothing in the stately service nor the eloquent and intellectual sermon to remind her of anything that had happened at Easter time. Yet she sat during the whole time and tortured herself with thoughts of it, like a man wearing a hair shirt as penance.

Doris, never long to hold a grudge, came out of her sulks and tried to start a little fun. Constance stayed sweet and gentle but somehow aloof. Doris tried various methods but found Constance still disinterested, absentminded, and at last with an uneasy stare at her, Doris went out of the room to seek more lighthearted companions.

Chapter 7

There was one outcome of the Saturday night dance for which Constance was grateful. She was no longer obsessed by Seagrave’s reproachful eyes. Scorn and indignation at Thurlow Wayne had taken its place. She hated the thought of Thurlow Wayne. Not so much for what he was as because he had made her see into her own heart and shown her own ugliness and sin.

She tried to blame it all on him, but her honest mind would not stand for that, and over and over again in her leisure moments she reenacted that evening, going over just where she had made her mistakes, trying to think just what she should have said and done. Scathing sentences scorched to her lips from a heart hot with annoyance. How she would have enjoyed showing him how she despised him! There was only one thing that kept her from arranging a meeting with him somehow and doing it and that was that she had learned also to despise herself.

But the days were very full of duties, and Constance was a conscientious student and worker. Also, because she was clever and a good executive, she had many burdens heaped upon her willing hands, and she was glad to have it so. It was easier to get back her old happy ease and self-content.

Now and then a hint of worry about Doris crossed her mind. For Doris was hurried and excited, and Doris kept out of her way a good deal. Often she suspected that Doris was out with Casper Coulter, for when she questioned her there would be only an evasive answer.

“Con isn’t like herself,” she heard Doris say one day down in the hall, talking to a group of classmates, just as Constance approached the stairs above. Doris’s voice was a carrying one, and the halls had many echoes. “She’s really got religion, I guess. She’s as long-faced and fussy. It’s too bad she couldn’t have waited till after commencement. She’s spoiled no end of good times for me just because she’s getting so straitlaced. She’s actually made Thurlow Wayne think she’s a regular dumbbell. I never knew her to be so before in all the years we’ve been together.”

Constance, stung by the tone and the words both, turned quickly and walked back to her room, her eyes full of sudden hurt. Doris! Her friend! Oh, what was the matter with everything? And it had all started with Easter Sunday and the pearls. No, it had started with the shabby stranger with the searching eyes and the radiant face.

She stood looking out of the window and far away over the campus till suddenly she heard Doris’s voice ring out again, in a greeting, and there was a lilt in her tone that made Constance lean over the windowsill and look down. Who was it that had stirred Doris’s voice to that joyous note?

She looked and saw it was Casper Coulter again, and her heart sank. Was Doris really interested in him after all her protestations to the contrary? Oh, she ought to try to do something to stop that intimacy. Only yesterday she had heard some of the girls telling how drunk he had been at a weekend party some of them had attended in one of the suburbs.

She watched them an instant, the trouble growing in her eyes. The young man took Doris’s hands possessively in his own and held them longer than was necessary. He looked deep into her eyes.