in an added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one of her temperament.  She had been considered almost sure to be early invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the “pledged” girl; and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the fraternity member moved away again.  This atmosphere would have made no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more unimaginative than Sylvia’s (Judith, for instance, was not in the least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature.  It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health.  She fancied that every one despised her.  She imagined that people who were in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not “in the swim” as such a girl ought to be—­all girls worth their salt were.

Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by her impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personal dignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play of bald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered “good enough” to be invited into a sorority.  If only something definite would happen!  If there were only an occasion on which she might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to fraternities and their actions!  If only the miserable business were not so endlessly drawn out!  She threw herself with a passionate absorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, cut off both from the “elect” and from the multitude, a proudly self-acknowledged maverick.  She never lacked admiring followers among less brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not held them off at arm’s length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, required more delicate food.  She wished to be able to cry aloud to her world that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did to a considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of her contemporaries.  She, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, praise-craving Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half disliked, as proud and clever, and “high-brow,” and offish, and conceited, and so “queer” that she cared nothing for the ordinary pleasures of ordinary girls.