Then Marjorie remembered that her father had be come president of a great corporation to-day; he could have his estate and perhaps would have been arranging for one now for her mother and her, if Doctor Grantham hadn't had a slow-thinking girl in his office the night Mrs. Russell telephoned for help; and she, Marjorie, would be with her mother, happily rushing off to Europe again or she would be at home in her room, dreaming of the dignity of the new Hale estate.
Would she exchange places with that girl she had been? She had told Gregg "no" even before she had left home and now, at the end of her first day as an inhabitant of the building, the number of which Mr. Dantwill had so emphatically leaded over, she cried to herself "no" again. Here she had come to escape her protected life, the life which all men she had known from Billy to Rinderfeld, and including even the casual Mr. Dantwill, had wished her to continue to know, and to know that alone. Of course, this first excursion from it had hurt her; but already she was liking the sting of her hurts; certainly she was not going to quit and run back because of them; no, what was unknown and forbidden to her she was to explore.
And already she found herself smiling at memory of herself with her best friend, Clara of Evanston, discussing what they had considered difficulties and what had formed for them "realities"; and she imagined Clara of Augusta and Clearedge Streets, overhearing them; and she tried to think what Clara would say. She went over to look down on Clara Selitz' face in sleep; beautiful it was; softer a little, but no less strong and resolute; she had to carry character with her all the time, that girl, Marjorie realized; and she had, till she had achieved what truthfully was a "fine" face;
