LITMIR.BIZ

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debutante invitation. Everyone leaned forward to hear.

      Lynn laid her half-eaten sandwich on her plate and got quietly to her feet. Nobody seemed to notice when she did so. Nobody said, “Hi, Lynn, don’t go away! Come on and sit down here. It’s no fun talking about things unless you’re here to hash them over, too.” Everyone was intent on the girl at the end of the table.

      As she finished her story, laughter broke out again, and this time it was Brenda Peterson who said something, hesitantly, in that bland little voice of hers. Lynn could not hear what it was, but again there was laughter.

      With a shrug of irritation, Lynn walked away from the table and out of the cafeteria.

      She wandered aimlessly across the schoolyard. Here and there were knots and groups of students, laughing and talking, but none of them were people she knew very well. In a little group over by the fence, she saw Dodie and her friend Janie and several other girls from their particular junior class branch of the Hill crowd.

      Dodie looked up as she passed and started to say something and then, catching the look on her sister’s face, evidently thought better of it

      Entering the building, Lynn went to her locker and located her Spanish book. There was an empty classroom several doors down. She went in and sat down at one of the desks and began her next day’s translation. She had already completed two pages when the bell rang to announce that lunch hour was over.

      And that was the way it went, that day and the next and the next.

      It’s as though I were a stranger, Lynn told herself bitterly. I don’t seem to belong any more.

      It was not that her old friends were intentionally ignoring her. On the contrary, they were especially pleasant whenever she was with them.

      “What a darling dress, Lynn! Where in the world did you get it?”

      “That math test was a humdinger, wasn’t it! How do you think you did on it?”

      “What do you hear from Paul, Lynn? Is he coming home for Thanksgiving or will you have to wait until Christmas?”

      It was nice talk, friendly talk, the way it had always been, but there was something missing. The element of spontaneity. They could no longer jabber away in complete ease when Lynn was with them, because the main topic of conversation these days was the first debutante party, to be held the following weekend, at Joan’s house. And Lynn would not be there.

      “I wish you were coming,” Joan said sincerely, giving her friend an apologetic smile. “I feel like a dog, having a party without you, Lynn. Why, it’s the first time I can ever remember our doing anything when you weren’t right there, the center of everything. It’s going to seem awfully flat without you.”

      “No, it won’t,” Lynn said lightly. “Not a dinner dance! Why, it will be perfectly marvelous, Joan; it can’t help but be.”

      “I wish you were coming,” Joan said again. But she seemed happy enough to turn the conversation to another subject.

      As the day of the party grew nearer, Lynn found herself withdrawing more and more from the crowd on one pretext or another and spending her time alone. She deliberately arrived at school after the first bell in the morning, so there was no time to join in the pre-school conversation on the left side of the school steps. She ate lunch quickly at the noon hour and managed to slip away before she could get swept into the lunch table conversation. Once out of the cafeteria, she usually located an empty classroom or went to the library and spent the remainder of the hour studying. During gym class, she dressed quickly and played hard, keeping free from the little groups of girls that gathered to gossip before the mirrors in the dressing room or in clusters under the trees that lined the playing field.

      She could give no good reasons for her actions. It was not that she was angry with the girls themselves. She knew they wanted her with them. It was more a feeling of defense. If she could not be in on everything, then she would rather not be in on anything at all. It was better, much better, to be walking by yourself of your own free will than to be in the midst of a crowd that was concentrated on things in which you could have no part.

      Strangely, it was Dodie who sensed this. She did not say much, but once in a while she came out with a remark that surprised Lynn by its perception.

      “You can’t just cut away completely, you know,” she said once, in her sharp way. “Everybody has to belong to something.”

      And another time—“Are you and Nancy on the outs? I never see you together any more.”

      “No,” Lynn answered shortly, “we’re not ‘on the outs,’ as you so crudely put it. We’re just doing different things.”

      “Oh?” Dodie gave her a keen glance. “Well, I know what Nancy is doing, being neck deep in all this debutante business; but what are you doing? You’re not even in the Art Club this year, are you?”

      “No,” Lynn admitted.

      The Art Club was the favorite school club of those from the Hill. Almost everyone belonged, whether he could draw or not, simply because it was the thing to do. The club made posters for school functions, had lecturers in to discuss different forms of art and made trips to museums and art galleries in surrounding towns. Lynn had belonged to it for two years, because, aside from the fun of being with everyone else, she enjoyed art. She liked the trips to art galleries for their own sake, and she herself had a nice knack with a pencil or charcoal. The Art Club had always been a favorite project with her, and the year before she had been its vice-president. This year, she had gone to one meeting. Elections were held. Holly Taylor was elected president; Holly’s steady Don Pearce, vice-president; and Brenda Peterson, secretary.

      “I don’t understand,” Lynn had whispered to Nancy with a bitterness she had never felt before. “The person who was vice-president last year is always elected president. It’s kind of an unwritten rule.”

      “I know,” Nancy answered uncomfortably. “It’s just—well, Lynn, maybe they think you’re not as interested in the old crowd as you used to be. You really do seem kind of aloof with everybody these days.”

      “Well, maybe I do,” Lynn said, “but what difference should that make? This is an art club, not a social club. I’m as interested in the art side of the club as I ever was.”

      She had walked out of the room after the meeting was over with her head high and her eyes defiant. But she had not gone back.

      “I’m just not very interested in the club any more,” she said to Dodie. “Especially when Brenda Peterson is an officer.” Dodie had given her a long, knowing look, but she had not bothered to answer.

      It was during one of her lonely lunch periods that Lynn had her first conversation with Anne Masters. She had left the cafeteria early and was entering the school building when Anne spoke to her.

      Lynn whirled in surprise.

      “What?”

      “I said hi,” Anne said a little shyly. “I—I wondered how you thought you did on the Spanish quiz.”

      “Oh, fairly well, I think,” Lynn answered. “I’ve been doing a lot of studying lately.”

      She turned and looked at Anne. Although she had known the girl casually ever since they had started high school, it was the first time she had really looked at her, and she was a little surprised at what she saw. Anne Masters was not a pretty girl in the accepted sense of the word. She was small and thin, with eyes a little too large in her narrow face and not enough color in her cheeks. But there were other things about her that were quite lovely. There was a clean, honest openness about her face, and a sweet curve to her mouth, and a very feminine daintiness about her movements. She looked back at Lynn and smiled, and there was a quiet friendliness about her that could not be denied.

      After a second’s hesitation, Lynn came over and sat down beside her on one of the benches in front of the school building.

      “How do you think you

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