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                    <Paragraph TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="36" Margin="0 0 0 12">
                        “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”
                        <LineBreak />
                        by
                        <LineBreak />
                        F. Scott Fitzgerald
                    </Paragraph>
                        
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                        After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of
                        the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow
                        expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this
                        ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies, a few
                        of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional's deaf
                        sister&#x2014;and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who
                        might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the
                        gallery.
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                        The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker
                        chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and
                        ballroom. At these Saturday-night dances it was largely feminine;
                        a great babel of middle-aged ladies with sharp eyes and icy
                        hearts behind lorgnettes and large bosoms. The main function of
                        the balcony was critical, it occasionally showed grudging
                        admiration, but never approval, for it is well known among ladies
                        over thirty-five that when the younger set dance in the
                        summer-time it is with the very worst intentions in the world,
                        and if they are not bombarded with stony eyes stray couples will
                        dance weird barbaric interludes in the corners, and the more
                        popular, more dangerous, girls will sometimes be kissed in the
                        parked limousines of unsuspecting dowagers.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
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                        But, after all, this critical circle is not close enough to the
                        stage to see the actors' faces and catch the subtler byplay. It
                        can only frown and lean, ask questions and make satisfactory
                        deductions from its set of postulates, such as the one which
                        states that every young man with a large income leads the life of
                        a hunted partridge. It never really appreciates the drama of the
                        shifting, semi-cruel world of adolescence. No; boxes,
                        orchestra-circle, principals, and chorus be represented by the
                        medley of faces and voices that sway to the plaintive African
                        rhythm of Dyer's dance orchestra.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        From sixteen-year-old Otis Ormonde, who has two more years at
                        Hill School, to G. Reece Stoddard, over whose bureau at home
                        hangs a Harvard law diploma; from little Madeleine Hogue, whose
                        hair still feels strange and uncomfortable on top of her head, to
                        Bessie MacRae, who has been the life of the party a little too
                        long&#x2014;more than ten years&#x2014;the medley is not only the centre of
                        the stage but contains the only people capable of getting an
                        unobstructed view of it.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        With a flourish and a bang the music stops. The couples exchange
                        artificial, effortless smiles, facetiously repeat 
                        "<Italic>la</Italic>-de-<Italic>da</Italic>-<Italic>da</Italic>dum-<Italic>dum</Italic>," 
                        and then the clatter of young feminine voices soars
                        over the burst of clapping.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        A few disappointed stags caught in midfloor as they had been
                        about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls, because
                        this was not like the riotous Christmas dances&#x2014;these summer
                        hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting, where
                        even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and
                        terrifying fox trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger
                        brothers and sisters.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren McIntyre, who casually attended Yale, being one of the
                        unfortunate stags, felt in his dinner-coat pocket for a cigarette
                        and strolled out onto the wide, semidark veranda, where couples
                        were scattered at tables, filling the lantern-hung night with
                        vague words and hazy laughter. He nodded here and there at the
                        less absorbed and as he passed each couple some half-forgotten
                        fragment of a story played in his mind, for it was not a large
                        city and every one was Who's Who to every one else's past. There,
                        for example, were Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest, who had been
                        privately engaged for three years. Every one knew that as soon as
                        Jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would
                        marry him. Yet how bored they both looked, and how wearily Ethel
                        regarded Jim sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained
                        the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren was nineteen and rather pitying with those of his friends
                        who hadn't gone East to college. But, like most boys, he bragged
                        tremendously about the girls of his city when he was away from
                        it. There was Genevieve Ormonde, who regularly made the rounds of
                        dances, house-parties, and football games at Princeton, Yale,
                        Williams, and Cornell; there was black-eyed Roberta Dillon, who
                        was quite as famous to her own generation as Hiram Johnson or Ty
                        Cobb; and, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides
                        having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was
                        already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in
                        succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had
                        long been "crazy about her." Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate
                        his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her
                        infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love
                        him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him
                        and had affairs with other boys. Warren found this discouraging,
                        especially as Marjorie had been making little trips all summer,
                        and for the first two or three days after each arrival home he
                        saw great heaps of mail on the Harveys' hall table addressed to
                        her in various masculine handwritings. To make matters worse, all
                        during the month of August she had been visited by her cousin
                        Bernice from Eau Claire, and it seemed impossible to see her
                        alone. It was always necessary to hunt round and find some one to
                        take care of Bernice. As August waned this was becoming more and
                        more difficult.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Much as Warren worshipped Marjorie he had to admit that Cousin
                        Bernice was sorta dopeless. She was pretty, with dark hair and
                        high color, but she was no fun on a party. Every Saturday night
                        he danced a long arduous duty dance with her to please Marjorie,
                        but he had never been anything but bored in her company.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Warren"&#x2014;&#x2014;a soft voice at his elbow broke in upon his thoughts,
                        and he turned to see Marjorie, flushed and radiant as usual. She
                        laid a hand on his shoulder and a glow settled almost
                        imperceptibly over him.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Warren," she whispered "do something for me&#x2014;dance with Bernice.
                        She's been stuck with little Otis Ormonde for almost an
                        hour."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren's glow faded.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why&#x2014;sure," he answered half-heartedly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You don't mind, do you? I'll see that you don't get stuck."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "'Sall right."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie smiled&#x2014;that smile that was thanks enough.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You're an angel, and I'm obliged loads."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        With a sigh the angel glanced round the veranda, but Bernice and
                        Otis were not in sight. He wandered back inside, and there in
                        front of the women's dressing-room he found Otis in the centre of
                        a group of young men who were convulsed with laughter. Otis was
                        brandishing a piece of timber he had picked up, and discoursing
                        volubly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "She's gone in to fix her hair," he announced wildly. "I'm
                        waiting to dance another hour with her."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Their laughter was renewed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why don't some of you cut in?" cried Otis resentfully. "She
                        likes more variety."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why, Otis," suggested a friend "you've just barely got used to
                        her."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why the two-by-four, Otis?" inquired Warren, smiling.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "The two-by-four? Oh, this? This is a club. When she comes out
                        I'll hit her on the head and knock her in again."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren collapsed on a settee and howled with glee.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Never mind, Otis," he articulated finally. "I'm relieving you
                        this time."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Otis simulated a sudden fainting attack and handed the stick to
                        Warren.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "If you need it, old man," he said hoarsely.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
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                        No matter how beautiful or brilliant a girl may be, the
                        reputation of not being frequently cut in on makes her position
                        at a dance unfortunate. Perhaps boys prefer her company to that
                        of the butterflies with whom they dance a dozen times an but,
                        youth in this jazz-nourished generation is temperamentally
                        restless, and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox
                        trot with the same girl is distasteful, not to say odious. When
                        it comes to several dances and the intermissions between she can
                        be quite sure that a young man, once relieved, will never tread
                        on her wayward toes again.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren danced the next full dance with Bernice, and finally,
                        thankful for the intermission, he led her to a table on the
                        veranda. There was a moment's silence while she did unimpressive
                        things with her fan.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It's hotter here than in Eau Claire," she said.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren stifled a sigh and nodded. It might be for all he knew or
                        cared. He wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist
                        because she got no attention or got no attention because she was
                        a poor conversationalist.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
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                        "You going to be here much longer?" he asked and then turned
                        rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Another week," she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at
                        his next remark when it left his lips.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren fidgeted. Then with a sudden charitable impulse he decided
                        to try part of his line on her. He turned and looked at her
                        eyes.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You've got an awfully kissable mouth," he began quietly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        This was a remark that he sometimes made to girls at college
                        proms when they were talking in just such half dark as this.
                        Bernice distinctly jumped. She turned an ungraceful red and
                        became clumsy with her fan. No one had ever made such a remark to
                        her before.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Fresh!"&#x2014;&#x2014;the word had slipped out before she realized it, and
                        she bit her lip. Too late she decided to be amused, and offered
                        him a flustered smile.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren was annoyed. Though not accustomed to have that remark
                        taken seriously, still it usually provoked a laugh or a paragraph
                        of sentimental banter. And he hated to be called fresh, except
                        in a joking way. His charitable impulse died and he switched the
                        topic.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest sitting out as usual," he
                        commented.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        This was more in Bernice's line, but a faint regret mingled with
                        her relief as the subject changed. Men did not talk to her about
                        kissable mouths, but she knew that they talked in some such way
                        to other girls.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, yes," she said, and laughed. "I hear they've been mooning
                        around for years without a red penny. Isn't it silly?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren's disgust increased. Jim Strain was a close friend of his
                        brother's, and anyway he considered it bad form to sneer at
                        people for not having money. But Bernice had had no intention of
                        sneering. She was merely nervous.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="24" Margin="0 36 0 12">
                        II
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                    <Paragraph Margin="0 6">
                        When Marjorie and Bernice reached home at half after midnight
                        they said good night at the top of the stairs. Though cousins,
                        they were not intimates. As a matter of fact Marjorie had no
                        female intimates&#x2014;she considered girls stupid. Bernice on the
                        contrary all through this parent-arranged visit had rather longed
                        to exchange those confidences flavored with giggles and tears
                        that she considered an indispensable factor in all feminine
                        intercourse. But in this respect she found Marjorie rather cold;
                        felt somehow the same difficulty in talking to her that she had
                        in talking to men. Marjorie never giggled, was never frightened,
                        seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities
                        which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly feminine.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        As Bernice busied herself with tooth-brush and paste this night
                        she wondered for the hundredth time why she never had any
                        attention when she was away from home. That her family were the
                        wealthiest in Eau Claire; that her mother entertained
                        tremendously, gave little diners for her daughter before all
                        dances and bought her a car of her own to drive round in, never
                        occurred to her as factors in her home-town social success. Like
                        most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by
                        Annie Fellows Johnston and on novels in which the female was
                        beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities, always
                        mentioned but never displayed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in
                        being popular. She did not know that had it not been for
                        Marjorie's campaigning she would have danced the entire evening
                        with one man; but she knew that even in Eau Claire other girls
                        with less position and less pulchritude were given a much bigger
                        rush. She attributed this to something subtly unscrupulous in
                        those girls. It had never worried her, and if it had her mother
                        would have assured her that the other girls cheapened themselves
                        and that men really respected girls like Bernice.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She turned out the light in her bathroom, and on an impulse
                        decided to go in and chat for a moment with her aunt Josephine,
                        whose light was still on. Her soft slippers bore her noiselessly
                        down the carpeted hall, but hearing voices inside she stopped
                        near the partly openers door. Then she caught her own name, and
                        without any definite intention of eavesdropping lingered&#x2014;and the
                        thread of the conversation going on inside pierced her
                        consciousness sharply as if it had been drawn through with a
                        needle.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "She's absolutely hopeless!" It was Marjorie's voice. "Oh, I know
                        what you're going to say! So many people have told you how
                        pretty and sweet she is, and how she can cook! What of it? She
                        has a bum time. Men don't like her."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "What's a little cheap popularity?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Mrs. Harvey sounded annoyed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It's everything when you're eighteen," said Marjorie
                        emphatically. "I've done my best. I've been polite and I've made
                        men dance with her, but they just won't stand being bored. When I
                        think of that gorgeous coloring wasted on such a ninny, and
                        think what Martha Carey could do with it&#x2014;oh!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "There's no courtesy these days."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Mrs. Harvey's voice implied that modern situations were too much
                        for her. When she was a girl all young ladies who belonged to
                        nice families had glorious times.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well," said Marjorie, "no girl can permanently bolster up a
                        lame-duck visitor, because these days it's every girl for
                        herself. I've even tried to drop hints about clothes and things,
                        and she's been furious&#x2014;given me the funniest looks. She's
                        sensitive enough to know she's not getting away with much, but
                        I'll bet she consoles herself by thinking that she's very
                        virtuous and that I'm too gay and fickle and will come to a bad
                        end. All unpopular girls think that way. Sour grapes! Sarah
                        Hopkins refers to Genevieve and Roberta and me as gardenia girls!
                        I'll bet she'd give ten years of her life and her European
                        education to be a gardenia girl and have three or four men in
                        love with her and be cut in on every few feet at dances."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It seems to me," interrupted Mrs. Harvey rather wearily, "that
                        you ought to be able to do something for Bernice. I know she's
                        not very vivacious."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie groaned.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Vivacious! Good grief! I've never heard her say anything to a
                        boy except that it's hot or the floor's crowded or that she's
                        going to school in New York next year. Sometimes she asks them
                        what kind of car they have and tells them the kind she has.
                        Thrilling!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        There was a short silence and then Mrs. Harvey took up her
                        refrain:
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "All I know is that other girls not half so sweet and attractive
                        get partners. Martha Carey, for instance, is stout and loud, and
                        her mother is distinctly common. Roberta Dillon is so thin this
                        year that she looks as though Arizona were the place for her.
                        She's dancing herself to death."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "But, mother," objected Marjorie impatiently, "Martha is cheerful
                        and awfully witty and an awfully slick girl, and Roberta's a
                        marvellous dancer. She's been popular for ages!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Mrs. Harvey yawned.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I think it's that crazy Indian blood in Bernice," continued
                        Marjorie. "Maybe she's a reversion to type.  Indian women all
                        just sat round and never said anything."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Go to bed, you silly child," laughed Mrs. Harvey. "I wouldn't
                        have told you that if I'd thought you were going to remember it.
                        And I think most of your ideas are perfectly idiotic," she
                        finished sleepily.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or
                        not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over
                        forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At
                        eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at
                        forty-five they are caves in which we hide.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Having decided this, Marjorie said good night. When she came out
                        into the hall it was quite empty.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph  TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="24" Margin="0 36 0 12">
                        III
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph Margin="0 6">
                        While Marjorie was breakfasting late next day Bernice came into
                        the room with a rather formal good morning, sat down opposite,
                        stared intently over and slightly moistened her lips.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
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                        "What's on your mind?" inquired Marjorie, rather puzzled.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice paused before she threw her hand-grenade.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I heard what you said about me to your mother last night."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie was startled, but she showed only a faintly heightened
                        color and her voice was quite even when she spoke.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Where were you?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "In the hall. I didn't mean to listen&#x2014;at first."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        After an involuntary look of contempt Marjorie dropped her eyes
                        and became very interested in balancing a stray corn-flake on her
                        finger.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I guess I'd better go back to Eau Claire&#x2014;if I'm such a
                        nuisance." Bernice's lower lip was trembling violently and she
                        continued on a wavering note: "I've tried to be nice, and&#x2014;and
                        I've been first neglected and then insulted. No one ever visited
                        me and got such treatment."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie was silent.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "But I'm in the way, I see. I'm a drag on you. Your friends don't
                        like me." She paused, and then remembered another one of her
                        grievances. "Of course I was furious last week when you tried to
                        hint to me that that dress was unbecoming. Don't you think I know
                        how to dress myself?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "No," murmured less than half-aloud.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "What?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I didn't hint anything," said Marjorie succinctly. "I said, as I
                        remember, that it was better to wear a becoming dress three
                        times straight than to alternate it with two frights."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you think that was a very nice thing to say?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I wasn't trying to be nice." Then after a pause: "When do you
                        want to go?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice drew in her breath sharply.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh!" It was a little half-cry.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie looked up in surprise.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Didn't you say you were going?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes, but&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, you were only bluffing!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        They stared at each other across the breakfast-table for a
                        moment. Misty waves were passing before Bernice's eyes, while
                        Marjorie's face wore that rather hard expression that she used
                        when slightly intoxicated undergraduate's were making love to
                        her.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "So you were bluffing," she repeated as if it were what she might
                        have expected.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice admitted it by bursting into tears. Marjorie's eyes
                        showed boredom.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You're my cousin," sobbed Bernice. "I'm v-v-visiting you. I was
                        to stay a month, and if I go home my mother will know and she'll
                        wah-wonder&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie waited until the shower of broken words collapsed into
                        little sniffles.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I'll give you my month's allowance," she said coldly, "and you
                        can spend this last week anywhere you want. There's a very nice
                        hotel&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice's sobs rose to a flute note, and rising of a sudden she
                        fled from the room.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        An hour later, while Marjorie was in the library absorbed in
                        composing one of those non-committal marvelously elusive letters
                        that only a young girl can write, Bernice reappeared, very
                        red-eyed, and consciously calm. She cast no glance at Marjorie
                        but took a book at random from the shelf and sat down as if to
                        read. Marjorie seemed absorbed in her letter and continued
                        writing. When the clock showed noon Bernice closed her book with
                        a snap.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I suppose I'd better get my railroad ticket."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        This was not the beginning of the speech she had rehearsed
                        up-stairs, but as Marjorie was not getting her cues&#x2014;wasn't
                        urging her to be reasonable; it's an a mistake&#x2014;it was the best
                        opening she could muster.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Just wait till I finish this letter," said Marjorie without
                        looking round. "I want to get it off in the next mail."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        After another minute, during which her pen scratched busily, she
                        turned round and relaxed with an air of "at your service." Again
                        Bernice had to speak.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you want me to go home?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well," said Marjorie, considering, "I suppose if you're not
                        having a good time you'd better go. No use being miserable."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Don't you think common kindness&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, please don't quote 'Little Women'!" cried Marjorie
                        impatiently. "That's out of style."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You think so?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Heavens, yes! What modern girl could live like those inane
                        females?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "They were the models for our mothers."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie laughed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes, they were&#x2014;not! Besides, our mothers were all very well in
                        their way, but they know very little about their daughters'
                        problems."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice drew herself up.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Please don't talk about my mother."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie laughed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I don't think I mentioned her."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice felt that she was being led away from her subject.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you think you've treated me very well?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I've done my best. You're rather hard material to work with."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        The lids of Bernice's eyes reddened.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I think you're hard and selfish, and you haven't a feminine
                        quality in you."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, my Lord!" cried Marjorie in desperation "You little nut!
                        Girls like you are responsible for all the tiresome colorless
                        marriages; all those ghastly inefficiencies that pass as feminine
                        qualities. What a blow it must be when a man with imagination
                        marries the beautiful bundle of clothes that he's been building
                        ideals round, and finds that she's just a weak, whining, cowardly
                        mass of affectations!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice's mouth had slipped half open.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "The womanly woman!" continued Marjorie. "Her whole early life is
                        occupied in whining criticisms of girls like me who really do
                        have a good time."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice's jaw descended farther as Marjorie's voice rose.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "There's some excuse for an ugly girl whining. If I'd been
                        irretrievably ugly I'd never have forgiven my parents for
                        bringing me into the world. But you're starting life without any
                        handicap&#x2014;" Marjorie's little fist clinched, "If you expect me to
                        weep with you you'll be disappointed. Go or stay, just as you
                        like." And picking up her letters she left the room.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice claimed a headache and failed to appear at luncheon. They
                        had a matinée date for the afternoon, but the headache
                        persisting, Marjorie made explanation to a not very downcast boy.
                        But when she returned late in the afternoon she found Bernice
                        with a strangely set face waiting for her in her bedroom.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I've decided," began Bernice without preliminaries, "that maybe
                        you're right about things&#x2014;possibly not. But if you'll tell me
                        why your friends aren't&#x2014;aren't interested in me I'll see if I
                        can do what you want me to."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie was at the mirror shaking down her hair.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you mean it?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Without reservations? Will you do exactly what I say?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well, I&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well nothing! Will you do exactly as I say?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "If they're sensible things."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "They're not! You're no case for sensible things."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Are you going to make&#x2014;to recommend&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes, everything. If I tell you to take boxing-lessons you'll
                        have to do it. Write home and tell your mother you're going' to
                        stay another two weeks.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "If you'll tell me&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "All right&#x2014;I'll just give you a few examples now. First you have
                        no ease of manner. Why? Because you're never sure about your
                        personal appearance. When a girl feels that she's perfectly
                        groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That's
                        charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget the
                        more charm you have."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Don't I look all right?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "No; for instance you never take care of your eyebrows. They're
                        black and lustrous, but by leaving them straggly they're a
                        blemish. They'd be beautiful if you'd take care of them in
                        one-tenth the time you take doing nothing. You're going to brush
                        them so that they'll grow straight."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice raised the brows in question.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you mean to say that men notice eyebrows?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes&#x2014;subconsciously. And when you go home you ought to have your
                        teeth straightened a little. It's almost imperceptible,
                        still&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "But I thought," interrupted Bernice in bewilderment, "that you
                        despised little dainty feminine things like that."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I hate dainty minds," answered Marjorie. "But a girl has to be
                        dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can
                        talk about Russia, ping-pong, or the League of Nations and get
                        away with it."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "What else?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, I'm just beginning! There's your dancing."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Don't I dance all right?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "No, you don't&#x2014;you lean on a man; yes, you do&#x2014;ever so slightly.
                        I noticed it when we were dancing together yesterday. And you
                        dance standing up straight instead of bending over a little.
                        Probably some old lady on the side-line once told you that you
                        looked so dignified that way. But except with a very small girl
                        it's much harder on the man, and he's the one that counts."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Go on." Bernice's brain was reeling.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well, you've got to learn to be nice to men who are sad birds.
                        You look as if you'd been insulted whenever you're thrown with
                        any except the most popular boys. Why, Bernice, I'm cut in on
                        every few feet&#x2014;and who does most of it? Why, those very sad
                        birds. No girl can afford to neglect them. They're the big part
                        of any crowd. Young boys too shy to talk are the very best
                        conversational practice. Clumsy boys are the best dancing
                        practice. If you can follow them and yet look graceful you can
                        follow a baby tank across a barb-wire sky-scraper."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice sighed profoundly, but Marjorie was not through.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "If you go to a dance and really amuse, say, three sad birds that
                        dance with you; if you talk so well to them that they forget
                        they're stuck with you, you've done something. They'll come back
                        next time, and gradually so many sad birds will dance with you
                        that the attractive boys will see there's no danger of being
                        stuck&#x2014;then they'll dance with you."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes," agreed Bernice faintly. "I think I begin to see."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "And finally," concluded Marjorie, "poise and charm will just
                        come. You'll wake up some morning knowing you've attained it and
                        men will know it too."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice rose.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It's been awfully kind of you&#x2014;but nobody's ever talked to me
                        like this before, and I feel sort of startled."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie made no answer but gazed pensively at her own image in
                        the mirror.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You're a peach to help me," continued Bernice.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Still Marjorie did not answer, and Bernice thought she had seemed
                        too grateful.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I know you don't like sentiment," she said timidly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie turned to her quickly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, I wasn't thinking about that. I was considering whether we
                        hadn't better bob your hair."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice collapsed backward upon the bed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph  TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="24" Margin="0 36 0 12">
                        IV
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph Margin="0 6">
                        On the following Wednesday evening there was a dinner-dance at
                        the country club. When the guests strolled in Bernice found her
                        place-card with a slight feeling of irritation. Though at her
                        right sat G. Reece Stoddard, a most desirable and distinguished
                        young bachelor, the all-important left held only Charley Paulson.
                        Charley lacked height, beauty, and social shrewdness, and in her
                        new enlightenment Bernice decided that his only qualification to
                        be her partner was that he had never been stuck with her.  But
                        this feeling of irritation left with the last of the soup-plates,
                        and Marjorie's specific instruction came to her. Swallowing her
                        pride she turned to Charley Paulson and plunged.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you think I ought to bob my hair, Mr. Charley Paulson?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Charley looked up in surprise.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Because I'm considering it. It's such a sure and easy way of
                        attracting attention."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Charley smiled pleasantly. He could not know this had been
                        rehearsed. He replied that he didn't know much about bobbed hair.
                        But Bernice was there to tell him.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I want to be a society vampire, you see," she announced coolly,
                        and went on to inform him that bobbed hair was the necessary
                        prelude. She added that she wanted to ask his advice, because she
                        had heard he was so critical about girls.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Charley, who knew as much about the psychology of women as he did
                        of the mental states of Buddhist contemplatives, felt vaguely
                        flattered.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "So I've decided," she continued, her voice rising slightly,
                        "that early next week I'm going down to the Sevier Hotel
                        barber-shop, sit in the first chair, and get my hair bobbed." She
                        faltered noticing that the people near her had paused in their
                        conversation and were listening; but after a confused second
                        Marjorie's coaching told, and she finished her paragraph to the
                        vicinity at large. "Of course I'm charging admission, but if
                        you'll all come down and encourage me I'll issue passes for the
                        inside seats."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        There was a ripple of appreciative laughter, and under cover of
                        it G. Reece Stoddard leaned over quickly and said close to her
                        ear: "I'll take a box right now."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She met his eyes and smiled as if he had said something
                        surprisingly brilliant.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you believe in bobbed hair?" asked G. Reece in the same
                        undertone.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I think it's unmoral," affirmed Bernice gravely. "But, of
                        course, you've either got to amuse people or feed 'em or shock
                        'em." Marjorie had culled this from Oscar Wilde. It was greeted
                        with a ripple of laughter from the men and a series of quick,
                        intent looks from the girls. And then as though she had said
                        nothing of wit or moment Bernice turned again to Charley and
                        spoke confidentially in his ear.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I want to ask you your opinion of several people. I imagine
                        you're a wonderful judge of character."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Charley thrilled faintly&#x2014;paid her a subtle compliment by
                        overturning her water.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Two hours later, while Warren McIntyre was standing passively in
                        the stag line abstractedly watching the dancers and wondering
                        whither and with whom Marjorie had disappeared, an unrelated
                        perception began to creep slowly upon him&#x2014;a perception that
                        Bernice, cousin to Marjorie, had been cut in on several times in
                        the past five minutes. He closed his eyes, opened them and looked
                        again. Several minutes back she had been dancing with a visiting
                        boy, a matter easily accounted for; a visiting boy would know no
                        better. But now she was dancing with some one else, and there
                        was Charley Paulson headed for her with enthusiastic
                        determination in his eye. Funny&#x2014;Charley seldom danced with more
                        than three girls an evening.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren was distinctly surprised when&#x2014;the exchange having been
                        effected&#x2014;the man relieved proved to be none ether than G. Reece
                        Stoddard himself. And G. Reece seemed not at all jubilant at
                        being relieved. Next time Bernice danced near, Warren regarded
                        her intently. Yes, she was pretty, distinctly pretty; and
                        to-night her face seemed really vivacious. She had that look that
                        no woman, however histrionically proficient, can successfully
                        counterfeit&#x2014;she looked as if she were having a good time. He
                        liked the way she had her hair arranged, wondered if it was
                        brilliantine that made it glisten so. And that dress was
                        becoming&#x2014;a dark red that set off her shadowy eyes and high
                        coloring. He remembered that he had thought her pretty when she
                        first came to town, before he had realized that she was dull. Too
                        bad she was dull&#x2014;dull girls unbearable&#x2014;certainly pretty
                        though.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        His thoughts zigzagged back to Marjorie. This disappearance would
                        be like other disappearances. When she reappeared he would
                        demand where she had been&#x2014;would be told emphatically that it was
                        none of his business. What a pity she was so sure of him! She
                        basked in the knowledge that no other girl in town interested
                        him; she defied him to fall in love with Genevieve or
                        Roberta.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren sighed. The way to Marjorie's affections was a labyrinth
                        indeed. He looked up. Bernice was again dancing with the visiting
                        boy. Half unconsciously he took a step out from the stag line in
                        her direction, and hesitated. Then he said to himself that it
                        was charity. He walked toward her&#x2014;collided suddenly with G.
                        Reece Stoddard.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Pardon me," said Warren.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But G. Reece had not stopped to apologize. He had again cut in on
                        Bernice.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        That night at one o'clock Marjorie, with one hand on the
                        electric-light switch in the hall, turned to take a last look at
                        Bernice's sparkling eyes.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "So it worked?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, Marjorie, yes!" cried Bernice.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I saw you were having a gay time."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I did! The only trouble was that about midnight I ran short of
                        talk. I had to repeat myself&#x2014;with different men of course. I
                        hope they won't compare notes."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Men don't," said Marjorie, yawning, "and it wouldn't matter if
                        they did&#x2014;they'd think you were even trickier."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She snapped out the light, and as they started up the stairs
                        Bernice grasped the banister thankfully. For the first time in
                        her life she had been danced tired.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You see," said Marjorie it the top of the stairs, "one man sees
                        another man cut in and he thinks there must be something there.
                        Well, we'll fix up some new stuff to-morrow.  Good night."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Good night."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        As Bernice took down her hair she passed the evening before her
                        in review.  She had followed instructions exactly.  Even when
                        Charley Paulson cut in for the eighth time she had simulated
                        delight and had apparently been both interested and flattered.
                        She had not talked about the weather or Eau Claire or automobiles
                        or her school, but had confined her conversation to me, you, and
                        us.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But a few minutes before she fell asleep a rebellious thought was
                        churning drowsily in her brain&#x2014;after all, it was she who had
                        done it.  Marjorie, to be sure, had given her her conversation,
                        but then Marjorie got much of her conversation out of things she
                        read.  Bernice had bought the red dress, though she had never
                        valued it highly before Marjorie dug it out of her trunk&#x2014;and her
                        own voice had said the words, her own lips had smiled, her own
                        feet had danced.  Marjorie nice girl&#x2014;vain, though&#x2014;nice
                        evening&#x2014;nice boys&#x2014;like Warren&#x2014;Warren&#x2014;Warren&#x2014;what's his
                        name&#x2014;Warren&#x2014;&#x2014;
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She fell asleep.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph  TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="24" Margin="0 36 0 12">
                        V
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph Margin="0 6">
                        To Bernice the next week was a revelation.  With the feeling that
                        people really enjoyed looking at her and listening to her came
                        the foundation of self-confidence.  Of course there were numerous
                        mistakes at first.  She did not know, for instance, that
                        Draycott Deyo was studying for the ministry; she was unaware that
                        he had cut in on her because he thought she was a quiet,
                        reserved girl. Had she known these things she would not have
                        treated him to the line which began "Hello, Shell Shock!" and
                        continued with the bathtub story&#x2014;"It takes a frightful lot of
                        energy to fix my hair in the summer&#x2014;there's so much of it&#x2014;so I
                        always fix it first and powder my face and put on my hat; then I
                        get into the bathtub, and dress afterward. Don't you think that's
                        the best plan?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Though Draycott Deyo was in the throes of difficulties concerning
                        baptism by immersion and might possibly have seen a connection,
                        it must be admitted that he did not. He considered feminine
                        bathing an immoral subject, and gave her some of his ideas on the
                        depravity of modern society.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But to offset that unfortunate occurrence Bernice had several
                        signal successes to her credit. Little Otis Ormonde pleaded off
                        from a trip East and elected instead to follow her with a
                        puppylike devotion, to the amusement of his crowd and to the
                        irritation of G. Reece Stoddard, several of whose afternoon calls
                        Otis completely ruined by the disgusting tenderness of the
                        glances he bent on Bernice. He even told her the story of the
                        two-by-four and the dressing-room to show her how frightfully
                        mistaken he and every one else had been in their first judgment
                        of her. Bernice laughed off that incident with a slight sinking
                        sensation.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Of all Bernice's conversation perhaps the best known and most
                        universally approved was the line about the bobbing of her hair.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, Bernice, when you goin' to get the hair bobbed?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Day after to-morrow maybe," she would reply, laughing. "Will you
                        come and see me? Because I'm counting on you, you know."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Will we? You know! But you better hurry up."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice, whose tonsorial intentions were strictly dishonorable,
                        would laugh again.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Pretty soon now. You'd be surprised."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But perhaps the most significant symbol of her success was the
                        gray car of the hypercritical Warren McIntyre, parked daily in
                        front of the Harvey house. At first the parlor-maid was
                        distinctly startled when he asked for Bernice instead of
                        Marjorie; after a week of it she told the cook that Miss Bernice
                        had gotta holda Miss Marjorie's best fella.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        And Miss Bernice had. Perhaps it began with Warren's desire to
                        rouse jealousy in Marjorie; perhaps it was the familiar though
                        unrecognized strain of Marjorie in Bernice's conversation;
                        perhaps it was both of these and something of sincere attraction
                        besides. But somehow the collective mind of the younger set knew
                        within a week that Marjorie's most reliable beau had made an
                        amazing face-about and was giving an indisputable rush to
                        Marjorie's guest. The question of the moment was how Marjorie
                        would take it. Warren called Bernice on the 'phone twice a day,
                        sent her notes, and they were frequently seen together in his
                        roadster, obviously engrossed in one of those tense, significant
                        conversations as to whether or not he was sincere.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie on being twitted only laughed. She said she was mighty
                        glad that Warren had at last found some one who appreciated him.
                        So the younger set laughed, too, and guessed that Marjorie didn't
                        care and let it go at that.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        One afternoon when there were only three days left of her visit
                        Bernice was waiting in the hall for Warren, with whom she was
                        going to a bridge party. She was in rather a blissful mood, and
                        when Marjorie&#x2014;also bound for the party&#x2014;appeared beside her and
                        began casually to adjust her hat in the mirror, Bernice was
                        utterly unprepared for anything in the nature of a clash.
                        Marjorie did her work very coldly and succinctly in three
                        sentences.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You may as well get Warren out of your head," she said coldly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "What?" Bernice was utterly astounded.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You may as well stop making a fool of yourself over Warren
                        McIntyre. He doesn't care a snap of his fingers about you."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        For a tense moment they regarded each other&#x2014;Marjorie scornful,
                        aloof; Bernice astounded, half-angry, half-afraid. Then two cars
                        drove up in front of the house and there was a riotous honking.
                        Both of them gasped faintly, turned, and side by side hurried
                        out.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        All through the bridge party Bernice strove in vain to master a
                        rising uneasiness. She had offended Marjorie, the sphinx of
                        sphinxes. With the most wholesome and innocent intentions in the
                        world she had stolen Marjorie's property. She felt suddenly and
                        horribly guilty. After the bridge game, when they sat in an
                        informal circle and the conversation became general, the storm
                        gradually broke. Little Otis Ormonde inadvertently precipitated
                        it.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "When you going back to kindergarten, Otis?" some one had asked.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Me? Day Bernice gets her hair bobbed."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Then your education's over," said Marjorie quickly. "That's only
                        a bluff of hers. I should think you'd have realized."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "That a fact?" demanded Otis, giving Bernice a reproachful
                        glance.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice's ears burned as she tried to think up an effectual
                        come-back. In the face of this direct attack her imagination was
                        paralyzed.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "There's a lot of bluffs in the world," continued Marjorie quite
                        pleasantly. "I should think you'd be young enough to know that,
                        Otis."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Well," said Otis, "maybe so. But gee!  With a line like
                        Bernice's&#x2014;&#x2014;"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Really?" yawned Marjorie. "What's her latest bon mot?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        No one seemed to know. In fact, Bernice, having trifled with her
                        muse's beau, had said nothing memorable of late.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Was that really all a line?" asked Roberta curiously.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice hesitated. She felt that wit in some form was demanded of
                        her, but under her cousin's suddenly frigid eyes she was
                        completely incapacitated.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I don't know," she stalled.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Splush!" said Marjorie. "Admit it!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice saw that Warren's eyes had left a ukulele he had been
                        tinkering with and were fixed on her questioningly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, I don't know!" she repeated steadily. Her cheeks were
                        glowing.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Splush!" remarked Marjorie again.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Come through, Bernice," urged Otis. "Tell her where to get off."
                        Bernice looked round again&#x2014;she seemed unable to get away from
                        Warren's eyes.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I like bobbed hair," she said hurriedly, as if he had asked her
                        a question, "and I intend to bob mine."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "When?" demanded Marjorie.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Any time."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "No time like the present," suggested Roberta.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Otis jumped to his feet.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Good stuff!" he cried. "We'll have a summer bobbing party.
                        Sevier Hotel barber-shop, I think you said."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        In an instant all were on their feet. Bernice's heart throbbed
                        violently.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "What?" she gasped.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Out of the group came Marjorie's voice, very clear and
                        contemptuous.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Don't worry&#x2014;she'll back out!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Come on, Bernice!" cried Otis, starting toward the door.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Four eyes&#x2014;Warren's and Marjorie's&#x2014;stared at her, challenged
                        her, defied her. For another second she wavered wildly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "All right," she said swiftly "I don't care if I do."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        An eternity of minutes later, riding down-town through the late
                        afternoon beside Warren, the others following in Roberta's car
                        close behind, Bernice had all the sensations of Marie Antoinette
                        bound for the guillotine in a tumbrel. Vaguely she wondered why
                        she did not cry out that it was all a mistake. It was all she
                        could do to keep from clutching her hair with both bands to
                        protect it from the suddenly hostile world. Yet she did neither.
                        Even the thought of her mother was no deterrent now. This was the
                        test supreme of her sportsmanship; her right to walk
                        unchallenged in the starry heaven of popular girls.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren was moodily silent, and when they came to the hotel he
                        drew up at the curb and nodded to Bernice to precede him out.
                        Roberta's car emptied a laughing crowd into the shop, which
                        presented two bold plate-glass windows to the street.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice stood on the curb and looked at the sign, Sevier
                        Barber-Shop. It was a guillotine indeed, and the hangman was the
                        first barber, who, attired in a white coat and smoking a
                        cigarette, leaned nonchalantly against the first chair. He must
                        have heard of her; he must have been waiting all week, smoking
                        eternal cigarettes beside that portentous, too-often-mentioned
                        first chair. Would they blind-fold her? No, but they would tie a
                        white cloth round her neck lest any of her blood&#x2014;nonsense&#x2014;hair&#x2014;should
                        get on her clothes.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "All right, Bernice," said Warren quickly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        With her chin in the air she crossed the sidewalk, pushed open
                        the swinging screen-door, and giving not a glance to the
                        uproarious, riotous row that occupied the waiting bench, went up
                        to the fat barber.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I want you to bob my hair."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        The first barber's mouth slid somewhat open. His cigarette
                        dropped to the floor.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Huh?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "My hair&#x2014;bob it!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Refusing further preliminaries, Bernice took her seat on high. A
                        man in the chair next to her turned on his side and gave her a
                        glance, half lather, half amazement. One barber started and
                        spoiled little Willy Schuneman's monthly haircut. Mr. O'Reilly in
                        the last chair grunted and swore musically in ancient Gaelic as
                        a razor bit into his cheek. Two bootblacks became wide-eyed and
                        rushed for her feet. No, Bernice didn't care for a shine.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Outside a passer-by stopped and stared; a couple joined him; half
                        a dozen small boys' nose sprang into life, flattened against the
                        glass; and snatches of conversation borne on the summer breeze
                        drifted in through the screen-door.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Lookada long hair on a kid!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Where'd yuh get 'at stuff? 'At's a bearded lady he just finished
                        shavin'."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But Bernice saw nothing, heard nothing. Her only living sense
                        told her that this man in the white coat had removed one
                        tortoise-shell comb and then another; that his fingers were
                        fumbling clumsily with unfamiliar hairpins; that this hair, this
                        wonderful hair of hers, was going&#x2014;she would never again feel its
                        long voluptuous pull as it hung in a dark-brown glory down her
                        back. For a second she was near breaking down, and then the
                        picture before her swam mechanically into her vision&#x2014;Marjorie's
                        mouth curling in a faint ironic smile as if to say:
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Give up and get down! You tried to buck me and I called your
                        bluff. You see you haven't got a prayer."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        And some last energy rose up in Bernice, for she clinched her
                        hands under the white cloth, and there was a curious narrowing of
                        her eyes that Marjorie remarked on to some one long afterward.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Twenty minutes later the barber swung her round to face the
                        mirror, and she flinched at the full extent of the damage that
                        had been wrought. Her hair was not curls and now it lay in lank
                        lifeless blocks on both sides of her suddenly pale face. It was
                        ugly as sin&#x2014;she had known it would be ugly as sin. Her face's
                        chief charm had been a Madonna-like simplicity. Now that was gone
                        and she was&#x2014;well frightfully mediocre&#x2014;not stagy; only
                        ridiculous, like a Greenwich Villager who had left her spectacles
                        at home.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        As she climbed down from the chair she tried to smile&#x2014;failed
                        miserably. She saw two of the girls exchange glances; noticed
                        Marjorie's mouth curved in attenuated mockery&#x2014;and that Warren's
                        eyes were suddenly very cold.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "You see,"&#x2014;her words fell into an awkward pause&#x2014;"I've done it."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Yes, you've&#x2014;done it," admitted Warren.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you like it?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        There was a half-hearted "Sure" from two or three voices, another
                        awkward pause, and then Marjorie turned swiftly and with
                        serpentlike intensity to Warren.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Would you mind running me down to the cleaners?" she asked.
                        "I've simply got to get a dress there before supper. Roberta's
                        driving right home and she can take the others."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Warren stared abstractedly at some infinite speck out the window.
                        Then for an instant his eyes rested coldly on Bernice before
                        they turned to Marjorie.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Be glad to," he said slowly.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph  TextAlignment="Center" FontSize="24" Margin="0 36 0 12">
                        VI
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph Margin="0 6">
                        Bernice did not fully realize the outrageous trap that had been
                        set for her until she met her aunt's amazed glance just before
                        dinner.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why Bernice!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I've bobbed it, Aunt Josephine."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why, child!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Do you like it?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why Bernice!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I suppose I've shocked you."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "No, but what'll Mrs. Deyo think tomorrow night? Bernice, you
                        should have waited until after the Deyo's dance&#x2014;you should have
                        waited if you wanted to do that."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It was sudden, Aunt Josephine. Anyway, why does it matter to
                        Mrs. Deyo particularly?"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Why child," cried Mrs. Harvey, "in her paper on 'The Foibles of
                        the Younger Generation' that she read at the last meeting of the
                        Thursday Club she devoted fifteen minutes to bobbed hair. It's
                        her pet abomination. And the dance is for you and Marjorie!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I'm sorry."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, Bernice, what'll your mother say? She'll think I let you do
                        it."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I'm sorry."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Dinner was an agony. She had made a hasty attempt with a
                        curling-iron, and burned her finger and much hair. She could see
                        that her aunt was both worried and grieved, and her uncle kept
                        saying, "Well, I'll be darned!" over and over in a hurt and
                        faintly hostile torte. And Marjorie sat very quietly, intrenched
                        behind a faint smile, a faintly mocking smile.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Somehow she got through the evening. Three boy's called; Marjorie
                        disappeared with one of them, and Bernice made a listless
                        unsuccessful attempt to entertain the two others&#x2014;sighed
                        thankfully as she climbed the stairs to her room at half past
                        ten. What a day!
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        When she had undressed for the night the door opened and Marjorie
                        came in.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Bernice," she said "I'm awfully sorry about the Deyo dance. I'll
                        give you my word of honor I'd forgotten all about it."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "'Sall right," said Bernice shortly. Standing before the mirror
                        she passed her comb slowly through her short hair.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I'll take you down-town to-morrow," continued Marjorie, "and the
                        hairdresser'll fix it so you'll look slick. I didn't imagine
                        you'd go through with it. I'm really mighty sorry."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Oh, 'sall right!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Still it's your last night, so I suppose it won't matter much."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Then Bernice winced as Marjorie tossed her own hair over her
                        shoulders and began to twist it slowly into two long blond braids
                        until in her cream-colored negligée she looked like a delicate
                        painting of some Saxon princess. Fascinated, Bernice watched the
                        braids grow. Heavy and luxurious they were moving under the
                        supple fingers like restive snakes&#x2014;and to Bernice remained this
                        relic and the curling-iron and a to-morrow full of eyes. She
                        could see G. Reece Stoddard, who liked her, assuming his Harvard
                        manner and telling his dinner partner that Bernice shouldn't have
                        been allowed to go to the movies so much; she could see Draycott
                        Deyo exchanging glances with his mother and then being
                        conscientiously charitable to her. But then perhaps by to-morrow
                        Mrs. Deyo would have heard the news; would send round an icy
                        little note requesting that she fail to appear&#x2014;and behind her
                        back they would all laugh and know that Marjorie had made a fool
                        of her; that her chance at beauty had been sacrificed to the
                        jealous whim of a selfish girl. She sat down suddenly before the
                        mirror, biting the inside of her cheek.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I like it," she said with an effort. "I think it'll be
                        becoming."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Marjorie smiled.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "It looks all right. For heaven's sake, don't let it worry you!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "I won't."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Good night Bernice."
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        But as the door closed something snapped within Bernice. She
                        sprang dynamically to her feet, clinching her hands, then swiftly
                        and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it
                        dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and
                        a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly
                        dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She
                        moved quietly, but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an
                        hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed
                        in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped her
                        pick out.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Sitting down at her desk she wrote a short note to Mrs. Harvey,
                        in which she briefly outlined her reasons for going. She sealed
                        it, addressed it, and laid it on her pillow. She glanced at her
                        watch. The train left at one, and she knew that if she walked
                        down to the Marborough Hotel two blocks away she could easily get
                        a taxicab.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Suddenly she drew in her breath sharply and an expression flashed
                        into her eyes that a practiced character reader might have
                        connected vaguely with the set look she had worn in the barber's
                        chair&#x2014;somehow a development of it. It was quite a new look for
                        Bernice&#x2014;and it carried consequences.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She went stealthily to the bureau, picked up an article that lay
                        there, and turning out all the lights stood quietly until her
                        eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Softly she pushed open
                        the door to Marjorie's room. She heard the quiet, even breathing
                        of an untroubled conscience asleep.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        She was by the bedside now, very deliberate and calm. She acted
                        swiftly. Bending over she found one of the braids of Marjorie's
                        hair, followed it up with her hand to the point nearest the head,
                        and then holding it a little slack so that the sleeper would
                        feel no pull, she reached down with the shears and severed it.
                        With the pigtail in her hand she held her breath. Marjorie had
                        muttered something in her sleep. Bernice deftly amputated the
                        other braid, paused for an instant, and then flitted swiftly and
                        silently back to her own room.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Down-stairs she opened the big front door, closed it carefully
                        behind her, and feeling oddly happy and exuberant stepped off the
                        porch into the moonlight, swinging her heavy grip like a
                        shopping-bag. After a minute's brisk walk she discovered that her
                        left hand still held the two blond braids. She laughed
                        unexpectedly&#x2014;had to shut her mouth hard to keep from emitting an
                        absolute peal. She was passing Warren's house now, and on the
                        impulse she set down her baggage, and swinging the braids like
                        piece of rope flung them at the wooden porch, where they landed
                        with a slight thud. She laughed again, no longer restraining
                        herself.
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        "Huh," she giggled wildly. "Scalp the selfish thing!"
                    </Paragraph>
                        
                    <Paragraph TextIndent="48" Margin="0 6">
                        Then picking up her staircase she set off at a half-run down the
                        moonlit street.
                    </Paragraph>
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