"I shall never be happy...."
She saw the grandiose vision of the future she had cherished suddenly
rolled aside and vanishing, more and more splendid as it grew more and
more remote--like a dream at the waking moment. The vision of her
inevitable loneliness came to replace it, clear and acute. She saw
herself alone and small in a huge desolation--infinitely pitiful,
Lewisham callously receding with "some shop girl." The tears came,
came faster, until they were streaming down her face. She turned as if
looking for something. She flung herself upon her knees before the
little arm-chair, and began an incoherent sobbing prayer for the pity
and comfort of God.
* * * * *
The next day one of the other girls in the biological course remarked
to her friend that "Heydinger-dingery" had relapsed. Her friend
glanced down the laboratory. "It's a bad relapse," she said. "Really
... I couldn't ... wear my hair like that."
She continued to regard Miss Heydinger with a critical eye. She was
free to do this because Miss Heydinger was standing, lost in thought,
staring at the December fog outside the laboratory windows. "She looks
white," said the girl who had originally spoken. "I wonder if she
works hard."
"It makes precious little difference if she does," said her friend.
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