"But she must have seen us sitting in the window," argued Marcia. "She might at least have looked up and waved her hand, or nodded, or smiled—or something!" Cecily, meanwhile, was fumbling with the lock of the big old gate, which seemed, as on a former occasion, to give her a great deal of trouble. "Come," cried Janet to Marcia. "We'll just about have time to catch her if we hurry." And seizing their hats, the girls hastened downstairs. Their front door closed behind them just as Cecily came abreast of them. What happened next was like a blow in the face! Cecily Marlowe passed them by without a look They had started forward, each with a friendly smile, expecting their new companion to meet them in similar fashion. To their[Pg 49][Pg 50][Pg 51] amazement, Cecily Marlowe, after the first sudden look into their faces, dropped her eyes, and passed them by without a glance, precisely as if they were utter strangers to her. [Pg 49][Pg 50][Pg 51] Both girls gasped, stared at her departing figure till she turned the corner, and then into each other's faces. "The ungrateful little thing!" Marcia presently exploded. "If that wasn't the 'cut direct,' I've never seen it before!" "An unmistakable way of telling us to mind our own business!" even Janet had to admit. "How humiliating! And yet—" "Yet—what?" demanded Marcia, indignantly. "You're surely not going to try to excuse such inexcusable conduct as that! I see very plainly what's happened. She's thought it over and decided that we were meddlesome and just trying to push an acquaintance with her, and she thinks she's a little too exclusive for that kind of thing, and the simple remedy was to 'cut us dead'!" Marcia was quite out of breath when she finished this summing up. [Pg 52] [Pg 52] "It does look like it," Janet admitted. "But somehow, even yet, I can't feel that she wanted to do it—of her own accord, I mean." But Marcia couldn't see it in that light. They discussed the question hotly, still standing on the front stoop of the apartment. So long, in fact, did they argue it back and forth, turning and twisting the sorry little occurrence, viewing it in every possible light, that before they realized it,
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