Awards for sociability.

They have to get along, Alice thought gladly. They have to get along. They can't afford to offend one another.

Gloria finally got up, seeming tired in spite of her smile, and said, "I'd better be going now. I—I can see that you two have a real thing for one another already. I—I think it's just—wonderful—so wonderful, really—"

Kelsey didn't seem to hear Gloria at all, hardly seemed to know she was there. He kept looking at Alice. "Please don't go, Gloria," he said as he kept on looking at Alice.

"It's awfully sweet of you to ask me to stay, but I really must go now. It's—it's getting late."

I know how you really feel, Alice thought. I know, I know, somewhere deep inside you feel an awful sickness like death, but on the outside you smile. I know how you feel.

But do you know how you feel anymore, Gloria? Can you feel the way you really feel? What would happen if—

But no matter how Gloria felt, no Mirror on a wall could have been critical of her appearance, her poise, her polite good-sport way of bowing out.

Gloria moved toward the door. Kelsey hurried over there and opened it for her. "You two be happy," Gloria whispered. "You two seem to be so—so very right for an anther."

The door shut. It was as though Gloria Tonnencourt had never been there.

How could it be so easy? Alice's hand trembled as Kelsey moved toward her. With Gloria it had been so quick, happening so fast, over so easily.

"Regular girl," Kelsey was saying. "What wonderful warmth and understanding."

"She's sweet," Alice heard herself saying. But that wasn't true. She only felt that Gloria had been sad. If it had been sweet it was bitter-sweet sadness. But Alice had to forget about Gloria. Gloria was gone. It was like she had never been here at all, as though all those evenings of love had never been. Switch it on, switch it off. It was like Tevee, she thought, like Tevee—

Kelsey asked her to sit down on the couch, and then he was sitting near her, nearer to her. Then he was touching her, his face inches from hers.

"It seems I've known you for years and years," he said.

And then she was 

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