_I will not look at her_, Laura told herself, and buried her face in a washcloth. She scrubbed herself assiduously while Marcie chattered. _Damn her anyway, I won’t look at her. She has no claim on me, that was a silly fool thing I did. I’ll pretend it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen._ She was afraid that if she did look it might happen again. She rinsed her face slowly and careful in water from the groaning tap, and still Marcie stood there talking. Laura reached for a towel and dried her face. She hung the towel up again and turned to walk out of the bathroom, ready to ignore Marcie. But Marcie had slipped into pajama tops and looked quite demure. Except for her extraordinarily pretty face. Laura stared at her, as she had known she would, as she did more and more lately. “We’ll take in a show in Greenwich Village, because it’s easier to get tickets—at least to this one—and besides, Burr knows—what’s the matter, Laura?” “What? Oh, nothing. Nothing.” “You looked kind of funny.” “Did I? I didn’t mean to. That sounds fine, the show I mean.” She hurried past Marcie into the bedroom. In bed she cursed herself for an idiot. _I’m just an animal_, she berated herself. _I hardly know Marcie. I won’t start feeling this way, I won’t!_ Out of the past rose the image of another face, a face serenely lovely, a face whose owner she had loved so desperately that she had finally been forced to leave school because of her. _Why, they look alike!_ she thought, startled. _Why didn’t I see it before? I must be blind. They look alike, they really do._ In the dark she pictured Marcie’s face beside the other, matching, comparing, regretting. It tore at her heart to see them together. She wished the morning would never come when she would have to get up, bright and cheerful and ordinary, like every other morning, and look at Marcie’s face again. And Marcie’s breasts. * * * * * Morning came, as mornings will, and it went the same way. It was not intolerable. Laura was secretly on guard against Marcie now. Or rather, on guard against herself. She wasn’t going to fall. Marcie loved a man—men, anyway—and Laura wasn’t in any hurry to go through hell with her. A curious change had come over Laura since the days of the terrible, and wonderful, college romance with a girl named Beth. She had been so frightened then, so lost, so completely dependent on Beth. She had no courage, except what Beth gave her; no strength except through Beth; no will but Beth’s. She had loved her slavishly; adored her. And when Beth left her for a man, when she told Laura it had never been real love for her at all, Laura was wounded clear through her heart. All these things were unknown to Merrill Landon; unknown and unsuspected. They would remain forever in the dark corners of Laura’s mind, where she heaped her old hurts and fears.