Into Dirk’s mind there flashed a picture of this large girl in her tight knitted union suit and her white stockings sitting in a tub half full of water and scrubbing them and herself simultaneously. A comic picture, and a revolting one. Pathetic, too, but he would not admit that. “Imagine!” the frat brother-to-be was saying. “Well, we can’t have a fellow who goes around with a girl like that. You got to cut her out, see! Completely. The fellahs won’t stand for it.” Dirk had a mental picture of himself striking a noble attitude and saying, “Won’t stand for it, huh! She’s worth more than the whole caboodle of you put together. And you can all go to hell!” Instead he said, vaguely, “Oh. Well. Uh——” Dirk changed his seat in the classroom, avoided Mattie’s eye, shot out of the door the minute class was over. One day he saw her coming toward him on the campus and he sensed that she intended to stop and speak to him—chide him laughingly, perhaps. He quickened his pace, swerved a little to one side, and as he passed lifted his cap and nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead. Out of the tail of his eye he could see her standing a moment irresolutely in the path. He got into the fraternity. The fellahs liked him from the first. Selina said once or twice, “Why don’t you bring that nice Mattie home with you again some time soon? Such a nice girl—woman, rather. But she seemed so young and care-free while she was here, didn’t she? A fine mind, too, that girl. She’ll make something of herself. You’ll see. Bring her next week, h’m?” Dirk shuffled, coughed, looked away. “Oh, I dunno. Haven’t seen her lately. Guess she’s busy with another crowd, or something.” He tried not to think of what he had done, for he was honestly ashamed. Terribly ashamed. So he said to himself, “Oh, what of it!” and hid his shame. A month later Selina again said, “I wish you’d invite Mattie for Thanksgiving dinner. Unless she’s going home, which I doubt. We’ll have turkey and pumpkin pie and all the rest of it. She’ll love it.” “Mattie?” He had actually forgotten her name. “Yes, of course. Isn’t that right? Mattie Schwengauer?” “Oh, her. Uh—well—I haven’t been seeing her lately.” “Oh, Dirk, you haven’t quarrelled with that nice girl!” He decided to have it out. “Listen, Mother. There are a lot of different crowds at the U, see? And Mattie doesn’t belong to any of ’em. You wouldn’t understand, but it’s like this. She—she’s smart and jolly and everything but she just doesn’t belong. Being friends with a girl like that doesn’t get you anywhere. Besides, she isn’t a girl. She’s a middle-aged woman, when you come to think of it.”