The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity of her ordeal. For, though her family knew nothing of what that first year out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation of hoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one else in the college world. At the first of the year, all gatherings of undergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations about who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. For every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for Sylvia in an added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one of her temperament. She had been considered almost sure to be early invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl; and when an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the fraternity member moved away again. This atmosphere would have made no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more unimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not in the least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. It tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. She fancied that every one despised her. She imagined that people who were in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "in the swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were.