Just before it went he said to Deborah: “I don’t know how I could have forgotten you, you are just the same as you used to be.” But she knew she had never been anything very grand, so she only laughed and looked at him. Truth to tell she could scarcely look at anyone else. When it came to the last sad minute she was bound to look away. “If I did dare to look at him then, he would understand too well,” she thought, and so once more it was a most unsatisfactory farewell. When they had settled down, and the train was on its way, she hid herself behind a paper. “He had forgotten all about me, and it’s scarcely four months ago. I expect all the times I used to run down to see him he was thinking of someone else.” She felt a bit broken-hearted; she remembered all the silly little subterfuges she had been up to, and how she had once worn aprons for a fortnight because she thought it looked domesticated and as if she understood something about the management of a house. “I don’t know what you can see in Mr ——,” said Maggie, from the opposite seat. “He is so shy.” But Deborah did not argue—it was not worth it. After the Christmas holidays she went back to college and the two years dragged away. Deborah, when she first went to college, was forever being scolded about her essays. “It’s no good your ever thinking you can write,” a hard, contemptuous voice was continually saying to her. “You had two or three rather signal failures in that line before coming to college at all, and even in this mediocre place you fail to make the least impression with your work.” On the other hand, a clear, firm voice kept ringing, “Some day, when I care to write in my own way, they shall listen to me.” It was a very proud voice—too proud, perhaps. There was a girl who was noted for being the best essay-writer in the college. She was a little older than most of those who were there, and was supposed to have a better conception of life and things as they really are. But she was not a great favourite, as she rather looked down on most of the other girls, and understood the art of being rude a little better than most people. Her name was Jane Shaw. Towards the end of the first year Deborah’s essays were said to be improving, and by the end she had managed to make as many marks as Jane. Not that she ever counted marks; she laughed at and despised them, which was another piece of pride. The subjects for essays in the second year were, however, more to Deborah’s taste; they were not quite so cramped, and gave one a better range for expression. She began to pass Jane by, not intentionally but unavoidably, for it was easier on the whole to write well than badly. Toward the end of the second year the senior students prepared for an oratorio, which they were going to sing in St Paul’s on Ascension Day, as it was the year of the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. One day one of the students who had come from the same school as Deborah came running up to her.