The girls went unwillingly, and would have stayed for another half-hour if Miss Janet had not insisted upon their departure. Lorraine, putting on her boots in the cloak-room, decided that her first effort had been an unqualified success. It had certainly seemed to draw the school together in a bond of union, so far as she could judge. She could not resist a purr of satisfaction to Dorothy, whose coat hung next to hers. Dorothy's congratulations were, however, half-hearted. "I suppose they enjoyed it," she admitted grudgingly, "though I dare say some of them felt it a bore to be obliged to stay after four o'clock. Vivien said you'd got the whole thing up to show off your own specimens." The hot colour flamed to Lorraine's cheeks. "Oh, what a shame! I _didn't_! I hardly showed any specimens myself, only a few ferns and photos, and one drawing. You _know_ it wasn't for my own glorification!" Dorothy straightened her collar outside her coat as if its arrangement were the main object in life. "Oh, _I'm_ not saying so!" she remarked carelessly. "I'm only telling you what I heard Vivien say. Effie Swan wondered you never asked _her_ to play when you asked Theresa Dawson." "I couldn't ask them all--it wasn't a concert." "She's very offended, though. I don't think she's going to come to the next social." "Let her stay at home, then!" snapped Lorraine, thoroughly exasperated. Dorothy consulted her watch. "It's frightfully late!" she sighed. "I shan't have time to do my practising. We're going out to a concert to-night." She sauntered away, having lodged several very unpleasant shafts, and leaving them to rankle. For Lorraine, all the satisfaction of the afternoon had faded. Nothing hurts so much as the confidences of a so-called friend who tells you the disagreeable things that other people say about you. It is a particularly mean form of sincerity, for the remarks were probably never intended to be repeated. The mischief it often causes is incalculable. Lorraine walked home, feeling that there was a barrier between herself and her cousin. "I knew Vivien would be annoyed at my being head girl, but I didn't think she'd be so spiteful as that!" she ruminated. "Well, I don't care! I shall go on with the 'socials' all the same, and with any other schemes that crop up. But it is horrid of her, because she might have been such a help to me!"