n with you if it took her till her dying day.
Then, right on top of that, you know, she heard him ask if you'd go
horseback riding with him. So that's why she was so angry she wouldn't
bid you good night."

Lloyd's clenched hand tightened its grasp on the fan till the delicate
sticks crunched against each other. She was breathing so hard that the
little arrow on her dress rose and fell rapidly. The silence was so
intense that Mary was frightened. She did not know what kind of an
outburst to expect. All of a sudden, taking the fan in both hands, Lloyd
snapped it in two, and then breaking the pieces into a hundred
splinters, threw them across the room into the open fireplace. She stood
with her back to the girls a moment, then, to Mary's unspeakable
astonishment, forced herself to speak as calmly as if nothing had
happened, asking Joyce some commonplace question about her packing.
There was a book she wanted her to slip into her trunk to read at the
seashore. She was afraid it would be forgotten if left till next day, so
she went to her room to get it.

As the door closed behind her, Mary turned to Joyce in amazement. "I
don't see how it was possible for her to get over her temper so
quickly," she exclaimed. "The change almost took my breath."

"She isn't over it," answered Joyce. "She simply got it under control,
and it will smoulder a long time before it's finally burnt out. She's
dreadfully hurt, for she and Bernice have been friends so long that she
is really fond of her. Nothing hurts like being misunderstood and
misconstrued in that way. It is the last thing in the world that _Lloyd_
would do--suspect a friend of mean motives. From what I've seen of
Bernice, she is an uncomfortable sort of a friend to have; one of the
sensitive, suspicious kind that's always going around with her feelings
stuck out for somebody to tread on. She's always looking for slights,
and when she doesn't get real ones, she imagines them, which is just as
bad."

If Lloyd's anger burned next morning, there was no trace of it either in
face or manner, and she made that last day one long to be remembered by
her departing guests.

"How lonesome it's going to be aftah you all leave," she said to Joyce.
"The rest of the summah will be a stupid anticlimax. The house-pahty and
the wedding should have come at the last end of vacation instead of the
first, then we would have had something to look forward to all summah,
and could have plunged into