gymnasium for the final big event of the weekend—the junior promenade. A distance of two blocks only, but Molly had declined to walk because she said she must spare her feet as much as possible. She sat well over in her own seat, the personification of injured pride and self-pity.
Jock said soothingly, "Don't you think you're making a mountain out of a molehill, Molly? Nobody is going to get the idea that you don't interest me. That's absurd. You know, and everybody knows, that I'm not paying any attention to her because she's attractive. It's just that she's so—so darn pitiful, Molly! I—maybe you won't understand this—but I can put myself in her place and feel exactly what she's going through, and it's hell, that's all. Everybody ignores her; even Dopey, who asked her here himself, is taking it out on her now by acting bored to death whenever he's near her, and I think it's a doggone rotten shame!"
"Yes, but why you should consider it's up to you—" Molly's voice broke suddenly, and her little flurry of fury died away. "Oh, Jock, I'm being silly, I know, but I l-love you and I can feel you slipping away from me, and I don't know what to do about it! Last summer—why, do you think you'd have known any other girl was there, even, last summer? No matter how pitiful she was?" Molly was crying frankly now into her bare ringed hands. "It's not the girl herself—it's everything about this weekend. It's your attitude, and your not wanting to kiss me, and—oh, Jock, what have I done to you—what did I ever do to you that made you stop caring about me any m-m-more"
He had to guide the machine to the curb and halt there. He had to put his arms around the shuddering shoulders, and pat the bent head, and say, "Now Molly, don't—don't do that, please—you're just imagining
