other than to avoid her. With a woman’s perversity of mind, she was annoyed that he should so explicitly obey her command that their friendship be kept on a mere disinterested plane. Mimi had never before been touched by the flaming torch of love nor even of affection despite her volatile and tender nature. The self-imposed abstention from companionship with Carl which had formed, she now discovered, so large a part of her thoughts, was resulting in the steady growth of an interest that before the rupture had been largely an impersonal one. As he continued to avoid her, Mimi determined to tell Carl how foolish she thought him to carry out her quixotic request too literally. Many days passed, though, between the making of the resolution and its execution.
Then one Sunday morning she saw him enter with his mother and sister and father the pew they always occupied near the front of the church. With all the eager impulsiveness of youth in love or youth imagining itself in love, Mimi felt a delightfully pleasant sensation in watching the back of Carl’s head, in being near him. She wanted to put in place the rebellious lock of hair which sprang in disarray from the top of Carl’s head like the feather from an Indian’s headdress. She wanted eagerly to talk with him again as they used to, she wanted to ramble from subject to subject in that comradely way which she missed now that the talks had been ended. The gossip which had partly led to that abrupt severance of their companionship had died down, though Mimi knew from experience that rumour, apparently dead and forgotten, was many lived and any misstep of the future could and would resurrect all previous reports. She knew they could arise again and always did, springing into life with new vigour like that mythical being whose name she could never remember who, thrown to earth, received new strength by contact with it, and entered the struggle again invigorated and more powerful than before.
To regain the friendship she had lost, however, she was willing to risk the wagging of tongues. She stood with bowed head watching Carl with