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 girls and men; and several others hovered on the edges of the group without coming close.

She began to notice a boy of about twenty who first was on her right and then was on her left and now had moved again as though circling to have a look at her from every side. He was a serious person, wearing steel-rimmed spectacles; his ready-made gray suit and coat were of good enough material but they had not been pressed recently.

Evidently he was a careless, or at least an absent-minded boy, untidy in his studiousness.

Fidelia grew uneasy under his peculiarly persistent observation; she saw him once speak to Dorothy Hess and ask a question and then peer at her again. When he vanished, she had the feeling that he was watching her from behind.

She walked home with Dorothy and another girl from Mrs. Fansler's; and she waited until Dorothy and she were alone in the upper hall at the boardinghouse before she asked Dorothy:

"Who was that man with steel-rimmed glasses who spoke to you after chapel?"

"Why, that was Roy Wheen!" Dorothy said with evident surprise that Fidelia found any interest in him. "Why?"

Fidelia stiffened and waited a moment to be able to reply casually: "I wondered if I ought to know him."

"Why," said Dorothy, "he asked me your name and where you came from."

"What did you tell him?"

"Why, your name and that you were from Stanford."