Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/117

 with me into the next room; I've got a real library in there."

But Hubert Athelstone belonged neither to the Royal nor to the National; he was an outsider.

Doris grew tired of tossing on her pillows. So she got out of bed, put on her peacock kimono, her slippers, and sat down on the hassock by the window in the dark. The first real snowstorm was making headway. Beyond the street lamp the flakes were feathery white, this side they were black and shadowy. She wondered what time it was.

She was very unhappy. She was always comparing her own existence with that of those about her. The Burlinghams were nice and their friends were nice, but her association with them only strengthened her sense of loneliness. They all had "people," and most of them had known one another since childhood. She had no such friendships. She had formed friendships during her school days, but all these had been broken and never reformed. Those occasional visits from parents! How she had