"Two out of three!" she reckoned her friends against the one already antagonistic to her. Of course she was counting only Mrs. Fansler and the two girls whom she had seen and who had seen her here. The men, or at least a safe majority of them, would begin in favor of her; she could depend upon them; and as she considered the three who had watched her at the station, she thought of them reaching their fraternity houses and telling other men about her. There was no especial conceit in her thinking this, but only a recognition of fact; she knew that men kept her in mind and talked about her. Now she lay, not thinking but listening, for some one was speaking in the hall and she heard the words positively enunciated: "Take her your fraternity pictures; that's what she'll care to see!" A door closed hastily and there was silence during which Fidelia became aware of a low, persistent sound much more steady and unvarying than the blowing of the wind. She arose curiously and went to the window, which she opened and she heard the sound much louder.
"The ocean," she said to herself and immediately recollected where she was. "It's the lake, of course," and she stood with the cold east wind blowing upon her, listening to the roar of the surf.
The violence of it and the cold and storminess of the night appealed to her in her present mood of exhilaration. Already it was too dark for her to get a glimpse of the water, even if the intervening houses and trees and the configuration of the land back of Mrs. Fansler's permitted a clear view eastward; but
