Superior Women Read Online Free PDF

eyes.
    Actually, Megan is so delighted, still, to be at college, at Radcliffe, at all, that she has not conceived of possible improvements in her state; she has not thought about liking Bertram or not. And so she says, “Well, I guess so. It’s really all right. Actually I haven’t got to know anyone there too well. They’re mostly juniors or seniors, and they already know each other.”
    With one of her most intense, entirely concentrated looks, Lavinia remarks, “You don’t have to stay there, you know. You could tell them you want to move between terms, in September. You could come over here.”
    Surprisingly, Cathy adds, “You could have the room across the hall, actually. She’s moving into Cabot, she thinks it’s a little more ‘grand,’ over there.”
    (They all, the three and then four friends, acquire from Lavinia this verbal trick of emphasis, of just slightly setting off words; perhaps Cathy does it first. Later, reading Proust, they see it as Lavinia’s Duchess de Guermantes device, to which Lavinia readily agrees. “Of course, Proust has always been my absolutely favorite writer. I feel so at home in Proust.”)
    Loud clumping noises just then sound from down the hall, increasingly noisy, until there in the doorway is Peg, big Peg, looking bigger yet in her white gym uniform. She makes enthusiastic welcoming sounds at the sight of Megan—“Well, little Megan, our visitor for tea! Well! Welcome to Barnard!”—in her deep jolly voice.
    Responding politely, if not precisely in kind, Megan is darkly aware of some negative reaction to big Peg. I don’t like you, she is thinking, as she smiles up at Peg; but this is inadmissible, she will not allow herself not to like Peg. Lavinia and Cathy like her, so why should Megan not—what’s wrong with her?
    Peg says, “Well, I’m glad you girls appreciate my mother’s cooking,” and she laughs, very loud.
    “We’re just trying to see that you don’t eat too much, and put on weight,” Lavinia chides.
    “I’m starting my diet tomorrow.” An old joke, at which Peg laughs again. “Actually this dormitory food makes things a little difficult. It’s all so fattening. Have you noticed that too, little Megan?”
    I am nowhere near as fat as you are, Megan wants to say; we do not look in the least alike. But Peg’s tone has been one of polite inquiry, even concern, and so she only says, “I haven’t thought about it much. It is pretty fattening, I guess. So much starch.”
    It is Lavinia who says, “Peglet, Megan is nowhere near as big as you are. Now, really.” She has spoken very lightly, but definitively, with her tiny frown.
    Poor Peg flounders. “Oh, I didn’t mean—” She now sounds so distressed that Megan is touched, and likes Peg better. She herselfsometimes says things that she has not quite meant to; feeling awkward herself, too often, she is moved by awkwardness in another person. But she is even more touched by Lavinia’s defense.
    “As a matter of fact Megan’s moving over here in the fall, and you both can go on diets,” Lavinia at that moment announces.
    Peg’s enthusiasm is noisy: Terrific, wonderful,
neat
—she says, while Megan smiles, feeling fairly foolish.
    Matter-of-factly, a welcome contrast to Peg, Cathy states, “It will be better, there being four of us.” But what did she mean?
    “I just love Barnard Hall,” Lavinia declares, at her most Southern. “And this top floor, our end of the hall. It’s our own private quarters.” She laughs, admitting that what she has been saying sounded a little silly, but then she says, “In fact I like it so much that I don’t think I’ll even bother going home between terms. I’ll just stay here and read up for next fall and take walks. And go to museums in Boston.”
    “Oh, Lavinia, you’ll be so lonely, you won’t like that at all,” Peg clucks worriedly. “If you don’t want to go all the way home you could come down to Plainfield with me. My mother would