CHAPTER XIXPHILLIDA’S STORY
“I came to New York six years ago to study art. I was seventeen years old; shy, self-willed, full of notions; a difficult girl. Nobody could tell me anything. I only learned things by butting my head against them. Most people look back, or make believe to look back on their childhood as the happiest period of their life. Not me. I was wretched until I began to find myself. Most of all I longed for friends, but I was too self-conscious to make friends. When I most wished to give myself, something forced me to draw back. So, of course, other girls considered me supercilious, cold and uninteresting.
“I tell you all this so you may judge of the effect that Doreen Forbes had on me. But I cannot possibly make you realise what she was like in those days. A sort of sp
