Too sick at heart for tears, too despairingly conscious of the uselessness of any attempt at reconciliation, Nancy began to dress in a miserable silence.
During dinner Nancy made a pretense at eating, but she could not join in the chatter with the other girls. Once or twice Charlotte glanced at her, but with her instinctive gentle tact appeared not to notice Nancy's blues.
At her table, Alma was feverishly gay; as a matter of fact she was on the point of tears. Never before had they had such a quarrel, never before had she seen Nancy so heedlessly angry, never before had they deliberately tried to say things to hurt each other. Waves of desperate homesickness assailed her, and with the memory of happy nights when they had gossiped together in their room at the little brown house, a lump ached in her throat. She wanted Nancy more than anyone else in the world. What was it they had said to each other that had caused such a dreadful coldness between them? She tried to tell herself that Nancy had misjudged her, that Nancy was wrong, and that she was right in maintaining her ground; but listening to the banter that went on around her, struggling to keep up her own end of it bravely, she felt that not one girl in the room, nor any pleasure in the world was of the slightest value to her so long as she did not have Nancy as her confidant and dearest friend.
With these thoughts battering at the foolish pride in their hearts it would have taken only a whispered word to send the sisters into one another's embrace, but the reconciliation for which they were both longing so piteously was postponed by an incident which threatened to make their quarrel even more serious. It was simply the outcome of an unfortunate chance. For some time both the girls had known that Miss Leland had planned to give them different roommates, since she thought it a good idea for sisters to be separated so that they could make closer friendships with other girls.
After dinner she spoke of this again, not to Nancy but to Alma, leaving it to the younger girl to announce the change to Nancy. She had, of course, no knowledge of their quarrel, nor could she have possibly gauged the unfortunate timing of the change.