In another version, Marya was so panicked at being simply touched by her date (she was a virgin, she was frigid, she’d never been kissed before) that she ran from the car, hysterical and panting . . . ran all the way back to campus. The boy was a blind date, someone in drama, or maybe business administration, it was all a total surprise to him that Marya Knauer was so . . . crazy.

In a third improbable version it was Imogene Skillman’s fiancé who offered to take Marya back to the residence, because she was so upset—having a breakdown of some kind—and when they were halfway there she threw herself on him in the car while he was actually driving. And then, ashamed, she opened the car door and jumped out while the car was still in motion.

“It’s Imogene,” Marya said, licking her numbed lips. “She’s making these things up. . . . Why is she doing this to me . . . !”

There were vague rumors too that Marya had borrowed small sums of money from Imogene. And items of clothing as well—the camel’s-hair coat, for instance. (Because she hadn’t a coat of her own. Because her coat had literally gone to shreds. Because she was so poor, a scholarship student from the hills, practically a hillbilly. . . .) As far as she was concerned, Imogene was reported saying, Marya Knauer could keep the coat if she was that desperate. Imogene no longer wanted it back.

Marya telephoned Imogene and accused her of telling lies, of telling slanderous tales. “Do you think I don’t know who’s behind this?” Marya cried. But Imogene hung up at once: Imogene was too wise to reply.

Marya began to see how people watched her . . . smiling covertly as she passed. They were pitying, yet merciless. They knew. Marya Knauer with all her pretensions, Marya Knauer who had made a fool of herself with another girl’s fiancé, Marya Knauer who was cracking up. . . .

In the fluorescent-lit dining hall she sat alone in an alcove, eating quickly, her head bowed; it was too much trouble to remove her plates and glass of water from the tray. Two boys passed near and she heard them laugh softly. . . . That the one? There? one of them whispered. She turned back to her book (the thought of suicide is a strong consolation, one can get through many a bad night with it) but the print danced in her eyes.

AT ABOUT THIS time Marya was notified that a short story she had submitted to a national competition had placed first; and, not long afterward—within a week or ten days, in fact—she learned that another story, sent out blindly and naively to a distinguished literary magazine, was accepted for publication.