at I had done.

My eulogist had had the good taste not to mention names, and I had
been brazenly forward, deliberately calling attention to myself when
there was no need. Oh, it was sickening! I hated myself, I hated with
all my heart the girls who had prompted me to such immodest conduct. I
wished the ground would yawn and snap me up. I was ashamed to look up
at my friends on the platform. What was Miss Dillingham thinking of
me? Oh, what a fool I had been! I had ruined my own triumph. I had
disgraced myself, and my friends, and poor Mr. Swan, and the Winthrop
School. The monster vanity had sucked out my wits, and left me a
staring idiot.

It is easy to say that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, a
catastrophe out of a mere breach of good manners. It is easy to say
that. But I know that I suffered agonies of shame. After the
exercises, when the crowd pressed in all directions in search of
friends, I tried in vain to get out of the hall. I was mobbed, I was
lionized. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the prodigy of the day,
and they knew who it was. I had made sure of that; I had exhibited
myself. The people smiled on me, flattered me, passed me on from one
to another. I smirked back, but I did not know what I said. I was wild
to be clear of the building. I thought everybody mocked me. All my
roses had turned to ashes, and all through my own brazen conduct.

I would have given my diploma to have Miss Dillingham know how the
thing had happened, but I could not bring myself to speak first. If
she would ask me--But nobody asked. Nobody looked away from me.
Everybody congratulated me, and my father and mother and my remotest
relations. But the sting of shame smarted just the same; I could not
be consoled. I had made a fool of myself: Mr. Swan had publicly put me
down.

Ah, so that was it! Vanity was the vital spot again. It was wounded
vanity that writhed and squirmed. It was not because I had been bold,
but because I had been pronounced bold, that I suffered so
monstrously. If Mr. Swan, with an eloquent gesture, had not silenced
me, I might have made my little speech--good heavens! what _did_ I
mean to say?--and probably called it another feather in my bonnet. But
he had stopped me promptly, disgusted with my forwardness, and he had
shown before all those hundreds what he thought of me. Therein lay the
sting.

With all my talent for self-analysis, it took me a long time to
realize the essential pettiness