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Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in being popular.

This quote occurs in Part II of the story, after Marjorie and Bernice return home from the initial party and Bernice reflects on the differences between her social life at home and the social setting of Eau Claire. Though she doesn’t know that Marjorie has been manipulating Warren into providing social graces to help her save face, Bernice does realize that she is out of her element. She has been raised to understand the world, and her role in it, in one narrow-minded way. She now finds herself in a situation where that understanding is moot, and she is unable to pivot away from her trajectory until Marjorie intervenes. She has no context for the circles in which she is moving, and her unworldliness and out-of-place values have set her adrift. It is less that her values are incorrect, and more that they are inapplicable to Marjorie’s social scene.

Of all Bernice’s conversation perhaps the best known and most universally approved was the line about the bobbing of her hair.

In Part V of the story, Bernice has enjoyed some social success under the guidance of her cousin. With Marjorie’s coaching, Bernice has embraced the ideas introduced to her about the social order. She is able to talk with boys in a way that she would previously have considered vapid, and she puts herself in a position that invites attention. Before, Bernice would have been too self-conscious and aware of the way that she was “supposed” to behave. Now, she has stretched beyond those boundaries and is even engaged in an ongoing bluff that constantly stirs questions about cutting her hair. Bernice believes that she is just striking a pose, and that, like many other fleeting moment of intrigue, she won’t have to follow through on it. In her inexperience and underestimation of Marjorie’s jealousy, Bernice thinks the bluff will fizzle out and leave her newfound popularity intact. Bernice has bought in to the game at hand, even if it is somewhat discomfiting.

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