Collegehad opened; but they had slipped into it so quietly that there hardly seemed to be a break. For Peggy and Priscilla, perhaps, there was a bit of a pang at the realization that this was the last year of what would probably be one of the sweetest periods in their lives to look back on; and they privately vowed to make it rich in experience and the beauty of living. Ruth and Amy, like Southey's brother who said that "no young man believes that he will ever die," felt that college life would never, could never, end. So a week after the beginning of classes found the four girls trying conscientiously to live in the present, and stifling vague, tantalizing memories of the past three months.
A number of letters passed between Nelson Hallowell and his friend in Oklahoma before the great step was decided on. And it must be confessed that in the meantime Ruth'scollege work suffered. Nelson came almost every evening to pour into her attentive ears the story of his hopes and ambitions, and Ruth listened with the happy confidence that her approval meant more to him than to any one in the world.
Ruth and Nelson were living in an enchanted world, where perfect understanding took the place of speech. Nelson did not feel himself at liberty to say to her the thing that was constantly in his thoughts. The salary Mr. Flynn had paid him had not enabled him to save any money, and his venture in Oklahoma, promising as he believed it, was, after all, only a venture, with a possibility of failure. Nelson knew that he himself was bound fast and irrevocably, but he wanted to leave Ruth free as air. Yet he talked to her with the assurance that she knew all he was in honor bound not to say, and her look, as she listened, confirmed that certainty.
Those weeks during which the matter was being settled were a happy time for both of them. Youth has a way of making the most of a present joy, regardless of what the future has in store, and while this seems very short-sightedto some older people, who can always look ahead far enough to be miserable, the young will probably continue to enjoy to-day's sunshine—regardless of the weather prognosticator, who assures them of a storm in the middle of the week with a drop in temperature. Nelson and Ruth saw as much of each other as they could, and looked no further than a happiness born of a confidence and understanding.
But the thing was settled at last, and the generous offer of Nelson's soldier friend definitely accepted. Nelson gave Mr. Flynn notice, and that irritable gentleman promptly lost his temper, and accused his reliable clerk of folly and ingratitude. Later he realized his mistake, and offered to raise his salary. But Nelson was as little moved by Mr. Flynn's smiles as he had been by his frowns, and Mr. Flynn promptly relapsed into his former irascibility.
"The war spoiled a lot of you young fellows. You're sick of hard work. Loafing is the only thing that appeals to you."
"I never heard," laughed Nelson, "that life on a cattle ranch was considered a soft snap."
"Well, if it isn't, you'll soon give it up," said Mr. Flynn disagreeably. "An easy berth is what you're looking for, and it's my opinion that you'll look some time before you find it."
The next two weeks fairly flew. Nelson was getting his necessary outfit, and every afternoon, on the way home, he stopped to exhibit to Ruth his latest purchases. And now the time had come when it was hard for Ruth to smile and show the proper interest. Sometimes when she remembered that the decision had been left to her, and that she had brought this on herself, her heart almost failed her. It would have been so much easier to have gone on in the old way. The thought of the thousands of miles that would soon stretch between Nelson and herself gave her a weak feeling in the knees. They had a great deal to say in those days about letters but each realized, only two well, that the best letter ever penned is a poor substitute for the exchange of speech and of smiles.
The day of Nelson's departure Ruth went through the customary routine with a curious sense of unreality. She had suggestedNelson's coming to dinner, but he had declined, and she would never know what that refusal cost him.
"I'd love to, Ruth. You don't know how I'd love to. But I think I should take my last meal with mother."
"Yes, Nelson, I think so, too."
"She says she won't go down to the station to see me off," Nelson went on. "She's been keen about my going from the start, but now that it's come to the point, it's harder than she thought."
Ruth reflected that she could sympathize with Mrs. Hallowell perfectly.
"The train goes at ten," Nelson continued with a sprightly air that would not have deceived the most gullible, "so I'll have plenty of time to bore you stiff before you see the last of me."
Ruth forced the smile his jest demanded. "You know we're all going to the station with you," she said. "Even Bob Carey's coming."
"I hope that Hitchcock won't show up," exclaimed Nelson apprehensively.
Ruth laughed. "No, I don't think Horaceexpects to honor us. Isn't it the queerest thing," she added, "what Priscilla can see in him?"
"I should say so. Priscilla's one of the finest girls you'd meet in a day's journey, and Hitchcock is a nut. I shouldn't think she could stand it to have him around. Though I suppose," concluded Nelson with customary modesty, "that Priscilla thinks just the same about you and me."
"Priscilla! She wouldn't dare." Ruth's indignation was so intense that Nelson shouted with laughter, but it warmed his heart, nevertheless.
In that last quick-moving Saturday, Ruth saw Nelson for a few moments in the morning, and again about three in the afternoon. His stay was short and rather unsatisfactory for he had some last errands to attend to, and his mind was so full of them that his thoughts wandered from what he was saying, and he left his sentences unfinished in the most irritating fashion.
After he had answered a question of Ruth's in a way which showed he had hardly heardwhat she had said, he looked up quickly at her half-vexed exclamation, laughed, and jumped to his feet.
"It's no use, Ruth," he said. "I'm one of the fellows who's good for only one thing at a time. I'll attend to these thousand-and-one things that have been left over, and I'll see you about eight o 'clock to-night. That will give us time for a nice little visit."
Up till that time the hours had fairly flown. Now they dragged. Ruth watched the clock and waited for the tiresome, leisurely hour hand to point to eight. The clan was to gather at a little after nine, and she was thankful when Graham departed for Peggy's shortly after finishing dinner. Peggy would keep him till the last minute. Peggy would understand. Ruth had taken great pains in dusting the living-room that morning, and she looked around it thinking that it made a picture of cosy comfort Nelson might be glad to carry with him.
It was eight o'clock at last. Ruth straightened a book on the table, brushed a speck of dust from her gown, and sat down facing the door. There were quick steps on the side walk,and she never doubted that they would come on up the walk, and then up the steps, and she meant to have the door open before he had time to ring. But the footsteps went on and the minute hand of the clock was also moving.
At quarter past eight Ruth was nervous. She got up and down, adjusted the window shades, changed the arrangement of the chairs, fussed with the flowers on the mantel, looked at herself in the mirror, and did something to her hair. At half past eight she sat very still, frowning slightly and biting her lip. At quarter of nine her cheeks had reddened and she tapped the carpet with the toe of her shoe. And at nine o'clock her heart gave a jump and she forgot how near she had come to being angry. For the footsteps for which she had waited were coming up the walk.
"Hello!" It was Priscilla's voice. "Don't tell me I'm the first one."
"The others will be here in a minute," Ruth replied in an even voice. "Come right in and take off your coat, Priscilla, for this room's awfully warm."
Priscilla complied with her friend's suggestion,and glanced at her admiringly. She thought she had never seen Ruth look so pretty. "You've got a lovely color to-night," she exclaimed.
"It's just because it's so hot here. I always get flushed when I'm warm."
Priscilla was looking around the room as if in search of something. "Why, where's Nelson?"
"He'll be here right away. You know there are always so many things to be attended to in the last few minutes." But though Ruth gave this explanation with a matter-of-fact cheerfulness that deceived even Priscilla who knew her so well, she was seething inwardly. So this was all he cared. He had sacrificed their quiet hour together. Now there would be a crush and a crowd and everybody talking at once, and no chance to say any of the things she had saved up for their last evening.
Not that she cared. Ruth flung up her head and laughed gaily at something Priscilla was telling. Her hands were cold and her mouth felt very dry, and her heart was pounding furiously. Nelson could come when he wasready, and so that he didn't miss the train, it made no difference to her.
Amy and Bob were next to arrive. Then came Peggy and Graham. "Nelson's late, isn't he?" said Peggy with an uneasy glance at the clock. "He hasn't any time to spare."
"I'll put on my things so we'll all be ready to start when he gets here," Ruth returned casually. She had put on a little blue frock, of which Nelson was especially fond, for the last evening, and she was glad to conceal it by a long coat. Her hand trembled as she pinned her hat in place. She hoped Nelson Hallowell wasn't conceited enough to suppose she cared whether he came at one hour or another.
It was twenty minutes past nine when Nelson arrived, and he looked rather white and shaken. As he had left for camp two years before, his mother had stood smiling in the doorway to watch him go. When it was whispered that they were going across, and he had told her she was not likely to see him again till the war was over, she had kissed him with lips that did not tremble. But then she had been lifted above herself by the exalted spirits of the times.Now she had no sense of patriotic service to sustain her. She realized that she was no longer a young woman, that life was uncertain, and that her boy was going very far away. Over their last meal together she had broken down, and wept as Nelson had never seen his mother weep in all his life.
It is not to Nelson's discredit that he had forgotten Ruth. Or if that is saying too much, his thought of her was vague and shadowy. Nelson's father had died when he was a little boy, and through the years that he was growing to manhood, his mother and he had been everything to each other. The sight of her grief was torturing. He had put his arms about her, and comforted her as best he could. He had offered to give up the whole thing, and had started to go out to telegraph his friend in Oklahoma that he was not coming. That, more than anything else, had helped her to regain her self-control. As mothers have been doing from time immemorial she wiped her wet eyes and tried to smile, that he might go on his great adventure without a shadow on his heart. Throughout that distressing, solemn, sacredtime, it had never occurred to Nelson to look at the clock. The thought of Ruth had hardly crossed his mind. Even on his way to her homo, he was still thinking of the mother he had left.
It was Graham who, hearing Nelson's step outside, rushed to admit him. Nelson entered, blinking a little in the bright light of the room, and speaking first to one and then another. Ruth in the corner by the fireplace was talking to Bob Carey, and was so interested that she only glanced in Nelson's direction, to toss him a smiling nod, and then resume her conversation with Bob. Nelson gave a little start as if some one had pinched him in the middle of a dream and he had suddenly awakened.
"Well, old man," remarked Graham cheerfully, "you haven't left yourself much leeway. It's just about time to start."
"I—yes, I suppose it is." Nelson looked in Ruth's direction and then looked quickly away. As for Ruth, she was so absorbed by what Bob Carey was saying, that her brother had to repeat his remark for her benefit. "Come, Ruth.Better get a move on. We haven't any time to waste."
"Oh, is it really time to start?" Ruth asked carelessly. "I hadn't noticed." And with that fib on her conscience, she rose and joined the others.
Fond as Peggy was of Ruth, that evening she could have shaken her in her exasperation. For on the walk to the street-car, Ruth clung to her arm and chattered unceasingly. As Graham stuck doggedly to Peggy's other side and Bob was with Amy, Nelson and Priscilla found themselves walking together. But since Nelson was too dazed for speech, and Priscilla was wondering what Horace would say to this juxtaposition, they walked in an almost unbroken silence.
It was no better on the street car. Peggy maneuvered shamelessly to put Nelson and Ruth into the one vacant seat, but Ruth slipped past and took her seat beside a fat woman, who left so little space that Ruth was in imminent danger of falling into the aisle, whenever the car turned the corner. In Peggy's opinion such a catastrophe would have been no more thanshe deserved. Peggy had to take the place she had designed for Ruth, and did her best to be agreeable, but Nelson's wandering replies showed the futility of her efforts.
A slight delay on the way brought them to the station less than ten minutes before train time. Nelson's tickets were bought, of course, and his reservations made. They stood in a group in the station waiting-room and said the aimless things people generally say five minutes before train-time. All but Ruth, that is. When Nelson looked at her he found her attention absorbed by an Italian family, whose bundles and babies occupied the nearest row of seats.
It was Graham who again took on himself the ungracious duty of calling Nelson's attention to the flight of time. "I guess you'd better go aboard, Nelson. You don't want to stand right here in the station, and miss the train."
Nelson started violently. "Oh, no," he replied, "certainly not." He turned to Bob Carey and shook hands with him, murmuring a mechanical good-by. Amy stood at Bob's side and Nelson held out his hand to her.
Amy had shared Peggy's feeling of vexation with Ruth, and like Peggy had resented her sense of impotence. Neither one of them would have hesitated to take Ruth roundly to task for her conduct, but it was impossible to scold her in Nelson's presence, and after he had started on his long journey westward it would be too late. But as Amy looked into the young fellow's down-cast face, a brilliant inspiration came to her aid. She grasped his hand, pulled herself up on tiptoes, and kissed the astonished youth squarely on the lips. "Good-by, Nelson, and good luck."
Peggy, the next in line, saw her friend's ruse, and seconded her admirably. It was impossible to tell whether Nelson blushed at the second kiss, for the flaming color due to Amy's salute still dyed him crimson. Priscilla pushed aside the obtrusive thought of Horace, and backed up the others. And then Nelson came to Ruth.
For a moment Ruth had been in a quandary. After their warm friendship, to part with Nelson with a formal handshake when the other girls had kissed him, would be to proclaimpublicly that she was angry, and Ruth did not wish to seem angry, but only indifferent. And yet if she kissed Nelson good-by, she had a suspicion that the barrier her pride had built between them would melt like mist in the sun. She raised her eyes and met his, those honest eyes in which she read bewilderment and grief and appeal and something greater than all. And then, all at once, her resentment seemed incomprehensibly petty. Whatever the reason that Nelson had come late, it was not because he did not care. And so their first kiss was exchanged in the garish light of a railway waiting-room, with the calls of the trainmen blending with the unmelodious crying of babies, with travelers coming and going, and a little circle of friends standing by and taking everything in. But there are some experiences it is impossible to spoil.
Ruth looking up at Nelson"SHE RAISED HER EYES AND MET HIS"
"SHE RAISED HER EYES AND MET HIS"
"All aboard," cried Graham, and carried Nelson away. Ruth slipped her arms through Peggy's, and turned toward the door, swallowing hard at something that refused to be swallowed.
"If ever a girl deserved a scolding!" saidPeggy in the tenderest tones imaginable. "But I'm not going to do it now, because at the last minute you redeemed yourself—thanks to Amy."
Ruthmoped after Nelson's departure. Just how much her depression was due to missing him, and how much was the result of self-reproach, she could not have told. Each time she realized his absence she remembered with a pang the hurt wonder of his face that night in the station. It did not help matters that Nelson seemed to consider himself entirely to blame for what had happened, and had written her from the train a most humble apology for failing to be at her home at eight o'clock as he had promised. In fact, his assumption that she could not possibly be in the wrong only made Ruth the more conscious of her pettiness.
It was largely on Ruth's account that Peggy resolved on her dinner party. For after scolding Ruth soundly, and giving her to understand that she was very much ashamed of her, Peggy had set herself resolutely to cheer herdespondent friend. On the Friday following Nelson's departure something went wrong with the heating plant at college, and the classes were dismissed at ten o'clock. At once Peggy determined to celebrate.
"Father and mother have gone away for the week end, and Dick's going home with his chum after school, and I shan't see him till bed-time. Come to dinner all of you. We'll have an old-fashioned good time."
The recipients of this invitation accepted promptly. They were in the rather hilarious mood which for some reason characterizes the most ambitious student when school is dismissed for the day, college seniors as well as kindergarten tots. "Only you must let us come over and help you," stipulated Ruth.
"Yes, come on, and then if anything doesn't turn out well, I can blame some of you. I wonder—do you know, I've half a mind to invite Hildegarde Carey."
The others approved, especially Priscilla who had a great admiration for Bob's attractive sister.
"She took us out that evening, you know,"Peggy continued. "She's always been awfully sweet to me and I've never done anything for her. The only thing—well, I feel a little bit afraid of her."
"I'll testify that she can eat a very simple meal and seem to enjoy it." And Amy chuckled as she always did when she recalled the first time Hildegarde had sat at her table.
Peggy laughed understandingly. "I think I'll ask her. I've always thought it was a sort of snobbishness to be ashamed to give your best to people who have more than you do. Though I'm not sure that a party of girls will appeal to her."
Apparently she had misjudged Hildegarde. For the latter's tone, when she responded to Peggy's invitation given over the phone a few minutes later, was unmistakably enthusiastic.
"A dinner party and just girls! How cute! I'd adore to come, Peggy, but would it put you out if I brought my friend Virginia Dunbar? She's a New York girl who's making me a little visit and she's perfectly fascinating."
"Why, bring her of course. I shall love tomeet her." Peggy's hospitality rendered her response sufficiently fervent, but as she hung up the receiver, her face wore a thoughtful expression. The little dinner party, which had seemed pure fun when her three chums were her prospective guests, had become a responsibility, as soon as Hildegarde was added to the number. And with a New York girl coming, it seemed distinctly formidable.
It had not previously occurred to Peggy that the house was not in suitable order for the reception of guests, but now as she looked about the dining-room its shortcomings were painfully evident. She donned a long apron and a sweeping cap, and set resolutely to work. When the dining room was swept and garnished, the living room across the hall suffered comparison, and Peggy gave that equally careful attention. And as by this time she was on her mettle, she went to work cleaning the silver. The twelve o'clock whistles surprised her in this exacting task, and she swallowed a peanut-butter sandwich by way of luncheon, promising herself to make up for this abstemiousness at dinner, Peggy was not one of the temperamentalcooks who cannot enjoy their own cooking.
At half past one she hurried forth with her market basket to make the necessary purchases. She left by the back door and took the key with her. A little after two she was back again, the loaded basket on her arm. Peggy set her burden down, rubbed her aching muscles, and felt in her coat pocket for the key. Then she felt in the other pocket. Then she continued to search one pocket and then the other, with increasing evidences of consternation. But it was of no use. The key was gone.
"I must have had it in my hand and laid it down on the counter somewhere," thought Peggy. "Was ever anything so exasperating." She left the basket outside the locked door, and hurriedly retraced her steps. The butcher, whom she had visited first, shook his head in answer to her question. No, he had not seen a stray door-key. It was the same at the grocer's, the same at the bakery where she had bought Parker-house rolls. Peggy walked home over the route she had traversed, her eyesglued to the side-walk, but she did not find the key.
Ruth was waiting for her by the front steps. "I thought I'd come over and help you. I hope you haven't finished everything."
"I haven't even started," replied Peggy in a hollow voice, and explained the situation. Ruth was a girl of resources and at once she had a bright idea.
"Peggy, our front door key looks a good bit like yours. Perhaps it will open the door. I'll run over and get it."
"Then, fly," pleaded Peggy, "It's simply awful to be locked out of your house when you have a million things to do."
Ruth sped on her errand at a pace which satisfied even the impatient Peggy, and returned with a key which really did look like the latch key with whose appearance Peggy was most familiar. Hopefully she inserted it in the appropriate key-hole. Patiently she turned it this way and that. The latch key was like a great many people, encouraging one's expectations by almost doing what it was asked to do, but never quite succeeding. In the endPeggy mournfully relinquished all hope of entering the house by its aid.
"I can't waste any more time on that key. It won't work, and I've got to get in."
"How about the windows," suggested Ruth.
"The windows on the first floor are all locked, for I made sure of that before I started out."
"If we could borrow a ladder—"
"I don't know anybody who owns a ladder. No, there's just one chance as far as I can see. I've always wondered if I could get in through the coal shute and now I'm going to see."
"But, Peggy, it's so dirty."
"I know, but it's got to be done."
"You might get stuck," exclaimed Ruth, turning pale. "Wait a little, Peggy. Perhaps something will happen."
"Unless an air ship comes along and takes me to a second story window, I can't think of anything that could happen that would be of any help to me."
The narrow, inclined passage through which the coal was chuted from the side walk to the cellar bin, looked small enough and black enoughto justify Ruth's forebodings. But Peggy's impatience had reached the point where anything seemed better than inaction. She lowered herself into the chute, and when she released her hold of the edge, her descent was so rapid that Ruth shrieked. But after a moment of suspense she heard an encouraging rattle of coal, and then steps slowly ascending the cellar steps. A little later the front door was shaken violently without opening, however, and Peggy's face presently appeared at one of the living-room windows. Regardless of the fact that her friend was attempting to tell her something, Ruth screamed with laughter, for Peggy's face was so begrimed as to suggest that her habitual occupation was that of a chimney-sweep. Ruth's laughter was short-lived, however, for raising her voice, Peggy made herself heard, and with an accent of authority by no means characteristic.
"Stop laughing, Ruth, and help me. In fooling with your key I've done something to that wretched lock, and now I can't open the door even from the inside."
"The front door?"
"I can't open either door," cried Peggy. "I can't openanydoor. The only way to get into the house is by the window, and Hildegarde Carey is coming to dinner and a girl from New York."
"What do you want me to do, Peggy?" Ruth was so carried away by her friend's excitement that for the moment she was unable to see anything humorous in the situation.
"Bring me my market basket, first. It's on the back steps. And then find a locksmith and bring him here. Don't be satisfied with having him say he'll come. Bring him with you."
Ruth hurried to the back of the house, secured the heavy basket, and returned with it to the living room window. And then she astonished Peggy by setting the basket down and beginning to laugh hysterically.
"What on earth—"
"Oh, Peggy, please excuse me. I really didn't mean to laugh, but honestly you're the funniest sight I've ever seen. You're striped just like a zebra."
Curiosity led Peggy to consult the mirror over the mantel. But instead of laughing asRuth had done, she uttered a tragic groan.
"It's going to take a terrible time to clean that off, if it ever does come off. Oh, Ruth, hurry! When I think of all that will have to be done before six o'clock, my head just whirls."
Ruth took a hasty departure and Peggy, having carried the basket to the kitchen, rushed upstairs to remove all traces of her recent novel entry. As this necessitated an entire change of clothing and the use of a prodigious amount of soap and hot water, her toilet consumed more time than she could well spare. But at length, clean and extremely pink, and attired in a little frock not too good for getting dinner and yet good enough to pass muster at the table, she rushed downstairs and attacked her vegetables. And still no sign of Ruth, bringing the locksmith.
About five o'clock Priscilla arrived ready to lend a hand. Peggy answered her ring at the window, instead of at the door, and after a brief conversation, the tall Priscilla made an unconventional entry. Amy arriving twenty minutes later was admitted by the same entrance. The girls made themselves useful andspeculated on what was detaining Ruth.
"I don't mind letting you girls in through the window," groaned Peggy. "But it's different with Hildegarde. And that New York girl. Oh, heavens!"
At five o'clock they were all too nervous to know what they were doing. Peggy set skillets on the stove with nothing in them, and snatched them off again, just in time to avert disaster. She salted vegetables and then forgot and salted them all over again. Priscilla was trying to set the table, and making a poor job of it, as is generally the case when one is doing one thing and thinking of another. Amy, after going to the front window on the average of once in every two minutes to see if Ruth were coming, felt that she could bear inaction no longer.
"Peggy, where's the latch key to your front door?"
"Hanging on a hook over by the umbrellas. But you can't do anything with it. I've tried."
"What a key has done a key can undo," replied Amy, sententiously; and possessing herself of the magic piece of steel, she climbed out of the window and set to work. For fifteen ortwenty minutes she continued to fumble at the lock without results, and she was on the point of deciding that she might be putting in the time to better advantage, when something clicked encouragingly. Amy turned the knob, and squealed with delight; for the door opened.
Before she could proclaim her success, Priscilla had made a discovery. Lying across a chair in the kitchen was a garment of some indeterminate shade between blue and black. "What's this?" asked Priscilla, pausing to examine it.
"It's my old blue coat. But since I came down the coal chute, I don't know as I can ever wear it again. It isn't worth sending to the cleaner's, and I'm afraid it's beyond my skill."
"I'll hang it in the laundry," said Priscilla, and lifted the smutty garment daintily by the tips of her fingers. The coat swung against the round of the chair with a distinct clink, and Peggy looked up quickly. "What was that?"
"A button, wasn't it?"
"The buttons are cloth. And that was such a queer sound—like metal."
Priscilla had a brilliant idea. Disregarding the fact that the coal dust with which the garment was covered came off on her hands, she began eagerly feeling along the lower edge. And just as Amy heard the click that meant victory, Priscilla uttered an ecstatic cry.
"The key, Peggy! I've found your key!"
"What? Where? Oh, Priscilla, not really?"
"There must have been a hole in your pocket," declared Priscilla. "The key slipped down between the outside and the lining. You can feel for yourself. There's a key all right, and it's not likely it's a different one."
"Take a knife and rip up the lining at the bottom," ordered Peggy recklessly. "Yes, of course it's the key. I wonder if I'd rather have that New York girl come in by the back door or the front window."
That query had hardly left her lips, when Amy rushed in. "I've done it, Peggy, I've done it."
"You don't mean you've got the door open?"
"Yes, I have. I was just ready to give up and then I tried again and something clicked and the deed was done."
"And Priscilla's found the back-door key. Now Ruth will come with the locksmith."
They heard footsteps even as she spoke, and then Ruth's voice explaining to the locksmith that the only way to get into the house was by the window. Peggy went to meet them, assuming a very dignified air that she might not look sheepish.
"We succeeded in opening the doors that were troubling us, but there's a key broken off in a lock upstairs. Since you're here, you might as well attend to that. Will you take him upstairs Ruth? It's the door of the den." And then Peggy beat a retreat to the kitchen, leaving Ruth to propitiate the locksmith, who had left his shop reluctantly, yielding to her impassioned representations of the urgency of the case.
Dinner was more than half an hour late, and failed to justify Peggy's reputation as a cook, for some dishes were over-salted and others entirely lacking that essential ingredient, while the pudding was so overdone that it was necessary to remove the top layer, and conceal deficiencies by a quite superfluous meringue. Butsince Peggy had planned her dinner party with the purpose of distracting Ruth's thoughts, she had every reason to consider it an unqualified success.
Thefoot-ball season was on. It had opened auspiciously when the university had crushingly defeated the visitors, and the attendance upon the second game showed that the public anticipated a similar victory. Priscilla, sitting demurely beside Horace Hitchcock, was a-tingle with excitement. Not for the world would she have allowed Horace to guess how momentous the occasion seemed.
The tiers of seats gave a dazzling effect of color. Pennants and flags and the bright-colored hats of the girls made Priscilla think of terraces covered with flowers. Every one was talking, almost drowning out the noisy efforts of the 'varsity band. It seemed to Priscilla an unfitting time to quote Schopenhauer, but the Schopenhauer pose was Horace's latest, and it recognized neither time nor seasons.
Priscilla leaned impulsively across Horace towave to Amy, whose good-humored face had suddenly differentiated itself from the mass of surrounding faces. Horace interrupted in the midst of a peculiarly pessimistic utterance, looked frankly vexed, and Priscilla apologized. "Excuse me, I just happened to see Amy."
"It is not a surprise to me, Priscilla, to find you uninterested. It is the fate of some souls to be solitary. Once I had hoped—but it doesn't matter."
Priscilla's mood was a little perverse. "Perhaps the reason you're solitary is that you choose such unpleasant paths. If you'd only walk where it was nice and sunny, you'd have plenty of company."
"Plenty of company! Heavens!" Horace shuddered. "That suggests the crowd. It is bad enough for the body to be jostled, but at least the spirit can command unhampered space. I had dreamed once that you might follow me to the heights where the atmosphere is too rare for the multitude, but—Why do we cling to life, when each hour that passes shatters another illusion?"
"I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment,Horace," Priscilla bit her lip. She was young and eager. She wanted passionately to be happy. She longed to respond to the charm of the hour, to enjoy it ardently, and instead she was obliged to listen to quotations from Schopenhauer, and think of Horace's lost illusions. The thought crossed her mind that since she could not make Horace happy even for an afternoon, and since he was certainly not making her so, it promised ill for the future. If only Horace could be brought to see that they had made a mistake. A little flutter of hope stirred in Priscilla's heart.
Horace was speaking in a tone of extreme bitterness. "Blessed is the man who expects nothing from life, for he shall not be disappointed."
"Horace," began Priscilla firmly. "Don't you think that we—I mean wouldn't it be better—"
A number of people were coming into the vacant places on her left. A young man seated himself beside Priscilla, and involuntarily she turned. Then she gave an impulsive start and her ready color flamed up. The young man,who wore glasses, also started and after an almost imperceptible hesitation lifted his hat. Simultaneously Priscilla bowed in the most unresponsive fashion possible, and looked away.
Horace stared suspiciously at her flushed cheeks. Horace had never heard the story of the supper at the Green Parrot, and the fragment of roll that had sought to drown itself in the stranger's coffee-cup. If Priscilla had ever taken him into her confidence, he might have guessed the explanation of her present embarrassment. As it was, he leaned close and said in her ear, "Who is that fellow?"
"Sh! I'll tell you afterward."
Poor Priscilla! The game to which she had looked forward had become an impossible nightmare. Horace's philosophical pursuits had not freed him from that ready jealousy which is the characteristic of small natures. He sat glowering across Priscilla's shoulder at the young man seated on her left. As it was impossible to misunderstand Horace's expression, the young man, after his first recognition of Priscilla's presence, obligingly ignored her.
The finishing of the first half was anenormous relief to Priscilla. The majority of the seats in the grand-stand were immediately vacated. The flower bed had become kaleidoscopic, with the bits of color continually rearranging themselves, as laughing girls and glowing youths moved about, excitedly discussing the points of the game they had witnessed. But though Priscilla was so ardent a fan, she knew little of the game and cared less.
The young man at her left had been one of the first to rise. As he moved away, Priscilla turned to Horace, and without giving herself time to be frightened by his forbidding expression, she told him the story of her first and only visit to the Green Parrot.
After she had finished, Horace seemed to be waiting for more. "Do you mean that is all?" he demanded at length.
"All? Of course it's all."
"Then why did you blush that way?"
The red went out of Priscilla's cheeks. Even the color due to the frostiness of the outdoor air was replaced by an angry pallor. "Do you mean," she said in a level voice, "that you don't believe me?"
"A fellow crowds in and sits down beside you, a fellow I've never seen. You recognize each other and then you turn crimson. You refuse to give me any explanation till enough time has elapsed for fabricating a story, plausible from your point of view—"
"Horace!"
"And you then tell me a yarn that is no explanation whatever. What if a piece of roll did fly out of your hand and fall into somebody's coffee cup! What is there in that to turn you all colors of the rainbow? You're stringing me, that's all." The Horace who quoted Schopenhauer, and talked like the hero of a society novel, had magically disappeared, and in his place was a slangy young man, very much like other young men in a bad temper.
"Horace," said Priscilla, her lips trembling, "I've been afraid for a long time that we'd made a mistake. I can't seem to please you, no matter how hard I try, and probably it won't surprise you to know that I've been perfectly miserable for the last six months. And it seems to me the best thing we can do—"
The people were beginning to come back totheir seats. A couple just in front of Horace and Priscilla turned to scream something to a row of young people back of them. Priscilla tightened her grip on her self control and looked straight ahead. It was not the time nor place for breaking an engagement. She must wait till she could get away from this noisy, laughing crowd. Oh, if only the dreadful afternoon were over.
The university triumphed again, as its friends had anticipated. There was the usual tumultuous cheering, the usual frantic demonstrations. Priscilla gave Horace the benefit of a frigid profile. Her sense of indignity kept her sternly silent. He had accused her of lying, and that meant all was over between them. Underneath her hurt and humiliation was a sense of relief she refused to acknowledge even to herself. Fortunately the young man in eye-glasses did not return to take the vacant place at Priscilla's left, and the situation was not further complicated by his embarrassing presence.
She stood up as the crowd rose, thankful for the prospect of escape. Horace put his handlightly on her arm. "Wouldn't you like something hot to drink?" he asked. "Chocolate or coffee?" His tone was caressing.
"I don't want anything except to get home."
"Then we'll go home, little girl. I only thought you might be chilled sitting here in the cold so long."
He spoke with placid tenderness, as if their quarrel belonged to the Babylonian era of their acquaintance. Priscilla cast a frightened glance at him. She felt like a fly, partially disentangling itself from the spider's web, only to find itself again mysteriously ensnared. "Don't, Horace," she exclaimed impulsively.
"Don't what, Priscilla?"
"Don't talk as if nothing had happened. If you believe that I'm a liar—"
"My dear girl, don't be absurd. We'd better not talk till you're calmer."
"I'm as calm as I'm likely to be when I'm talking of this, Horace. If you think it a little thing to doubt my word, I don't agree with you."
He took her arm and bent down till his face was very close to hers. "Can't you make allowances,Priscilla, for a man crazed with love and jealousy?"
"You haven't any right—" Her voice broke in a sob. She fought desperately against the tears that placed her, she vaguely realized, at such a serious disadvantage, but they were too much for her. They splashed down on her white cheeks, and the couples crowding past glanced at her curiously.
"Forgive me, Priscilla. I accept your explanation. I ask your forgiveness. I am at your feet."
She was lost and she knew it, but she struggled nevertheless. "We've made a mistake. We're not happy, either of us. It's better to stop now than later."
"Priscilla—are you in love with him?"
Horace's tone had changed magically. It was no longer tenderly matter-of-fact, but tragic, desperate. She stared at him aghast. "In love—why, what, do you mean?"
"With that man who sat beside you to-day, the man who did not dare come back and face me."
"Horace,—why, Horace, you must be crazy.I told you I had never seen him but once before, and I told you what happened then."
Her disclaimer did not afford him any especial relief. He was muttering to himself. She caught the words, "As well now as later," and fear gripped her heart. He did not directly address her till they had left the field behind, and were no longer surrounded by the laughing, buoyant throng.
"I have foreseen this, Priscilla. I have known that happiness was not for me. But I have tried to shut my eyes to the truth, to hope for the impossible. Now you have thrown me away like a ripped glove—"
"Horace, I didn't." Even at this tragic moment the thought crossed Priscilla's mind that instead of throwing away a ripped glove as worthless, she would sit down conscientiously to mend it. She brushed aside the reflection as unworthy the occasion and hurried on, "It isn't that. But if we can't be happy now, if we're always irritating and hurting each other—"
"You don't need to say more, Priscilla. You are weary of me. I had dreamed I hadfound a soul capable of constancy—but no matter. This is good-by, Priscilla. I cannot live without you. When you take away your love from me, you take away all that makes life endurable. All I ask now is forgetfulness, and only death can promise me that—Good-by, Priscilla."
Poor Priscilla! She should have known better. Long before she had discovered Horace's weakness for posing. It was no secret to her that he experienced the keenest satisfaction in contemplating the ravages wrought in his nature by successive disillusionments. Yet though she understood, at this crisis her good sense failed her. In spite of herself, she interpreted Horace's speech by her own sincerity, and a chill terror took possession of her. He would kill himself and she would be to blame. Although the law would not recognize her crime, at the bar of her own conscience she would be adjudged guilty of murder.
"Horace," she wailed, "you did not understand me. I want to make you happy, that's all. If you think we haven't made a mistake, I'm satisfied."
It took a long time to reassure Horace. It was so hard to explain matters satisfactorily that it almost seemed as if he were stupid or else wilfully perverse. Much of the time he stared blankly ahead, so lost in gloomy reflections that she had to speak his name twice, before she could attract his attention. His lips moved, too, but without a sound, as if he were saying things too dreadful to be heard. Altogether Priscilla suffered intolerably before she could bring the unhappy young man to reconsider his desperate purpose.
At last she was partially successful. He became calm enough to listen to her repeated assurances that all she thought of was his happiness and, though his mood was still sober when they parted, he had given a half-hearted and reluctant promise that he would surrender, for the present at least, all thought of doing away with the life he valued so lightly.
Priscilla was not sure how she got through the rest of the day. Her mother noticed her abstraction and speculated hopefully as to whether she had quarreled with Horace. While Priscilla's parents had never been letinto the secret of the engagement, they could not be unaware of the significance of Horace's attentions. Like most American fathers and mothers, they believed a girl should be allowed to choose her own friends, unless there was some decided reason to oppose her choice. Although neither of them liked Horace, the reasons for their prejudice were too vague and too personal to constitute a ground for opposing the intimacy. Moreover, both of Priscilla's parents were of the opinion that if she saw enough of the young man she would tire of the mannerisms they found so objectionable.
It was not till Priscilla was safe in bed that she dared relieve her over-burdened heart by tears. And as she lay sobbing with the coverlet over her head, she solemnly relinquished all hope of happiness in this world.
"It was my vanity that got me into this," lamented Priscilla. "I didn't like to feel I was less attractive than the other girls and so I fairly snatched at Horace. Now I've got to stand by my promise if it kills me, but Oh, how am I going to bear it!"
So Priscilla cried herself to sleep. Andthere was an added poignancy in her grief as she remembered that the Combs family was notably long-lived, boasting some distant ancestors who had rounded out a full century of existence.
Theywere out for a walk one Saturday evening, Peggy and Amy, with Graham and Bob in attendance, when in front of a little movie theater, Peggy stopped short. A young couple stood at the ticket booth, the girl giggling vacuously as the very slender youth fumbled in his pockets for the price of admission. Peggy's abrupt halt was not due to the charm of the flaring poster, representing a fat woman with a broom in pursuit of a thin man attired in a bath-robe. Her attention was absorbed by the young couple, who were planning to enjoy the show. For while she had never seen the girl before, the slender youth was her younger brother, Dick.
As the two disappeared behind the swinging doors, Peggy turned to her companions. "Think you could stand it?" She indicated the poster by a gesture, and Bob Carey, whodid not have the pleasure of Dick's acquaintance, looked surprised, while Graham's face wore an expression of doubt.
"I've seen just as bad, Peggy, and still survive," Graham said. "But I hardly think—"
"Of course we can stand it, if you'd like to go in, Peggy," interrupted Amy. And Bob, though evidently puzzled by Peggy's taste moved quickly forward to purchase the tickets, thus getting ahead of Graham who was still inclined to remonstrate. Graham understood that Peggy was not especially pleased to discover Dick in company with a girl she knew nothing about, especially since her manner had made anything but a favorable impression in the few seconds she had been under observation. But Dick, while considerably short of his majority, was old enough to resent interference in his affairs, and Graham could not see that Peggy would gain anything by trying to play detective.
The film which constituted the evening's entertainment was exceptionally poor. The comedy was of the atrocious, slap-stick sort that moves the judicious almost to tears whilethe feature play, a melodrama only saved from being a tragedy by an inconsistently happy ending, was frequently so overdone as to be extremely funny. Peggy paid comparatively little attention to the drama as it unrolled before her eyes. First of all she set herself to locate Dick and his companion, and then to evolve a plan of action suited to the requirements of the case.
Graham spoke confidentially in her ear. "Don't worry, Peggy. Every boy has his silly times. I did myself." Graham's manner suggested that he was speaking from the vantage-point of discreet middle age.
"Yes, I know." Peggy did not mean her answer just as it sounded. She was simply thinking of something else. Graham stared at the inane chase, unfolding on the screen, where a procession of people ran into everything imaginable from a peanut vendor's cart to an express train, and presently tried again. "You want to be careful, Peggy. He's just at the age to resent your trying to manage him."
"Yes, I know," whispered Peggy again. She was fully as alive as Graham to thenecessity of tact. But she was aware, too, that all boys do not pass through the silly stage as unscathed as Graham had done. All the loyal sister in her was alert.
They sat through the depressing comedy and the amusing tragedy, and then suddenly Peggy rose. She had seen Dick on ahead getting to his feet. In the darkness of the picture house there was no danger he would recognize her. Indeed it was unlikely that he would have seen her even if the lights had been turned on, so engrossed was he by the plump little person whose head barely reached his shoulder.
Peggy and her party were outside first. All unaware of the ambush, Dick came blundering on. He was talking fast and the girl was giggling approval. Peggy saw that she was all she had feared. Her round cheeks were rouged so as to give an excellent imitation of a pair of Baldwin apples. Between the crimson circles her nose gleamed ludicrously white, suggesting a very recent use of her powder puff. Her bobbed hair, together with her diminutive frame, gave her a childish air, contradicted by the shrewdness of her eyes. Peggy guessedthat Dick's friend was considerably his senior, probably not far from her own age.
Dick was laughing rather boisterously at one of his own witticisms, when Peggy touched his arm. "Hello, Dick!" Her tone was nonchalant, but Dick started, straightened himself and flushed angrily. All his masculine pride was up in arms at the thought of coercion. But Peggy's matter-of-fact air partly allayed his suspicions.
"We sat about six rows back of you," she explained. "Dick, you haven't met Mr. Carey, have you? My brother, Richard, Bob."
The two shook hands and Dick realized that reciprocity was in order. Under the most favorable circumstances, performing the ceremony of introduction was to Dick an agonizing ordeal, and the present situation increased his inevitable embarrassment a hundred fold. He was the color of a ripe tomato as he blurted out, "Miss Coffin, let me introduce you to my sister—Miss Raymond—and Miss—Miss——" He had forgotten Amy's name after having known it all his life, and Peggy came to the rescue, and introduced the others.
Whatever Dick's feeling in regard to the meeting, it was clear that Miss Coffin was not displeased. She fixed a hypnotic gaze on Bob Carey as she exclaimed, "Fierce name, isn't it! But take it from me, I'm no dead one, Coffin or no coffin."
Peggy's smile gave no hint of her inward anguish. "We're just going home to have some oysters. Won't you and Dick come along, Miss Coffin?"
Graham had difficulty in choking down an impatient exclamation. What was Peggy thinking of? It was bad enough for Dick to be associating with a girl of this sort, but for Peggy to encourage him in his folly by welcoming the girl to her home, the first time she had ever seen her, impressively illustrated the feminine incapacity to act reasonably in a crisis. While it was impossible to put his disapproval into words, Graham's manner left little unexpressed.
Dick looked as if he agreed with Graham, but Peggy had not addressed herself to him. And as for Miss Coffin, Peggy's invitation was responsible for a marked increase in her sprightliness."Eats!" she cried dramatically, "Oh, boy! Lead me to it!"
They went down the street in the direction of Friendly Terrace, Miss Coffin chattering animatedly at Dick's elbow, and speaking loudly enough to be heard easily by the others. Indeed, there was ground for supposing that she was willing to allow her vivacious conversation to make an impression on more important listeners than Dick. Her youthful escort, stalking awkwardly at her side, was almost as silent as Graham who walked on ahead with Peggy. But the silence of her brother and her lover, even though it implied criticism and displeasure, seemingly failed to shadow Peggy's spirits. She turned her head every now and then to address a remark to Dick's companion, and Miss Coffin showed her appreciation of the friendly attitude by the request that she "cut out the formal stuff." "You kids are the kind that can call me Mazie," she chirruped, apparently under the impression that she was addressing some one at a considerable distance.
It was perhaps as well for the success of Peggy's plan that neither her father nor hermother were at home. She ushered her guests into the living room and insisted on their laying aside their wraps. Mazie Coffin having removed her hat, went straight as a homing pigeon to the mirror over the mantel, and made an unabashed and quite unnecessary use of her powder puff.
"You're coming out to help me, aren't you, Amy?" Peggy inquired casually. "I thought I'd fix little pigs-in-blankets, you know. They're awfully good, but rather fussy."
"Why, of course I'll help," responded Amy, wondering if Mazie, also, would be called on to render assistance. But apparently Peggy's acquaintance with Mazie had not progressed to that point of informality. "We'll try not to be any longer than we can help," she smiled, "and we'll leave you to amuse one another till we're ready."
Out in the kitchen as they wrapped fat oysters in blankets of bacon, pinning the latter in place with wooden tooth-picks, the two girls exchanged significant glances. "What's the idea?" Amy asked, with the frankness of long friendship.
"Well, I'm not sure that it will do any good. But I've got an idea—Don't you know that the impression a thing makes on you depends a lot on the background?"
"Hm! I don't quite understand what you mean."
"Well, if you see a girl on the stage with a skirt nine inches long, it doesn't make the same impression on you that it would if you saw her in your own home."
"No, it doesn't."
"Dick's been used to nice people all his life," Peggy went on, plainly trying to encourage herself as well as to explain matters to Amy. "A girl like this might attract his attention if he saw her behind the counter of a cigar store—"
"Does she work in a cigar store?"
"I haven't the least idea. I only meant she wouldn't seem particularly out of place in a tobacco shop. But here in our home—Oh, it seems as though Dick must see how cheap and tawdry she is."
Amy skewered a particularly juicy oyster with a vicious thrust of the tooth pick. "Hopeso, anyway," she said, and felt an exasperated desire to box Dick's ears.
But when Peggy had left the field to Mazie Coffin, she had builded better than she knew, Mazie had accepted the responsibility of entertaining the masculine portion of the company with extreme complacency. Never for a moment had she doubted her ability to make a favorable impression. As she gave her smiling attention to the trio, her late escort occupied a very small fraction of her thoughts. Dick was only a boy, a boy to whom shaving was still a novel art, and whose voice cracked ludicrously in moments of excitement. But Graham and Bob were young men, and good looking young men at that. Mazie hoped that the girls would not hurry with the oysters.
As this young woman's methods were not characterized by subtlety, it was not long before Dick realized that he was being disregarded. Mazie had eyes only for his seniors. She had begun by saying, as the door closed behind Peggy and Amy, "Gee, but they're trusting! How do they know that I won't vamp you two guys!" And when Dick, resentinghis new rôle of unnoticed on-looker, had attempted to bear his part in the conversation, Mazie had silenced him with a jocose, "What are you butting in for, kid? Children must be seen and not heard, you know."
Dick Raymond was by no means a bad boy, and he was just as far from being a stupid boy. Mazie's conversational advances, as she had weighed out peanut brittle and caramels in quarter pound lots, had flattered his vanity. Dick was not accustomed to being regarded as a young man, and Mazie's manner of considering him worth-while game had naturally convinced him that she was a girl of exceptional insight. But now as she made eyes at Graham and smiled at Bob, the conviction seized Dick that her previous attentions had been due to the fact that he was the only one of his kind within reach. As was natural, the discovery made him critical. He noticed the harshness of Mazie's voice, the vacuity of her giggle. Her repetition of cheap slang began to jar on him, even though he was himself a similar offender. He looked distrustfully at the crimson cheeks, with the powdered nose gleamingwhitely between. "I'll be 'jiggered if it doesn't look exactly like a marshmallow," he told himself.
The possibility that Dick's mood was critical did not trouble Mazie. She had looked Peggy and Amy over with the complacent certainty of her superior charms. Dick's sister wasn't a bad looker, Mazie owned condescendingly, but she was slow, dead slow, and nowadays the fellows liked plenty of pep. Mazie prided herself, not without reason, on having an abundance of that essential quality. She was sorry when the fragrance of frying bacon and coffee greeted her nostrils. Though Graham was stiffly polite and Bob Carey plainly amused, she would have been glad of a little more time.
The impromptu supper in the dining-room completed Dick's disillusionment. Determined not to yield any advantage she had gained Mazie continued to take the lead in the conversation. She gestured freely and frequently with the hand which held her fork, even with an oyster impaled on the tines. She drank her coffee noisily. Once, Dick was sure, he saw Bob choke down a laugh, though he made a pretenceof coughing behind his napkin. And it was not, Dick was certain, because he found her amusing, but because he thought her ridiculous. Dick glared furiously at the averted shoulder of his erst-while charmer. Mazie had elected to treat him like a little boy, but if she had listened to him, thought Dick, he could have kept her from making a fool of herself.
Mazie seemed willing to linger, even after Amy and Bob had taken their departure. "Guess we might as well be starting," suggested Dick, his thoughts upon the probable return of his father and mother, rather than on his responsibility as host.
"Getting sleepy aren't you, little boy?" mocked Mazie. "Don't let me keep you from your downy. I can get home somehow," and she glanced significantly at Graham, whose good looks, for all his air of reserve, had made a strong impression on her susceptible temperament.
When at length she left under the escort of a frankly sulky Dick, she turned back to remind Graham that he could always find her in Streeter's Sweet Shop between the hours ofnine and five. And then she took Dick's arm, and went out the door, smiling back coquettishly over her shoulder.
Graham hardly waited for them to be out of hearing before he exploded. The evening had been a great disappointment, and while Graham would have resented any outside suggestion that Peggy came short of absolute perfection, there were times when he felt himself quite capable of pointing out her errors in judgment. Peggy's painstaking explanation failed to enlighten him, and while Peggy thought Graham the most wonderful of men, in this instance she found him disappointingly slow of comprehension. They did not quarrel, but they kept on arguing the question long after it was clear that neither would be able to take the other's point of view. They were still arguing when Dick returned.
Dick was in that state of irritation when scolding somebody seems an indispensable luxury. "See here, Peggy, just because you see me with a girl, you don't have to start right in and invite her to the house."
"Why, Dick, I thought—"
"Sometimes a fellow asks a girl out just so he can size her up. And if he finds that she's a blamed idiot, he don't want her mixed up with his family. You mean all right, Peggy, but you don't understand life the way Graham and I do. I don't want you to have anything more to do with Mazie Coffin, Peggy. She's not the sort of girl for you to associate with. You can ask Graham about it if you don't believe me."
And as Dick stalked off to bed, ill tempered and aggrieved and abnormally dignified, even Graham was obliged to admit that it looked like a cure.