BOOK IISylvia Lingers
§ 1
At the railroad station in Boston, on an afternoon in May, Sylvia Castleman and Mrs. Tuis were arriving from New York. You must picture Sylvia in a pale grey cloak, with a pale blue blouse; also a grey hat with broad brim and “bluets” on top. You can imagine, perhaps, how her colors shone from under it. She was meeting Frank for the first time in eight months.
The host of the occasion was Cousin Harley Chilton, now also a student at Harvard. It was mid-afternoon, and he had borrowed a motor-car to show her something of Cambridge. Their bags were sent to their hotel in the city, and Frank took his place by Sylvia’s side. They had to talk about commonplaces, but he could feel her delight and eagerness like an electric radiance. As they flew over the long bridge, he wrapped a robe about her. What a thrill went through him as he touched her! “Oh, I’m so happy! so happy!” she exclaimed, her eyes shining into his. He had given her a new name in his letters, and he whispered it now into her ear: “Lady Sunshine! Lady Sunshine!”
They came to a vista of dark stone buildings, buried in the foliage of enormous elms. “Here are the grounds,” he said; and Sylvia cried, “Oh Harley, go slowly. I want to see them.” Hercousin complied, and Frank began pointing out the various buildings by name.
But suddenly the car drew in by the curb and stopped. Harley leaned forward, remarking, “Spark-plug loose, I think.”
Now the sparking seemed to be all right, so far as Frank could judge, but he did not know very much about automobiles. In general he was a guileless nature, and did not understand that this was the beginning of Sylvia’s social career at Harvard. But Sylvia, who knew about automobiles, and still more about human nature, saw two men strolling in her direction, and now about twenty yards away—upper-classmen, clad in white flannel trousers, blue coats, huge straw hats like baskets, and ties knotted with that elaborately studied carelessness which means that the wearer has spent fifteen minutes before the mirror prior to emerging from his room.
Naturally Sylvia looked at them, for they were interesting figures; and naturally they looked back, for Sylvia was an interesting figure too. One could not hear, but could almost see them exclaiming: “By Jove! Who is she?” They went by—almost, but not quite. They stopped, half turned and stood hesitating.
Harley looked up from his spark-plugs, a frown of annoyance on his face. He glanced toward the two men. “Hello, Harmon,” he said.
“Hello, Chilton,” was the reply. “Something wrong?”
“Yes,” said Harley. “Can’t make it out.”
The two approached, lifting their hats, the one who had spoken a trifle in advance. “Can I help?” he asked, solicitously.
“I think I can manage it,” answered Harley; but the men did not move on. “Whose car?” asked the one called Harmon.
“Bert Wilson’s,” said Harley. “I don’t know its tricks.”
The other’s eyes swept the car, and of course rested on Sylvia, who was in the seat nearest the curb. That made an awkward moment—as he intended it should. “Mr. Harmon,” said Harley, “let me present you to my cousin, Miss Castleman.”
The man brightened instantly and made a bow. “I am delighted to meet you, Miss Castleman,” he said, and introduced his companion. “You have just arrived?” he inquired.
“Yes,” said Sylvia.
“But you’ve been here before?”
“Never befo-ah,” said Sylvia; whereupon he knew from what part of the world she had come. There began an animated conversation—Harley and his spark-plugs being forgotten entirely.
All this Frank watched, sitting back in his seat in silence. He knew these men to be Seniors, high and mighty swells from the “Gold Coast;” but he had never been introduced to them, and so he was technically as much a stranger to them as if he had just arrived from the far South himself. Sylvia, who was new to the social customs of Harvard, never dreamed of this situation, and so left him to watch the comedy undisturbed.
There came along a couple of Freshmen; classmates of Harley’s and members of his set. He was buried in his labors, but they were not to be put off. “What’s the matter, old man?” they asked; and when he answered, “Don’t know,” they stood, and waited for him to find out, stealing meantime fascinated glances at the vision in the car.
Next came two street-boys; and of course street-boys always stop and stare when there is a car out of order. Then came an old gentleman, who paused, smiling benevolently, as he might have paused to survey a florist’s window. So there was Sylvia, quite by accident, and in perfect innocence, holding a levee on the sidewalk, with two men whose ties proclaimed them members of an ineffable and awe-inspiring “final” club doing homage to her.
“My cousin’s a Freshman,” she was saying. “So I’ll have three years more to come here.”
“Oh, but think of us!” exclaimed the basket-hats together. “We go out next month!”
“Can’t you manage to fail in your exams?” she inquired. “Or is that impossible at Harvard?” She looked from one to another, and in the laugh that followed even the street-boys and the benevolent old gentleman joined.
By that time the gathering was assuming the proportions of a scandal. Men were coming from the “Yard” to see what was the matter.
“Hello, Frank Shirley,” called a voice. “Anybody hurt?” And Sylvia answered in a lowvoice, “Yes, several.” She looked straight into Harmon’s eyes, and she got his answer—that she had not spoken too rashly.
Theséancecame to a sudden end, because Harley realized that he was subjecting club-men to an ordeal on the street. He straightened up from his spark-plug. “I think she’s all right now,” he said—and to one of the street-boys, “Crank her up, there.”
“Where are you stopping?” asked Harmon.
Harley named the hotel, but did not take the hint—which was presumptuous in a Freshman.
“Good-bye, Miss Castleman,” said the Senior, wistfully; and the crowd parted and the car went on.
After which Sylvia sank back in her seat and looked at Frank and laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she exclaimed, “what a woman can do with her eyes!”
They returned to the hotel, where there were engagements—a whole world waiting to be conquered. But Sylvia delivered an ultimatum; she would pay no attention to anyone until she had an hour alone with Frank. When Aunt Varina had meekly left her, she first flew into Frank’s arms and permitted him to kiss her; and then, seated decorously in a separate chair, she proceeded to explain to him the mystery of her presence there.
She had come to New York to buy clothes for herself and the rest of the family; that much Frank had known. He had begged her to run up to Cambridge, but the family had refused permission. Celeste was going to have a house party, the baby had been having more convulsions—these were only two of a dozen reasons why she must return. Frank had been intending to go down to New York to see her—when suddenly had come a telegram, saying that she would arrive the next afternoon.
“It was my scheme,” she said, “and I expect you to be proud of me when you hear it. If you scold me about it, Frank——!” She said this with the tone of voice that she used when it was necessary to disarm some one.
It was difficult for Frank to imagine himself objecting to any device which had brought her there. “Go ahead, honey,” said he.
“It has to do with Harley,” she explained. “Mother sent me one of his letters, telling about the terrible time he’s been having here. You see, he’s scared to death for fear he won’t make the ‘Dickey’—or that he won’t be among the earlier tens. So they were all upset, and they’ve been scurrying round getting letters of introduction for him, moving heaven and earth to get him in with the right people. I read his letter, and then suddenly the thought flashed over me, ‘There’s my chance!’ Don’t you see?”
“No,” said Frank, and shook his head—“I don’t see at all.”
“Sometimes,” said the girl, “when I think about you, I get frightened, because—if you knew how wicked I really am—! Well, anyhow, I sat down and wrote to Harley that he was a goose, and that if he had sense enough to get me to Harvard, he’d make the ‘Dickey,’ and one of the ‘final’ clubs as well. I told him to write Aunt Nannie at once; and sure enough, just about the time they got Harley’s letter, there came a telegram saying I might come!”
It was impossible for Frank not to laugh—if it were only because Sylvia was so happy. “So,” he said, “you’ve come to be a social puller-in for Harley!”
“Now, Frank, don’t be horrid! I saw it this way—and it’s obvious arithmetic: If I do this, I’ll see Frank part of every day for a couple of weeks; if I don’t, I’ll only see him for a day when he comes to New York. There’s only one trouble—you must promise not to mind.”
“What is it?”
“We must not tell anybody that we’re engaged. If people knew that, I couldn’t do much with them.”
“But I’ve told some people.”
“Whom?”
“Well, my room-mate.”
“He’s not a club man, so that won’t matter. It doesn’t really matter, if we simply don’t announce it. You must promise not to mind, Frank—be good, and let me have my fun in my foolish way, and you sit by and smile, as you did in the car.”
Frank’s answer was that he expected to sit by and smile all his life; a statement which led to a discussion between them, for Sylvia made objection to his desire to shrink from the world, and declared that she meant to fight for him, and manage him, and make something out of him. When these discussions arose he would laugh, in his quiet, good-natured way, and picture himself as a diplomat at St. James’, wearing knee-breeches and winning new empires by means of the smiles of “Lady Sunshine.” “But, you forget one thing,” he said—“that I came to Harvard to learn something.”
“When you go out into the world,” propounded Sylvia, “you’ll realize that the things one knows aren’t half so important as the people one knows.”
Frank laughed. “That wouldn’t be such a bad motto for our Alma Mater,” he said; then, thinking it over, “They might put it up as an inscription, where Freshmen with social ambitions could learn it. A motto for all college climbers—‘Not the things one knows, but the people one knows!’”
Sylvia was looking at him, a trifle worried. “Frank,” she said, “suppose you go through life finding fault with everything in that fashion?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But I shall always fight a wrong when I see one. Wait till you’ve been here a while, and you’ll see about this!”
“I ought to have come before,” she said; “I could have solved so many problems for you.It’s the same everywhere in life—those who are out rail at those who are in, but when you hear both sides, you see the matter differently. I’ve a grudge against you, Frank—you misrepresented things. You told me they had abolished the Fraternity system here, and I didn’t know about the clubs, and so I permitted you to be a ‘goat.’”
“They call it a ‘rough-neck’ here,” he corrected.
“Well, a ‘rough-neck.’ Anyway, I let you take a back seat. And just as if you didn’t have ability——”
“Ability!” Frank exclaimed. Then, checking himself, he went on gently to explain the social system he had found at Harvard. In the Southern colleges, ability and good breeding might still get a poor man recognition. But the clubs here were run by a little group of Boston and New York society men, who had been kept in a “set” from the day they were born. They went to kindergarten together, to dancing school together—their sisters had private sewing circles, instead of those at church. They had their semi-private dormitories on Auburn Street—one might come with a string of automobiles and a stud of polo ponies, but he would find that his money would not rent one of those places unless the crowd had given its O. K. They roomed apart, they ate and drank apart, and the men in their own class never even met them.
Sylvia listened in bewilderment. “Surely, Frank,” she exclaimed, “there must be some friendliness——”
He smiled. “Just as I said, honey—you’re judging by the South. We’ve snobbery enough there, God knows—but some of us are kind-hearted. You can’t imagine things up here—how cold and formal people are. They have their millions of dollars and the social position this gives them; they are jealous of those who have more and suspicious of those who have less—and they’ve been that way for so long that every plain human feeling is dead in them. Take a man like Douglas van Tuiver, for example. You’ve heard of him, I suppose?”
“I’ve heard of the van Tuivers, of course.”
“Well, Douglas is our bright particular social star just now. He’s inherited from three estates already—the Lord only knows how many tens of millions in his own right. He’s gone the ‘Gold Coast’ crowd one better—has his own private house here in Cambridge, and an apartment in Boston also, I’m told. He entered society there at the same time that he entered college; and he doesn’t think much of our social life—except the little set he’d already met in Boston and New York. He’s stiff and serious as a chief justice—self-conscious, condescending——”
“Do you know him?” asked Sylvia.
“I never met him, of course; but I see him all the time, because he’s in some of my sections.”
“In some of your sections!” cried Sylvia. “And you never met him?”
The other laughed. “You see, honey,” he said, “how little you are able to imagine life at Harvard!Douglas, my dear, has been yachting with English peers; he has Scotch earls for ancestors, and an accent that he has acquired in their honor. He sets more store by them, I suppose, than he does by his old Knickerbocker ancestors, who left him several farms between Fifth and Madison Avenues.”
“Is he a club man?” asked Sylvia.
“He lives to set the social standards for our clubs; a sort ofarbiter elegantiarum. It’s one of the sayings they attribute to him, that he came to Harvard because American university life was in need of ‘tone.’”
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Sylvia; and again, in a lower voice, “Oh, dear me!” She pondered, and then with sudden interest inquired, “He’d be a good man for Harley to meet, wouldn’t he?”
“None better,” smiled Frank, “if he wants to make the ‘Dickey.’”
“Then,” said Sylvia, “he’s the man I’d best go after.”
The other laughed. “All right, honey. But you’ll find him hard to interest, I warn you. His career has all been planned—he’s to marry Dorothy Cortlandt, who’ll bring him ten or twenty millions more.”
And Sylvia set her lips in a dangerous expression. “He can marry Dorothy Cortlandt,” she said, “but not until I’ve got through with him!”
§ 3
That evening was reserved for a performance of the “Glee Club;” and just before dinner Harley came in, bubbling over with delight, to say that Harmon had called up and invited him to bring his cousin and share his box.
And so behold Sylvia, clad in pale blue silk, with touches of gold embroidery and a gold band across one shoulder, swimming like a new planet into the ken of the watchers of these brilliantly lighted skies. There were few acquaintances of “Bob” Harmon who did not come to the door of the box to get a closer view of the phenomenon; while the delighted cousin found himself besieged. Sedate upper-classmen put their arms across his shoulders, tremendous club-men got him by the coat sleeve in the lobby. “Let us in on that, Chilton!” “Now don’t be a hog, old man!”—“You know me, Chilton!” Yes, Harley knew them all, and calculated to keep knowing them for some time to come.
The next morning he came early, and took Sylvia for a drive, to lay before her the whole situation, and coach her for the part she was to play; for this was the enemy’s country, and there were many pitfalls to be avoided.
It ought perhaps to be explained at the outset how it happened that Aunt Nannie, whose time was spent in erecting monuments to Southern heroes, had sent one of her sons to the headquarters of those who had slain them. It had come aboutthrough the seductions of a young lady named Edith Winthrop, whose father was building a railroad through half a dozen of the Southern states. He had brought a private-train party upon an inspection trip, and the Major and Harley, happening to be at the capital, had met them at a luncheon given by the Governor. Everybody knows, of course, that the Winthrops live in Boston; and everybody in Boston knows of Mrs. Isabel Winthrop, that charming matron whose home has been as the axle of the Hub for the past twenty years. At Cambridge it was at first a scandal, and later a tradition, how the lovely lady was strolling in the “Yard” one spring evening, and a group of Seniors broke into the merry chorus of a popular musical-comedy air—
“Isabella, Isabella,Is a queen of good society!Isabella, Isabella,Is the dandy queen of Spain!”
“Isabella, Isabella,Is a queen of good society!Isabella, Isabella,Is the dandy queen of Spain!”
“Isabella, Isabella,Is a queen of good society!Isabella, Isabella,Is the dandy queen of Spain!”
“Isabella, Isabella,
Is a queen of good society!
Isabella, Isabella,
Is the dandy queen of Spain!”
And now Harley had come to Cambridge to lay siege to the princess of this line. They had invited him to tea, where he had felt himself an obscure and humiliated Freshman. In his pride he had gone away, vowing that he would not return until he had made the “Dickey,” and made it without any social aid from the lady of his adoration. But, alas, Harley had found this a task of undreamed-of difficulty. There were so many Edith Winthrops in Boston, New York,Philadelphia and other centers of good breeding; and there were so many obscure Freshmen trying to make the “Dickey” in order to shine before them!
“You can’t imagine how it is, Sylvia,” he said. “They don’t know us here—we’re nobodies. I’ve met all the Southern men who amount to anything, but it’s Eastern men who run the worth-while clubs. And it’s almost impossible to meet them—I’d be ashamed to tell you how I’ve had to toady.”
“Harley!” exclaimed the girl.
“I’ll tell you the facts,” he answered—“you’ll have to face them—just as I did.”
“But how could you stay?”
He laughed. “I stayed,” he said, “because I wanted Edith.”
He paused, then continued: “First I thought I’d try football; but you see I haven’t weight enough—I only made the Freshman ‘scrub.’ I joined the Shooting Club—and I certainly can shoot, you know; but that hasn’t seemed to help very much. I went in for the Banjo Club, and I’ve worked my fingers off, and I expect to make the Board, but I don’t think that will be enough. You see, ability really doesn’t count at all.”
“That’s what Frank said,” remarked Sylvia, sympathetically. “What is it that counts? Learning?”
“Rot—no!” exclaimed Harley.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s knowing the right people. But you can’tmanage that here—it has to be done before you get to college. The crowd doesn’t need you, they don’t care what you think about them—and I tell you, they know how to give you the cold shoulder!”
Sylvia was indignant in spite of herself. “You, a Castleman!” she exclaimed. “Why, your ancestors were governors of this place while theirs were tavern-keepers and blacksmiths!”
“I know,” said the other—“but it isn’t ancestors that count here—it’s being on the ground and holding on to what you’ve got.”
“They’re all rich men, I suppose?”
“Perfectly rotten! You’re simply out of it from the start. I heard of a man last year who spent fifty thousand dollars trying to make the ‘Dickey,’ and then only got in the seventh ten! You’ve no idea of the lengths men go to; they pull every sort of wire, social and business and financial and political—they bring on their fathers and brothers to help them——”
“And their cousins,” said Sylvia, and brought the discussion to an end with a laugh. “Now come, Harley,” she said, after a pause. “Let’s get down to business. You want me to meet the right men, and to make them aware of the existence of my Freshman cousin. Have you got a list of the men? Or am I to know by their ties?”
Harley named and described several she would meet. Through them she would, of course, meet others; she must feel her way step by step, beingguided by circumstances. There was another matter, which was delicate, but must be broached. “I don’t want to seem like a cad,” said he, “but you see, Frank Shirley isn’t a club man—he hasn’t tried to be—”
“I understand,” said Sylvia, with a smile.
“Of course, the fact that you come from his home town, that’s excuse enough for his knowing you. But if you make it too conspicuous—that is—”
Harley stopped. “It’s all right, Harley,” smiled Sylvia; “you may be sure that Frank Shirley has too much of a sense of humor to want to get in our way.”
The other hesitated over the remark. It looked like deep water, and he decided not to venture in. “It’s not only that,” he went on—“there’s Frank’s crowd. They’re all outsiders, and one or two of them especially are impossible.”
“In what way?”
“Well, there’s Jack Colton, Frank’s room-mate. He’s gone out of his way to make himself obnoxious to everybody. He’s done it deliberately, and I suppose he has his reasons for it. I only hope he has sense enough not to want to ‘queer’ you.”
“What’s he done?”
“He’s a Western chap—from Wyoming, I think. Seems to have more money than he knows how to spend decently. He insisted on smoking a pipe in his Freshman year, and when they tried to haze him, he fought. He’s wild as anything, they say—goes off on a spree every month or two—”
“How does Frank come to be rooming with such a man?” asked Sylvia, in surprise.
“Met him traveling, I understand. They were in a train-wreck.”
“Oh, that’s the man! But Frank didn’t tell me he was wild.”
“Well,” said the other, “Frank would naturally stand up for him. I suppose he’s trying to keep him straight.”
There was a silence. Then suddenly Sylvia asked, “Harley, did you ever meet Douglas van Tuiver?”
“No!” replied Harley. “Why do you ask?”
“Nothing—only I heard of him, and I was thinking perhaps he’d be a good man to help you.”
“Small doubt of that,” said the boy, with a laugh. “But it might be difficult to meet him.”
“Why?”
“Well, he picks the people he meets. And he doesn’t come to public affairs.”
“Stop and think a minute. Is there nobody who might know him?”
“Why—there’s Mrs. Winthrop.”
“He goes there?”
“They’re great chums, I understand. I could get her to invite you.”
But Sylvia, after a moment’s thought, shook her head. “No,” she said, “I think I’ll let him take me to her.”
“By Jove!” laughed Harley. “That’s cool!” And then he asked, curiously, “What makes you pick him out?”
“I don’t know,” said Sylvia. “I find myself thinking about him. You see, I meet men like Mr. Harmon and the others last night—they’re all obvious. I’ve known them by the dozen before, and I can always tell what they’ll say. But this man sounds as if he might be different.
“Humph!” said Harley. “I wish you could get a chance! But I fear you’d find him a difficult proposition. Girls must be forever throwing themselves at his head—”
“Yes,” said Sylvia. “But I wouldn’t make that mistake.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I think it might be good for him, too. I might make a man of him!”
There was a Senior named Thurlow, whom Sylvia had met at the “Glee Club” affair, and who, after judicious approach through Harley and Aunt Varina, had secured her promise to come to tea in his rooms. So she saw one of the dormitories on Auburn Street, having such modern conveniences as “buttons,” a squash court, and a white marble swimming pool—with a lounging room at one end, and easy chairs from which to watch one’s fellow mermen at play.
Thurlow showed her about his own apartments, equipped with that kind of simplicity that is so notoriously expensive. He showed her his tennis cups and rowing trophies, talking most interestinglyabout the wonderful modern art, the pulling of an oar—in which there are no less than seventy errors a man can commit in the “catch,” and a hundred-and-seventy in the “stroke.” Thurlow, it appeared, must have committed several in last year’s race, for he had snapped his oar, and only saved the day by jumping overboard, being picked up in a state of collapse, and reported as drowned in the first newspaper extras.
There came others of his set: Jackson, the coxswain of the crew, known as “Little Billee,” a wizened up and drolly cynical personage; also Bates, his room-mate, who was called “Tubby,” and was hard put to it when the ladies asked him why, because he could not explain that he was “a tub of guts.” The vats declared that he weighed two hundred and twenty when he was in training for the fat man’s race; he had been elected the official funny man of his class, and whenever he made a joke he led off with a queer little cackle of high-pitched laughter, which never failed to carry the company with him. There came Arlow Bynner, the famous quarter-back, and Tom, his twin brother, so much like him that when he had first come to college the Sophomores had dyed his hair. There came Shackleford, millionaire man of fashion, who had been picked for president of the new Senior Class, and who looked so immaculate that Sylvia thought of magazine advertisements of leisure-class brands of tobacco.
There were six men in the room, and only two women—of which one was Aunt Varina, the chaperone. You can imagine that it was an ordeal for the other woman! It is easy enough for a girl to make out when she is looking at memorial inscriptions and historic elm trees, at smoking outfits and rowing sculls; but it’s another matter to be cornered by six fastidious upper-classmen, their looks saying plainer than words: “We’ve been hearing about you, but we’re from Missouri—now bring out your bag of tricks!”
Poor Sylvia—she began, as usual, by having a fright. She could think of nothing to say to all these men. She chose this moment to recollect some warnings which had been given by Harriet, before she left home, as to the exactingness and blaséness of Northern college men; also some half-ventured hints of her cousin, that possibly her arrows might be too light in the shaft for the social heavyweights of this intellectual center. She gazed from one to another in agony; she bit her tongue until she tasted blood, scolding and exhorting herself like a football coach driving a “scrub” team.
It was “Bob” Harmon whose coming saved her. The very sight of him brought her inspiration. She had managed him, had she not? Where was the man she had ever failed to manage? She recollected how she had looked at him, and what she had said to him in the auto; there came suddenly the trumpet-call in her soul, in the far deeps of her the trampling and trembling, thefluttering of banners and murmuring of voices—signs of the arrival of that rescuing host which came to her always in emergencies, and constituted the miracle of Sylvia. Her friend Harriet Atkinson, herself no dullard in company, would sit by and watch the phenomenon in awe. “Sunny,” she would say, “I can see it coming! I can see it beginning to bubble! The light comes into your eyes, and I whisper to myself, ‘Now, now! She’s going to make a killing!’”
What is it—who can say? That awakening in the soul of man, that sense of uplift, of new power arriving, of mastery conscious and exultant! To some it is known as genius, and to others as God. To have possessed it in some great crisis is to have made history; and most strange have been the courses to which men have been lured by the dream of keeping it continuously—to stand upon a pillar and be devoured by worms, to hide in desert caves and lash one’s flesh to strips—or to wear tight stays and high-heeled shoes, and venture into a den of Harvard club-men!
Half an hour or so later, when they were passing tea and cake, the flame of her fun burned less brightly for a few minutes, and she had time to remember a purpose which was stored away in the back of her mind. All her faculties nowbecame centered upon it; and those who wish may follow the winding serpent of her cunning.
She had been telling them about the negro boy who had bitten a piece out of the baby. Thurlow remarked, “Yours must be an interesting part of the world.”
“We love it,” she said. “But you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’d miss too many things you are used to. Our college boys have no such luxury as this.” She looked about her.
“You think this so very luxurious?”
“I do indeed. I’m not sure that I think it’s good taste for young fellows.”
“But why not?”
“It gets you out of touch with life,” replied Sylvia, with charming gravity. (“Don’t play too long on one string!” had been a maxim of Lady Dee.) “I think it’s demoralizing. This place might be a sanatorium instead of a dormitory—if only you had elevators to take the invalids upstairs.”
Somebody remarked, “We have elevators in many of the dormitories.”
“Is that really so?” asked Sylvia. “I don’t see how you can go beyond that—unless some of you take to having private houses.”
There was a laugh. “We’ve come to that, too,” said Bates.
“What?” cried the girl. “Surely not!”
“Douglas van Tuiver has a house,” replied Bates.
“Surely you are jesting!”
“No! I’ll show it to you, Miss Castleman.”
“Who is Douglas van Tuiver?”
The men glanced at one another. “Haven’t you ever heard of the van Tuivers?” asked one.
“Who are they?” countered Sylvia, who never lied when she could avoid it.
“They are one of our oldest families,” said Shackleford—who came from New York. “Also one of the best known.”
“Well,” said Sylvia, duly rebuked, “you see how very provincial I am.”
“He’s a nephew of Mrs. Harold Cliveden,” ventured Harmon.
“Cliveden?” repeated Sylvia. “I think I’ve heard that name.” She kept a straight face—though the lady was the reigning queen of Newport, and a theme of the society gossip of all American newspapers. Then, not to embarrass her friends by too great ignorance, she hurried on, “But you surely don’t mean that this man has a house all to himself?”
“He has,” said Thurlow.
“He has more than that,” said Jackson. “He has a castle in Scotland.”
“I don’t mind castles so much. One can inherit them——”
“No, he bought this one.”
“Well, even so—castles are romantic and interesting. One might have a dream of founding a family. But for a man to come to college and occupy a whole house—what motive could he have but ostentation?”
No one answered—though she waited for an answer. At last, with a grave face, she pronounced the judgment, “I would expect to find such a man a degenerate.”
They were evidently shocked, but covered it by laughing. “Lord!” said Bates, “I’d like to have van Tuiver hear that!”
“Probably it would be good for him,” replied Sylvia, coldly.
Everybody grinned. “Wish you’d tell him!” said the man.
“I’d be delighted.”
“Would you really?”
“Why certainly.”
“By Jove, I believe you’d do it!” declared Bates.
“But why shouldn’t I do it?”
“I don’t know. When people meet van Tuiver they sometimes lose their nerve.”
“Is he so very terrible?”
“Well, he’s rather imposing.”
Then Sylvia took a new line. “Of course,” she said, hesitatingly, “I wouldn’t want to be irreverent——”
“May I go and bring him here?” inquired Bates, eagerly.
To which she replied, “Perhaps one owes more deference to Royalty. Shouldn’t you take me to him?”
“We’ll keep you on a throne of your own,” said Thurlow—“at least, while you are here.” (It was quite as if he had been a Southern man.)
But Bates was not to be diverted from his idea. “Won’t you let me go and get him?” he inquired.
“Does he visit in dormitories?”
“Really, Miss Castleman, I’m not joking. Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”
“Why should I?”
“Because—we’d all like to see what would happen.”
“From what you say about him,” remarked Sylvia, “he sounds to me like a bore. Or at any rate, a young man who is in need of chastening.”
“Exactly!” cried Bates. “And we’d like to see you attend to it!”
The time had come, Sylvia thought, to play upon a new string. She looked about her with a slightlydistraitair. “Don’t you think,” she inquired, “that we are giving him too large a portion of this charming afternoon?”
The men appreciated the compliment; but the other theme still enticed them. Said Jackson, “We can’t give up the idea of the chastening, Miss Castleman.”
“Of course, if you are afraid of him—” added Bates, slyly.
There was a momentary flash in Sylvia’s eyes. But then she laughed—“You can’t play a game like that on me!”
“We wouldsolike,” said Jackson, “to see van Tuiver get a drubbing!”
“Please, Miss Castleman!” added Harmon, “give him a drubbing!”
But the girl only held out her white-gloved hands. “Look at these,” she said, “how pure and spotless!”
Said “Tubby”: “I hereby register a vow, I will never partake of food again until you two have met!”
Sylvia rose, looking bored. “I’m going to run away,” she said, “if you don’t find something interesting to talk about.” And strolling towards a cabinet, “Mr. Thurlow, come and introduce me to this charming little Billikin!”
Sylvia had promised to go with Frank the next day to a luncheon in his rooms. She found herself looking forward with relief to meeting his “crowd.” “Oh, Frank,” she said, when they had set out together, “you’ve no idea how glad I am to see you. I have such a craving for something home-like. You can’t understand, perhaps——”
“Perhaps I can,” said Frank, smiling. “I can’t say that I’ve been in Boston society, but I’ve been on the outskirts.”
“Frank,” she exclaimed, “you don’t ever worry about me, do you? Truly, the more I see of other people, the more I love you. And all I want is to be alone with you. I’m tired of the game. Everybody expects me to be pert and saucy; and I can be it, you know——”
She stopped, and he smiled. “Yes, I know.”
“But since I’ve met you, I get sorry, sometimes even ashamed. You see what you’ve done to me!”
“What in the world have you been doing?” he asked.
“Oh, some day I’ll tell you—don’t ask me now. It’s just that I’m tired of society—I wasn’t cut out for the life.”
“Why, it was only a few days ago that you were talking about bringing me out!”
“I know, Frank. I try to play the game, but deep down in my soul I hate it. I’m successful now, but it’s the truth that in the beginning I never took a step that I wasn’t driven. When I went into a ball-room, my teeth would chatter with fright, and I’d want to hide in a corner. Aunt Nannie would get hold of me, and take me into the dressing-room, and scold me and stir me up. I can hear her now. ‘You! Sylvia Castleman, my niece, a wallflower! Have you forgotten who you are?’ So then, of course, I’d have to think of my ancestors and be worthy of them. She’d pinch my cheeks until they were red, and wipe the wet corners of my eyes, and put a fresh dab of powder on my nose, and stick in a strand of hair, and twist a curl, and shift a bow of ribbon to the other shoulder—and then out I’d go to be stared at.”
“You’ve got the job pretty well in hand by now,” smiled Frank.
“Yes, I know, but I don’t really like it—notwith my real self. I’m always thinking what fun it would be to be natural! I wonder what I’d turn into! And whether you’d like me!”
“I’d take my chances.”
“Would you really, Frank? Just suppose I stopped dressing, for instance? Suppose I never wore high heels and stiff collars? Suppose I dispensed with mymodiste, and you discovered that I had no figure.”
“I’d take my chances,” he laughed again.
“You look at me, and you like what you see. But you’ve no idea what a work of art I am, nor how much I cost—thousands and thousands of dollars! And so many people to watch me and scold me—so much work to be done on me, day after day! Suppose my hair wasn’t curled, for instance! Or suppose my nose were shiny!”
“I don’t mind shiny so much, Sylvia——”
“Ah! But if it was red! That’s what they’re always hammering into me—whenever I forget my veil. Or look at these lovely soft hands of mine—such beautiful nails. Do you realize that I have to keep them in glycerine gloves all night—and ugh! how clammy and nasty they are when it’s cold! And the time it takes to keep the nails polished!”
“You see,” she went on, after a pause, “you don’t take my wickedness seriously. But you should ask Harriet Atkinson about some of the things we’ve done. She’ll come and say, ‘There’s a new man coming to-night. Teach me a “spiel”!’ She’ll tell me all about him, where he comes fromand what he likes, and I’ll tell her what to say and what to pretend to be. And I’ve done it myself—hundreds of times.”
“Did you do it for me?” asked Frank, innocently.
Sylvia paused. “I tried to,” she said. “Sometimes I did, but then again I couldn’t.” She put her hand upon his arm, and he felt a pressure, thrilling him with a swift delight.
But they had come now to the dormitory, so her outburst had to end. She took her hand from his arm, saying, “Frank, I don’t want you to kiss me any more until we’re married. I’m going to stop doing everything that makes me ashamed!”
Behold now a new “Lady Sunshine,” in a clean white apron which her hosts had provided for the occasion, stirring mushrooms in cream and superintending stewed chicken, while Frank washed salad in the bathroom, and Jack Colton was half way up to his elbows in mayonnaise. This was the first time that Sylvia had met Frank’s room-mate, with whom she had intended to be very stern, because of his “wildness.” Although she was used to wild boys, and had helped to tame a number of them, she did not approve of such qualities in a companion of her lover.
Jack, however, was a boy with what the Irish call “a way with him.” He had curly brown hair and a winning countenance, and such a laugh that it was not easy to disagree with him. Moreover a halo of romance hung about him, owing to the fact that Frank had first met him after a railroad wreck, sitting in the snow and holding in his lap a baby whose mother had been killed. Jack had engaged a nurse and sent the child all the way out to his own mother in Wyoming; and how could any girl object to a friendship begun under such auspices? If his mother was indulgent and sent him more pocket money than he could decently spend, might not one regard that as the boy’s misfortune rather than his fault?
There was Dennis Dulanty, a fair-haired young Irishman who wrote poems, and was Sylvia’s slave from the first moment she entered the room. There was Tom Firmin, a heavily built man with a huge head made bigger by thick, black hair. Firmin was working his way through college and had no time for luncheon parties, but he had come this once to meet Sylvia. The girl listened to him with some awe, because Frank had said he had the best mind in the class. Finally there was Jack’s married sister, who lived in Boston, and was chaperone.
There were four little tables with four chafing dishes, and two study tables put together and covered with a spread of linen and silver. There were strawberries which Dulanty had dropped upon the floor; there were sandwiches whichTom Firmin had tried in vain to cut thin, and wine about which Jack Colton talked far too wisely, for one so young. Jack had been round the world, and had tasted the vintage of many countries, and told such interesting adventures that one forgot one’s disapproval.
Sylvia found herself happy here, and decided that Frank’s crowd was far more interesting than Thurlow’s. All these men were outsiders, holding themselves aloof from the social life of the University and resentful of the conditions they had found there. After awhile it occurred to Sylvia that it would be entertaining to hear what these men would have to say upon a subject which had been occupying her mind; so, by a few deft touches, she brought the conversation to a point where some one else was moved to mention the name of Douglas van Tuiver.
Immediately she discovered that she had touched a live wire. There was Tom Firmin, frowning under his thick black eyebrows. “For my part, I have just one thing to say: a man who has any pretense at self-respect cannot even know him.”
“Is he as bad as all that?” Sylvia asked.
“It’s not a question of personality—it’s a question of the amount of his wealth.”
Sylvia would have appreciated this if it had been a jest. But apparently the speaker was serious, and so she gazed at him in perplexity. “Is a very rich man to have no friends?” she asked.
“Never fear,” laughed Jack, “there are plenty of tuft-hunters who will keep him company.”
“But why should you sentence him to the company of tuft-hunters, just because he happens to be born with a lot of money?”
“It isn’t I that sentence him,” said Firmin—“it’s the nature of things.”
“But,” exclaimed the girl, “I’ve had millionaires for friends—and I hope I’m not the dreadful thing you say.”
The other smiled for the first time. “Frank Shirley insists that there are angels upon earth,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, Miss Castleman, I’d prefer to illustrate this argument by every-day mortals like myself. I’m willing to admit, as a theoretical proposition, that there might be a disinterested friendship between a poor man and a multimillionaire; but only if the poor man is a Diogenes and stays in his tub. I mean, if he has no business affairs of any sort, and takes no part in social life; if he never lets the multimillionaire take him automobiling or invite him to dinner; if he has no marriageable sisters, and the multimillionaire has none either. But all these, you must admit, make a difficult collection of circumstances.”
“Miss Castleman,” said Jack, “you can see why we call Tom Firmin our Anarchist.”
But Sylvia was not to be diverted. She had never heard such ideas as this, and she wanted to understand them. “You must think hardly of human nature!” she objected.
“As I said before, it has nothing whatever to do with personality, it’s the automatic effect of a huge sum of money. Take my own case, for example—so I can talk brutally and not hurt anyone. I want to be a lawyer, but meanwhile I have to earn my living. I love a girl, but I’ve no hope of marrying, because I’m poor and she’s poor. If I struggle along in the usual way, it’ll be five years—maybe ten years—before we can marry. But here I am in college, and here’s Douglas van Tuiver; if by any device of any sort I can manage to penetrate his consciousness—if I can make him think me a wit or a scholar, a boon companion or a great soul, the best halfback in college or an amusing old bull in the social china shop—why, then right away things are easier for me. You’ve heard what Thackeray said about walking down Piccadilly with a duke on each arm? If I can walk across the Yard with Douglas van Tuiver, then a lot of important men suddenly realize that I exist; the first thing you know I make a club, and so when I come out of college I’m the chum of some of the men who are running the country, and I have a salary of five thousand a year at the start, and ten thousand in a year or two, a hundred thousand before I’m forty, and a go at a rich marriage into the bargain. Do you think there are many would-be lawyers to whom all that would be no temptation? Let me tell you, it’s the temptation which has turned many a man in this college into a boot-licker!”
“But, Mr. Firmin!” cried Sylvia, in dismay.“What is your idea? Would you forbid rich men coming to college?”
To which the other replied, “I’d go much farther back than that, Miss Castleman—I’d forbid rich men existing.”
Sylvia was genuinely shocked. She had never heard such words even in jest, and she thought Tom Firmin a terrifying person. “You see,” laughed Jack, “he reallyisan Anarchist!” And Sylvia believed him, and resolved to remonstrate with Frank about having such friends. But nevertheless she went out from that breakfast party with something new to think about in connection with Douglas van Tuiver—and with her mind made up that Mr. “Tubby” Bates would have to die of starvation!
That afternoon Sylvia was invited to one of the club teas. These were very exclusive affairs, and Jackson, who asked her, mentioned that among those who poured tea would be Mrs. Isabel Winthrop; also that Mrs. Winthrop had expressed a particular desire to meet her.
This would mark a new stage in Sylvia’s campaign for her cousin; but quite apart from that, she was curious to meet thisbelle idealof Auburn Street. Sylvia had listened attentively to what the denizens of the “Gold Coast” had to say about“Queen Isabella,” and had found herself rather awe-stricken. When one spoke of a favorite hostess in the South, one gave her credit for tact, for charm, perhaps even for brilliance. But apparently Mrs. Winthrop was the possessor of a much more difficult and perplexing attribute—a rare and lofty soul. She was a woman of real intellect, they said—she had written a book upon theories of æsthetics, and had taken a degree in philosophy at the older Cambridge across the seas. Such things were quite unknown in Southern society, where a girl was rather taught to hide her superfluous education, for fear of scaring the men away.
So Sylvia found herself in a state of considerable apprehension. If it had been a man, she would have taken her chances; when she had attended Commencement at her State University, there were professors who would call and talk about Assyrian bricks, and the relation between ions and corpuscles—yet by listening closely, and putting in a deft touch now and then to make them talk about themselves, Sylvia had managed to impress them as an intellectual young lady. But now she had to deal with that natural enemy of a woman—another woman. How was the ordeal to be faced?
Lady Dee had handed down the formula: “When in difficulty, look the person in the eyes, and remember who you are.” This was the counsel which came to Sylvia’s rescue at the moment of the dread encounter. She knew Mrs.Winthrop as soon as she caught sight of her; she looked a woman of thirty-five—instead of forty-five, which she really was—tall and slender, undoubtedly beautiful, undoubtedly proud, and yet with a kind ofnaïvesincerity. They met in the dressing-room by accident, and the lady, recognizing Sylvia, took her hand and gazed into her face; and Sylvia gazed back, with those wide, clear eyes of hers, steadily, unflinching, without a motion or a sound. At last Mrs. Winthrop, putting her other hand upon the girl’s, clasped it and whispered intensely, “We met a thousand years ago!”
Sylvia had no information as to any such event, and she had not expected at all that kind of welcome. So she continued to gaze—steadily, steadily. And the spell communicated itself to Mrs. Winthrop. “I heard that you were lovely,” she murmured, in a strange, low voice, “but I really had no idea! Sylvia Castleman, you are like a snow-storm of pear blossoms! You are a Corot symphony of spring time!”
Now Sylvia had seen some of Corot’s paintings, but she had not learned to mix the metaphors of the arts, and so she had no idea what Mrs. Winthrop meant. She contented herself with saying something about the pleasure she felt at this meeting.
But the other was not to be brought down to mundane speech. “Dryad!” she murmured. She had a manner and voice all her own, sybilline, oracular; you felt that she was speaking,not to you, but to some disembodied spirit. It was very disconcerting at first.
“You bring back lost youth to the world,” she said. “I want to talk to you, Sylvia—to find out more about you. You aren’t vain, I know. You are proud!”
“Why—I’m not sure,” said Sylvia, at a loss for a moment.
“Oh, don’t be vain!” said the lady. “Remember—I was like you once.”
Which gave Sylvia an opportunity of the sort she understood. “I will look forward,” she said, “to the prospect of being like you.”
The radiant lady pressed her hand. “Very pretty, my child,” she said. “Quite Southern, too! But I must take you in and give the others some of this joy.”
Such was the beginning of the acquaintance so utterly different from all possible beginnings, as Sylvia had imagined them. She found in Edith Winthrop, whom she met a few minutes later, a person much nearer to what she had expected in the mother. Miss Edith had her mother’s beauty and her mother’s pride, but no trace of her mother’s sybilline qualities. A badly spoiled young lady, was Sylvia’s first verdict upon this New Englandbelle; a verdict which she delivered promptly to her infatuated cousin, and which she never found occasion to revise.
The friendship thus begun progressed rapidly. Mrs. Winthrop asked if she might call, and coming the next day, discovered in Aunt Varina theperfect type of the Southern gentlewoman. So the three were soon absorbed in talking genealogy. At Miss Abercrombie’s Sylvia had been surprised to learn that it was bad form to talk about one’s ancestors; but apparently it was still permissible in Boston—as it assuredly was in the South.
Mrs. Winthrop invited Sylvia to a party she was giving; and when Sylvia spoke of having to leave Boston, “Oh, stay,” said the great lady. “Come and stay with me—always!” Finally Sylvia said that she would come to the party.
“I’ll invite your cousin for the extra man,” said the other. “It is to be a new kind of party—you know how desperately one has to struggle to keep one’s guests from being bored. I got this idea from a Southern man, so perhaps it’s an old story to you—a ‘Progressive Love’ party?”
“Oh, yes, we often have them,” replied Sylvia. She had not supposed that these intellectual people would condescend to such play—having pictured Boston society as occupied in translating Meredith and Henry James.
“People have to be amused the world over,” said Mrs. Winthrop. And when Sylvia looked surprised to have her thought read, the other gave her a long look, and smiled a deep smile. “Sylvia,” she propounded, “you and I understand each other. We are made of exactly the same material.”