Huntington placed his house at the disposal of the Thatchers during Class Day week, and urged them to arrive the Saturday before so that he might show them something of Boston before the college festivities set in. He had corresponded freely with Mrs. Thatcher during the weeks Hamlen had been his guest, sharing with her his own gratification that their joint undertaking proceeded with such promise of success. But each letter she wrote contained some reference to her desire to carry the rejuvenation to a climax.
"Don't let him get too young," she wrote in one, "or Merry won't care for him. She always feels more at home with older men."
In another, accepting Huntington's invitation, she added: "Your suggestion is particularly fortunate as it will give Merry a chance to see Philip Hamlen under ideal conditions."
There was no escape. Mrs. Thatcher still assumed that he was as eager to bring about the match as she herself, and with woman's pertinacity presented the matter to him in such a way that he was forced to act as her ally whether he chose to do so or not. He had no restitution to make to his classmate,he stoutly assured himself, and because a charming woman felt a moral obligation to bring about "poetic justice" there was no reason why he should be stampeded into aiding and abetting a scheme of which he thoroughly disapproved. Huntington reasoned it out logically and conclusively, arrived at a definite determination to have no part in it, and then did the one thing which Mrs. Thatcher most desired by inviting them all to his home. Such is the innate inconsistency of man when he attempts to defeat the plans of a clever woman who always has her way!
Yet, curiously enough, Huntington believed that he was acting on his own initiative, and that this plot of his to have the girl near by, where he could again enjoy her companionship without betraying how much she had become to him, was a triumph of diplomatic genius. He even dreaded lest a refusal of his hospitality should defeat his carefully-laid plans, never realizing that the idea itself had come through the most delicate psychological suggestion between the lines of a letter which touched on every subject but the one in point. Such is the inevitable climax of man's originality when his plans include feminine co-operation!
Hamlen did not again refer to the matter on which he had sought advice until Huntington told him that the Thatchers were to arrive. Then his manner took on that phase which his host knew well, and the old apprehensiveness returned. The change was so noticeable that it could not be passed by without comment.
"Don't you want to see them?" Huntingtondemanded flatly. "You act as if their coming really frightened you."
"It does," Hamlen admitted frankly.
"Why should it?"
Huntington had come closely enough to him now to speak pointedly, and Hamlen seemed grateful for it. He wanted to be treated like other men, even though at times the new experience hurt; and his friend more and more took him at his word. "Why should it?" Huntington repeated.
"Because I can't trust myself yet. All is going so well that I fear something may happen to cause a setback."
"Nonsense! The old dread of meeting people hasn't worn off yet, but you are making splendid strides. I shall be proud to have Mrs. Thatcher see you as you are now."
"I am not myself when I am with her," Hamlen insisted, avoiding his friend's eyes as he spoke.
"If you prefer, I'll put you up at the Club while they're here."
"I should prefer it; but I think I had better fight it out while I have you near at hand to help me."
There was a new note of determination in his voice, but the dread was still there. "I do not want to marry Miss Thatcher, Huntington," he said slowly, with emphasis on every word; "yet unless you help me I shall do it. I cannot resist Mrs. Thatcher if she is determined to accomplish this. You spoke of logic and judgment when we talked of it before, but these are not enough. Marian is a wonderful woman. She believes that this marriage will be for our happiness, but I tell you, Huntington, itwould be a tragedy for us both. I have never had but one woman in my heart, and any effort to dethrone that image would produce a condition for which I cannot hold myself responsible. That is what I fear, and you must help me."
"Of course I'll help you, my dear fellow," Huntington reassured him, "but are you not exaggerating Mrs. Thatcher's attitude? I can't believe that she will proceed further when she knows how you really feel."
Hamlen shook his head. "You have heard of men who lost their reason by being accidentally locked in a tomb overnight—think what it has meant to me to live with the specters of the dead for twenty years! As I look back, I wonder that I've held together at all! I'm not rational even now,—I know that; but I'm improving every day. What you have looked upon as an obsession, an eccentricity, has been a condition over which I have had no control, but through you I have been able to partially extricate myself. Mrs. Thatcher stirred the dead embers when she found me in Bermuda, and beneath them lay the smoldering flames which had slowly consumed my life. That I was able to hold them in check there gave me courage to accept your point of view, and I know that I have gained strength during these weeks I have spent with you."
"You are stronger in every way," Huntington said with decision. "If you were able to hold yourself in check then, you should now feel doubly safe."
"Perhaps," Hamlen admitted doubtfully; "that is why I don't follow my strong impulse to let youput me up at the Club. I want to test myself still further. Whenever Marian Thatcher's name is mentioned I feel such a confusion of emotions that I realize how far I am yet from being my own master. I must either conquer or else return to the old life."
"I'll stand by you—of course I will!" Huntington laughed, hoping to lessen Hamlen's apprehension by treating the subject lightly. "Keep the specters of the past back among the dead where they belong; don't let them stalk in your present in which you are just beginning to find what life really is. Mrs. Thatcher is a beautiful woman of flesh and blood and not an avenging Nemesis!"
"My God, Huntington! can't I make even you understand!" Hamlen cried out. "It is the fact that Marian Seymour is a beautiful woman of flesh and blood that the specter stalks! You who have never loved can't sympathize as I do with the aboriginal man who struck down whomever stood between himself and the woman he wanted, and carried his prize bodily to his cave. I boasted that these twenty years had given me opportunity for super-intellectual development, but instead I find myself controlled by almost primeval instincts. My respect for law is weakened, my regard for the rights of others seems stultified. This woman has been mine since we were boy and girl together, Huntington, and I want my woman! Before she broke the engagement my domination was too complete, for it made her fear me; when we met twenty years later it was she who dominated. Now, as I am coming back to myself, I feel my former power returning, and I know that if I chose I could compel a subservienceof her will to mine. That is what I dread, for my exile has destroyed my sense of proportion. If I do not exercise my own strength then I must let her will be supreme, and that means that I shall marry the girl while I worship the mother.—Don't belittle my fearfulness, Huntington; it is a real thing to be reckoned with."
"Whether real or not," Huntington said kindly, "the fact that you think it so is enough. I shall not advise you nor urge you to do anything except what you yourself think wise, and so far as I can, whenever or wherever you wish it, I will help you."
This discussion left a deep impression upon Huntington. He had never looked upon Hamlen as a man of force, but rather as a visionary of nervous tenseness; yet this outburst showed a strength which would have carried his classmate far had it been properly directed. In spite of his present activities Huntington could see that Hamlen still lived much in his past,—the unconscious return to Mrs. Thatcher's girlhood name was evidence of that, his reference to the ghostly companions of his Bermuda life was equally convincing. What puzzled him was Hamlen's conviction that Mrs. Thatcher was determined to compel the suggested alliance against his will. This Huntington could not believe. She had expressly stated to him that it was only an idea to be acted upon in case it proved wise. Had Hamlen shown an interest in Merry, then undoubtedly Marian's influence would be exercised in his behalf; but surely a mother's heart would not be insistent in so serious a crisis! In this at least Hamlen's apprehensions carried him too far.
The opportunity to satisfy himself came to Huntington the day after his guests arrived. They had motored down the North Shore and back to the Club for lunch on a bright Sunday morning which seemed prepared especially to show Boston's environs off to best advantage; and as they strolled about the Club grounds he found himself paired off with Mrs. Thatcher.
The evening before had developed nothing of any moment. The two boys rushed in after dinner, completely monopolized the situation for such time as they were present, and then dashed off to keep a college engagement. Things were too "thick," Billy explained to Merry, to have a real visit. Thatcher seemed worn out and asked the indulgence of his host to permit his early retiring; Mrs. Thatcher was happy and complacent, rejoicing in the change she found in Hamlen and grateful to her ally for having brought it about; Merry appeared strangely quiet, but even if her presence had been wholly silent it would have seemed a benediction to Huntington, whose sentiments no one suspected, and on whom all depended for the expression of their individual purposes. Huntington smiled grimly to himself as he recalled Hamlen's matter-of-fact assumption that love had never entered into his life; he even questioned whether his friend's self-imposed restraint was more difficult than the repression of his own emotion!
After luncheon they walked out onto the golf links, Huntington and Marian finding a retreat in one of the thatched-roof shelters from which they could command an extended view on all sides.Thatcher and Hamlen had fallen behind, following Merry, who was eager to secure a better idea of the earlier holes in the course. Marian seated herself and then looked up into Huntington's face with an expression of complete satisfaction.
"It is simply wonderful!" she exclaimed.
"It is a fine course—"
"I'm not thinking of the course," she interrupted. "What you have done with Philip Hamlen is simply wonderful!"
"You must give your boy his share of the credit; his influence over Hamlen is no less than mine."
"I am glad my son could do something toward paying his mother's debt," she replied feelingly. "Now if you and I can complete the work I shall feel that restitution has been amply made."
"You refer to your daughter?"
"Yes; if I can see Merry married to Philip Hamlen I shall be blissfully content."
Huntington did not reply at once. He must be fair to this woman of whose determination he could now have no doubt; he must be fair to Hamlen, but above all he must be fair to the girl herself. Could he assume any position of impartiality? Would not each word really be a cry from his own heart, not against Hamlen but against any one who should create a barrier between himself and her? But Hamlen had besought his aid, so after all a responsibility existed, not of his making, which could not be shirked. He would meet the issue squarely with special care to eliminate himself.
"I regret to say that I cannot sympathize with that plan," he said deliberately.
Mrs. Thatcher looked at him in complete surprise. "I thought we agreed—"
"I have had greater opportunity to study Hamlen since we last talked."
She was genuinely distressed by Huntington's attitude. "I have set my heart upon it," she said firmly. "Through me his life was wrecked; it would be only justice if I helped him to find his happiness."
At that moment Huntington wondered how Marian Seymour could ever have attracted him. He had told Hamlen that the alchemy of a woman's heart was past his comprehension, but he had believed that mothers' hearts were all the same. He knew that Mrs. Thatcher was devoted to her daughter, yet her insistence appeared to him inexplicable and reprehensible. Had his companion been a man he would have told him so; under the present circumstances he spoke more guardedly.
"Being friends and allies, we should be frank in expressing our conviction," he explained; "this must excuse my otherwise unwarranted objections."
"You know Merry now. Don't you agree with me that her interest is in men older than herself?"
"Has she been consulted?"
Mrs. Thatcher flushed. "No," she answered; "I shall not speak to her until Philip Hamlen has been persuaded."
"You think she will acquiesce?"
"I am sure of it. She may not understand at first, but I am certain that she will feel as I do. Who could fail to see that he would be an ideal husband for her?"
"What would your life have been if you had married Hamlen?"
"But he has changed,—he has learned much from his experience."
"He is still, and always will be an abnormal personality," Huntington insisted. "Marriage, in my opinion, has no place in his life, and no woman could possibly endure his eccentricities. He can still find much to interest him among men, but I beg of you not to pursue an experiment which contains so many elements of danger."
"You put it strongly, Mr. Huntington."
"I feel it strongly; that must be my excuse."
Mrs. Thatcher was visibly affected. It was several moments before she spoke, and Huntington could see that she resented his attitude.
"You look at it wholly from a man's standpoint," she protested. "No one with Philip Hamlen's temperament can find the life he craves in companionship with men alone. Of course I respect your convictions, but you in turn must respect mine. I am so sure I am right that I cannot abandon the hope I have so long cherished. It will be more difficult of accomplishment without you, but if necessary I must carry it through alone."
"Forgive me, Mrs. Thatcher,—but are you not thinking of him and of your obligation more than of your daughter?"
"You surely don't think I would force Merry against her will!"
"Sometimes we leave one a free moral agent," Huntington said pointedly, "and at the same timebind him with chains stronger than iron by expression of our own desires."
The approach of Hamlen and Merry brought the unsatisfactory discussion to a forced conclusion, and Huntington rejoiced that it saved him from further expostulations. Thatcher had returned to the club-house to telephone, leaving Hamlen and Merry by themselves. Hamlen responded to Merry's spontaneous vivacity, and both were in the best of spirits as they walked toward the shelter. He was heavier now and it became him. The sallowness had left his face and a slight color appeared in his cheeks. The girl beside him, as always when enthusiastic, radiated happiness. Her companion could scarcely keep up with her as she half walked half ran up the slight incline.
"Look at them!" Mrs. Thatcher exclaimed, turning to Huntington. "Who are you to tell me I am wrong!"
Huntington was spared the necessity of reply for Merry had reached them. Mrs. Thatcher rose and strolled away by herself to relieve her overwrought feelings.
"Oh, for a golf-skirt and a bag of clubs!" the girl cried. "When may I play this adorable course?"
"To-morrow morning," Huntington replied promptly, "if my guests permit me to provide them with other entertainment. After to-morrow I must give you up to those most exalted of personages, the Seniors."
"I'd love to play this course," Merry said gratefully,—"but you're going over for Class Day, aren't you?"
"Yes; but we old grads don't count as against the Seniors. They are the heroes and we bend the knee. On Thursday we shall walk respectfully up to the graduating class, bow politely, and say, 'We who are about to die, salute you'!"
Merry laughed gaily. "Then, the next day, these heroes jump down off their pedestals, walk respectfully up to the old grads, bow politely, and say, 'Please give us a job'!"
"Don't be an iconoclast, Miss Merry," Huntington retorted. "These boys may be looking for jobs, but they are richer than any of us: they have youth, and life is before them."
"Grandpa!" the girl laughed mischievously.
"I sha'n't let you call me that!" he cried, really piqued.
"Then don't be so unfair to yourself!" she retaliated; "you are the youngest 'old' man I ever met!"
It was with real regret the following morning that Huntington watched his ball drop into the cup on the eighteenth green. The round had been too perfect, the experience too enjoyable to come to an end so soon.
"Five down," Merry remarked. "That looks to me like a real defeat."
"I'm glad to find some game I can play better than you," Huntington replied banteringly. "I'm still sore over our swimming-races in Bermuda. But in all fairness I must admit that this course is built for a man's game, and the premium on the length of the wooden clubs was all that saved me to-day."
"You are generous,—but I acknowledge my defeat. Do we have to go home now?"
"There is at least an hour between us and the rigid convention of luncheon," Huntington answered. "Shall we spend it on the piazza?"
"It is much nicer beneath one of these great trees," she said, suiting her action to the word and sitting down upon the grass. "Come. Let us imagine that we're back in Bermuda again!"
Huntington seated himself beside her, still rebelliousthat their moments together were passing so swiftly. He had wondered how she would appear to him when he saw her again, half hoping to find that the charm of the earlier setting had exaggerated her attractiveness, half dreading an awakening. This would have simplified his problem, but it would also have robbed his life of the richness which had entered it. Even though he saw his course plainly plotted out for him, there was a delicious joy in knowing that there existed one who had awakened in him that which alone is best and without which no man's experience can be complete.
But his half-hope was not to be gratified nor his half-dread realized. The girl was different, but the intervening months had done their work well. She seemed older and more mature, yet this passing of the girl into womanhood had been accomplished without marring those characteristics which he had before admired. His eyes rested on her face longer than he realized, as these thoughts passed through his mind, but until she spoke he had no idea that she had noticed the closeness of his scrutiny.
"Well," she said smiling, "do you approve?"
He made no apology, for they understood each other too well, but instead accepted her question seriously.
"Entirely," he replied with an air of sincerity which forced the color into her face. "The expression of the mouth, the tilt of the head, the sparkle in the eyes,—all is perfection. But you suggested that we imagine ourselves back in Bermuda. For myself, I should not dare to try it, for it could never be the same."
"Should we want it to be?" she asked earnestly."An experience repeated must have something added or it fails to satisfy. To be the same would bring disappointment. I've argued that all out with myself, so I'm sure I'm right."
"Why should you have done that?" he demanded.
"Because those were the most wonderful days I have ever known," she explained simply and without embarrassment. "I found myself wishing them back; then I realized that if I could have my wish gratified it wouldn't satisfy me. I was unhappy when I went down there for no reason in the world except that I couldn't seem to find my place. With all their love no one at home has ever understood me, and I had reached a point where I didn't understand myself. Then you gave me the chance to know Mr. Hamlen, and in what you said to him and to me I saw what happens when one has no anchorage. That was what had made me unhappy,—I was drifting horribly."
"You concealed it well," Huntington said. "All the time we were together I never suspected that you had a care in the world."
"That is a compliment to yourself," the girl answered. "With your optimism you draw out the best in every one. See what you did with Mr. Hamlen down there, and what you have done with him since! You are the most completely happy person I have ever met, and—don't scold!—I have tried to imitate you. I haven't been very successful yet, but I'm trying. Some time, when the supreme test comes, I shall accept it, and then you will see what your example has accomplished."
The sincerity of the girl's words made Huntingtonuncomfortable. At first it pleased him to discover how genuine was her respect, but as she continued he found himself embarrassed by the character she gave him.
"I shall begin to think myself somebody if you go on," he expostulated. "You are crediting me with attributes I don't seem to recognize."
"That is because they come so naturally to you," she explained. "You are happy because your life is spent in making other people happy. That is the lesson I learned."
"You were doing that long before I met you, and you are doing it now."
"No," she insisted; "it may have seemed so to you, but I was really trying to find happiness for myself, and because I was thinking of myself it didn't come. Since I returned home I've tried your plan, and so far it has worked splendidly."
"But the supreme test," Huntington asked,—"what is that to be?"
"Oh, I don't know," she answered with an effort to speak indifferently; "being a girl I suppose it will be my marriage."
"That should be the supreme triumph of your happiness rather than the test."
"I used to think so but I've changed my mind. I had a vision once of what I thought marriage ought to be.—We spoke of it in Bermuda, and you made fun of it, don't you remember? I'm convinced now that it was all wrong."
"You said that you would marry only a man who would let you contribute your share to the real life which you would jointly live."
"Yes," Merry answered consciously; "and you laughed at me! But you were right. I ought not to think so much of myself." She paused a moment. "The man I really loved probably wouldn't care for me at all," she continued soberly, her eyes averted. "If I am convinced that I can make the man I marry happy, then I am more certain of finding happiness myself. That is making a tremendous compromise with sentiment, but don't you think it more sensible, after all?"
"Then the supreme test, as I understand it, would be to marry a man you thought you could make happy whether you cared for him or not?"
Merry nodded her head in affirmation. A sudden suspicion came into Huntington's mind, and he looked at the girl curiously.
"Has your mother been talking to you upon this subject?" he demanded with more directness than he had a right to use.
"Why, no," she answered, showing her surprise. "She thinks me too indifferent to men; but we have never discussed the matter seriously because there has been no occasion."
Huntington was relieved by her words but her ideas were not reassuring. He started to tell her that she was entirely wrong, but he checked himself because he realized that differing with people had now come to be a habit with him. Two days before he had carefully explained to Hamlen how erroneous his convictions were only to discover that he himself had been in error. Yesterday he had differed with Mrs. Thatcher, and now he found his ideas at variance with Merry's. Instead, helifted the girl's left hand, which rested on the grass beside him, and gently pointing to the third finger he looked earnestly into her deep eyes.
"Merry," he said calling her by her name for the first time, "when the moment comes for some man to slip a gold band on there I want you to remember what I tell you now. You have pictured me as an apostle of optimism and as the happiest person you know. I could tell you something about that, but instead I'll try to live up to your picture. But this much is gospel truth, and I want you to remember it: that gold band will stand as a symbol and the circle means completeness. It doesn't stand for sacrifice, or for supreme tests, or for anything of that sort,—it does stand for just what you saw in your 'vision.' A very wise person once said that marriage was either a complete union or a complete isolation, and he was right. My friends think me a cynic on this subject, but my cynicism is a result of the complete isolation I see every day in the lives of my friends. I want your marriage to be a complete union, little girl, and that can't come if you apply your present ideas to a sacrament so sacred that every-day principles become meaningless. Marriage is the merging of all that is beautiful in two lives, and unless the love on each side strives to outdo the other in contributing to the joint account, the beauty fades, and the gold circlet stands as a symbol of slavery instead of representing the most wonderful relation which mortals are permitted to enjoy."
"Mr. Huntington!" she exclaimed in a low tone, "I had no idea you looked upon marriage like that!I didn't believe any man did! It makes me have more faith in my vision. Still, after all, that doesn't change the fact itself, for you are the exception. But, feeling as you do, I know now that the only reason you are not married is that you have never found the girl."
Huntington looked full into her face before he turned his head aside. "I did find the girl," he answered with a depth of feeling in his voice; "but I found her too late."
"Forgive me!" Merry cried impulsively, convinced that she had torn open a concealed wound.
"There is nothing to forgive, dear child," he said quickly. Then with that smile which took the world in its embrace he added, "Don't waste your sympathy on me; life has already given me more than I deserve."
"I am so sorry," Merry replied soberly. "She must have been a wonderful girl to win such a love."
"She was," he answered.
Billy Huntington was the founder of an original secret organization called the "Club for Undesirables." Being the founder he was privileged to write the By-Laws, and these consisted of a single Article: "The members of this Club shall be elected by the non-members." Exercising his prerogative he had proposed, seconded and elected Cosden and others of his acquaintance who failed to attain the standards he demanded of those around him; and now he unanimously declared Mrs. Thatcher a member in full standing.
These were not red-letter days for the boy. Ever since his visit to New York at Easter the times had been out of joint, and he blamed Merry's mother for it all. From his viewpoint the visit had been a "frost," and he nursed his resentment so successfully that he came to look upon it as a virtue. Uncle Monty noticed the change, but having no knowledge of the cause gave Billy credit for at last showing symptoms of growing up. Philip looked upon his tragedy as a huge joke, and made his friend's life wholly unendurable by frequent veiled allusions to the "inflammable age," rubbed in as only a college chum can do. The sympathy he cravedwas sadly lacking, so he sought compensation by sympathizing with himself.
Billy would have been better satisfied with the completeness of his martyrdom had he been able to include Merry among those who abused him, but he could discover no point where she had failed to preserve an aggravatingly consistent neutrality. She was always friendly, accepting his extravagant expressions of devotion with a good-natured indifference which robbed them of all significance She had taken no exceptions to her mother's humiliation of him, nor had she taken advantage of it; everything progressed with a disgusting sameness, when he had confidently expected that the result of his visit would be to acclaim him Merry's accepted suitor, and thus raise him to the seventh heaven of delight.
While Hamlen had been in Boston Billy found himself again side-tracked. Not only was Uncle Monty engaged, but Philip devoted much of his time to his new responsibility. Everything conspired to throw Billy back upon his own resources, and here he developed a decided hiatus. The boy's strongest point was his ability to fit in with some one else's plans, and of all his friends Philip proved most fertile in his suggestions.
Now Class Day was at hand, and as it was not his Class Day he felt himself eclipsed by the added glory which came to Philip and the other Seniors. As an under-class man he counted for absolutely nothing. When he was a freshman, the comparative size of the halos worn by his Class and the graduating students was an open question of debate;from a sophomore's standpoint, he was near enough the freshmen to be able to look down upon them with a gratifying sense of superiority; but as a Junior there was nothing to do but to wait for the coming year,—and waiting was a game not included among Billy's favorite indoor or outdoor sports. He had expected little from the visit of the New York friends, owing to the presence of "the Gorgon" as he christened Mrs. Thatcher, and in this expectation he was not disappointed. Merry herself was fully occupied, and her mother took every opportunity to prevent diverting influences from affecting what she considered a crucial moment. So Billy, thoroughly disgruntled, drew himself up with a dignity which he did not know he possessed, denied himself to the visiting friends, and permitted the procession to move on without him.
Philip himself, being at New London with the crew, was prevented from taking personal participation in the Class Day festivities, but the classmate whom he delegated as substitute proved an ideal host. In Philip's absence Huntington had no compunctions in joining with Hamlen in the Thatchers' celebration; had the boy been there he would have felt it an intrusion for any one outside the family to share with them the triumph which comes but once in a college man's life. So they passed together from spread to spread, in and out of the Yard, listening to the music, admiring the attractive costumes and the still more attractive girls, entering into everything with a spirit which even Hamlen felt, and which took Huntington back to his own Class Day, so many years before.
When the march to the Stadium was formed Huntington led Hamlen to that portion of the line where their own classmates were assembled, and presented him to each. Only a few remembered him, but all gave him a welcome which confirmed Huntington's predictions. Hamlen noticed who the men were standing side by side, and was impressed by the fact that while in college the groups had been made up quite differently. He and Huntington, then, did not form so grotesque a combination as he had imagined. Other members of his Class, who knew each other but slightly while in Cambridge, since then had discovered characteristics in each other which drew them together. As Huntington said to him in Bermuda, the ratio had become readjusted, the essentials only were remembered, and the real bond was the fact of being members of the great fellowship. Then the procession started, and he fell into step with the new life which it had taken him so long to find.
After the exercises at the Stadium, Cosden, at Huntington's suggestion, took Hamlen with him to the Varsity Club, where the athletic heroes of past and present congregated. There was a motive back of the suggestion, and the effect on Hamlen of seeing these men, whose importance college ideals had magnified, in their present relation to the world and to their fellow-men, justified the experiment. Some of the old captains or record-holders showed unmistakably their continued pre-eminence; others had fallen back into the ranks after their temporary standard-bearing. Hamlen could understand it now: what they did in college was of importance only tothe extent that it fitted them for what was to follow; it was the use they made of this fitting in the after-life which produced the permanent effect. This was the difference between the means and the end which Marian tried to explain to him in Bermuda.
Then came Commencement as a crescendo. It would have meant little to Hamlen had it preceded Class Day, but each new experience gave him fuller understanding and richer enjoyment. He saw again the same members of his Class and felt now that he knew them; he met others, and was able to mingle freely as a fellow-classmate. On Class Day the alumni came as a unit, on Commencement they separated into Class groups, each with its own spread and reunion, offering greater opportunity for intimate exchanges of personal experience and mutual confidence.
The climax came the following day with the boat-race at New London. The Thatchers had returned home immediately after Class Day with plans of their own still to be carried out, so Huntington and Cosden formed the body-guard which convoyed Hamlen to the great event. Huntington knew that he could not credit his friend's feverish anticipation wholly to the dawning interest in Harvard events, but was equally content to see how personal a triumph Philip's seat in the boat had become to him. Had Hamlen's nervousness been shared by his namesake and the other oarsmen the result of the race might have been foreshadowed! He changed his mind about going so many times that Huntington finally insisted upon a definite decision.
"Of course I want to go," he explained; "butI never saw a Harvard crew win and I can't believe I'm going to now."
"Perhaps you won't," was the frank disavowal of responsibility. "The worm must turn again some time, and it may be that this is the year, but Harvard has the habit of winning now, and that goes a long way."
"It would kill me to see Phil lose!" Harden said with deep feeling.
"Tell me," Huntington said,—"tell me frankly for my gratification, is your eagerness to see Harvard win to-morrow wholly on Phil's account, or have these days brought your crimson blood near enough to the surface to make you keen for the crew to win because it's a Harvard crew? Don't deceive yourself or me. I really want to know."
Hamlen hesitated before making reply, then he returned Huntington's look with a frankness which conveyed much. His eye was clear and responsive now; the haunting terror had left it. He met the question squarely.
"Until this moment," he said, "I supposed myself sincere in believing that my interest lay wholly in having that boy come through victorious, but as you put it to me now I know there is a reason which lies deeper still. Thanks to you, dear friend, notes in my life which have always before been mute have now been struck, and I am finding a wonderful joy in the melody produced. I have awakened to my heritage, and I realize what I have missed in denying myself its privileges. I want Harvard to win, Huntington, because it's Harvard. I shall always want Harvard to win for the same reason. It maybe better for the sport to have the victories alternate, it may be impossible to defend anything so selfish as a desire for an unbroken line of victories for years to come; but still I want it. There is no occasion to argue it, there is no logic to support it; I just simply want it!"
Huntington regarded him with a satisfaction too deep for outward exuberance. "I knew the spirit was too strong to accept limitations!" he exclaimed quietly but with an exultant ring in his voice. "I knew that no man could once place himself within the influence of college ideals and not recognize their existence. You have tested my convictions, Hamlen, but my faith has remained 'calm rising through change and through storm.'"
The strength of Huntington's emotion impressed Hamlen deeply. His own dawning was so recent that at first he could not believe it possible for his friend to be so affected by the subject under discussion.
"Do other Harvard men feel as strongly as you do?" he demanded questioningly.
"Of course," Huntington replied; "but it isn't a question of Harvard any more than of other colleges. We shout for our Alma Mater, but no more lustily than the Yale or the Princeton man or the men of the smaller colleges shout for theirs. It is merely the expression of the spirit of loyalty and the sense of obligation, Hamlen. Not to express it is unnatural, not to feel gratified when another laurel wreath is placed upon the brow of our Dear Mother is a lack of filial devotion which I refuse to believe exists."
They elected to see the race from the observation-train,that they might watch the positions of the crews from beginning to end rather than at any fixed point. There was no novelty in the experience for Huntington or Cosden except the ever-present uncertainty of the outcome, but to Hamlen even the crowds which he had previously avoided added to his excitement by imparting to him the thrill of their repressed expectancy. He resented the calmness of his companions as they perused their morning papers on the train. He tried to follow their example, but found himself mechanically reading over and over again the statistics of the two crews. Harvard was the favorite, but that he took as a bad omen for he still remembered the Harvard teams which had gone into their contests with the odds on their side, and had failed to win the expected victories. Harvard overconfidence was a byword when he was in college, and it was overconfidence which he feared now.
They took their places on the improvised seats of the platform freight-cars, ready to be hauled to the point of vantage at the start, but the train seemed frightfully deliberate in getting under way. Hamlen glanced at his watch nervously and was surprised that so little time had elapsed since his last observation. Finally they found themselves opposite the judge's boat. Harvard was already nearing the mark and the Yale crew followed only a few lengths in her wake. Hamlen watched the manœuvers, disturbed by the conflicting cheers coming in sharp staccato from every direction. At last the boats lined up in position. Hamlen fancied that he could hear the referee's challenge: "Ready, Harvard?Ready, Yale?" Then the pistol cracked out with reverberating echoes, the oars gripped the water, the shells shot forward, and the race was on!
Hamlen's face set grimly and he sat bolt upright, taking no part in the mad cheering or the boisterous excitement. His eyes followed every stroke of the oars, and he suffered keenly as the Yale boat took a lead of half-a-length at the quarter-mile. Then he saw Harvard settle down to her work with a stroke quickened enough to enable her to take the advantage. The same stroke kept the crimson boat forging steadily ahead. At the half-mile the positions were reversed, at the mile clear water showed between the shells, another mile added two lengths more, in spite of Yale's plucky efforts to close in on the gaping space. At three miles Harvard had five lengths to the good, and for the first time Hamlen relaxed his tense attitude.
"If it would not be a case of overconfidence," he said quietly to his companions, "I should say that Harvard was going to win!"
"Nothing but an act of God can save Eli now!" Cosden replied between his cheers. "Why don't you yell?"
"I can't," Hamlen said; "I feel it too much!"
Still the crimson boat gained, and the contest had changed into a procession.
"Do they ever lose with a lead like that?" he asked Huntington anxiously.
"Lose!" his friend shouted,—"lose! They're gaining every stroke! Rah! rah! rah! Harvard! Harvard! Harvard! There they go across the line!"
He threw his arms deliriously around Cosden andHamlen and they performed a war-dance on the unsubstantial seats. Every Harvard sympathizer on the train had gone mad, and the Yale streamers were buried in the avalanche of crimson flags.
"Another one!" Huntington shouted; "another wreath for the Alma Mater, Hamlen! Rah, rah, rah! Harvard!"
Hamlen had caught the contagion and was as affected with delirium as those around him. He shouted his college yell over and over again, unconscious that it was the first time in his life he had ever done so. Huntington, the sedate Huntington, was cavorting like a two-year-old, yet Hamlen saw nothing incongruous in his conduct. Cosden was so hoarse that his cries resembled a wheezy calliope, yet they were sweet music in Hamlen's ears. Harvard had won, Philip had won, he had won!
At the station a crowd of undergraduates were singing hilariously:
"Bring the bacon home, John,We cannot eat it all.We sometimes got a taste of itWhen you and I were small.But now you bring it home, John,In springtime and in fall.It seems an awful waste of it,We cannot eat it all."
There was the hectic scramble for seats on the special train. Snatches of other songs came from here and there, and spasmodic cheering; but gradually the excitement settled down into the quieter calm of satisfied accomplishment. It wasan orderly crowd which deserted the train at Back Bay, but the men bunched on the platform, before they separated, and again burst into song. The jibes were forgotten, the boastings hushed. These had their place only in the first expressions of exultant victory. A deeper sentiment seized the celebrating host, which was expressed with uncovered heads:
"Fair Harvard! thy sons to thy jubilee throng,And with blessings surrender thee o'er,By these festival rites, from the age which is pastTo the age which is waiting before."
Hamlen watched them in silence, touched with a new emotion by the sound of the words, familiar enough, but which now took on a different meaning. Huntington was right: it was not a boat-race he had just witnessed, it was not the celebration of a victory over Yale, it was a "festival rite," consecrating anew to its Alma Mater that brotherhood to which he belonged, in grateful acknowledgment of the character and power developed beneath her beneficent influence which placed within its reach "the Earth and all that's in it."
In July, commercial stagnation increased, and the machinery of business which before had creaked dismally in its daily routine now groaned aloud in its travail; and the pity was that the conditions which caused it were artificially created. There was capital enough, but the banks hoarded it against possible contingencies; the crops were heavy, but it was suicidal for the railroads to move them at the rates legislated by the government; there were contracts to be let, but no one dared give them out or accept them because of the shadow which hung gloomily over every great industry in the shape of governmental paternalism and interference. Stocks representing property intrinsically valuable dropped lower and lower in the market, dividends which had been earned were diverted into surplus as further margin of safety against future developments, unknown and therefore to be feared. Incomes shrank in some cases almost to the vanishing-point, while Washington reveled in an orgy of those good intentions with which they say Hell is paved.
Cosden by this time had come to a full realization of the significance of Thatcher's warning, andhe understood now why the New York operator had shown so little interest in the attack on the Consolidated Machinery corporation which had seemed inevitable. In view of conditions as they had developed, and as Thatcher had foreseen them, no new enterprise would be launched until opportunity presented itself to take advantage of its inherent strength. The old-established company need fear no competition while its own business was dropping off in such alarming proportions. So Cosden again reduced expenses, still further extended his bank affiliations, and settled back to meet whatever conditions might arise, knowing that his sagacity had placed him outside the pale of those fighting for their existence.
In this latter class was Thatcher. The very success of his varied interests now made them shining lights to attract the attention of the authorities in Washington. One by one he saw them attacked, and day by day he watched the dropping values of the stocks, called on by the banks to increase his collateral, drawing deeper and deeper into his personal resources which he had considered ample for any emergency. The strain was terrific yet the only break he permitted himself was during the week of his son's graduation.
The question of the summer home gave Thatcher much concern. The heavy expense of its upkeep made it an item to be considered at this time, yet he could not bring himself to the point of doing what he knew would be an act of wisdom. In their town house the Thatchers lived the usual formal life which belonged to their position, but it wasSagamore Hall they always meant when they spoke of "home." To relinquish it, even temporarily, seemed to Thatcher nothing less than sacrilege.
The estate consisted of some sixty acres wonderfully located on Narragansett Bay with nearly a mile frontage on the sea. A rolling, close-cropped lawn, bordered on either side by avenues of trees, ran back three hundred yards from the beach before the stately, old English, half-timbered mansion was reached, the broad expanse of green carpeting making a perfect harmony of perspective. The two great end gables of the house formed a shallow forecourt, filled in by a brick terrace with balustrade. Between these gables, the central façade, a double-storied loggia of stone, reminiscent of a Dorsetshire manor house, was strikingly beautiful with its splendid sculptured decorations.
The opposite front of the mansion faced the road, though removed some distance from it, and was approached through a gateway and a winding avenue in keeping with the dignity of the building itself. To the south, connected by shaded walks, was an unusual garden, the boundaries of which were marked by rare trees and shrubs so arranged that they formed a pyramidal mass of verdure, against which perennial blooms of rare and beautiful plants showed their bewildering colors to the best advantage. This garden represented what Marian had put of herself into the estate during the twenty years they had lived there, and to her and to Thatcher each flower, shrub or tree represented something personal and recalled some happy experience.
At Sagamore Hall Marian really lived, keepingout of doors most of the time, entertaining her friends in a manner which made every one feel that each of the many attractions had been arranged for his own special enjoyment. Here the Bermuda party was again united. Thatcher still kept his wife in ignorance of the business complications which now seemed certain to overwhelm him. Marian noticed that he was tired and worried, but this had happened so many times before that she had come to look upon these conditions as deplorable but none the less inevitable factors in her husband's business life. In fact he had so explained on earlier occasions when she questioned him, and had discouraged her from showing too much concern. She recognized that he was scarcely in a mood for the reunion she had planned, but justified her insistence on the ground that he needed the relaxation; while he deemed it wise to yield rather than attempt an explanation.
Edith Stevens had been their guest for a fortnight before the other members of the party arrived. Philip was entertaining several of his college chums, including Billy Huntington, but Mrs. Thatcher particularly requested her daughter to have no guests during this visit, holding herself free to assist in the entertainment.
Since her return home after the Class Day festivities Merry had shown little interest in what went on around her. Had her mother noticed it she would have passed it over lightly as "one of the child's moods," but Mrs. Thatcher was too completely engrossed in her own great scheme to be keenly sensitive to anything around her. In factMerry's attitude seemed peculiarly receptive, and encouraged her, a few days before Hamlen was expected, to take her daughter into her confidence.
In answering Huntington's question Marian expressed greater confidence in Merry's acquiescence than she really felt. To herself she admitted that she did not understand her daughter. Since the elaborate plans for Merry's social life fell through because of the girl's lack of interest and failure to respond, Marian had almost given up in despair. Merry was unlike the daughters of the Thatchers' friends, who might be counted on at all times to do the expected thing when given the expected conditions; with her it was always the unexpected which happened. She loved athletics, not because of the companionship of boys, as other girls did, but for the games themselves; she was fond of dancing, but she would as soon dance with another girl as with a man,—it was the rhythmic motion of the dance itself which fascinated her; she had no interest nor ability in making "small talk," but was always eager to discuss problems which her mother felt she might better leave alone; she tolerated young people of her own age, but expressed her real self only when thrown with older friends. Mrs. Thatcher worried more over her daughter's future than over any other phase of the family life, and the solution which now seemed to offer itself contained so much promise that Marian believed it to be foreordained.
It was not easy to broach the subject, but when once accomplished Marian talked on for some time without waiting for Merry to enter into thediscussion. It was important, she felt, that the girl should know the whole story before being permitted to express an opinion. As the full significance of her mother's words dawned upon Merry there was an instinctive recoil, but she listened with outward calm. Marian believed herself to be suggesting nothing save deepest concern for her daughter's future; Merry heard nothing but a personal appeal for sacrifice. The romance of her mother's early experience, the results which came from the breaking of the engagement, her own interest and participation in Hamlen's new life,—all went to strengthen the appeal, but still it asked for sacrifice.
As she listened Merry's mind was working fast. What were the relations existing between them? She admired her mother tremendously, and was proud of the attention her beauty excited wherever they went. She respected her, for no wife or mother ever carried herself in these positions with greater regard for the proprieties. Did she love her? Of course! what a question to come to a girl's mind! Did she? The question repeated itself insistently. Merry wondered. If this were disloyalty, then the thought itself formed the offense; to analyze it was imperative before putting it aside. The girl knew that she was face to face with the crisis of her life, that the question now in mind had really been the cause of that unrest she had failed to understand.
"Is this something which you ask me to do?" Merry inquired at length.
"No, my dear; that would be exceeding a mother's rights."
"But you wish it?"
"Yes; that is a different matter."
"I wonder if it is," the girl said soberly.
"It is a very different matter," Marian insisted. "I am thinking only of you, dear child. Unless you felt convinced, as I do, that your marriage would mean your happiness, I should be the last one to wish it."
"Why don't you let me wait, as other girls do, until I find the man I love?"
"Because you're not like other girls, Merry—"
"I've always been a disappointment to you, haven't I, Momsie?" she asked suddenly.
"Not that, dear," Marian disclaimed. "Of course it has worried me that you would never be intimate with young people your own age. I have never understood it—"
"That is because I never had any girlhood, Momsie," Merry explained seriously. "I grew up too soon. When I was little I couldn't play like other children because my governess was always teaching me manners; so I had nothing to do but think."
"What are you talking about, child!" Mrs. Thatcher protested. "You are a perfect tomboy, even to-day!"
"I've had to make up for lost time, Momsie. You never saw me play when I was little; that came after I became old enough to have my own way. Then I learned games, but not as a child learns them; they were serious problems, to be thought out because I had formed the habit of thinking. While I was away at school I felt olderthan the other girls there, and I wasn't interested in what interested them; that gave me a chance to think some more. Then I came home, and you gave me that wonderful coming-out party! It was after that I disappointed you most, wasn't it, Momsie? I couldn't live the life the other débutantes did—talking silly nonsense until early morning with men who hadn't any sense at all, rushing tothés dansantssmoking cigarettes, and all that sort of thing."
"I never knew that you did smoke cigarettes," Marian said severely.
"I don't suppose the mothers of the other girls knew it either; it was the secrecy which made it sporty and gave the smoking its only interest. I couldn't stand it, Momsie! I had to be doing something worth while! Finally you let me have my own way, very much against your will, and since then I've been a tomboy, as you say. Father gave in on the boat, and I've spent hours in her, all by myself, trying to find out what the things worth while are. I haven't been very successful yet, Momsie, but I do know that it is a waste of time to fool around with boys like Ted Erskine when one may find a chance to talk with a real man like Mr. Huntington."
"Mr. Hamlen is a real man, too, Merry. If you knew something of life—"
"It's because I know too much of life, and understand too little. Mr. Huntington has helped me to understand."
"I had hoped that by being so much with him, you would be the more prepared to appreciate Mr. Hamlen," Mrs. Thatcher said.
"I wish I might have been more with you, dearie."
Marian looked up quickly. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "Haven't I given all my leisure to my family?"
"You have had so very little leisure, Momsie."
"I have had my own interests, of course—"
"I'm not criticising you, dearie," Merry hastened to interpose; "I'm only trying to explain myself to you."
"I have done my best to prepare my children for the life they would naturally enter—"
"Isn't life what we live every day, Momsie? It isn't all made up of worldly things, is it?"
"Upon my word!" Marian cried. "One would think that I had entirely neglected my family!"
"No, Momsie; you have been most ambitious for us, and have made sure that we could have everything you thought we ought to have. Truly it isn't that I don't appreciate what you have done; I simply can't understand why any one should want the things you consider essential. Why, for instance, are you so anxious for me to be married?"
"Because it is natural at this time in your life, Merry." Mrs. Thatcher was determined to have no quarrel, in spite of what she considered just provocation. "It is a mother's duty to advise her daughter when she sees her on the verge of a mistake."
"Suppose I felt that I didn't care to marry, Momsie, that I should be happier to go through life expressing my own individuality?"
"Don't let us get started on that," Marian protested."You know how little patience I have with feminism in any form. I do wish we might discuss some subject in a normal way as other mothers and daughters do, Merry," she continued, softening. "I have your interests on my mind all the time, I want to help you to understand yourself and life, I love you so, dear child,—and yet, whenever we try to talk anything over, it always turns into an argument. What I have suggested to-day I have thought of for months, I have considered it from every standpoint before presenting it to you, but you give me no credit for that. Before you even know how you feel about it you are ready to dismiss it. I really think my efforts for your happiness are entitled to more consideration."
"You think this would be for Mr. Hamlen's happiness too?" Merry asked soberly.
"I am sure of it," Marian replied, seeming to see a sign of yielding in the girl's question.
"Why hasn't he spoken to me himself?" Merry asked at length.
"He will speak, of course; but to meet with another disappointment would undo all the advance he has made."
"I can't think of Mr. Hamlen as a married man," Merry continued; "I can't believe that he would be happy under conditions changed from what they are now. If he could only go on living with Mr. Huntington—"
"That is out of the question, of course," Mrs. Thatcher answered. "Mr. Huntington has accomplished a miracle in bringing him out of his old obsession, and if it were possible to surround himnow with normal conditions there is no limit to the heights he might reach."
"Has he told you that he cared for me?"
"Not in so many words," her mother admitted; "that is scarcely to be expected. I understand him so much better than he does himself. He disparages his abilities, which is not a bad characteristic in a husband, and without some assurance of success I doubt if he would ever mention the subject to you. But you know what it would mean to him. I shall never urge you against your will, my dear," she repeated with real feeling,—"you know that without my telling you; but I do feel my own responsibility so keenly! He was a boy of such promise, as he is to-day a man of rare capabilities if the right one could only guide him in making use of his talents. Haven't you felt this yourself, my dear, when you have been with him?"
Merry passed her hand wearily over her forehead. She could not understand why she did not at once protest against what she felt to be an unnatural suggestion. Still, the constancy of the lover, the sympathy which she had felt for Hamlen since their first meeting in Bermuda, and her own state of uncertainty combined in a confused way in the girl's mind. Huntington's face was before her as her mother spoke of Hamlen, his voice was in her ears, his words echoed in her heart: "I found the girl too late!" Mrs. Thatcher thought Merry's hesitation came from a consideration of the arguments just advanced, but what Huntington had said formed the greatest argument of all. This closed for her all hope of happiness coming as a direct response tothe craving of her heart, and left her only the possibility of attaining it through the indirect means of giving happiness to some one else.
"That is what he would do," she whispered; and the thought brought comfort.
"Haven't you felt this?" Mrs. Thatcher repeated at length, to recall the girl to herself. "You have always seemed so much more at home with older men, and he must have appealed to you. He would respond so quickly to the sympathy you could give him."
"Wouldn't it be wrong to marry a man you didn't love?" Merry asked quietly.
"But you respect him, don't you, dear? And respect is the first step toward love. I wouldn't have you marry him unless that came, but there is plenty of time before the wedding need be considered."
"I am very unhappy!" Merry exclaimed suddenly, with a little catch in her voice.
"Unhappy, my dear!" Mrs. Thatcher cried with real sympathy, drawing the girl's head upon her shoulder. "Why should you be unhappy? Tell Mother."
"I don't know, myself," Merry admitted, crying softly. "I've been unhappy ever so long. Now and then things have seemed to straighten out, but never for long at a time. Now I'm more unsettled than I have ever been, and I don't feel as if I could be much of a success in making any one else happy while I feel so miserable myself."
"This may be just what you need to help you find yourself, my dear," Mrs. Thatcher answered,kissing her affectionately. "Oftentimes, when we are wretched ourselves, we find happiness in giving it to others. Don't promise me anything, dear child, except that you will think the matter over carefully, and be prepared to settle it wisely when the time comes. Let me say again, unless you decide for yourself that your life will be made richer and brighter by marrying Philip Hamlen, of course I should not wish you to consider it."
Unconsciously Mrs. Thatcher had touched upon the same argument Merry had used with herself. The girl had striven for happiness and failed to find it; she had evolved a creed which called for ideals which she had come to believe did not exist; she had demanded something for herself before she thought of giving of herself. In her failure she had proved her fallacy. The one person who had it in his power to disprove her present contentions must consider her a visionary without the character to make the visions real. Romance had already come to him, and having found the girl too late that chapter in his life was closed. He was happy because he always thought of others rather than himself. That was the only royal road after all. There was nothing repellent about Hamlen. He had many attributes which compelled admiration, and if he once became settled, that in itself might release the indisputable abilities he possessed to accomplish the great work which might lay before him. But would marriage give that to him? Was she the one to bring about the metamorphosis which her mother so confidently predicted? Would happiness come to her as a result of giving it to him?
The thoughts and the questions crowded through her mind in such numbers and with such conflicting incoherence that she could hope to find no answers. But her decision need not be made now—that one fact remained clear and she clung to it. Perhaps another day would bring relief.
"I will think it over, Momsie," she promised in a tired voice. "Forgive me if I haven't seemed considerate. I want to do the right thing, dear, but it is so hard to know what that is."
"You are a darling!" Mrs. Thatcher cried, kissing her affectionately. "Don't worry about that. Mother will help you to find out."