In those last days at college, when in moments of contemplation I
sketched with free imagination a long and unbroken career of success,
whether I would or not, Gladys Todd was always gliding into my dreams.
She had been too long a central figure in them for me to evict her
easily. I knew that I had best begin my march unhampered by
impedimenta of any kind, but I found it no easy task to get myself into
light marching order. While I had never made a serious proposal for
her hand, I had in sentimental moments said things which implied that
at the proper time I should offer myself formally. That the offer
would bring her prompt acquiescence I never for a moment doubted. But
more embarrassing was the attitude of Doctor and Mrs. Todd. They
treated me as though I were a member of the family. Mrs. Todd's eyes
always beamed with a peculiarly motherly light when they rested on me,
and now I recalled with something akin to terror an evening when Gladys
at the piano was accompanying me as I sang "The Minute Guns at Sea."
Her mother entered the parlor. It did her good, she said, to see us,
for it brought back the dear days when she and Doctor Todd had sung as
we were singing at that very same piano. Doctor Todd never expressed
his thoughts with quite such frankness, but now I could remember many
times when he had treated me with fatherly consideration. To end
abruptly such a friendship seemed not alone a gross abandonment of
Gladys Todd, but of Doctor Todd and Mrs. Todd. The sensible thing to
do was clear to me in my saner moments. During the few days that
remained to me at college I should continue the friendship, but it
would be friendship and nothing more. Then I would go away, politely,
as hundreds of other young men before me had left Harlansburg, with a
formal parting handshake to hundreds of other young women who had
played soft accompaniments while they sang "The Minute Guns at Sea"; as
for Doctor and Mrs. Todd, another young man would soon be standing by
that same piano awakening their cherished memories.
It was in this other hypothetical young man that I found the
stumbling-block whenever my mind was settled to do the sensible thing.
The trouble was that I loved Gladys Todd. When I fixed my purpose to
march to the strife unhampered by any domestic ties, I felt that I was
making myself a martyr to duty. I began to compromise. In a few
years, when my feet were firmly set in the road and I had grown strong
enough to march with impedimenta, I should come back and claim Gladys
Todd, and my return would be a triumph like that of Boller of '89, only
in a degree far higher, for from her hands I should receive the
victor's garland.
I might have struggled on with such confused ideas as these had it not
been for the hypothetical other man. He haunted me. The hypothesis
became a fact. It found embodiment in Boller of '89. When after three
interminable days of self-denial I presented myself one evening at the
president's house, a look of annoyance with which Gladys greeted me
seemed connected in some way with the presence of Boller. In my state
of mind I should have suspected any octogenarian who smiled on Gladys
Todd as plotting against my happiness. That she was essential to my
happiness I realized as I watched her, in the shaded lamplight, her
face turned to him as she listened intently to an account of his recent
visit to Washington. They did not treat me as though I made a crowd.
That, at least, would have given me some importance. My rôle was a
younger brother's. Boller's greeting was kindly, but he made
unmistakable his superiority in years and wisdom as he lapsed into an
arm-chair and toyed with the broad black ribbon adorning his glasses,
while I was condemned to sit upright on a spindly chair. When he
addressed me it was to explain things of which he presumed that I was
ignorant, and he gave no heed to my vehement protests to the contrary.
When Gladys Todd addressed me it was to call attention to some
peculiarly interesting feature of Boller's discourse. They did not
drive me to despair, though I was sure this to be their aim. They
simply aroused my fighting blood. All other thoughts for the future
were forgotten, buried under the repeated vow that I would repay Gladys
Todd a thousand times for this momentary coldness and would deal a
stinging blow to Boller's self-complacency.
Boller announced to us in confidence that, having seen Washington, it
was now his intention to go abroad. I could not understand why we were
pledged to secrecy as to his plans, for the country would not be
entirely upset by his departure; but it was clear to my suspicious mind
that his revelations had a twofold purpose--to lift himself to greater
heights of superiority over the humble college boy and to make himself
a more desirable _parti_ for Gladys Todd. In his words, in the quiet
smile with which he was regarding her, I read his secret hope that when
he went abroad she would be with him as Mrs. Boller. Restless,
uncomfortable, and angry as I was, I had been at the point of leaving,
but this disclosure changed my purpose. I realized that I was in no
mere skirmish and I dared not give an inch of ground. I stayed.
Boller talked on. The clock on the mantel struck the hour, then the
half. He looked at me significantly, but I did not move. The clock
struck the hour again, and Boller rose with a sigh. He suggested that
I go with him, but I shook my head and stood with my hands behind my
back, tearing at my fingers. He smiled and stepped to the door, with
Gladys Todd following. They paused. He spoke in an undertone, and I
caught but two words, "At three." He raised his voice and bade me
good-night, calling me "Davy" as though I were a mere boy. Again he
said, "At three," jotting the hour indelibly in his mind.
Gladys Todd from the shaded lamplight looked at me with a face clouded
with displeasure. I, sitting on my spindly chair, very upright, heard
the cryptic number three ringing in my brain. What was going to happen
"at three"? At three to-morrow they would walk along the lane which
wound around the town and down to the river. I thought of it now as
"our lane," a sanctuary that would be desecrated by Boller's mere
presence. The plausible theory became a fact. I must act, and act at
once. For me to act was to avow my love. I must propose to Gladys
Todd. In that purpose all else was forgotten--even Boller. Over and
over again I declared to myself that I loved her, but the simple words
halted at my lips. A thousand protestations of my undying love pushed
and crowded and jostled one another until they were strangling me.
Without a tremor in my voice I could have told Gladys Todd that some
other man loved her to distraction, and yet, when it was so vital to my
happiness that I speak for myself, the simple words halted at my lips
and checked the whole onrush of passionate avowal.
Thinking that distance might have some part in my unnerving, I joggled
my chair a few feet nearer, grasped a knee in each hand, and leaning
forward fixed a determined gaze upon her face. I had abandoned all
idea of saying those three words as they should be said for the first
time. To say them at all, I must blurt them out, but I believed that
with them said the floodgates would be opened and the true lover-like
appeal burst forth. Gladys Todd must have thought that I was angry,
for she asked me what was the matter. Some inane reply forced its way
through the press of unuttered avowals. Now, I said, I will tell her
what the matter really is, and I have always believed that I should
have done so at that moment had not the front door banged, heralding
the coming of Doctor Todd.
He entered the room, and I numbered him with Boller among the enemies
of my happiness. He took the very chair which Boller had occupied, and
made himself comfortable for the rest of my stay.
"Well, David, you will soon be leaving us forever," he said, bringing
his hands together and smiling at me over his wide-spread fingers. In
that word "forever" I saw a hidden meaning, and behind my back I
clinched my hands and registered my unalterable will. "You are going
out into the world to make your name, David," the doctor went on,
growing grave. "I do hope that you will succeed as well as Boller of
'89. Boller, David, is a man of whom McGraw is proud--a remarkable
young man. He dropped into my study for a few minutes this evening and
it was a pleasure to listen to him. Such a breadth of view! Such
nobility of purpose! He will rise high--that young man. We shall hear
much of Boller."
It had been my intention to try to sit out Doctor Todd, but I was in no
mood to listen to these praises of Boller from one whom I now regarded
as his confederate. I took my leave as quickly as I could, but it was
with the inwardly avowed purpose of returning as quickly as I could.
Then, I said, the three words would be spoken, not rudely blurted out,
but spoken as they should be for the first time. The mention of Boller
had brought back to my mind the haunting "three," to echo in every
corridor of my brain, and before I fell asleep that night, exhausted by
over-thinking, I lifted my hands into the blackness and whispered what
had so long hung unuttered on my lips. To-morrow, I said, I shall say
it--at two.
At two in the afternoon I found Gladys Todd in the little vine-covered
veranda in the rear of the house, painting. I am sure that had I seen
her for the first time as she sat there at her easel beautifying a
black plaque with a bunch of tulips, every wave of her hand as she
plied the brush would have struck the divine spark in my heart.
Marguerite at her spinning was not more lovely. The place was ideal
for my purpose. We were above the town, hidden by height from its
sordidness, and we looked far into mountain-tops where white clouds
loitered on the June-day peace. The fresh green of early summer was
about us, and the only sound was the drum of bees in the honeysuckle.
The time, too, was ideal, for it was a whole hour until "three." My
position was ideal, for I placed my chair very close to her and leaned
forward with one hand outstretched to support my appeal. Thus I
stayed, mute, like an actor who has forgotten his lines. The three
words came to my lips, only to halt there.
Fortunately Gladys Todd did not notice my embarrassment, for her eyes
were on her work, and while she painted she was telling me of a game of
tennis which she had played that morning with the three Miss Minnicks.
To the three Miss Minnicks I laid the blame of my silence. Had she
been talking of any one else or of anything else, I said, I could have
uttered the vital fact which hung so reluctantly on my lips, but to
break in rudely in a recitation of fifteen thirties, vantages in and
vantages out, with an announcement that I loved her would be quite
ridiculous. I dropped my hand and stretched back in my chair. Gladys
Todd talked on and painted.
The college clock struck the half-hour, and for me the one clanging
note was a solemn warning. I sat up very straight, I grasped the sides
of the chair, and the words were uttered. But to me it seemed that
some other David Malcolm had spoken them--mere shells of words that
rattled in my ears.
"David!" The voice and tone were like my mother's. Gladys Todd
stopped painting and, turning, looked at me strangely. I could not
have faced that gaze of hers and said another word, but she quickly
averted her eyes, abandoned brush and palette, and sat studying her
clasped hands.
There was nothing now to hold back the flood of passionate avowal.
Perhaps my voice was a little weak, but it grew stronger as I took
heart at the sight of her listening so quietly. I told her that I had
loved her that evening when we first met; that since then, in all my
waking moments, she had been in my thoughts; I had never loved another
woman; I never could love another woman. With my outstretched arm
hovering so near to her I might have taken her unawares, taken her into
my possession and throttled any rising protest; but to touch her with
my little finger would have seemed to me a profanation. I expected her
to sink into the embrace of that solitary arm.
But she did not. She looked up at me and said: "David, I am sorry--so
sorry."
"Sorry?"
There was a ring of indignation in my voice. I was not prepared for
such an enigmatic answer. Indeed, I had expected but one response, the
one that was mine by right of four years of devotion, by right of those
beacon-lights which I had seen so often in her eyes. Sorry? If she
was sorry, why had she led me to spend so many hours in her company,
why had she walked with me in "our lane," where the very air seemed to
brood with sentimental thought? I doubted if I heard her rightly.
"Very, very sorry, David," she repeated. "I never dreamed that you
cared for me in this way. I thought you were a good friend. I never
could think of you as anything else than a good friend."
I was too much stunned to speak. For days I had been rehearsing in my
mind what I should say to her when her hand was in mine, but I had not
prepared for a contingency like this. I was helpless. I could only
lean back in my chair and gaze at her reproachfully.
"You will forget me very soon," she said, looking up after a moment.
"You are going away in a few days. You must forget me, David. Promise
me you will."
She took up her brush and palette and began to touch the plaque
lightly. As I remember her now, Gladys Todd's face was loveliest in
profile. "Promise me," she said, tossing her head and focussing her
eyes on the tulips.
Poor David Malcolm! You were young then and little learned in the ways
of women. You did not know that to a woman a proposal is a thing not
to be ended lightly with consent. You did not know that when the
gentlest woman angles she is as any fisher who plays the game with rod
and reel and delights in the rushes of the victim. You made no mad
rushes. You sat stupidly quiescent. You saw the fair profile dimly as
though it were receding into the mists beyond your reach. Your pride
was hurt. You were angry and would have flung yourself out of her
presence, but you could not endure the shame of defeat.
The college clock struck three. It aroused me from my stupor, and I
did make one mad rush, in my confusion acting with more acumen than I
knew.
"I never will forget you--I never can forget you," I said brokenly.
The door creaked and I arose, but it was not to face Boller. Knitting
in hand, Mrs. Todd bustled out. She made no apology for her intrusion.
The veranda was the coolest place in the house, and as she sank into a
chair I numbered her with Boller and Doctor Todd, with the enemies of
my happiness. Her round, innocent face seemed to mask a grim purpose
to sit there for the rest of the afternoon. Gladys Todd talked of the
three Miss Minnicks again as she plied her brush, and Mrs. Todd of Mr.
Minnick and Mrs. Minnick as she worked her needles. They crushed the
struggling hope I had for one moment more in which to make a last
appeal. Boller did not come. The college clock struck four and still
there was no sign of him. I was sure that he had some knowledge of my
presence, and perhaps waited for a signal from the house announcing my
departure. In that case it was useless for me to stay longer listening
to idle chatter about the Minnicks, and so, utterly unhappy, smarting
with the sense of defeat, humiliated, I made my departure, and fled
across the campus to the college and my room.
I took no supper. The mere idea of food was nauseating. I paced the
floor with my thoughts in chaos. Of consolation I had but one unsteady
gleam--at least I should be burdened with no harassing financial
problem. Sometimes the question of my meagre resources had been
amazingly persistent, but I had fought it down as unworthy to have a
place with nobler thoughts. Now it rose again, and for a moment it
seemed that I had escaped a heavy burden. Then I remembered Boller. I
pictured Boller sitting in the vine-clad veranda while Gladys Todd
painted; Boller in the Todd parlor, standing under a bower of clematis,
while Gladys Todd moved toward him in step to the wedding-march played
by the eldest Miss Minnick. In the sleepless hours that followed, one
purpose fixed itself in my mind. I should leave McGraw next day at the
sacrifice of a useless diploma. So I wrote to Gladys Todd. I wrote
many notes before I was satisfied, and the one I despatched had, I
thought, a manly, sensible tone. I did not wish to spend another week
in sight of her home and yet banished from it, I said; I had cherished
certain hopes, and now I could not stand idle in their wreckage; I had
my work to do and was away to do it, but I could not leave without a
friendly good-by to her and without expressing a wish for her
happiness. This last was a subtle reference to Boller. Having made
it, the words which followed were astonishing, but they were born of a
faint hope that after all I might not have to go. I told her that she
knew best and I would forget her, and now I was going for a last walk
in the lane where we had spent so many happy hours, and then to take
myself to new scenes, bearing with me the memory of her as just a
friend.
The afternoon found me in the lane, on a knoll where the leafage broke
and gave a vista of rolling country. My eyes were turned to the hills,
but my ears were quickened to catch the sound of foot-falls. In my
heart I said that I should never hear them; my dismissal had been too
peremptory for me to cozen myself with so absurd an idea. But the hope
which had brought me there would not die. Sometimes the wind stirred
the leaves and grass, and I would start and look up the lane. Time
after time I was the victim of that teasing wind, and with recurring
disappointments my spirits sank lower. Then when an hour remained
before my train left, and I was standing undecided whether or not to
keep to my vigil, I heard a sharp crackle of dry twigs behind me.
Gladys Todd had come. She was carrying her sketch-book, and dropped it
in confusion when she saw me emerge from behind the trunk of a great
oak. I seized it and held it as a bond against her retreat, affecting
not to see the hand which she held out commanding its return. I had
planned exactly what I should say did she appear in just this way, and
now my well-turned phrases scattered and I stood before her, silent,
regarding her. It was just as well. My solemn eyes must have said
more than any wordy speech.
"I did not expect to find you here, Mr. Malcolm," she said, dropping
her hand as a sign of momentary surrender.
Her tone was one of genuine surprise, and though the statement was
astonishing I could not conceive a woman of her character deviating
from the straight line of truth, and the hope which had soared high at
her coming in answer to my subtle call now sank away. I held out the
book mutely.
She did not see it. "I was on my way to the river to sketch," she
said. "I had no idea--" She dropped down on the bank and began to
pick vaguely at the clover. "Please go. Good-by."
The brim of her sailor hat guarded her face, so that she really did not
see the book which I was holding toward her. I placed it on the grass
beside her and turned to obey, intending to march away in military
fashion, perhaps whistling my defiance.
"You'll promise to forget me," I heard her say.
I looked down at her, but the hat screened her face.
"Yes," I answered, with a steadiness that was surprising, for my throat
was parched and my knees had become very weak, so weak that I gave up
all thought of marching in military fashion and gathered strength to
drag myself out of her sight. I went up the lane slowly. I looked
back and saw her sitting very still, one hand on her big portfolio, the
other listless on the clover. I reached the bend in the lane. Passing
it, I should march on to my conquests, unhappy, wofully unhappy, but
going faster because alone.
"David," she called.
I stepped back, hardly believing my ears. She was sitting very still,
looking over the lane and the hills. I went nearer. She was like
stone. I sat down at her side and somehow my hand touched her hand on
the big portfolio, and her hand did not move. And somehow my hand
closed on hers.
"David," she said, looking up, "you won't forget me, will you?"
Forget you! I swore to Gladys Todd that I had been idly boasting. I
would have carried her image to the grave, burned on my heart. The
memory of her would have been the only light in all my life of
darkness. But now there was no darkness. For us there was only
glorious day. The astonishing thing, the incomprehensible thing, was
that Gladys Todd could love me; that it was really true that she loved
me that first night we met; that she loved me yesterday when she sat on
the vine-clad porch painting tulips so carelessly.
"But I did, David," she protested.
"Then why didn't you say so?" I returned reproachfully.
"Because I wanted to make you say so," she answered.
"But, Gladys," I cried, "I was sure you were in love with Boller."
She stared at me with eyes full of wonder.
"With Boller," I exclaimed. "Boller of '89."
"Why, David Malcolm, you poor, dear child," she cried. "How could you
have been so foolish. He left yesterday--yesterday at three."
A cloud suddenly hurled itself across the brightness of my day. It
seemed that after all I had hurried unnecessarily, for the financial
problem forces itself even into the seventh heaven of love, and now it
came like a ghoul to devour my happiness. It assumed concrete form in
a picture of Doctor Todd when I went to him empty-handed, and I could
not help feeling that it would have been better had I not let suspicion
and jealousy hurry me to the attainment of what could have been mine a
year later under less embarrassing circumstances.
My moment of abstraction was quickly noticed. Gladys Todd wanted to
know my troubles. They were hers now, she said, for thenceforth we
must share our burdens. I rose, for I was young. I laughed, and with
my laugh the clouds were swept away, for no cloud could veil the
sunshine from my heart when the big sketch-book was under my right arm
and her small hand was under my left arm as we walked together down
that clover-carpeted lane.