COMMENCEMENT
It was nearly a year since they had seen Everard, and Bee and Rossie
were struck at once with the great change in his personal appearance,
while even the judge noticed how thin and pale he was, but attributed it
naturally to hard study. Fresh air and exercise at home would soon make
that all right, he thought, and so dismissed it from his mind. But
Beatrice and Rosamond both saw more than the thin face, which had grown
so pale and troubled. They saw that Everard’s hat was the same worn the
year before when he was at home; saw that his pants were shining about
the knees, and his coat shining and worn about the sleeves, while his
boots were carefully patched. Once he had been the best and most
fashionably-dressed young man in college, but he was far from that now,
though he was scrupulously neat and clean, and looked every whit a
gentleman as he walked with the young ladies down the shaded street, and
tried to seem natural, and answer gayly to Beatrice’s light badinage and
Rossie’s quaint remarks. But it was uphill business, for how could he be
happy when he knew that Josey would soon be watching for him, and
expecting him to pass a part of the evening, at least, with her? What if
she should take it into her head to come to town and hunt him up, and
find him there with his friends? What could he say or do, and what would
they think of her? It made him faint and sick just to imagine Beatrice
weighing Josephine as she would weigh her, and discovering more than the
enormity of cotton lace and dollar jewelry, while Rossie,—he could not
define to himself why he shrank so nervously from having her clear,
honest eyes scan Josephine Fleming, as he knew they would do.
After tea was over, Everard took his father through the town and
introduced him to some of the professors, and then, as the twilight
began to fall, asked to be excused a short time, as he had an engagement
to call upon a friend; so his father returned alone to his lodgings, and
Everard started on a rapid walk toward Mrs. Everts’. He did not know the
lady personally, but he knew where she lived, and was soon at her gate,
where he paused a moment in some surprise at the sounds of talking and
laughter which greeted his ears. The parlor was lighted up, and through
the open windows he caught a glimpse of Josephine, fair and lovely, in
pure white, with only a bit of honeysuckle at her throat and in her
hair, which fell like a golden shower upon her neck, and gave her a very
youthful appearance. Gathered around her were four young men, juniors
and sophomores, each striving for the preference, and each saying some
soft thing to her, at which she laughed so prettily and coquettishly
that their zeal and admiration were increased tenfold.
“How did these puppies know her?” Everard asked himself, as he leaned
against the gate; then he remembered having heard that one of them had
spent a little time in Holburton, and probably he was in the habit of
going there occasionally, and had taken the others with him.
At all events she seemed to know them well, and they were in the full
tide of flattery and mirth when his ring broke the spell, and he was
ushered into the parlor.
“Oh, I am so glad to see you!” Josey exclaimed, coming gracefully
forward, and giving him both her hands, an act which was noted by the
juniors and sophomores, and mentally resented.
What business had that grave, dignified Forrest there, and why should
Miss Fleming greet him so cordially, and where did she know him anyway?
They had heard he was very wealthy, and that he once was very fast and
wild, but something had changed him entirely, and transformed him into a
sober, reticent, and, as they believed, very proud and stingy young man,
whose perfectly correct behavior was a living rebuke to themselves. He
was not popular with their set, and they showed it in their faces, and
pulled at their cravats, and fingered the bouquets in their
button-holes, and stood round awkwardly, while he talked with Josey, and
asked her of her journey, and her mother and Agnes, and answered her
questions about the exercises the next day, and the best place for her
to sit.
“Oh, we will arrange that; we will see that you have a good seat,” the
juniors and sophomores echoed in chorus; and with a slight sneer,
perceptible to Josey, on his face, Everard said to her: “I do not see
that there is any chance for me to offer you any attention, you seem so
well provided for.”
Josey bit her lip with vexation, for though she was delighted to have so
many admirers at her side, she would far rather have been cared for
particularly by this husband, of whom she was beginning to be a good
deal afraid. He was so greatly changed that she could not understand him
at all, or guess what was passing in his mind, and when at last he rose
to go she said to him almost beseechingly:
“I hope I shall see you to-morrow.”
“Possibly, though I shall be very busy,” was his reply; and just then
one of the juniors said to him:
“By the way, Forrest, who is that fine-looking, elderly gentleman I saw
with you this evening? Your father?”
“Yes, my father,” Everard replied, feeling a desire to throttle the
young man, and glancing involuntarily at Josephine, over whom a curious
change had come.
The was a blood-red spot on her cheeks, and an unnatural glitter in her
eyes, as she said to the quartette around her:
“Excuse me a moment. I have just thought of something which I
particularly wish to say to Mr. Forrest.”
The next moment she stood in the hall with him, and was saying to him
rapidly and excitedly: “Your father is here, and you did not tell me. I
don’t like it. I wish to see him,—wish him to see me, and you must
introduce me at the reception. I intend to be there.”
“Very well,” was all Everard said, but he felt as if a band of iron was
drawn around his heart as he went back to Beatrice and Rossie, who were
waiting for him, and who noticed at once the worried look upon his face,
and wondered a little at it.
Had anything happened to disquiet him, that he should seem so
absent-minded and disturbed? Rossie was the first to reach a solution of
the mystery, and when at his request Beatrice seated herself at the
piano and began to play, she stole up to him, and whispered very low,
“Have you seen Joe Fleming to-night?”
“Yes,” was his reply, and Rossie’s wise little nod said plainly, “I
guessed as much.”
In her mind every trouble or perplexity which came to Everard had
something to do with the mysterious Joe Fleming, though in what way she
could not guess. She only knew that it was so, and she felt an increased
desire to see this _bete noir_ of Mr. Everard’s.
“And perhaps I shall have a chance to-morrow night at the reception. It
will be just like his impudence to be there,” she thought, when at last
she laid her tired head upon her pillow.
Rossie was very pale and haggard when she came down to breakfast the
next morning. She was accustomed to the headache, and knew that one was
coming on, but she fought the pain back bravely, for she could not miss
the valedictory.
It was comparatively early when she and Beatrice entered the church,
which, even at that hour, was densely packed. But good seats were found
for them, and Rossie sat all through the exercises and listened
breathlessly to Mr. Everard’s oration, and threw him a bouquet, and
wondered who the beautiful lady was who stood up on tiptoe to cheer him,
and who seemed so desirous that her bouquet of pansies and rose
geraniums should reach him in safety. Beatrice did not see the lady, but
she saw the bouquet of pansies which fell at Everard’s feet, where he
seemed disposed to let it lie, until a boy picked it up and handed it to
him. It was very pretty, and the pansies showed well against the
background of green, but Beatrice little guessed how faint and sick the
young man felt as he held them with the flowers Rossie had thrown. These
he had picked up himself, and smiled pleasantly upon the young girl,
whose pride and satisfaction shone in her brilliant eyes, and whose face
was almost as white as the dress she wore. For Rossie was growing sick
very fast, and when the exercises were over she could not even wait to
speak to Everard, but hurried with Beatrice to her room, where she went
directly to bed.
The reception was given up, but Rossie saw Everard a moment and told him
how proud she was of him, and how fine she thought his valedictory.
Everard’s spirits were much lighter now than they had been in the
morning, but when he remembered what had lightened them, he felt himself
a very brute and monster, for it was nothing less than the sight of
Rossie’s pale, sick face, and the knowing that she would not attend the
reception, or Beatrice either, for the latter insisted upon staying with
the little girl, and said she was only too glad to do so, for she did
not care for the people she should meet, and would much rather remain at
home with Rossie.