IV

During the winter that followed, Houston's constant attention to

Florence was generally accepted at its face-value. That they were

engaged few of their intimates doubted; and among the faculty members of

their acquaintance there were many smiles and sidewise glances.

At a Forty Club dance one night Mrs. Longpré, a _chaperon_, said to Mrs.

Clifford, another, lowering her lorgnette through which, for some

moments she had stared, rather impertinently, as was her custom, at Jack

and Florence, "I find that couple quite interesting."

"Why, pray?" Mrs. Clifford asked, roused suddenly from the doze into

which she had lapsed, due to _ennui_ that she made no effort to conceal.

"That Mr. Houston seems a very nice young man," observed the worthy

dame, patronizingly, and as though speaking to herself, "but what he can

see in that girl is beyond me."

Mrs. Clifford squinted. She refused to add to her generally aged and

wrinkled appearance by wearing spectacles.

"Isn't she a proper person?" she asked.

Mrs. Clifford had a proper daughter--a very proper daughter--who at that

precise moment was sitting prim and solitary on the lowest step of the

gallery stairs.

"Well," Mrs. Longpré observed, significantly, "there have been stories.

Of course one is quite prepared to hear stories and whether they are

true or not one never knows," she added, defensively. "But the girl's

mother allows her to have her own way more than I should, if she were my

daughter. She is old enough to be his aunt, besides, and always has

half-a-dozen young men dancing attendance upon her."

"I suppose it's just another college engagement that will end when he

graduates," Mrs. Clifford ventured. "Is the girl in college at all?" she

inquired with a smothered yawn.

Mrs. Longpré smiled. "Hardly," she replied, drily. "If she had

continued--for she started I am told--she would have graduated quite

seven years ago." There was a tart venom in the last speech.

"You don't say," mused Mrs. Clifford who was new to Ann Arbor, her

husband, the professor, having been called from a little Ohio college to

fill the chair of Norwegian Literature. And she immediately lapsed into

another doze from which she did not emerge--being quite stout, and

pleasantly stupid--until the orchestra overhead began the last

dance--"Home, Sweet Home."

Mrs. Longpré's point-of-view as regarded Jack and Florence was that of

nearly all the faculty women who knew them. Indeed, there was but one

among them, the jolly little wife of the assistant professor of

physics--who did not know much and did not feign more--who championed

them. And her support was little more than a mere exclamation at the

girl's beauty, now and then at a "reception," or a wide-eyed admiration,

feelingly expressed, of Houston's charming manners and exquisitely

maintained poise.

If Florence in the slightest measure realized how she--for what her

judges were pleased to call her latest "affair"--was held by those

judges she did not express her knowledge even by a sign. As for Houston,

he saw precisely how the companionship was regarded by the small people

among whom decency required him to mingle, and the knowledge irritated

his nerves.

"The fools!" he exclaimed to Florence one day, "don't they think a

fellow can really care for a girl--ever!"

She laughed and told him not to mind, and he was satisfied.

In the beginning Houston had planned to work for the Athens

scholarship, an honor within the University's gift much sought, but

seldom won save by weary plodders in the library, who when they

graduated carried from the campus with their neatly rolled and tubed

diplomas no remembrance of the life of their fellows, or of friends

made, or of pleasant associations formed.

At first Houston's effort was brave, but at the end of the first

semester of his freshman year he was conditioned in one course. The

receipt of the little white slip marked his first lapse from academic

virtue. Afterward, his course was plainly indicated--a trail clearly

marked by empty bottles.

One afternoon in the early part of his junior year, Florence and he were

driving on the middle road to Ypsilanti. Below the Poor Farm they turned

in at a side lane, over which the branches met. The sun, shining through

the green canopy, stenciled the way with shadows that shifted and

changed design as the soft wind moved the leaves.

"Jack," Florence said quite seriously, "what made you give up your idea

of going in for the scholarship?"

He flecked the horse impatiently with the whip.

"What was the use keeping on?" he replied. "I fell down straight off

the bat. I'd like to win it; that's sure enough. It would be fine. I

like to work, too; but it's too late now." He sighed. "But there," he

exclaimed, turning to her with a smile, "what's the use of crying over

spilt milk?"

She was still serious.

"Don't be silly," she reproved. "Why don't you go on with it now? Can't

you, dear? Please. Oh, how I'd love to see you win it; and you can if

you'll only try!" She clasped her hands eagerly and leaned in front of

him.

"Do you suppose I could?" he asked, with some show of earnestness.

"Of course you could!" she cried. "Do try, Jack, dear; please do; for my

sake."

The shade was deep where they were, and he stopped the horse and they

remained there a space. She planned for him gaily.

"If I could only help you," she murmured tenderly.

"You can--by loving me," he said.

She looked away.

"If I do take up the work to win," he went on, "it'll mean I can't come

down so often. How would you like that?" he asked, playfully.

"I shouldn't care." Then she added quickly, a little frightened by the

look he gave her. "You know, dear, I didn't mean that! I mean I could

stand it--I could stand it for your sake."

"So we both might be happier in the end."

At his words she looked away again.

"Yes," she repeated slowly--"so we both might be happier in the end.

Won't you try?" she asked eagerly, after the moment's silence that

ensued.

He did not answer her at once. Then suddenly he flapped the reins upon

the horse's back and touched the sleek animal with the whip.

"Gad! I will!" he exclaimed. And looking at her he saw a mist in her

eyes, and that she had drawn her lower lip between her teeth, which were

white upon it.

Moved by her emotion he asked, gently:

"Are you glad?"

"Oh, so glad!" she answered, and there was a tremor in her voice. "I

know you'll win," she went on after a moment. "I know, at least you'll

make the effort, for you've promised me. You always keep your promises

to me, don't you, Jack?"

He laughed lightly. "I couldn't do otherwise," he said. "I couldn't if I

tried."

He felt her hand upon his arm, and his heart at that moment filled to

overflowing with love for her....

"Crowley, you old parson, I'm going to win that Athens scholarship or

bust--or _bust_; do you understand!" he exploded, later in the day,

before his room-mate.

Crowley looked up from the three open books on the table over which he

was bent.

"Good for you!" he cried. "Gad; you're more apt to win it now than I am

the Rome--the way the work is going."

"You'd better look to your laurels," was the bantering reply. "You just

note your little Johnnie's smoke. If he doesn't make the rest of the

bunch that's on the same scent look like thirty cents, a year from next

June, he'll go jump off the dock; and upon you will devolve the cheerful

duty of telegraphing papa!"

And the next day he began.

It was an Herculean task that confronted him and he realized fully the

labor necessary to its accomplishment. He dove into the work with an

enthusiasm that augured well for the achievement of the end he had in

view. He outlined a system; he drafted a schedule of diversion and

recreation, which he promised himself he would adhere to. It permitted

of meetings with Florence on only two nights of the week. For a month he

did not swerve a hair's breath from this plan of employment, but at the

end of that period he sent her a brief note breaking an engagement to

drive with her on the Sunday following. He beseeched Crowley to call

upon her and explain, which Crowley did, while Houston, locked in his

room, studied.

During that call Crowley suffered an embarrassment he had never before

experienced in Florence's presence. The John Alden part he had been so

summarily cast to act, he felt did not fit him. As for Florence, she

perceived his discomfort and surmising something of its cause adapted

herself to the situation delicately.

"Do you think he'll win?" she asked eagerly after Crowley had made the

necessary explanations.

"Win!" he exclaimed. "He'll win or go clear daft, if he keeps on working

like he's been doing the past three weeks. He's getting thinner, too,"

he added--"actually getting thinner; hadn't you noticed?" And he laughed

with her at the thought of Houston wearing himself to a shadow over

books of archeology. It _was_ very absurd.

Understanding well that Florence had had some hand in the change of

Houston's fortunes, he hesitated upon the point of asking her to tell

him all about it. They had been very candid in the past. He recalled

their walk by the river and the conversation of that afternoon bearing

upon Jack's misdeeds. But, for some reason that he could not, for his

dulness, fathom now, he _did_ hesitate. Houston had never told him what

was the precise relation between him and Florence, and for him now, he

thought, in the event of a secret engagement, perhaps, to seek to learn

from her what that relation might be---- It was too delicate, he

concluded, altogether too delicate.

"I do hope," she said, "you won't let him get sick working so hard."

"Oh, you needn't worry," he replied, significantly, "I don't think

there's any immediate danger."

After a moment she said, bluntly: "You haven't any real faith in him,

even now, have you, Jim?"

He was a little startled by her question. Had she, he asked himself,

been sitting there reading his mind as though it were a show bill,

printed in large type? He felt, for the moment, decidedly uncomfortable.

"You haven't, have you?" she repeated.

"Why, yes," he replied, somewhat indefinitely. "Why yes I have, too."

She shook her yellow head and smiled. "I'm afraid not," she said

quietly.

And that instant Crowley came nearer achieving a complete understanding

of Houston's case than he was destined to again--until long after. He

was glad to leave the little round room at the end of half an hour.

For months Jack and Florence had made plans for the Junior Hop of his

third year, but the first of February came and with it a realization to

Florence that her hopes were destined to be shattered. Jack explained to

her, as best he could, that the three days' respite from work after the

first-semester examinations could not be that for him.

"I'm up to my eyes, dear," he said--"besides I know you don't care much;

you've been to a lot, and as for me I shouldn't care a snap to go over

to the Gym. and dance all night. I'm going through the exams, great. I

know, dear, I've worked hard, but I must work harder. You understand,

don't you?"

Of course she understood. Hop? What was a Hop to her? Pouff! That for

them! The same always; a great bore, usually, after one has been to

three or four. That was what she said to him, but deep in her heart she

was disappointed; not keenly perhaps, but disappointed, nevertheless.

Through the last semester she saw him less frequently, even, than she

had during the earlier part of the year.

"I've decided to stay over for summer-school, dear," he said to her one

afternoon in mid-June.

She was quite joyful at the prospect.

"We shall go on the river!" she cried. "We shall, shan't we?"

"Of course," he said, earnestly.

But not once did they go. From week to week the excursion was postponed,

always by Houston, save once. Then Florence's mother was ill. He was

quite prepared on that occasion and suffered some displeasure.

"Never mind, we'll go in the fall, when you come back," Florence said.

In order that he might work during the scant vacation permitted him he

carried to his southern home, in August, a case of books.

"You'll write me, dear, often--awfully often, won't you?" he said to

Florence the night before he left.

"Of course," she assured him.

And she kept her promise though his letters were infrequent and brief

during the interval.

He met her in the little round room the first night he was back. He had

carried away with him an impression of her in a soft, fluffy blue gown,

but now it was autumn, and she was dressed differently. When she came

into the room, his senses suffered a shock from which he did not

immediately recover.

She seemed much older. He wondered if it might not be her costume. He

could not recall ever before having seen her in gray. He caught himself,

once or twice, regarding her curiously, somewhat critically, and

marveled at the phenomenon.

She did not chide him for his neglect in not having written her oftener

during the two months he had been away. He offered no excuses. It was as

though, now, each had forgotten in the other's nearness. Leaving her, he

felt that, on the whole, he had got through the evening rather

miserably.

The weeks sped on fleet wings. He was deep in his work. He perceived

that what, a year before, had appeared but a remote chance of winning

the coveted scholarship had now resolved itself into a certain

possibility; even more, he considered, with a sense of pride--a

probability.

The campus saw little of him, the town scarcely a glimpse, save

occasionally of a Saturday evening when he walked to the post-office for

his mail. On such evenings he usually stopped at Florence's home on his

way to his rooms. The conversation between them at these times was

confined almost wholly to his work. All his efforts were concentrated

upon the accomplishment of the task he had set before himself.

For the Christmas vacation he went home.

"Father's coming in June," he told Florence on his return. "Said he'd be

here big as life and twice as natural--going to bring a cousin of

mine--Susie Henderson--you've heard me speak of her."

"Oh...."

"What is it?" He was startled by her exclamation.

She laughed--"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said--"but I pricked

myself with this pin"--and she flung upon the table the trinket with

which she had been toying.

On his way to his rooms that night he reviewed, casually, his college

course; he built air-castles for the days ahead. There would be a year

in Athens--perhaps two. Should he and Florence marry before--or after?

They had not planned definitely. Of a sudden the idea that they had not

smote him forcefully. They had really been living only from day to day;

it was wrong; quite wrong, he decided. A settlement should be made at

once--at once. He was quite determined. In his room, bent over the books

upon the table, he forgot forthwith the resolution he had made. The next

day he recalled it--and the next.

Spring came. His winning was now a certainty. The _U. of M. Daily_

accepted his success as assured and dismissed the matter at once with

all the cocksureness of collegiate journalism. Now, the hard work done,

he could loaf.

Loaf!

The prospect appalled him. Loaf? He had forgotten how! But Florence

should teach him all over again, he mused, and smiled.

He went to his dressing-table and picked up her portrait given him two

years before. Across the margin at the bottom he read:--"To Jack, from

Florence."

After a moment he put the photograph down and searched among the others

that littered the table. A little look of puzzlement came into his eyes.

He turned to the front window and gazed out across the maples, their

leaves silvered by the moonlight. He stood there some moments watching

the face of the night. Then he turned back to his books, doggedly.

"What's the use?" he muttered, sinking into the chair before his study

table.

V

He realized fully the significance of the extreme to which his course

had brought him. If he might only talk to Crowley; if he might only

tell him everything, how like a cad he felt, what a cad he believed

himself to be, he must sense a deep relief. But would Crowley

understand; could he understand?

He smiled at the thought the question prompted. Poor old

Crowley--Meister Dryasdust--he understand a situation so delicate--so

exquisitely delicate? It was absurd. Houston laughed aloud; but the

laughter died at once and was like ashes on his lips.

He had not deceived Florence; not wilfully; though perhaps in the end it

was as though he had. But now the thought that he had not consoled him.

Still she had his promise. He had hers as well, to be sure, and in his

present state of mind he only wished that she might be as willing as he

to forget--he could not _think_, forgive. At the conjecture his pride

suffered a shock. Still, if it were only true--if there were even a

remote possibility of truth in the circumstance he imagined--that she

might have undergone a change; that she might have awakened; that she

might have--drifted away. He was coldly analytical enough _now_, to turn

back a year and hear himself, as he was _then_, being told by her that

she had erred, had made a dreadful _faux pas_ of the whole business.

A grim smile curved his lips as the situation presented itself more

clearly to his mind. He snapped away his cigarette impatiently.

Leaving his room an hour before he had felt cool-headed enough, but now

he experienced a growing nervousness with each step he took. It was just

such a day as the one on which they had canoed down the river and the

promises had been exchanged. Would it not be well, perhaps, he

considered, to propose another little voyage, and, perhaps, on the very

shelf of rock where they had spread their luncheon--a dainty luncheon it

was, he remembered--tell her? He put the thought away at once as

absurdly theatrical.

No, there was but one thing to do--to go to her, to go to her now, and,

like a man, _tell_ her. It would be over with in half an hour--no

longer, surely, he thought--and then--how good the air would taste, how

blue the sky would seem.

He had not noticed where his steps were leading him, but now that a

determination to act in the course left open to him had formed, set, and

hardened in his mind, he lifted his eyes and looked about him.

He was approaching a corner. It was a very familiar corner. There on the

left, ridiculously close to the sidewalk, was the brown house from the

lilac bush in the scant front yard of which he and Florence had often,

of an evening, stolen armfuls of the fragrant blossoms. A street car

dragged along, its one flat wheel thumping, thumping, thumping, with a

deadly sort of iteration. Standing there, he lighted another cigarette.

When would he be here again, he mused. Perhaps in five years he might

come back to a class reunion. Five years would bring many changes, many

confusing changes. The lilac bush, for instance, might not be there in

the front yard of the brown house. He recalled the changes the four

years he had lived in Ann Arbor had brought to the vicinity of his

freshman rooming-house. Come to think of it, he could not even now,

familiar as he was with the town, remember whether that house stood in

Ingalls or Thayer Streets. He could find the place, certainly; that is,

he might locate it after a bit, but----

"Houston, you're a fool!"

He upbraided himself aloud, unconsciously. Then, flinging away his

half-burned cigarette, he turned the corner and walked briskly down the

street.

The maid admitted him and he waited in the little round room. The shades

were low and the place was filled with shadows, shadows that made the

close walls seem very far apart, and the teak wood bookcase quite

remote. To satisfy himself of the illusion Houston thrust one foot

forward until it touched the lowest shelf. He settled back among the

cushions on the circular seat, then, quite satisfied.

He heard the soft, cool swish of skirts on the stairs and the next

instant the _portières_ parted and framed Florence. In passing she had

opened the outer door and the light, streaming about her, as for an

instant she stood there, filled the little room with a soft, white glow

that seemed to radiate from her. He did not move; gazed at her simply

before she glided silently to where he sat, and stooping, kissed him.

She held her cheek close to his an instant then drew away, and moving to

the window raised one of the shades. Her face was turned from him.

"Jove!" he muttered, "but you're beautiful, Florence--in that--in that

blue thing."

She turned, at his exclamation, and a little pale ghost of a smile

hovered about her lips. She came to him and sat beside him and took one

of his hands in both hers.

"Jack, what is it?" she asked, quietly.

Their eyes met as she spoke, and before his could fall, she said: "Tell

me, tell me what it is----"

It seemed to him, that instant, that he ceased to breathe.

He fairly wrenched his eyes from hers. "Flo"--it was not often of late

that he called her by this name of his own invention--"Flo, I--I----"

"Tell me," she whispered, leaning toward him.

"Flo, it's all off."

He got up quickly and strode out into the hallway, and back again.

He stood beside the bookcase and looked at her, across the room, where

she sat between the windows, the little smile, only, perhaps fainter

now, still hovering about her lips.

"I understand, dear," she said simply.

The relief her words carried to him filled him with as keen and as

complete a joy as he had ever felt.

"I knew you would," he said; "I knew you would--you're so sensible about

things."

The smile flickered an instant brighter as she replied, with a little

pout, "Oh, Jack, never call a girl '_sensible_': it's as bad as calling

her '_nice_,' and that's like throwing a stone at her."

He laughed, a little stridently.

"Come here, dear; sit here and tell me all about it." She made room for

him beside her and held the cushions against the wall till he sank among

them.

"Is it your father, dear; did you tell _him_?" she asked quietly.

"No, it isn't," he blurted, frankly. "I wish to Heaven it were."

"So it's you; just yourself; oh, Jack!"

How grateful he was for that little note of gay mockery in her voice she

never knew.

"Can't you tell me all about it?"

He did not answer at once.

"Then shall _I_ tell _you_?" she said. He glanced at her appealingly,

but she was still smiling.

"Well--let's see,--where does it begin? Oh, yes. There was once a boy

came to college, and he fell in with other boys and had the best sort of

time till he met an ogre--no, I mean an ogress--and after that he didn't

have a good time at all----"

He was smiling now, with her.

"----And in some foolish way he began to think he liked the ogress--whom

he shouldn't have liked--and she, well, she liked him too, and they

became pals--regular pals--and one day he told her he loved her. He

thought he did. He didn't _really_; but he was to learn _that_

afterward. So they became engaged--this fine fellow and the ogress.

Silly, wasn't it? Silly of the fine fellow and silly of the ogress. And

for a little while--no,"--she mused--"not a _little_ while; quite a long

while, they were happy; very, very happy. And all the time they were

drifting closer and closer to the edge of a precipice over which they

were sure to take a tumble one day. But before that day came the fine

fellow woke up, for, you see, he'd only been dreaming all the time. And

the ogress wasn't an ogress at all, but just a girl--a _sensible_

girl...."

He glanced at her reprovingly.

" ... just a sensible girl," she went on, "who, when he told her it was

all a dream, said it had been a happy, happy dream, but that perhaps the

awakening had come just in time. Perhaps it has, Jack," there was a note

of seriousness in her voice now. "Perhaps it has; who knows? We shall

think so anyway; shan't we? It will make it easier...."

"Yes, it will make it easier," he muttered, all the light gone out of

his eyes, the smile from his lips.

"Jack; you _will_ tell me one thing, won't you, dear?"

He looked up into her face wonderingly.

"What is it?" he said.

"Was there another--another besides the ogress who turned out to be the

sensible girl? Tell me, Jack; it's all I want to know. I don't know why

I should want to know even that; but I do. I guess a girl always does.

Perhaps it's because it usually tends either to light-up things or to

make her still more miserable. I don't know which; only it's at such

times that a girl wants either light or more misery. One seems to do as

well as the other. Tell me--was there, Jack?"

He met her eyes frankly, as he spoke.

"Why Flo--I--you see----" He looked away.

She settled back among the cushions.

"Flo, you wouldn't understand," he managed to say. "You see, it's----"

"But I know now," she exclaimed--"and somehow it makes me feel

better----"

"Flo!"

She perceived the reproof in his tone and added eagerly: "Don't think I

meant to mock you, dear; I didn't truly. I meant just what I said--and

just that way...."

Presently he stood up before her and looked down into her face.

"Flo,"--he spoke earnestly, almost passionately--"Flo, you're a girl in

a million!"

"There!" she cried gaily, "that's better than '_sensible_.'"

He smiled.

"In a million," he repeated as though to himself. "I can never, never

forget you----"

"Oh, Jack!" Again the old note of playful raillery crept into her voice.

"Now you've gone back. Of course you can't forget me; at least you

mustn't, really you mustn't; it wouldn't be fair."

He took up his hat from the little table.

"Are you going?" she asked.

"I'd better," he said, simply.

"And shan't I see you again?..."

Before he could reply she cried: "But I can see you graduate! I can see

you get the Athens scholarship; and I shall too. And oh, Jack, when I

read some day about you I shall be so glad--so glad I'll cry!" As she

spoke he saw the thin mist that he remembered seeing once before, gather

over her eyes again. He touched her lightly on the cheeks with the tips

of his fingers, and, stooping kissed her forehead.

"Good-bye," he said.

She took his hand and pressed it.

"Good-bye--and the best luck in the world!" she cried.

She heard the door close behind him. For a long time she did not move

from among the cushions. Finally she rose. From the top shelf of the

teak wood bookcase she took down a Japanese rose jar, and from it drew

out a little card portrait of a young sweet-faced girl. She stood at the

window and lifting her eyes from the portrait gazed off down the

street.... The pink faded from her cheeks.... The photograph slipped

from her fingers.... She sank upon her knees and hid her face among the

cushions.... By and by she rose and went out into the hallway and up the

stairs....

Her mother, entering below, called to her.

"I'm up here dressing, dear," she answered. "I had a note from Ed

Trombley--you remember him, mother--a '90 man. His class is having a

reunion and he's back for it. He has asked me to drive to the Lake with

him--you don't care do you?"

"No child...."

And the frail, gray-haired woman went quietly into the little round room

with her sewing.