"Come in!" he called.
The door opened and Catherwood, streaked of face and hollow eyed, stood
upon the threshold.
The president rose.
"Ah, Mr. Catherwood," he exclaimed, smiling.
He advanced upon his caller with outstretched hand.
Catherwood was not conscious of the warm clasp; he only knew one
thing--that he had been summoned and that now he was in the presence of
the genius of the institution of which he himself was a little part.
"You--you sent for me, sir," he managed to say.
"Yes--ah--you got my note of course. Sit down."
The president seated himself at his desk and wheeled that he might face
the odd creature near the door.
"Well, well, Mr. Catherwood," he exclaimed, after a moment, "they appear
to have been treating you rather badly, eh?"
Catherwood pleaded with his eyes alone.
"Well, well; what does it all mean, Mr. Catherwood?" he went on,
kindly. "You've no enemies here, have you----"
The young man brightened perceptibly--"Not one, sir; that is to say, not
one that I know of," he added, less brightly.
"Ah, so I'm told. How do you account for this attack upon you, then?"
Catherwood's eyes dropped to the carpet. The president watched him
covertly, fumbling the seal that dangled from his watch-chain.
"I can't," Catherwood replied at last, looking up.
"No, of course you can't. I hardly expected you could," the president
exclaimed. "But, Mr. Catherwood"--he spoke slowly--"have you no _idea_
who it was committed this most dastardly assault upon you?"
There was an instant's silence during which Catherwood followed the
scroll design of the carpet up one row and down another.
"Yes, sir--_I have._"
"Who?" The president leaned forward.
"I don't feel justified in saying, sir."
Catherwood did not look up as he spoke.
The president leaned back and passed his hand across his forehead.
"Ah, yes; I think I understand, Mr. Catherwood--you--you--perhaps fear
the blame may be placed where it should not--a fine sense of justice;
Mr. Catherwood--a very fine sense of justice--I congratulate you upon
it, sir."
Catherwood glanced up now, moved to a sort of secret impatience by what
he assumed to be a note of sarcasm in the president's voice.
But the face his eyes encountered was most kindly.
His eyes fell again.
The president took up the envelope opener and placed the steel point to
his lips.
"Mr. Catherwood," he began, and hesitated.
"Yes, sir."
"Of course you know," he went on, "that since my return the facts in
your case have been placed before me by certain members of the faculty
who are familiar with them."
"Yes, sir," Catherwood murmured.
"Now, Mr. Catherwood, while they have told me many things of interest,
there is one little detail that seems to me to have a very important
bearing upon the case, but which, for some unaccountable reason, they
all seem to have missed. Perhaps you can throw some light upon this dark
place." The president indulged here in a round, full laugh.
Encouraged by the infinite kindness of this voice, Catherwood lifted his
eyes.
"Yes, sir; if I can--what is it?"
"Ah, yes." The president cleared his throat. "Mr. Catherwood," he
resumed calmly, twirling the envelope opener between his fingers, "what
I wish so very much to know is _how you managed to tie your hands behind
you_!"
"Why I----" Catherwood began, and stopped. He tried to wrench his eyes
from those of the president,--calm, blue--but could not. The room
whirled. The design in the carpet became the design of the walls and of
the ceiling; and there were no windows in the room, or doors--and all
was black--black--black, save for two points of light; for there were
those calm blue eyes, shining back at his.
And then as though it spoke from some great height he heard the mellow
voice in his ears again.
"Go on, Mr. Catherwood," the voice said.
At last he managed to wrench his eyes away and stood up, and strode over
to the window and looked out upon the white world. He saw two sparrows
poise an instant on the crest of a drift.
"Well, Mr. Catherwood----" The voice again.
He turned slowly. His face was pale beneath the disfiguring streaks and
stripes of brown.
"I--I--I confess, sir--I confess."
He flung himself into the chair at the end of the desk and covering his
poor face with his two hands, sobbed aloud.
The president waited for the paroxysm to pass.
"Why did you do it, Mr. Catherwood?" he asked, quietly.
"I--I--was afraid of that history examination." The reply came faint.
Turning his face away, he stood up. He groped for his hat.
"But wait a moment, Mr. Catherwood."
Shame-faced the impostor turned, his hand upon the knob of the door.
"You have, I believe, neither credit nor condition in that course.
Professor Lowe was at a loss which to give you; and awaited my return.
Ah, sit down, Mr. Catherwood."
He obeyed, meekly. He fumbled his cap.
"Ah, Mr. Catherwood." The voice still was calm and even.
"Yes, sir," Catherwood murmured without changing his position.
"Mr. Catherwood, this is a delicate case--I may say a most delicate
case. It is unique in my experience. Indeed I believe it is _absolutely_
unique. Moreover, honesty compels me to say that it was most ingeniously
managed--_most_ ingeniously."
The president coughed and raised his hand to his lips. Catherwood
looked up an instant and then away again.
"Now, Mr. Catherwood," the president went on in the same dispassionate
tone, "let us look first at the case from your point of view. You were
zealous to pass your history course, ahem, too zealous, perhaps.
However, be that as it may. And I am right, am I not, when I infer that
your zeal, your desire in the matter, is still unabated?"
Catherwood nodded, slightly.
"Ah, I thought so. So be it. It is your zeal, then, that induces a
certain definite longing for the credit in that course? Am I right?"
"Yes, sir." Weakly.
"Ah, yes. But, Mr. Catherwood, there is that beside our zeal to which we
must listen. There is our conscience."
Catherwood shifted uneasily.
"Consult _your_ conscience, Mr. Catherwood. Shall I tell you what it
whispers? Very well. It bids you ask for a condition--a condition, Mr.
Catherwood."
"Give it me, doctor; give it me."
The suddenness, the eagerness of the request caused the president to
raise his eyebrows. The pale ghost of a smile lingered an instant about
his lips.
He held out a restraining hand.
"Just a moment, Mr. Catherwood," he said. "There is another point of
view. Mine."
Catherwood had sunk back into his previous attitude of dejection.
"I may state it briefly," the president continued. "My interest in the
proper conduct of this University, Mr. Catherwood, bids me give you a
condition in the course to which we--ah--have referred. But--and I say
this frankly--my interest in you, my boy, bids me hesitate. You are
young. Your whole life is before you. A misstep now might mean the ruin
of that life."
Catherwood caught his breath with a little spasm of the throat.
"Far be it from me to be the cause of such a misstep." The president
spoke less rapidly now. "Too, you have brains. This--ah--your recent
exploit is proof of that. Such ingenuity properly directed might work
great good for not only you, but--ah--the country at large. Mr.
Catherwood,"--every word was voiced with a cutting precision--"my
genuine interest in you prompts me to give you your credit in this
course; but----"
Catherwood started in his chair. The face he turned to the president was
aglow; the eyes alight.
"_But_," the speaker emphasized--"I am not permitted to do this, Mr.
Catherwood. Had you taken that examination you might--mind you I say
'might'--have passed. Again you might not. There would have been, you
see, an element of chance. Mr. Catherwood, we shall let Chance hold the
scales this morning."
The young man looked up wonderingly.
"I don't understand, sir," he said, weakly.
In his hand the president held two envelopes.
"Mr. Catherwood," he said, "you see these envelopes? Yes. Well, in one
of them--I do not know which one--is a credit-slip; in the other is a
condition. The envelopes are sealed."
He held them out to the limp creature at the end of the desk.
"Choose," he commanded.
Catherwood shrank back. "Oh, sir," he murmured, brokenly.
"Choose."
Their eyes met then; and there was that in the president's that forbade
his disobeying.
He put forth a trembling hand. His fingers touched the smooth paper. He
drew. He crushed the envelope in his hand.
"Is--is--that all, sir?" he begged, falteringly.
"That is all, Mr. Catherwood, good-morning."
And he seized his cap and rushed from the room.
The president, alone, leaned back in his chair and stared at the
ceiling. Then he looked down. He still held the second envelope.
He ran the slim blade of the ebon-handled dagger beneath the flap and
ripped it open.
He drew out the slip that it contained.
A queer little look came into his eyes. Then he pursed his lips, and
smiled.
He tore the slip into tiny flakes and let them fall from his open hand
like snow, into the waste-basket.
Just then the bells in the library tower clanged out four times.
"Dear, dear!" exclaimed the president. "Half-past one! I shall be late
for luncheon!"
And gathering up his coat and hat he left his office, hurriedly.