proud because of a certain haughty reserved exterior, but her intimate
friends who had pierced the reserve knew her to possess a really genial
nature, and on occasions to become quite mellow and entertaining. But it
was only with a favoured few that she descended to jocosity. She was
conceited, too. There is no doubt about it, but who that ever amounts to
anything isn't? at least just a little bit. Perhaps she was spoiled. But
if that was the case, it was scarcely her fault, because she was an only
child, and had always been pampered and praised and led to consider
herself a really remarkable young person. As a small child her mother
had looked upon her as a budding genius, and had cherished and retailed
to forcedly enthusiastic friends her various idiosyncracies--undoubted
signs of genius. But when she grew a little older, and scorned dolls and
"_The Five Little Peppers_," things had gone too far. "A little genius
is all very well, but a great deal is so conspicuous," Mrs. Neville used
to say. (The Nevilles belonged to a very old Philadelphia family.) The
last straw in a long line of disappointments came, however, when
Catherine announced her intention of going to college. "A daughter of
the Nevilles in college! Preposterous! It is all very well for a girl
who has her own living to make. But a Neville!" And Mrs. Neville and
Mrs. Neville's friends held up their hands in indignant, old-fashioned
horror. Catherine had also indelicate aspirations toward a career. But
she kept these to herself until she was safely launched upon her
freshman year. Even then her plans were very misty. She thought perhaps
she would consent to being considered a second Mrs. Browning, or
possibly a George Eliot. It was a dreadful blow to Mr. and Mrs. Neville
when Catherine passed all her examinations. Up to that time they had
kept themselves happy with the thought that Catherine might fail. Of
course Catherine was very clever, but they had always heard that it took
a monstrosity to pass the Bryn Mawr entrance examinations. Mr. and Mrs.
Neville were especially vexed because their plans had all been upset,
and they had formed such delightful ones, too. She was to have a "coming
out" tea in November, followed by a series of dinners, culminating in a
ball early in January--with a possible wedding at Easter. What more
could a girl wish? But Catherine was undoubtedly peculiar. She refused
to be trotted out at teas and put through her paces at the Monday
evening dancing class. She said that dinners bored her, and balls were a
frightful nuisance, and she didn't want to be married off. And so it
was that Catherine never "came out," but passed into that atmosphere of
social depravity and advanced ideas that old-fashioned conventionality
has associated with a woman's college.
Is it to be wondered at that Catherine had lost her self-control just a
little bit this evening? College with her was a very tender subject.
Nevertheless as she stood upstairs with her head near the crack of the
slammed door waiting to hear the front door latch, she felt desperately
ashamed of herself. But how could she be expected to give up the pet
dreams of her youth--all at once and for a man? She didn't like him
much, anyway, and she still longed for her career. In fact she quite
expected it and such an emergency as falling in love had never once
entered her mind. Of course she had seen a great deal of Jack, but he
had never been anything to her, at all. Yet he was quite nice,
infinitely nicer than the rest of the men. They bored her. The conceited
little idiots thought every girl they saw in love with them, and that
all they had to do was to sit and be adored. But Jack somehow was
different. He had so much more to him. He was so big and fine, so noble
looking. He had such good-looking shoulders. Somehow she liked to see
them around. She might have stood him for his shoulders, at least,
until the end of the Christmas vacation. But it did make her furious to
hear men run down college girls and say that they didn't want to marry
them. Just as if the college girls were pining for them! Men would be
much nicer if they didn't consider themselves charmers. "Still it will
be frightfully dull now for the last few days at home," Catherine
thought as she fixed her hair. She was used to seeing him about. And now
no one would ask her to go skating. She didn't want to go skating with
any one else. And they used to have such interesting talks together too!
Well, it was all over now. She might as well go to sleep. So she
snuggled up in the down comfortable and said she would make her mind a
blank. But there was always a little something there, edging her on to
the forbidden subject with most annoying insistence. Jack was always
mixed up in her thoughts, and she kept wondering if he really cared for
her. Of course it was nothing to her. But it is nice to be liked, and
somehow it worried Catherine dreadfully to think that perhaps he didn't
care for her. "Oh, but he must care or he never would have spoken as he
did," Catherine exclaimed out loud. And then, frightened at her own
voice, she muffled her head in the bedclothes.
* * * * *
Catherine's thoughts wandered off to her freshman year and that
afternoon early in spring when she had received the telegram from her
father--
"Mr. Livingston will call at eight o'clock.
"W. D. NEVILLE."
Catherine had read it slowly for the second time and wondered who on
earth "Mr. Livingston" was and what she had done that deserved this
punishment. She finally decided that Mr. Livingston was a friend of her
father's, some nice old gentleman who took an interest in the higher
education of women, and wanted to be taken around the college. "Night's
a bad time," she reflected, and speculated happily on the chances of
$10,000 toward the library building. Nevertheless she did not feel quite
comfortable until she was safely at dinner with the doors closed. One
never knows what elderly men interested in the higher education of women
may do. They are always so intensely interested. He might come out in
time for dinner, just for the beneficial experience of seeing how this
strange product of the human race eats, and whether or not, as has been
said, it lives exclusively on fish. "He is probably of a deeply
enquiring nature and will want statistics," Catherine mused. "I must
review mine. Let me see. There are sixty-seven 'grads,' one hundred and
nine freshmen, and----" But, alas! these were all she knew. Well, she
could at least explain the "Group System." A complexity of that sort
would be something for the old gentleman to gloat over. She knew it
quite well now. She had just had some lessons on it from the sophomore
next door. And then, of course, there was the seventeen per cent.
statistic. How stupid in her to forget that! She had heard it often
enough, at least twice a month since she entered. "Yes, that will make a
very good beginning," and Catherine sprinkled her beef so vigorously
with salt that she was forced to send for a second supply.
Dinner had just reached the salad stage, when the maid whispered to
Catherine, in mysterious tones, that there was a gentleman in the hall
who wished to see her. "Mr. Livingston!" she gasped, and rushed out.
"How fortunate that dinner is almost over! But perhaps the poor man is
starving. Oh! but I can't have him in. I'll be hard-hearted. I'll hope
that he had a chicken sandwich and a glass of milk at Broad Street
Station. But what a strange man for father to send!" Catherine thought
as she cordially grasped the hand of a beery object in the dark corner
of the hall. "I beg yir pardin, miss, but I'm Jim Maloney, and me wife
as does yir laundree is very poor, en has siven childrin en wants to be
paid." The man held toward her a soiled, rumpled half sheet of lined
paper. "One dollar and twenty-nine cents," Catherine read between the
blots, and remarked to herself that there were only five children last
week. But supposing there had been twins, she ran singing upstairs and
munificently raised the amount to one dollar and thirty cents. "The
dollar and a quarter is easy, but four cents is such a difficult
amount!" she said, excusing her extravagance, while taking her seat at
the dinner table again. "One always has to hunt through all one's coat
pockets, stamp boxes, and various trays and receptacles on the bureau,
and do at least fifty cents' worth of nervous worry and scurry, perhaps
even then not finding the four cents." Catherine was happy again, for
she still had forty minutes of liberty, ample time in which mentally to
run through a possible conversation with an inquisitive elderly
gentleman and arrange all her material in paragraphs with a suitable
introduction and conclusion. She felt as if she were going to make an
address, and had a wild desire to begin. "Esteemed elderly gentleman, it
gives me great pleasure to expound to you this evening the--etc." But of
course that would never do.
At exactly five minutes after eight Mr. Livingston's card was handed to
Catherine. "Elderly and investigating gentlemen are exasperatingly
prompt," she murmured. "He has evidently taken the 7:15 train from the
city and has killed time about the campus or been lost for ten minutes,"
she thought, as she glided downstairs, settling the bow of her ribbon
collar primly in front. "Yes, Mr. Livingston," she rehearsed, "the
freshman class contains one hundred and seven girls, average age,
eighteen; average height, five feet five inches; average weight---- Oh,
dear me! I've forgotten my average weight, and that was to have led to
such interesting discussions of the comparative amount of nutriment in
the different preferred foods."
Just at this moment Catherine reached the door of the reception-room,
gave her belt a last little twitch straight and walked in. From the
least brilliantly lighted corner of the room arose a tall,
broad-shouldered man of twenty-five. Poor fellow! He had shrunk there
from pursuing pairs of eyes! "Dear me, it isn't the inquisitive, elderly
gentleman after all," Catherine pouted disappointedly as she and Mr.
Livingston took their seats at the extreme ends of a long sofa. "Now, my
plans are all upset." Catherine wanted to say, "Who are you, anyway? Why
aren't you inquisitive and elderly? That type is so interesting!" But
that didn't seem polite, and he looked harmless, so she spoke of the
weather, and the walk from the station, the ride out in the train, and
the people one sees in Broad Street Station, and hoped that time would
unfold the mystery. Just then the top of a head and two eyes rose
perpendicularly above the window-sill in front of them, remained
stationary for a few seconds, and then sank slowly, followed by a
suppressed giggle and the sound of fleeing footsteps. They both saw the
eyes, and both being interested in proceedings outdoors, forgot for a
moment the absence of conversation.
"Yes, Mr. Livingston," Catherine finally droned forth absent-mindedly.
"There are one hundred and seven in the freshman class, average age,
eighteen, average height, five feet five inches, average weight, two
hundred and eighty pounds, and only seventeen per cent. will marry! At
least----"
"How extraordinary!" interrupted Mr. Livingston, while Catherine awoke
with a start and wondered if a little fresh air would not be beneficial
to both of them. Another pair of eyes arose above the window-sill. There
was a second pause and Mr. Livingston said that he thought it would be
delightful to look at the grounds. They waited a moment just to satisfy
the curiosity of a third pair of eyes and then wandered out on to the
campus. It was deliciously balmy, but as it was nine o'clock on a
moonless night their horizon was limited. Still by peering industriously
they could distinguish a few dark objects that Catherine explained to be
trees, and by means of her descriptive powers (she never knew she had
any until that night), Mr. Livingston was enabled to enjoy the distant
prospect of Rosemont and the rolling hills beyond. When they returned to
the reception-room, Catherine felt quite recovered from her little
attack of absent-mindedness and hoped that the air had been equally
beneficial to her uncommunicative visitor. "I have been talking too
much," she thought as she watched the careful descent of eyes number
four. "Poor Mr. Livingston has not had a chance to enlighten me on the
subject of his personal history. I must be silent." A fifth pair of eyes
appeared at the window, and the silence was unbroken for such a long
time that Catherine in desperation launched forth upon Political Economy
theories. (Political Economy and History were her majors, and she always
turned to them in times of need.)
And so it continued all evening. Catherine was still ignorant of her
visitor's history, but she had counted twenty-seven pairs of eyes. She
wondered if Mr. Livingston's and her count agreed. She had counted hers
on her fingers, but had a dreadful feeling that she had made a mistake
of a hand somewhere and was five too many. Mr. Livingston looked
mathematical. She longed to ask him how many he had seen. Finally the
witching hour of ten arrived. There was a scampering of footsteps
through the hall and a long tolling of Taylor bell. A maid wandered
uneasily up and down before the reception-room door. Catherine knew it
was time to put the lights out, but somehow said nothing, for she had
noticed certain symptoms of uneasiness in her visitor, and felt they
were about to culminate in the "good-bye" that had been worrying him
since half-past nine. They did culminate, at twenty minutes after ten,
when he at length departed. Catherine wondered why men stay two hours
and a quarter when they come for a half-hour call. Perhaps they think
that they don't appear to be enjoying themselves if they leave before
their two hours and a quarter is up. The substance of the letter that
Catherine had mailed to her father that night briefly stated would read:
"Who on earth is Mr. Livingston? Please restrain him from calling
again."
* * * * *
Gradually Catherine returned to the present. She didn't see how Jack
could care very much. Then she bounced over on to the cold side of the
bed and held her eyes tight shut. Still her thoughts rambled on.
The next day Catherine looked pale and wan. Her mother thought she had
better stay in bed and rest because there were only four days left of
the vacation and she mustn't go back to college all worn out. But
Catherine thought she needed air. The house oppressed her, so she
decided to go for a walk in her most becoming clothes. Jack always went
to the office between nine and half-past. Perhaps she might meet him.
But what could she do if she did meet him? Bow stiffly? That would not
be especially satisfactory, but what else could she do? She couldn't
appear sorry for what she had said last night. And yet she would like to
have him find it out--indirectly. No, she wouldn't go to walk. It
wouldn't look well. She would take her mother's advice after all, and go
to bed.
Jack in the meantime felt like a culprit. He had spoiled everything by
his inane lack of judgment. He ought to have known better. He should at
least have remembered the career. It was all up with him now. But he
felt sure she liked him. If he had only made a few pretty speeches,
complimented her a little and broken the ice gently! He feared he had
been a little abrupt. But it wasn't his fault if he couldn't talk. He
meant a lot more than the other fellows who have it all at their
fingers' ends. But girls never can appreciate fine men. Anything does,
if it is only well-dressed. And yet Catherine had really shown a great
deal of discretion. In fact she had openly preferred him to the other
men. Somehow she had always evinced much pleasure in his conversation.
Perhaps it was because he listened to her theories and the other men
wouldn't. Oh, but it couldn't have been that! Anyway, he had enjoyed
hearing her talk. He couldn't bear the chatter of most girls. Yes, she
was a fine girl, always well groomed and a thoroughbred, the kind of
girl with whom a man liked to be seen walking down the street. Perhaps
she hadn't meant it all. He thought he ought to call again, but he
didn't exactly care to go where he wasn't wanted. Still he decided to
throw aside his pride and call that evening at the Nevilles, just as if
nothing had happened.
But all his hopes were shattered when the maid informed him at the door
that Miss Catherine could not see any one that evening. "A polite way of
asking me not to call again," thought Livingston, as he hurried off. He
was really annoyed now and vowed never to go near the place again. The
maid forgot to tell Catherine about the call.
John Livingston had recently been admitted as junior partner into the
firm of W. D. Neville & Co. His rise had been rather phenomenal. Five
years ago, in the summer time, three weeks after receiving his A. B., he
started out bravely to work his way up in the world from the very
beginning, and having entered the steel and iron works as an ordinary
labourer, he had come to be a foreman of the shops. It was then that he
attracted attention by his remarkable industry and popularity among the
workmen, and thus came to Mr. Neville's notice. Mr. Neville at once
appreciated his clear business head and knack of getting along well with
men and pushed him on, so that he passed from one position of trust to
another until he was finally admitted into the firm as a junior partner.
Worldly people might have imagined that Mr. Neville had designs when he
sent Jack Livingston out to call on his daughter at Bryn Mawr, and when
he encouraged his coming to the Neville house, especially during the
holidays. Frequently--two or three times a week--Jack was asked to dine
until it became such an expected event that he always stayed to dinner
without being asked. But any one who knew the family at all well would
laugh at the worldly idea, for Mr. Neville well knew the fruitlessness
of forming designs upon Catherine's future. In fact no one realized so
well as Mr. Neville that Catherine had no time for anything except her
career and that she didn't care for men. All she wanted was peace and a
name for herself. Perhaps Mr. Neville was dubious about Catherine's
ability to become a Mrs. Browning or a George Eliot. (He was an
exceedingly practical man.) "Of course Catherine is exceptionally
clever," he used to say. Nevertheless he felt or at least hoped that her
mind was well balanced, and doubted the arrival of those expected bursts
of genius on which she built so many castles in the air.
During the four days that remained of the Christmas vacation, Jack
persistently refused to come to the Neville house to dinner. He was
always busy packing or something. This was a bad sign. To be sure Jack
was going to Chicago in a week, but every one knows that a man never
starts his packing until eleven o'clock on the night before his
departure. He goes into the first store he sees on the day of his
arrival, buys all the things he has forgotten and never again mentions
the subject. Therefore Mr. Neville was a little worried, but he kept
quiet and reassured himself by thinking that Jack's shunning the Neville
house was merely a phase in an ultimately satisfactory love affair. He
did not tell Mrs. Neville his plans or his woes. He knew her too well,
and never confided delicate little matters like this to her
kind-hearted, bungling management. Poor Mrs. Neville! with the best
intentions in the world, she always ruined everything.
Catherine, in the meantime, was not at all like herself. She moped,
scolded, and was generally irritable and unpleasant. Her mother could
not imagine what had happened. Catherine was so changed; she sat around
and looked mysterious and gloomy and absolutely refused to go anywhere.
To be sure she had never been riotous in her pursuit of pleasure, but
still she had always gone about a good deal, and had really seemed to
enjoy things in a characteristically unbending way. But now all was
different. Mrs. Neville was in despair and promptly jumped to the
conclusion that Catherine was suffering from nervous prostration brought
on by overwork at college. Mrs. Neville had always said she would have
it, and really there was nothing else that could make her act so
queerly. "Catherine is so energetic," she told her friends when they
came to console. (They all felt sorry for Bessie Neville. Her daughter
was such a disappointment. Their own daughters all did embroidery in the
morning, and went to teas with their mothers in the afternoon.)
"Catherine must be in everything," she said, "and never is satisfied to
do things half-way. No wonder the child has broken down. I shan't let
her go back. No," and she set her mouth firmly, "health after all is the
first thing to consider." Nevertheless their old family physician
persuaded her that there was nothing like work for nervous prostration,
so Catherine, in spite of the firmly set mouth, appeared at college just
in time to register. However, she was loaded down with pills, tonics and
strict injunctions to write all developments of symptoms.
Catherine was glad to get back. She had never spent such a disappointing
holiday. Yet though she felt horribly mournful and wandered about with
the gloomy, tragic expression of a person with a past, she hoped she
could fight it down, work and forget everything. She would either have
to do that or be wretched always. For she knew Jack would never come
near her again. Of course she did not want to see him. She was simply
annoyed at his neglect. Why, from what her mother said, it seemed as if
Jack had absolutely planned his "good-bye" call at the house to miss
her, and had then apologized as if he hadn't known. Well, everything had
happened for the best. She was really becoming too much interested in
Jack Livingston. But now she could forget it all, and work and make
something out of her life.
With mid-years, a twenty-four page essay, Latin and English private
reading and all sorts of unfinished odds and ends of labour, one's
previous misfortunes vanish behind the rapidly accumulating wretchedness
of the four weeks after the Christmas vacation. This is the period at
Bryn Mawr when one wonders what on earth became of the first part of the
semester, and one firmly resolves this time at least to keep good
resolutions and never again be guilty of such improvident idleness; this
is the period when one wakes up on bright, crisp mornings to the
wretched realization that an examination is due next day in a subject of
which one knows or feels that one knows absolutely nothing; this is the
period when, after struggles too painful to describe, one turns up on
the fatal morning pallid but resolute, armed with a pen and scraggy
blotter and with Tennyson's immortal words "theirs but to do or die,"
ringing in one's ears; this is the period when after seizing the
examination questions one thrills or congeals in proportion to the
number of intimate friends, bowing acquaintances or total strangers
there enrolled. Nevertheless one survives even the worst, though in a
more or less battered condition, and after two weeks punctuated with
these periods of violent searching thought and despairing drains on the
imagination, one at length emerges into the happy serenity of the
middle of February.
So Catherine having passed through the wear and tear of mid-years had
almost recovered from her attack of nervous prostration. One day she was
sitting on the floor in her study chatting happily with some friends.
They had finished their chocolate, and the empty cups had been pushed
just wherever it was most convenient to put them and most inconvenient
for them to be, when Emily Ashurst broke into the general talk with, "By
the way, Catherine, I had a letter this morning from a friend of mine in
Chicago, which I think will probably interest you. You know Jack
Livingston, don't you?" Catherine nodded, and grew a little pinker than
usual. "You know, he went to Chicago early in January on business
connected with some steel works out there. Well, he was quite popular
and taken around a lot and now they say he is engaged to a girl there, a
Miss Lyla--oh, bother!--well she is exceedingly pretty--just the sweet,
piquant marrying kind that a man adores. They say it was a most romantic
affair. Sort of love at first sight. He is perfectly devoted and her
friends are delighted with the match. Mr. Livingston has taken them all
by storm." But Catherine was not particularly enthusiastic, so the
conversation drifted on to basket ball possibilities for the spring.
Catherine, however, was not in the least interested in basket ball now,
though she was considered one of the most promising forwards. She felt
awfully tired, and was secretly relieved when there was a general
uprising from the floor and all her guests departed in a flock. Then she
was left to her own unhappy thoughts and the concentration of chocolate
cups in the one spot that always appealed most strongly to the naturally
sympathetic disposition of the maid when she came to straighten up in
the morning.