that her nervous prostration was returning, and the pills were the least
objectionable of the medicines. "If he had cared he never would have
become engaged within six weeks," she sighed. But she didn't see why
_she_ should care. He was nothing to _her_. But her father would be so
disappointed. He was interested in Jack and didn't approve of men under
thirty getting married. And then it really was most inconsiderate after
the way he had spoken to her. "I suppose I shall have to write and
congratulate him. That's a bore! I never know what to say to engaged
people, anyway. Yet I should like to write to him, just to show that
there is no ill-feeling, and that I am really quite pleased to hear
that he has at last persuaded some one to take him. I'll make the letter
rather stiff and formal. Yes, I must write. But suppose he isn't engaged
after all, wouldn't it seem as if I were forcing myself into a
correspondence with him? No, it wouldn't appear well to write, at least,
until the engagement was confirmed." Catherine glowed with newly
awakened hope. She was glad she had decided not to write, for she
dreaded to involve herself in any more awkward predicaments. They were
so wearing on the mind.
In the meantime the day was drawing near when Catherine's story must be
handed in for _The Lantern_. But nothing seemed to have developed. On
several occasions she had sat down, well provided with white receptive
sheets of paper, ready to pour out her soul. She had gnawed her pencil
and looked bored for half an hour, and then had jumped up and rushed
outdoors for some fresh air. Each time she had been expectant and eager
to jot down the ideas she thought would crowd into her mind. (One never
knows what may happen when one is actually provided with pencil and
paper.) But somehow nothing had come, and she really felt now that she
was altogether too wretched for ideas.
In desperation she decided to prune and nourish a little love story
based on her own affair. It would amuse her, and no one need know that
it was not purely imaginary. You can make things so much more real and
vivid when drawing from your own feelings and experiences. Of course she
would exaggerate a great deal and make it more interesting. And in her
story the heroine could write a letter of congratulation to the hero in
Chicago, a letter meant to be cold and formal, but into which had crept,
in spite of herself, a plaintive, sorrowful strain. (Catherine thought
that part quite romantic.) The hero on receipt of the letter could be
very much mystified. He was not engaged and had no intentions of
becoming engaged, though there had been a rumour. But reading between
the lines he should see the heroine's love for him--this part of course
could be entirely imaginary--pack his dress-suit case and take the first
train for Philadelphia. He should then rush out to Bryn Mawr and throw
himself at the heroine's feet, and all would end happily. (Catherine
sighed deeply.)
The end, however, presented difficulties, for where should she have the
hero throw himself at the heroine's feet? The reception-room was such a
public place. (She thought of the pursuing pairs of eyes that hunt one
out of the darkest corners of reception-rooms.) Finally she fixed upon
the Vaux woods. It was such a picturesque spot, she knew Jack would
have liked it. "Yes," she said to herself, "he must restrain his
feelings until the heroine has bowed him into a portion of the Vaux
woods, where they will be uninterrupted by giggles."
The story was handed in, and toward the end of May made its appearance
in the pages of _The Lantern_.
* * * * *
In the meantime Jack Livingston, on the shores of Lake Michigan, was
becoming desperately tired of going to dinners and looking out for the
Chicago interests of the firm. He wanted to see some one who really
cared for him, some one who would ask him out to dinner, even if he did
not represent W. D. Neville & Co., of Philadelphia. He wanted to be
asked out, fondled and admired a little for himself. Perhaps he was
homesick. At any rate he decided to shirk social duties and spend an
evening quietly with the Hammersleys. There was such an air of
homelikeness and happiness about their evenings. Charlie Hammersley had
been an upper classman of his at college, who had married a Bryn Mawr
girl a few months before. And now they had a cozy little box just within
the margin of respectability of the North End. They were still at dinner
when Jack arrived. So he threw himself into an armchair by the library
table and reached out for a magazine. The first he threw aside; he was
tired of actresses' pictures, and hated novelettes. But something
prompted him to investigate the next, though it was unfamiliar. "_The
Lantern_, Bryn Mawr," he gasped in pleasant surprise, while he ran his
eye eagerly down the table of contents for a certain well-known name.
Before long he was buried in Catherine's little love story.
When the Hammersleys came in from the dining-room, they found Jack
standing with one arm against the mantelpiece and a far-away expression
in his eyes. He started when he saw them with an, "Oh! ... awfully glad
to find you in ... You see I've just dropped in to say good-bye before
starting for Philadelphia, to-morrow morning."
"Philadelphia?" Mrs. Hammersley asked in surprise. "You're an old fraud.
I won't believe a word of it. You know you said you never wanted to see
the place again. Besides you sent word by the maid that we mustn't hurry
because you had come to spend one of those old-fashioned eight-to-eleven
evenings with us. Shall it be whist or hearts to-night? Lyla, you'll
make a fourth? ... Let's have hearts to-night. I don't feel strong
enough for whist."
"No, really, I can't. You know, I should like it above all things. But I
have my trunk to pack and arrangements to make. I'm going rather
suddenly. You see I've just decided." Jack wished he was not clutching
_The Lantern_ so tightly in his left hand.
* * * * *
At Bryn Mawr finals were over and the "'Varsity" had been picked, so
that all excitement was now centred in the alumnæ game. After years of
success, the undergraduates had got into the way of looking upon this
game as a walk-over. (It is hardly the fault of the alumnæ if one or
more years of leisure do not add to their agility!) But now that the
alumnæ had the last year's seniors, the champions of the college, to
choose from, the under-graduates secretly trembled.
For this reason there was unusual excitement over the game, and the
greater part of the college was sitting cross-legged around the basket
ball field cheering excitedly, while a few rushed importantly up and
down, flourishing lemons and towels. It was the beginning of the second
half, and neither side had scored. The undergraduates felt weak, while
the small group of alumnæ at one corner of the field were clutching each
other excitedly. Every one was too much interested in the game to
notice a tall, broad shouldered man who had just joined the outskirts of
the crowd and was anxiously following with his eyes every movement of
the 'Varsity's most graceful forward. But two minutes of play remained,
the ball seemed rooted in the alumnæ territory and the undergraduates
were pale and heaving with suppressed woe, when the alumnæ lost the ball
and it passed quickly down the field into the hands of the 'Varsity's
tall, graceful forward. For one silent second she aimed, and then amid
shrieks of joy the ball spun cleanly into the basket, while, with a
little gasp of pain, Catherine Neville, the 'Varsity's pet forward, sank
fainting upon the ground. Her ankle was badly sprained. When Catherine
recovered consciousness, the tall, broad shouldered man from the
outskirts of the crowd, was leaning over her, a most distressed
expression in his eyes. In spite of her pain, Catherine gave a little
gasp of pleasure. "He does care for me after all," she murmured under
her breath. Her eyes grew dim and she felt herself going off again into
unconsciousness.
Another summer had passed by and the juniors were now seniors, but one
of the most popular members of the class was missing. Catherine Neville
was to be married in November. As she said to one of her friends, she
was satisfied, and Jack was satisfied, and they didn't see why they
should wait. Anyway, Jack was awfully lonely out in Chicago, all by
himself, and it was her duty to go out and cheer him up.
Catherine had decided upon her career. She had found her purpose in
life.
_Harriet Jean Crawford, 1902._
_THE APOSTASY OF ANITA FISKE_
I
Anita Fiske was no longer wholly absorbed in the student life. This was
all she herself understood. Any one else would have seen only generosity
on the part of the Fates in the pleasant passing for her of busy days;
that is, were it not customary to refer to the interposition of the
Fates chiefly on occasions of dire calamity or of some especially
flagrant instance of human incompetence or indolence--and indolent or
incompetent Anita was not.
The right to be described by very different adjectives would have been
granted to her by the most captious critic in her college world. There
is a lack of finality in the judgment of this world; even members of it
could be brought to agree, if you specifically raised the point, to the
truism about the test through the larger issues in the world outside.
They could indeed justly claim that their estimate of capability was a
very decently fair one; also their estimate of capacity for enjoyment;
but, unfortunately for the final value of their opinion, sometimes
later on the fortunate possessor of these excellent capabilities and
capacities may insist on turning to pursuits calling for another set of
capabilities which she does not possess; on the other hand, since she is
obviously very young, her capacity for enjoyment may remain as great and
yet insist on a change of diet and she remain hungry while trying to
satisfy herself with once fancied dainties. Such a double falling away
as this from the true faith may even occur before the close of her
college days. But--there are some perversions merely temporary of the
true and correct inclinations.
This fact might comfort the critic in certain cases, perhaps in that of
Anita Fiske, should any of the above considerations be held to apply to
her. Her world would certainly have dismissed summarily such foolish
speculations. For where, it would say, could you find one more obviously
and conspicuously fitted to the grave charm and still, harmonious
activity of the student life?
Anita was the daughter of a clergyman who, after years of conscientious
if not over-successful care for the spiritual welfare of a country town,
was accused of ultra-liberal tendencies and to avoid vain discussion had
resigned his pulpit and moved to New York. The family migration had
occurred but a few months before Anita entered college; she was a New
Yorker in name only,--she avowed this somewhat sadly, for a passionate
affection for this city of her adoption was one of the anomalies in her
character. So at least her friend Isabel Oakley felt, for Isabel was a
born New Yorker, a younger member of the most light-hearted of families.
The Student and the Gayety Girl their companions nicknamed the two
friends, calling them after characters in a play given two years
earlier.
One grey February afternoon Isabel roused Anita who sat looking out with
wide eyes on the still winter country.
"Come, you lazy object, you dream too long. Is it of the life history of
a root?--a Gothic root, I fear--with due respect to your preference for
mould over mere modern earth. I insist upon--well, not snow-balling," as
she looked from her goodly height down on the slender figure, "but at
least on a race when we have left the proprieties of the village
behind."
"Very well--but I scorn your insinuation in regard to roots. Look at
this."
She drew her friend down beside her and pushed the yellow curtains more
wide apart. The pale light of a winter afternoon fell across long
stretches of snow and on burdened trees, bending down heavy branches as
though to rest their weight on the firm earth; and sometimes a little
mass of feathery snow slipped noiselessly from its uncertain bed and
roughened where it fell the smoothness of the white ground.
In a few minutes the two were going down the walk and out through the
old entrance between low walls, now mere shapeless mounds in their
covering of tangled, snow-laden vines. Anita seemed even more slender,
though perhaps a trifle taller, than one would have imagined seeing her
crouched on the window-seat. She had quick mouselike movements and
walked with sudden little starts as if she feared to lag behind, and
from her grey eyes all dreaminess was gone. The other girl moved
smoothly and easily with the swinging gait of a strong young animal and
held her head high to the cold wind that came over the open valley from
the hills in the west. Strands of bright hair blew over her forehead and
were tossed back as they threatened to blind her quick brown eyes.
On the bridge over the railroad the wind cut sharply. It poured along
the black road below, between high banks the whiteness of which was
beginning to grow dim in the unequal contest with smoke and cinders. A
woolly St. Bernard leaped from a neighbouring garden to greet Isabel as
the two hesitated for a moment; when they started again he fell in
behind and trudged patiently on, with only an occasional gambol which
resulted in much floundering, the snow being deep and his paws at their
clumsiest age.
Beyond the last houses of Rosemont village the girls bent to a long,
slow hill and, in spite of quickened breath, refreshed themselves after
the long silences of the morning and early afternoon, and the ordered
speech of the classroom, by wandering remarks, quick question and answer
and an admiration for the fretwork of trees against the sky more freely
expressed but less interjectional than is perhaps the custom among other
more frankly emotional girls.
Their talk instinctively drifted back to the work they cared for, though
with avoidance of detail of necessary drudgery or the friction in
routine. Truly original work only Anita had; but Isabel's interest in
original work was as deep as her own and perhaps more free from the jar
of conflicting desires. This interest of hers would have been another
cause of perplexity to a self-appointed critic of the two. Isabel was a
society girl by birth and tradition, and at college, through the impetus
of all her previous associations and also through the adaptability
which gained her immediate wide acquaintance, she was confirmed in her
destiny--popularity. But, though the instinct for much intercourse with
one's kind and the superabundance of animal spirits may close to their
possessors the gates within which the still scholar lives, yet even such
may truly care for those quiet places and look almost with reverence on
the things which there stand first. In this fashion Isabel regarded the
work in which Anita was already noteworthy--in their small world--and in
which it was possible that she might stand above the rank and file even
in the world of research outside, if the promise of these first years
should be fulfilled.
The talk turned to an Icelandic saga on which Anita was working.
"Have you tried doing it in verse as that bit was done in an English
magazine last winter?" Isabel asked, "or did it ring better in
prose--but I am afraid of the excellences of prose. Of course the
original I can only respect from afar,--but that German professor's
version--what was his name?--had, I know, sacrificed the real spirit to
a monumental accuracy. Now please don't tell me you too prefer his
version, as you do the Revised, for that same sordid reason."
"Most excellent Churchwoman! you object to change in the Authorized
nearly as much as you would to a change in the Prayer Book. But really
that piece that came out lately--of the saga, not the Prayer Book,--was
quite inaccurate," Anita musingly added. "I am puzzled. I should care
immensely about doing the whole thing as you have wanted me to. Bits go
well. I confess I have done several when the spirit moved too hard. I
could go on now I know." She raised her voice to be heard in a sudden
gust. "It was written, or sung rather, to such a tune,--but up in the
Seminar room the passion for accuracy falls on me and a sense of pride
comes when I detect the accurate Professor Wirthau in an error. I quite
despise that piece in English you spoke of. But now, come, I am in the
other mood. Let us go into partnership. You have a turn for verse. I
supply dry fact and you transform it into poetry. Let a few of your
friends work for you and drop from some one committee--or will this have
to wait till next year?"
"Next year!" Isabel smiled at her friend. "You are an institution here,
Nita, no one would dream of breaking your work off, but mine, such as it
is, comes this year to its natural end in an A. B. and next year I shall
be disporting myself among--well, not Norse sea kings. My little sister
is to come out with me, you know, and as mamma is not strong I believe
my superior age and learning are to serve all but the formal needs of a
chaperon."
"You a chaperon!" And Anita looked with amusement at her friend.
"I assure you I should make an excellent one. You mistake my character.
It is almost portentously tempered with gravity. Will you race me from
the church," she looked up at the deserted and lonely Church of the Good
Shepherd they were then passing, "to the other, the cathedral?"--to St.
Thomas of Villa Nova, she meant.
"Poor Mr. Clumsy-paws," Anita stopped panting, "he is far behind."
After the tired dog had caught up with them, looking reproachfully, they
left behind the bleak church which lifts its golden crosses with
uncompromising directness to the winter sky.
Through the fantastic snow twilight an hour later, they climbed the
winding hill road to the college. Yellow lights shone steadily in
ordered array--a few dark figures passed by somewhere--then a bell rang
out suddenly and they hurried in. Yet before turning to the serious duty
of preparing for dinner Anita let herself again be caught by her more
alert friend idling at the window.
"Another problem, is it? in addition or subtraction?"
"Subtraction," she turned from the cool stars and rushing wind to the
staid greeting of books and manuscript, "but what I am subtracting is,
perhaps, no such loss after all--an unknown quantity, you see."
II
Anita had just received her father's answer to her letter. Letters are
notoriously liable to different interpretations according as one
confines oneself to the desires and emotions expressed therein or to
those not expressed therein,--not to the uninitiated, that is. Parents
are not likely to be the initiated: they have dealt too long in obvious
literalness with their children. So, when Anita in her letter laid undue
stress on her father's need of her and several other needs classed as
domestic, he saw only an overdevelopment of the female conscientiousness
in matters household--and a spirit of sacrifice which he duly admired.
"Quite heroic, for her heart is set upon staying on at college," the old
gentleman had remarked half aloud as he smoothed out her letter.
She read his answer as she sat before a cheerful little fire, a quaint
figure in a red and blue flowered kimono. It was the interval between
dinner and the time to dress for a college reception. Gay little noises
came from the corridors as, by bright coloured screens, soft pillows and
stiff potted plants, these were changing from mere means of
communication into places of refuge for those who preferred to satisfy
their social needs with a lesser degree of illumination and crowding
than the large dining-hall, now reception-room, afforded.
Anita fingered her letter. She found it conclusive. She also found
herself uncertain as to just the sentiments with which to regard it. His
need of her was quite ignored. That annoyed her; but obviously in this
she misunderstood him as completely as he had misunderstood her. The
letter spoke of the vocation of the scholar and the sacrifice to it of
the lesser things. To this she agreed, or thought she did, but had any
one seen the grey eyes as they looked fixedly into the fire, he would
have seen in these eyes a hunger which was not perhaps wholly for
scholarship. Anita had, at the time with full conviction of sincerity,
suggested a plan for going on with her work in New York. There were
libraries there for the books needed--if one travelled a good many
miles. Her father, most wisely and clearly, as she recognized somewhat
wearily, spoke of the difficulty of concentrating one's mind on serious
work among the distractions of a great city. He himself had once dreamed
of a scholar's retirement.
She watched a blue flame curl over the edge of an unburned coal and die
down again. She well understood this desire and had even felt it
herself. A few years before in Oxford, where she had stayed a month
during her one trip abroad, she had longed for just such a life. She
remembered how, on one of those summer afternoons in the long vacation,
she had sat on the coping of a deserted quad and looked across the tall
sunlit grass to a flowering white rosebush which clung and climbed over
the grey stone tracery, and then had turned back to the worn
inscriptions on the wall behind her in memory of those who had worked
there many years before. For her the oak stairways up from the cloisters
led to anchorites' cells where men worked through endless, still, summer
days. She was very young then and only in Oxford during the long
vacation. On her return she first saw Bryn Mawr and then she said, with
entire conviction, that to be there would be very well. The long low
buildings half covered with creepers suggested, as she saw these also
deserted and on a summer day, her dream of life at Oxford.
Disillusionment, since then, of course there had been. She had objected,
more than a healthy girl with steady nerves should object, to the sounds
of girlish talk and laughter, to the many mechanical details of college
life, and only found the dream again when night had long come down in
quietness and she saw the outline of halls and campus trees soft and
still in the moonlight, all signs of newness gone and only a few lights
here and there to suggest the silent student. Of late she had shrunk
less from the rush and gayety of noise, her objection lying now more
against a certain crudity in enjoyment which seems unavoidable at some
stages--in either sex.
And now as she sat in the bright kimono and watched the little flame
curl and die and half heard the sound of gayety outside her door, Oxford
was no longer her dream city. The bored dweller in towns who echoes the
praise of rural life and poses a martyr to the weariness endured in the
city, may smile at her for a foolish maiden, yet true it was that now
she longed for nothing more vague and unknown, nothing more romantic and
delightful than simply New York. She longed not merely to see it as now
occasionally for a few brief days but to live there, to breathe its
heavy air, whether that be tainted or pure, to hear the clamour of its
streets. To watch it there, would give for her an added charm to the
coming spring, to see it as it touches the city square making this fresh
and green in a frame of busy walls with patterned beds of daisies and
pansies or early blooming crocuses and a springing fountain in the
midst. Here every one knew her. She wished the wish most familiar, but
for that as urgent, to go day after day down in the streets, one in the
changing mass of passers-by, and watch strange faces till the sense of
personality was swept away and forgotten. She wished to feel again at
night the fascination of a city then most spectacular yet most itself,
as one watches it perhaps from a train and, along side streets, one sees
in sudden long flashes the streaming white lights. What these lights
were, lights of restaurant or theatre or lights of music hall--where she
might go or where she might not,--she cared little now, she wanted the
picture and the sound. In time she would want more, the dinner, the
play,--this, however, was all she now saw in the fire; but of this she
wanted her fill.