From Vine Cottage she went to the office for David’s stamp of approval.
She had once called her father a rubber stamp. She thought of it now,
with stinging chagrin. Would not he serve as her anchor, as Judith had
been her pilot? Had she anything to fear? As she walked past the clump
of shrubbery on the campus, where Hal Marksley had kissed her that
first time, she thought with a thrill of exultation that her craft had
outrun the storm.
From her father’s arms she hurried to Dr. Schubert’s office to tell
the joyful and as yet half apprehended news. And the man who had heard
her first shrill cry of protest against the life that was not of her
choosing, drew her to him and kissed her. The act was paternal. She
had always been more at home with him than with those of her own blood.
“Poor old Syd,” she beamed, “he doesn’t know what he’s in for.” And
Sydney, coming through the laboratory door with a microscope slide in
one hand and a bottle of red colouring fluid in the other, put up his
mouth for the customary salutation.
“No more of that, old fellow. I’m a young lady now. Besides you’re
going to be my preceptor, and it’s bad form for the dominie to kiss
his pupils. You’re to teach Judith and me, and you couldn’t bestow
osculations on one and not on the other. Now could you?”
“I should think Judith would be lovely to kiss.”
“She is ... but you and Lary can’t go out in the alley and fight duels.
And while we are on the subject--you and Papa Schubert are ages behind
the times--with all your X-rays and bacteriological tests. In Europe
they have decided that kissing is unsanitary. Disease germs are carried
that way.”
“Yes,” the elder assented, “the dangerous little amorococcus is usually
conveyed from lip to lip.”
Syd changed the subject. He had never been seriously touched by love.
But he thought the shaft of his father’s playful humour might carry a
poisoned barb for the girl. He demanded, with a grimace:
“Why don’t you take me into your confidence about the preceptorship?
What do you need to learn ... after Brussels and Paris?”
“We had thought about Latin--and anything else you happen to have
in your system that would help us to shine as intellectuals. But,
seriously, Syd, I want you to do one thing for me. Get this _teaching_
idea across to me. You remember how you gave me the legato--when Prexie
Irwin was making us whack the strings with the bow--everything jumpy
staccato, don’t you remember? And how you showed me, in five minutes,
how to produce the singing tones? I know how to do it; but you’ll have
to show me how to teach the other fellow.”