III

Mrs. Norris was about to force Tom down upon the Bosom when her eye was

caught by the cheque-book on the table. "Oh, land," she exclaimed, "why

didn't I give Henry his cheque! I've owed him for those German Socialist

books he got me for I don't know how long, and here I've forgotten to

give it to him. I must send Susan after him with it right away," and

going over to a bell by the fireplace, she pushed it until Susan

appeared. Then, looking at Tom, with her sweetest smile she asked, in

her quietest voice, "Why don't you like Henry?"

"Why, I don't mind Henry."

"Oh, come now, Tommy." She moved over to "her" chair under the yellow

lamp and, picking up the knitting immediately set the needles flying and

clicking over one another. "You know you can't bear him. He is a little

cut and dried--that's the trouble with him, I think--but then, as far as

I can make out, you people in the classics and literatures are just as

bad."

"Oh, Mrs. Norris."

"You are too. You are perfectly dreadful. Why, I can remember as well as

anything, old Professor Packard standing up before that fireplace and

saying, 'Helen,' says he, 'no gentleman is worthy the name who doesn't

know his Horace.' 'Stuff,' says I, 'that's utter nonsense. You might as

well say a gentlemen is not worthy of the name unless he knows his

French for "fiddle-dee-dee"----like the Red Queen,'" and still knitting

busily, she rocked with laughter.

Tom dropped into a chair beside her, threw one leg over the arm, and,

pipe in hand, gazed at her affectionately. She was about the age his own

mother would have been, he thought, in the immediate neighbourhood of

sixty. But his own mother, who he knew had become reconciled to the life

of Ephesus, could never have arrived at sixty with the imperious

disregard for convention that was so perfectly Mrs. Norris's. Upon her

face at present, as she looked down at her knitting, was a smiling

benignity that would have recommended itself to the Virgin at Chartres;

and at the same time her hair--what modest growth there was left--was

uncurling itself from behind and threatening to pull down the whole

structure after it. It was perfect, Tom told himself, and were he a

sculptor commissioned to make her bust, he would do her just like that.

"Nancy, I sometimes think, is the worst person in the world to look

after Henry. It's bad for her and bad for him. What he ought to do is to

go out and get another wife and leave Nancy alone to do as she pleases.

I have a good mind to take her with me to Athens next winter myself.

What with Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee taking her to California this

winter and my taking her to Athens next, Henry will have to get

married."

There had been rumours abroad lately that Henry had about arrived at the

same conclusion himself and that Mary Norris was receiving serious

consideration as a candidate, but there was nothing in Mrs. Norris's

manner that suggested a knowledge of it, and Tom correctly concluded

that it was just another of those idle rumours that live their luxurious

day in Faculty Row.

"Oh, my no," said Tom, "that wouldn't do at all. Why, another marriage

would completely upset Henry's System that he's always talking so much

about. It's almost certain she couldn't stand it, you know, and then

where would Henry be? Suppose, for example, that she forgot to have his

senna tea for him at night or didn't care about playing cribbage for

three-quarters of an hour after dinner? Now Nancy, apparently, gives

perfect satisfaction. She adores little Henry and she manages the house

so well that there isn't a single thing to bother big Henry. But they

say--"

"Stop it, Tommy. You've been listening again to that horrid old Mrs.

Conover. Her husband was a perfect old Scrooge, and now that she's rid

of him, poor dear, she feels that she's got to expand and make up for

lost time----" Her voice, which had become more and more drowsy, as if

bored with what it had to say, trailed off and died. Then, with renewed

interest, she exclaimed, "I wonder what they are going to do about

Poland?"

Tom had learned that an answer to these startling questions and comments

of Mrs. Norris was not required. There was no harm, however, in saying

the first thing that came into one's head, as in a psychological test,

and he accordingly now answered, "Paderewski."

"Yes," said Mrs. Norris quietly. Then brightening up: "How is your work

going, Tommy?"

"Why, it's going pretty well."

"They get rather difficult about this time of year, don't they?"

"They do! Oh my, I've had an awful time with them lately. I've muffed

Carlyle and Transcendentalism completely."

"Oh, no! Why that's Emerson and all those Concord people. Still, I

suppose Louisa Alcott is getting a little old-fashioned."

"You should have seen the set of papers I got back today. There it was,

all that I had given them, in great heavy undigested lumps--"

"Like footballs," suggested Mrs. Norris.

"Once I was funny with them," went on Tom, "and I may say that I was

properly punished. They put it all down in their notebooks and then

mixed it up with everything they shouldn't have mixed it up with--and I

shall never be funny again."

"I shall give you _at least_ two grains----"

"Then there are the young men who get off all the stale old facts and

expect an A. One of them came to me yesterday, when I had given him a C,

and whined around my desk until I finally told him I did not consider

his performance remarkable in a young man of eighteen, however much so

it might be in a poll parrot of the same age."

"Now that was wrong. Were there other boys around?"

"Yes."

"Well, you simply must not go do that kind of thing. They'll hate it."

"I know it was wrong, but I am rather amused by it. As a matter of fact,

I can stand anything but the ones who think they can fool me with a lot

of embroidery and gas. They're insulting----"

"Why, Tommy, you were doing the same thing yourself only three or four

years ago. You mustn't get so snufty so soon."

"Of course, at times when I've had a good recitation I wouldn't trade

places with anyone. It's a kind of ecstasy. It's like all sorts of

rushing, exciting things--like a high tide, or a close race, or a fire;

really it is. Then you go to the other extreme and you ask yourself what

on earth is the use of so futile a business, and what right has a young

man with anything to him whatever to waste his time with it. Better go

and make bird cages or hair nets or--or--hot water bags, and make some

money. When I feel that way I sometimes go out along the ridge, just at

dusk, you know, or into the woods--"

"You do? Why, I think that's awfully romantic of you; like

Chateaubriand, you know." Then, dreamily, "He used to go out and lean on

a pedestal and let the moon shine down on him through the trees. I

think Nancy is a little that way herself."

There was a pause, during which the young educator's difficulties were

brushed aside.

"Do you realize that I haven't seen Nancy since leaving college?"

"Why, that's strange."

"No: you see she had left for the west before college opened in the

fall, and I hadn't been back between then and the time I graduated. As a

matter of fact, the last time I saw her was in this house. It was the

night of our Senior Prom. I took Mary, you know, and Teddy Roberts took

Nancy, and when it was over we came in here and had a cooky contest in

the kitchen. Nancy could put a whole one of those gingersnaps you always

have into her mouth without breaking it."

"Oh dear. I'm afraid she has the Billings mouth."

"We then got to talking about growing moustaches, and Nancy bet Teddy

she could grow one before he could."

"How disgusting! That's what comes of all this emancipation. Marcus

Aurelius has a lot to say about it. I must look that up. Did she win?"

"As I remember it, she was in a fair way to, but the war came along, and

we left before it could be settled."

Mrs. Norris stopped knitting and looked at Tom with amused curiosity

through her tortoise-shell spectacles, which had slid rather farther

down her nose than usual. "I forget. Didn't you use to see a good deal

of Nancy at one time?" she asked.

"Only just here," he replied.

"Oh," said Mrs. Norris, and went on with her work.

At this point the Dean entered, dressed for dinner.

"Oh dear, I'm not ready at all," cried Mrs. Norris, jumping up; and her

knitting, worsted, and bag spilled out upon the floor. "Tommy, tell

Norah to put on a plate for you."

"I can't really, Mrs. Norris. This is Thursday night, you see, and I'm

going around to the Club." Then as his hostess disappeared up the

stairs, he hurried into his overcoat and, indulging in only a small

fraction of his usual recessional with the Dean, he was gone.

Outside, walking down the long driveway that led to Tutors' Lane, Tom

slowed his pace. Overhead, Betelgeuse was making the most of its recent

publicity, unobstructed by vagrant clouds. Tom gazed up at it with a

certain air of proprietorship. He had known Betelgeuse years ago and

personally had always preferred its neighbour Rigel, which had received

no publicity at all. As a small boy some one had given him a Handbook of

the Stars, with diagrams of the constellations on one page and chatty

notes about them opposite. He had lain on his back out in the fields,

with opera glasses to sweep the heavens and a flashlight to sweep the

diagrams until he had reconciled the two. This had been in the summer,

and although his observations had extended to the autumn stars, the

winter constellations had suffered. Still, he knew the great ones and,

weather permitting, he would gaze upon them and their neighbours with

awe, the greater, perhaps, for his unfamiliarity with their diagrams.

Tom occasionally gave parlour lessons in astronomy, and he had given one

to Nancy on the night of his Senior Prom, the night of the cooky

contest. He had looked out and seen that the summer stars were up, and

had spoken of it, to the boredom of Mary and Teddy Roberts. But Nancy

wanted Scorpio pointed out, and from Scorpio they naturally progressed

to the others until Nancy sneezed and the kitchen window had to be shut.

Then, as it was getting light anyway and the waffles were ready, they

stopped the lesson. Tom, however, with the true teacher's instinct, had

sent her a copy of his Handbook of the Stars, and at his Training Camp

he had received a note of thanks. It was the only note he had ever

received from her, and he found it remarkable. She had thanked him

without the barrage of gratitude usual among young ladies on such

occasions. There had been something masculine in the directness of it,

and yet there was no doubt that she had been pleased. In closing, she

looked forward to seeing him back at Woodbridge when the war was over.

There had been no fine writing about his Going to the Flag. Tom had been

impressed by the amount left unsaid, and he had saved the letter until,

in moving about, it had been lost. He was annoyed when he missed it, but

on second thought he wondered if it were not just as well. For, on

later inspection, it might not have proved so remarkable, after all.

Well, the war was now over, and he was back at Woodbridge. It would be

very pleasant indeed if she had gone ahead as she gave promise of doing;

and why in the world shouldn't she? When he was in college Nancy had

been admittedly the first of Woodbridge young ladies. To take her to a

dance was to have the ultimate in good times, there was no need to worry

about her getting "stuck," and in addition to the thrill of taking a

popular girl one could enjoy all the advantages of a stag. One could

flit from flower to flower until surfeited with beauty and then retire

for a smoke or other innocent diversion without the haunting fear that

possibly Dick or Bill was circling around and around in ever-deepening

gloom with one's elected for the night. Nancy had permanently impressed

herself upon the imagination of discerning Woodbridge youth, and it was

hardly extravagant that Tom should look forward to her return.

Let it, therefore, without further evasion, be stated at once that he

did look forward to her return.