Near Old Chapel he used to linger on the way from recitations, buying
things from old black Jimmie and pretending to be amused by his
stuttering conversation while he watched the passers-by. And when The
One came along for whom he waited, he said to himself, "Oh, he's
wearing his brown shooting-coat to-day," and turned and gazed after
him until out of sight, wondering what lecture he had at that hour and
how he would get along at it. Then passing on slowly across the campus
he turned out upon the street.
When he reached his room, Darnell said to another freshman that lived
in the house, "I saw Lawrence to-day. He was walking with his arm
around Nolan. He passed right by me." And he could also have told just
how he nodded to the fellows along the walk and how he swung his legs.
Darnell thought that Lawrence's gait was just right. So was his manner
of dressing. Somehow Darnell could not make his corduroy coat hang in
that way. It lay back all right, but it would not stay snugly up on
his shoulders as Lawrence's did.
He used to see him quite often now, for by this time he had learned at
what hours Lawrence's lectures came. Which was more than the senior
himself knew, for he had always to look at the schedule tacked up on
the back of the door over the faculty and absence committee summonses.
Darnell remembered the first time he saw Lawrence. It was on the
morning of the first day of the term, while he was sitting in the
office of the old Nassau Hotel, quietly waiting for his mother and
trying not to appear green and thinking that everyone who came in was
a sophomore and wanted him. It was raining, he remembered, and people
came scurrying in with their trousers turned up and mackintoshes on.
Lawrence came in alone.
He came with his impressive stride and a very long paddock coat and a
new kind of shooting-cap which he brought back with him from
Piccadilly the first of the month. He frowned and glanced about the
room. And when he found the two faces he was looking for and strode
across to where a worried-faced gentleman in a silk hat was reading
the paper beside a freshman with a grinning face, he said, holding
out his hand, "So you have arrived." It was just the patrician tone
of voice that Darnell had expected when he saw the face.
When Lawrence stretched out his hand his long coat fell open and
disclosed an orange monogram of many closely intertwined letters
shining against the black of his undercoat. It was worked upon the
breast-pocket, and the freshman wondered what that mysterious insignia
might mean.
He watched him as he jerked his head and blew smoke in the damp air.
The way he tossed the ashes away was perfect. And when Lawrence
suddenly turned and, looking frankly in the freshman's father's eyes,
said with a reserved smile, "You need not worry about that, Mr.
Jansen," and stretched an arm about the freshman's shoulder, Darnell
thought he would rather be that freshman than anyone in the
world--except the owner of the arm.
Then he began to speak again, and Darnell found himself leaning
forward a little. He remembered thinking, "I don't care if it is
impolite to listen."
Lawrence said in a rapid manner, without opening his teeth very wide,
"The team? We brought them down from the island last evening. Sea air
is a good tonic to begin a season's training with, and they are all
in excellent shape. Billy, you must bring your father down to the
field to see my big brown babies." Darnell remembered every word,
though he did not understand quite what it meant at the time.
Soon after getting settled he took pains to pick up an acquaintance
with this freshman. That was the time he first found out that the
senior was one of the Lawrences. The freshman said, "Yes, he's a
mighty fine fellow. He played on his class eleven in his freshman
year." But that was all Jansen said. He did not enthuse as he should
have. He had no more than the ordinary fear and reverence of a
freshman for a senior. There was a man on the team named Stehman. He
was the one this freshman turned and gazed after on the campus.
But now Darnell knew more about him than Jansen did. From the last
year's "Bric-a-brac" he had learned the senior's club and what
committees he was on, and the book opened up now, of its own accord,
to the picture of the Glee Club. He could have told you Lawrence's
middle name and his street and number at home, and his campus address
as well. Whenever the freshman went to night session of Hall he looked
up as he went by to see if the room in West were lighted, and he
wondered what he was doing up there behind those curtains. Once,
while passing by, some one was calling "Hello-o-o, Harry Lawrence!"
and in Lawrence's own voice came a muffled "Hello! Come up." It did
not seem quite right for them to be noisy and familiar with Lawrence
as with ordinary fellows. He did not understand how Lawrence allowed
it.
* * * * *
In Jansen's room it was, and Old North was ringing curfew, when
Lawrence shook his hand and said in his peculiar throaty voice, "Glad
to know you," or else "Glad to meet you." He never could be certain
which it was. It was on a Tuesday evening, and he had made a poor
recitation in algebra that day. He noticed that Lawrence was only
about an inch taller than himself.
Darnell looked straight back at him and said, "I think I have heard my
sister speak of you, Mr. Lawrence. She met you down here at the
sophomore reception last June." His voice was perfectly firm and
strong, but his mouth persisted in drooping a little at the corners.
He could not help that.
Lawrence said, "Yes, I remember very well," which delighted the
freshman's sister Louise, when Darnell wrote to her about it, just as
much as if it had been true. "Is your sister coming down to any of
the dances this year?" added the senior.
"No, I don't believe she is. My aunt brought a whole crowd down that
time. Mamma was on the other side, or she would not have allowed it.
Louise is not out yet." Then he dropped his big brown eyes and blushed
because he felt that he was talking too much and because he had said
"mamma" before the senior.
But Lawrence was only looking grave and interested and well-bred, and
he replied, "I see. That's too bad. I wish she could come."
"Yes," said Darnell, "I wish she could come," and then, although he
did not want to, he arose to go, because he thought that Lawrence
wished to talk confidentially with his freshman, Jansen.
Lawrence, who did not care about his going, because he found it as
easy to talk to two freshmen as to one, said, "I hope I'm not driving
you out, Bonnell. Good-night. If your sister should decide to come
down this year, don't forget to let me have a chance at her card
before it's filled. Good-night, Bonnell."
"Oh, I won't," said the freshman. "Good-night."
As if he could forget. As if he would be allowed to forget, indeed!
She, dear little thing, in her own becoming little way, worshipped
him, too. And at Mrs. Somebody's School in Somethingtieth Street, she
used to slip an arm about the waist of her latest everlasting friend,
and whisper something about it on the way upstairs after prayers.
During her evening's acquaintance with him in June she had told the
great, dark, wonderful man that had "a whole tragedy in his face," "a
certain indefinable something" in his manner, and many other things,
too, no doubt, that she had a brother who was coming to college the
next fall, and she asked Lawrence in a very timid, pretty, natural
manner if he would please look out for her brother, who would be a
freshman and only sixteen years old. And Lawrence, who was watching
the way she held her head and approving of it, said, "Of course I
will," and forgot about it during the next dance, which was with a
Newark girl, who asked him how the Sunday night hot-liquor club was
prospering. That was last June.
To be sure Lawrence did not get his name just right, but then many
people did not come that near when they first heard it. Besides, what
of that? Had he not looked at him and addressed him twice? That was
more than most freshmen could say.
But it hurt a little the next day, when Darnell changed his mind
about going to the library because he saw that if he kept on up the
walk he would meet Lawrence coming toward Dickinson's with three other
seniors. For he received only an absent-minded glance without the
movement of an eyelash. But you could not expect Lawrence to remember
all the people he met. And, perhaps, he was worshipped all the more
for it.
On Sunday he used to gaze with his big brown eyes from his seat in the
freshman section way over through the juniors and past some of the
seniors, back to Lawrence's place. Sometimes a big head of football
hair was in the way, so that he could not tell whether he was there.
He was absent so frequently. But when they all arose to sing the first
hymn, then he could see, and then he would recall what the football
column in the paper he had been reading before chapel reported that
"President Lawrence" had done or said, and he wondered whether he
himself had read it and how it felt to see one's own words in type.
He seldom joined in the singing, Darnell noticed, unless it was "Ein
Feste Burg" or "Lead, Kindly Light," and though he could not tell why,
Darnell admired him all the more for his not singing every time. At
any rate, it was just like him to stand there with his hands in his
pockets and his aristocratic head thrown back and look dark and grave
and mysterious. He always looked especially so, Darnell thought, in
chapel. His mien seemed to be haughty and kingly, not merely dignified
and exclusive like that of many upper-classmen. Lawrence when a
freshman could never have been hazed or guyed. He could not imagine
him stooping to haze anyone either.
Lawrence could do anything. Anyone could see that from his eyes and
chin and the straight, firm mouth with the thin lips. Darnell knew
very well that Lawrence could stand high in his class if he wanted to.
Probably he could play football. He was built well enough. Darnell
thought it would not be quite Lawrence's style to play football. He
would hate to see him tackled or rolling in the mud. That would never
do for him. Lawrence, he thought, would not have played on the team if
he were asked. Darnell had been a Princeton man less than a month.
But he had what was far better than playing on the team--the
management of it. And he was just right as he was. He was a dignified,
weighty senior, respected by all and feared by many, no doubt, and a
man, not a boy, who had travelled much and lived much and had had all
sorts of experiences in his younger days. He was old now, nearly
twenty-two.
But the most wonderful thing about him was his composure and his
commanding reserve. He had the look of the gentleman. His manner
seemed altogether impervious to excitement. He was master of every
situation. To have such a man in their classes must have been rather
embarrassing to the professors. Darnell supposed that the other
Lawrences were rather afraid of him when he came home.
His perfect command of himself and of everyone and of everything about
him was what most impressed the freshman. That was the reason that
when his idol fell, it jarred him.
* * * * *
On Thanksgiving evening his head was throbbing and his ears ringing
with the echo of horns and cheers, and before his eyes were flashing
little kodak recollections of how the line looked when the ball was
put in play, and how the crowd waved and yelled when the full-back
tried for a goal. But there was a lot of aunts and cousins and
things-in-law for dinner, whom he had to kiss and smile at when they
said, "How you have grown!" He wanted to get near some class-mate and
put his arm about him and talk it all over, like any other healthy
young man after the game. And, as early as he decently could, he
slipped on his big new coat and stole out by the basement door.
He walked down the avenue to Madison Square, getting jostled and
excited once more. Noisy gangs of fours and eights and dozens were
marching and dancing along the street. Some wore orange, others blue.
Some were students at various colleges, most of them had never seen
one.
He went into the Hoffman. Closely packed streams of men were crowding
in and out. The air was hot and there was a confused din of many
voices. He worked his way to the end of the glaring room, but saw none
of his intimates and but few fellows that he had ever seen before.
Most of the crowd were of the sort he had seen on the street, young
men of the town with college ribbons all over them, and such
boisterous noises grated on him, so he started out again. Some hoarse
cheering and husky laughter made him turn and look toward the corner
where the throng was thickest. Then he hurriedly pushed his way
through the crowd to gain a nearer view of what he saw upon the table.
He tried to persuade himself that it was someone else. He did not
understand how he could be among people of this sort.
But there was no mistaking that mouth, though he had never seen the
hair hanging down that way, nor the eyes as they were now. About the
neck was the rim of a hat.
Suddenly two other fellows brushed past Darnell. He looked up and
thought he remembered having seen their faces on the campus. They
seemed to be excited, and they wedged their way roughly through the
crowd to the table. "Leave him alone," one of them was calling out
above the din. Brushing aside some slight interference, they picked up
the heap from the table, half carried it through the crowd, saying, as
they went along, "You're all right, Harry. Brace up, Harry, you're all
right," and paying no attention to the crowd, they hurried across the
room to the Twenty-fourth Street entrance and disappeared.
For a moment the freshman only stared at a long, tall clock and
wondered. Then he suddenly turned and hurried out into the street.
It was no affair of his. The others were there. They were the ones to
take care of him. But the electric light had given him one glimpse,
and for the moment it was very revolting. He turned and walked slowly
home.
He tried to reason himself out of it. It was nothing to feel so queer
over. It was not such a terrible thing, after all, especially after
having the game turn out as it did. Most every young man was
indiscreet at some time or other. Lawrence was a young man like many
others, only he happened to have been indiscreet under unfortunate
circumstances. That was all. It seemed worse than it really was.
But he did not want Lawrence to be like others. That was just the
point. If it had been someone else he would not have cared. But for
Harry Lawrence, Lawrence the superb, his Lawrence, there in that
glaring place--jeered at and made a fool of--by that mob of muckers.
It was all wrong.
"Well," he said to himself, as he went upstairs to his room, "I
suppose I'm too much of a kid, and I'll have to get over my kid ways
of looking at things. The sooner the better."
But all the same, it hurt, and when he was dropping off to sleep, he
was startled into wakefulness again by one of those queer, sudden
pangs which make one ask, "What is it I've lost?"