The waiters had served the coffee and were retiring in long rows down
the sides of the big dining-hall. The rattle of knives and forks and the
noise of general and animated talk were subsiding, and the pleased,
expectant hush which always precedes the toasts, was falling upon the
assembly. At the lower end of the room, farthest from the
“distinguished-guest” table, the unimportant people began to turn their
chairs around toward the speakers and to say “’Sh!” and “Who’s that?” to
each other in subdued whispers, and the seniors grasped their sheepskins
less nervously and began to realize their importance and the fact that
they were no longer undergraduates but full-fledged alumnæ. And with the
realization came a curious disagreeable sensation and a queer tightening
in the throat, accompanied by a horrible inclination to shed tears over
the closed chapter of their lives. Then they fiercely thought how their
brothers act under similar circumstances, and wished they were men and
could give the class yell and drink champagne to stifle their feelings.
That being impossible they tasted a very mild decoction of coffee and
turned their troubled eyes to the far end of the room, and wished
ardently that the President would get on her feet and say something
funny to make them forget that this was the end, the last act of
politeness on the part of the faculty to them, that they were being
gracefully evicted, as it were, and could never be taken back upon the
same terms or under the same conditions.
It was the annual Commencement dinner to the retiring senior class, and
the senior class was, as usual, feeling collapsed and blank after the
excitement of Commencement week and the discovery that they were B.A.’s
or B.S.’s, and that the world was before them and there would be no more
faculties to set them going or haul them up, but that they would have to
depend on their own faculties in the future. There was the annual
foregathering of brilliant men and women whose presence was to be an
incentive to the newly fledged alumnæ, and the display of whose wit and
wisdom in after-dinner speeches was to be a last forcible impression of
intellectual vigor and acquirements left on their minds.
Suddenly the President arose. She stood there, graceful, perfectly at
ease, waiting for a moment of entire silence. Her sensitive, bloodless
face looked more animated than usual, her brown eyes quietly humorous.
It was a face eminently characteristic--indicative of the element of
popularity and adaptability in her nature that made her, just then, so
valuable to the college. When she spoke her voice carried a surprising
distance, notwithstanding its veiled, soft quality, so that those
farthest from her were able to catch and enjoy the witty, gnomic,
sarcastic manner of her speech.
What she said was taken down by the shorthand reporter smuggled in for
the occasion by the enterprising class-president and is enrolled in the
class-book, so it need not be recorded here; but when she had finished,
the editor of one of the foremost magazines in the country was smiling
and nodding his head appreciatively, and a man whose sermons are
listened to by thousands every Lord’s Day leaned over and made some
quick side remark to her and ran his hands in a pleased, interested way
through his long hair; and the young and already famous President of a
certain college said, on rising, that he felt very genuine trepidation
at attempting any remarks after that. He fully sustained his reputation,
however, of a brilliant talker, and was followed by the honorary member
of the juniors, whose post-prandial speeches have made him famous on
both sides of the water.
The room became absolutely quiet, save for the voice of the speaker, the
occasional burst of applause, and the appreciative murmur of the
listeners. Outside, the afternoon began to grow mellow, long shadows
thrown by the pointed turrets of the building lay across the green
campus, the ivy at the big windows waved to and fro slightly in the cool
breeze. Attention flagged; people began to tire of the clever, witty
responses to the toasts and to look about them a little.
At one of the tables reserved for the alumnæ, near the upper end of the
room, sat a girl dressed in deep mourning. Her face was very beautiful
and intelligent, with the intelligence that is more the result of
experience than of unusual mental ability. There were delicate, fine
lines about the mouth and eyes. She could not have been more than
twenty-four or five, but there was an air of firmness and decision about
her which contradicted her blond--almost frivolous--beauty and lent
dignity to the delicate figure.
After awhile she leaned back in her chair a trifle wearily and looked
about her curiously as if for changes. The general aspect of the place
remained the same, she decided, but there were a great many new
faces--new faces in the faculty, too, where one least likes to find
them. Here and there she saw an old acquaintance and smiled
perfunctorily, but, on the whole, there was no one present she cared
very much to see. She had just come to the conclusion that she was sorry
she had made the long journey to be present at the dinner when she
became conscious that someone was looking intently at her across the
room. She leaned forward eagerly and smiled naturally and cordially for
the first time. And then she sank back suddenly and blushed like a
school-girl and smiled again, but in a different way, as if at herself,
or at some thought that tickled her fancy. It certainly did strike her
as rather amusing and presuming for her to be smiling and bowing so
cordially to Professor Arbuthnot. She remembered very distinctly, in
what awe she had stood of that learned lady, and that in her
undergraduate days she had systematically avoided her, since she could
not avoid her examinations and their occasionally disastrous
consequences. She recalled very forcibly the masterly lectures, the
logical, profound, often original talks, which she had heard in her
lecture-room, though she had to acknowledge to herself reproachfully,
that the matter of them had entirely escaped her memory. She had been
one of a big majority who had always considered Professor Arbuthnot as a
very high type--perhaps the highest type the college afforded--of a
woman whose brains and attainments would make her remarkable in any
assembly of savants. In her presence she had always realized very keenly
her own superficiality, and she felt very much flattered that such a
woman should have remembered her and not a little abashed as she thought
of the entire renunciation of study she had made since leaving college.
She wondered what Professor Arbuthnot might be thinking about her--she
knew she was thinking about her, because the bright eyes opposite were
still fixed upon her with their piercing, not unkindly gaze. It occurred
to her at last, humorously, that perhaps the Professor was not
considering her at all, but some question in--thermo-electric currents
for instance.
But Miss Arbuthnot’s mind was not on thermo-electric currents; she was
saying to herself: “She is much more beautiful than when she was here,
and there is a new element of beauty in her face, too. I wonder where
she has been since, and why she is in mourning. She was unintelligent, I
remember. It’s a great pity--brains and that sort of beauty rarely ever
go together. Her name was Ellis--yes--Grace Ellis. I think I must see
her later.” And the Professor gave her another piercing smile and
settled herself to listen to a distinguished political economist--a
great friend of hers--speak.
The Political Economist got upon his feet slowly and with a certain
diffidence. He was a man who had made his way, self-taught, from poverty
and ignorance to a professorship in one of the finest technical schools
of America.
There was a brusqueness in his manner, and the hard experiences of his
life had made him old. He spoke in a quiet, authoritative way. He
declared, with a rather heavy attempt at jocoseness, that his hearers
had had their sweets first, so to speak, and that they must now go back
and take a little solid, unpalpable nourishment; that he had never made
a witty or amusing remark in his life, and he did not propose to begin
and try then, and finally he hinted that the President had made a very
bad selection when she invited him to respond to the toast--“The Modern
Education of Woman.” As he warmed to his subject he became more gracious
and easy in manner. He spoke at length of the evolution of women’s
colleges, their methods, their advantages, their limitations; he
touched upon the salient points of difference between a man’s college
life and that of a girl; differences of character, of interests, of
methods of work. And then he went on:
“I believe in it--I believe firmly in the modern education of woman. It
is one of the things of most vital interest to me; but my enthusiasm
does not blind me. There are phases of it which I do not indorse. I
object to many of its results. The most obvious bad result is the
exaggerated importance which the very phrase has assumed.” He smiled
plaintively around upon the company. “Are we to have nothing but woman’s
education--_toujours l’éducation de la femme_? There is such eagerness
to get to college, such blind belief in what is to be learned there,
such a demand for a college education for women, that we are overwhelmed
by it. Every year these doors are closed upon hundreds of disappointed
women, who turn elsewhere, or relinquish the much-prized college
education. The day is not far distant when it will be a distinct
reproach to a woman that she is not college-bred.” He looked down
thoughtfully and intently and spoke more slowly.
“It is this phase of it which sometimes troubles me. Life is so rich in
experience for woman--so much richer and fuller for woman than for
[Illustration: THE POLITICAL ECONOMIST]
man--that I tremble at this violent reaction from nature to art. To-day
woman seems to forget that she must learn to live, not live to learn. At
the risk of being branded as ‘behind the times,’ of being considered
narrow, bigoted, old-fashioned, I must say that until woman re-discovers
that life is everything, that all she can learn here in a hundred times
the four years of her college course is but the least part of what life
and nature can teach her, until then I shall not be wholly satisfied
with the modern education of woman.”
When he ceased there was an awkward and significant silence, and the
editor looked over at him and smiled and shook his head reprovingly. And
then the President got up quickly and with a few graceful, apropos
remarks restored good-humor, and taking the arm of the distinguished
divine, led the way from the dining-hall to the reception-rooms, and
people jostled each other good-naturedly, and edged themselves between
chairs and tables to speak to acquaintances, and there was much laughter
and questioning and exclamations of surprise and delight, until finally
the long procession got itself outside the dining-hall into the big
corridors.
At the door Professor Arbuthnot caught sight of Miss Ellis again. She
beckoned to the girl, who came quickly toward her.
“I am tired and am going to my rooms for awhile, will you come?” The
girl blushed again with pleasure and some embarrassment.
“I should be delighted,” she said simply, and together they walked down
the broad hallway.
“It’s very good of you,” she broke in nervously, looking down at the
small, quiet figure beside hers--she was head and shoulders taller than
the Professor.
“Not at all,” declared Miss Arbuthnot, kindly. “I want to see you--it
has been a long while since you were a student here--four or five years
I should say--and you recall other faces and times.”
“It has been four years--I can hardly believe it,” said the girl,
softly. She wondered vaguely what on earth Miss Arbuthnot could wish to
see her for--she had been anything but a favorite with the faculty as a
student, but she felt very much flattered and very nervous at the
attention bestowed upon her.
When she reached Professor Arbuthnot’s rooms, the embarrassment she had
felt at being noticed by so distinguished a member of the faculty
visibly increased.
[Illustration: “IT HAS BEEN A LONG WHILE SINCE YOU WERE A STUDENT
HERE”]
The place was typical--the absence of all ornament and feminine
bric-à-brac--the long rows of book-shelves filled with the most advanced
works on natural sciences, the tables piled up with brochures and
scientific magazines, enveloped her in an atmosphere of profound
learning quite oppressive. She had never been in the room but once
before, and that was on a most inauspicious occasion--just after the
mid-year’s. She wondered uneasily, and yet with some amusement, if
Professor Arbuthnot remembered the circumstance. But that lady was not
thinking of the young girl. She was busy with her mail, which had just
been brought in, opening and folding up letter after letter in a quick,
methodical way.
“More work for me,” she said, smiling; “here is an invitation to deliver
six lectures on electro-optics.” The girl looked at her admiringly.
“Absolutely I’ve forgotten the very meaning of the words; and as for
lecturing!” she broke off with a little laugh. “Are you going to give
them?”
“Yes: it makes a great deal of work for me, but I never refuse such
invitations. Besides I shall be able to take these lectures almost
bodily from a little book I am getting out.” Professor Arbuthnot went
over to the desk and lifted up a pile of manuscript, and smiled
indulgently at the girl’s exclamation of awe.
“It isn’t much,” she went on. “Only some experiments I have been making
in the optical effects of powerful magnets. They turned out very
prettily. I have a good deal of hard work to do on the book yet. I shall
stay here a week or two longer, quite alone, and finish it all up.”
The girl touched the papers reverently.
“Here is a note I have just received from Professor ----” (Miss Arbuthnot
named one of the most distinguished authorities of the day on magnetism
and electricity). “I sent him some of the first proof-sheets, and he
says he’s delighted with them. We are great friends.”
The girl’s awe and admiration increased with every movement. She looked
at the small, slight woman whose intelligent, ugly face had an almost
child-like simplicity of expression, contrasting strangely enough with
the wrinkled, bloodless skin and piercing eyes. Her hair, which was
parted and brushed severely back, was thickly sprinkled with gray.
She gasped a little. “You actually know him--know Professor ----?”
Miss Arbuthnot laughed. “Oh, yes,” she said; “we often work together. We
get along famously; we are ‘sympathetic’ in our work, as the French
say.”
The girl swept her a mock courtesy.
“I feel too flattered for anything that you deign to speak to me,” she
said, laughing and bowing low.
Professor Arbuthnot looked pleased; she was far above conceit, but she
was not entirely impervious to such fresh, genuine admiration. She was
feeling particularly happy, too, over the results of her
experiments--particularly interested in her work.
“If you are so impressed by that,” she laughed, “I shall have to tell
you something even more wonderful still. I have just received an
honorary degree from ---- College. It was quite unexpected, and I must
say I am extremely pleased. It is very agreeable to know that one’s work
is appreciated when one has given one’s life to it.”
It seemed to the girl, with these evidences of success appealing to her,
that a life could not be more nobly spent than in such work. She went
slowly around the room after that, looking at a great many interesting
things. At books with priceless autographs on their title-pages, and
photographs of famous scientists, and diagrams of electrical apparatus,
and editions in pamphlet form of articles by Professor Arbuthnot,
published originally in scientific journals.
The girl suddenly felt sick and ashamed of herself. It struck her very
forcibly just how little she knew, and how she had neglected her
opportunities.
“What an awful ignoramus I am!” she burst out at length. “I don’t know
what these mean; I have only the vaguest idea what these men have done.
How different you are! Your life has had a high aim and you have
attained it. While I----!” she stopped with a scornful gesture. “If it
were not for Julian I believe I would come back here and start over!”
Miss Arbuthnot looked at her critically. She admired the girl’s beauty
tremendously--it was her one weakness--this love of beauty. She never
looked at herself in a mirror oftener than necessary.
“Ah! Julian; who is Julian?”
The girl blushed again--she had a pretty way of flushing quickly.
“Julian?--why he’s my husband. I forgot to tell you that I married my
cousin, Julian Ellis, as soon as I left college.”
“Really!” Miss Arbuthnot came over and sat down on the divan beside the
girl. “You look so young,” she said, rather wistfully. “And you have
been married four years?”
The girl nodded. “It seems much longer,” she said. “I have had--a great
deal of trouble.”
“Tell me about it,” said the older woman kindly. But the girl was much
embarrassed at the idea of talking of her own little affairs to
Professor Arbuthnot.
“I am afraid it would only bore you,” she said, hurriedly. “Your
interests--you are interested in so many----”
But Miss Arbuthnot was firm. “Let me hear,” she insisted.
“I’m sure I hardly know what there is to tell,” the girl began
nervously. “My father was much opposed to my marrying Julian. He did not
wish me to leave college; and he did not believe in cousins marrying. He
said that if we did he would disinherit me--you know he is rich. But
Julian and I were in love with each other, and so of course we got
married.” She stopped suddenly and drawing off her glove looked at her
wedding-ring. Professor Arbuthnot watched her curiously. The girl’s
simple statement--“and of course we got married” struck her forcibly.
She wondered what it would feel like to be swayed by an emotion so
powerful that a father’s commands and the loss of a fortune would have
absolutely no influence upon it. She could not remember ever having felt
anything like that.
“Julian was awfully poor and I of course had nothing more, and so we
went to Texas--Julian had an opening there,” she went on. “It was
awfully lonely--we lived ten miles from the nearest town--and you know
what a Texas town is.” Miss Arbuthnot shook her head. She had never been
west of Ohio.
The girl gave a little in-drawn gasp. “Well, it’s worse than anything
you can conceive of. I think one has to live in one of them and then
move away and have ten miles of dead level prairie land between you and
it to know just what loneliness is. But we were so happy, _so_ happy at
first--until Julian was taken ill.” She leaned back against the couch
and clasped her hands around her knees.
“It was awful--I can’t tell you,” she went on in a broken voice. “But
you know what unspeakable agony it is to see what you love best on earth
ill and suffering, and you nearly powerless to do a thing. And how I
loved him! I never knew until then what he was--how much of my life he
had become. You must know what agony I went through?” she looked
interrogatively, beseechingly at the woman beside her.
Miss Arbuthnot looked away. “I am not sure--I--I was never in love,” she
said uncertainly. A curious wave of jealousy swept over her that she who
had been such a student, whose whole life had been a study, should have
somehow missed experiences that this girl had lived through already. The
girl shook her head softly, pityingly, as if she could hardly believe
her.
“I shall never forget it, and that night,” she went on, closing her eyes
faintly. “I thought he was dying. I had to have a doctor, but I was
afraid to leave him. I remember how everything flashed through my mind.
It was a decision for life or death. If I left him I knew I might never
see him alive again, and yet if I did not----” She opened her eyes wide
and clasped and unclasped her hands. “It was the most horrible moment of
my life.”
“My poor child!” Miss Arbuthnot put her hand timidly on the girl’s arm.
She suddenly felt absurdly inexperienced in her presence.
“I got Ivan’s saddle on him--I don’t know just how--and we started. It
was about two o’clock I remember. The prairie looked just like the sea,
at night--only more lonesome and quite silent. I was horribly
frightened. Even Ivan was frightened. He trembled all over--it’s a
terrible thing to see a horse tremble with fright.”
“Do you mean to say,” demanded Professor Arbuthnot, “that you rode
twenty miles in the dead of night, alone upon a Texas prairie?”
“Yes,” answered the girl mechanically. “It was for Julian,” she added as
if in entire explanation.
Miss Arbuthnot looked at her; she could not realize such wealth of
courage and devotion. She wondered with a sudden, hot shame whether she
would have dared it had she been in this girl’s place.
“I don’t think I ever prayed before--really _prayed_ you know,” she ran
on meditatively as if she had forgotten the Professor’s presence. “It
was dawn when we got back.” She stopped entirely and looked out through
the window onto the cool green campus. Miss Arbuthnot scarcely dared
move. There was something so intimate, almost sacred in the girl’s
revelations.
“Did he live?” she inquired softly at length.
The girl turned her face toward her. An almost illuminated look had come
into it.
“Yes--the doctor saved his life, but he said if I had been two hours
later----!”
“_You_ saved his life!” Professor Arbuthnot got up and walked to the
window. She could not quite take it all in. The girl appeared entirely
different to her. She was looking at a woman who had saved the life of
the man she loved.
“And then--” the girl gave a little laugh--“I fainted--wasn’t it
ridiculous? I _am_ such an idiot. It makes me ashamed to think of it
now--when there was so much to be done--and for me to faint!” She gave
an impatient little shake of the head.
“I am sure you never did anything so silly as to faint!” She glanced
admiringly at Professor Arbuthnot.
“I don’t think I ever experienced any emotion sufficiently strong to
make me.” Miss Arbuthnot spoke so grimly that the girl jumped up
hurriedly.
“I’m awfully afraid I am boring you and keeping you from your work----”
She gave a glance at the manuscript upon the desk. “I’m sure you are
wanting to get at it, and think me very troublesome to tell you all this
about myself.”
Professor Arbuthnot looked at her a moment.
“Sit down!” she said imperiously. “I am learning more than if I were
working on the physical principles of the nebular theory!”
The girl gave a gay, puzzled little laugh.
“Are you making fun of me? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Miss Arbuthnot waved her remark away impatiently.
“And after you had recovered from your fainting spell, what happened?”
“Oh--I helped the doctor and we pulled Julian through together somehow.
And then I went to work. He was ill all winter--something had to be
done--I sing fairly well----”
“I remember now,” broke in Miss Arbuthnot. “You used to sing at College
Vespers. I liked your voice.”
The girl gave a gasp of pleasure. She felt immensely flattered that
Professor Arbuthnot had liked to hear her sing.
“Thank you,” she said feelingly. “I got a position in a church choir and
I went into town three days in the week and gave lessons. I made four
hundred dollars that winter.” She broke off with a little laugh. “I
don’t think I ever felt so good in all my life as when I counted up and
found that I had really made four hundred dollars for Julian! I never
understood before why poor people want to get married--it’s for the fun
of working for each other I think. It’s the most satisfying sensation I
know of.” She glanced up at the woman beside the window. Miss Arbuthnot
nodded absently. She was thinking of her safe investments--she had
accumulated a good deal of money during her long years of teaching and
her people had all been well off and she had never given a cent to
anyone except in presents and trifling remembrances and organized
charitable work. A strange desire grew upon her to share her life with
someone. She looked with troubled eyes at the girl who had suddenly made
her work and her life dissatisfying to her.
“I don’t understand”--she murmured--“and didn’t you ever regret--regret
your wealth and social position?--the other life you had known?”
“I think it’s my turn not to understand,” said the girl slowly with a
puzzled look. “You mean did I regret marrying Julian?”
Miss Arbuthnot nodded. An angry little flush mounted to the girl’s
cheek, and then, as if the mere thought was too amusing to be taken
seriously:
“Regret marrying Julian? O! Professor Arbuthnot--and then there was
little Julian, you know. He was the dearest, the sweetest--wait, I have
his picture.” She pulled at a little silk cord about her neck and drew
forth a small miniature case. In it, painted on porcelain, was the head
of a child with the blond beauty of its mother. As the girl looked at it
her eyes filled with tears and she bent over it sobbing and kissing it
passionately.
“That is all I have to regret,” she said. “He was two years old when he
died--that was almost a year ago. I couldn’t tell you what he was like.
I think he was the brightest, prettiest, sweetest boy in the world. You
ought to have seen his hands and feet--all dimples and soft pinkiness
and milky whiteness--and his eyes and long lashes----!” she stopped
breathlessly.
Professor Arbuthnot looked at her wonderingly. She went over to her and
looked down at the crushed figure.
“You have loved and loved again and lost. You have been a mother and
your child is dead,” she said slowly. “I would sympathize with you if I
knew how.”
The girl caught her hand.
“How kind you are! I never speak of this--I hardly know how I came to do
so with you. I am sure I must have wearied you.” She put the locket back
and began to draw on her gloves again slowly.
Professor Arbuthnot said nothing. In the last hour she had had glimpses
of a life and a love
[Illustration: “HOW KIND YOU ARE”]
she had never known, and the revelation silenced her. She had sometimes
reproached herself that the studious calm, the entire absorption of her
life in her work had been exaggerated, and as she looked at the slight
figure in its black gown, at the pale face with its sombred, youthful
beauty, the conviction was borne in upon her, by this little breath from
the outside world, by the life of this girl as told by her, that the
insularity of her existence had been a mistake. A sudden intense
dissatisfaction and impatience with her life took hold upon her.
The girl rose to go. She stood there hesitating, embarrassed, as if she
wished to ask something, and rather dreaded doing so.
“I--I shall have a great deal of time this winter,” she hazarded,
twisting the ring of her fan slowly round and round her finger, “and I
am going to study--indeed I am!” She glanced up quickly, as if afraid
Professor Arbuthnot might be smiling. “I know you think it foolish for
me to try, but you don’t know how you’ve inspired me this afternoon!”
She went on enthusiastically. “You and everything here make me realize
intensely how little I know, and I am going to begin and really learn
something. You don’t know how much obliged I’d be if you would tell me
a little how to begin--what to start on--something easy, adapted for
weak intellects!”
She looked up smiling and with heightened color at Professor Arbuthnot.
She still stood in so much awe of her and was so afraid of being laughed
at!
But that lady was not laughing at all. She looked preternaturally grave.
“It seems to me,” she said slowly, “that you and the natural sciences
can get along admirably without each other. Why, child, you have lived!”
she cried with sudden vehemence. She went over and shook her gently by
the shoulder. “You are twenty-four and I am fifty! In four years you
have crowded into your life more than I shall ever learn!”
The girl looked at her wonderingly, puzzled.
“Have you forgotten so soon what we heard this afternoon--that ‘life is
everything, that all that you can learn in a hundred times the four
years of your college course is but the least part of what life and
nature can teach you?’” She pushed the girl toward the door.
“When you are tired of living come back to me.”
She stood and watched the girl, with the mystified, half-hurt look on
her face, disappear down the corridor. When she had quite gone she went
in and stood at the window for a long, long while looking out at the
deepening shadows, and then she seated herself grimly at her desk and
wrote to her publishers that they would have to delay the appearance of
her book, as she felt she needed a vacation and would have to give up
work on it for awhile.