Frances had her enthusiasms; so had Edward Montague, with the saving
difference that hers were for her amusement and his were concerning his
life-work. Still he found time for other things also. He accepted the
invitation to dinner promptly. The University was by no means a byway
homeward, but he found many an odd moment to spend there when he rode in
for his mail or for other affairs. He came the following Sunday and the
next, and made the round of Sabbath-school and church and mission and
late walk with the professor and his daughter.
Lawson, who had not seen Frances since the short drive she permitted
him, was loitering that last Sabbath afternoon before the doorway of a
student in the West Range--a monkish row of rooms fashioned as those on
the inner quadrangle are, but unbroken by the professors' houses and
facing westward; he was thinking nothing of what he was saying, and was
noting vaguely the fading lights of sunset on the far-away mountains,
and the bared branches of the trees tossing softly against the
opalescent sky; but he was conscious through and through of the missed
comradeship of the hour. He wondered if he dared go and ring the bell
and pay a call quite boldly, setting aside the fact that the day had
been debarred him. The more he dwelt on the bare chance of finding
Frances alone, on the thought of the joy it would be to strive skilfully
to slip again into the grooves of their delightful friendship, to fence
against the cold reserve she had once more placed as a barrier between
them, to see it melt, perhaps, against the strong personality he had
come to know as one of his factors in any fight, the more he wished to
try and see her; the very thought of it, the very remembrance that there
was a test of skill, too, in it, was urging him irresistibly.
"Good-by, old fellow!" he called shortly, turning suddenly away.
"Hold on!" called the student, who had some thought of accompanying
him. But when he had gotten his hat and coat, Lawson was striding far
down the corridor. At the end of it the road from the mountain of the
observatory curved into the wide drive through the grounds. Lawson
looking upward was angered unreasonably, violently, unbelievingly. He
left such moods to others, mostly. He turned instantly into the short
cut across the campus. He could not hurry enough even when outside the
grounds, but he must swing himself on the car clanging townward.
He left behind a gay, unconscious trio. The professor and Frances and
Edward Montague were walking briskly homeward, when they glimpsed him.
The professor's face, when interested, was strangely frank and boyish;
Lawson was used to seeing him look a trifle bored and a trifle more
absorbed. To see him, as he had done that one swift instant, alert,
wide-awake, to see a tall, fair, young man talking to him with careless
ease--the University men were always in awe of him--to see Frances
between them, laughing, rosy, her coat collar turned high about her
head, framing her bright face distractingly--the trio shut him out. They
were quite sufficient to themselves, or seemed so.
"You will come in, Edward," the professor said at the door.
The young man looked at the fading sunset lights of the sky and
hesitated. He thought of the ride before him and he thought of the empty
house awaiting him; he looked in at the cheer of the house showing
through the open door and at the young woman standing in the hall
listening for his answer. Her face neither invited nor forbade; he
followed the professor.
But the contrast he had drawn for a minute haunted him. He cared not a
whit for fine furnishings, scarce knowing them when he saw them, except
for the air of comfort and the atmosphere of home they might give; but
those two were requirements. He was too busied all the days and too
tired all the nights to think how they were now denied him, but while
he had no time to bemoan a loss, he had time for dreamings. The vision
of a sweet, frank face beset him oftener than he knew; he was building
castles taller than he thought and frailer than the castled clouds of
sunset beyond the mountains. This reality was charming.
"What's the use of going home, now?" the professor reassured him as they
went in to the fireside; "it would be dark when you got there. You
couldn't do anything; just have an evening all to yourself."
"And father wants to talk grapes to you," Frances added gayly; "he's
just gotten some pamphlets--"