The boy standing on the board in front of the wagon, the reins in his
hands, looked back, "Who?" he called.
"Miss Holloway!" shouted Lawson.
"She was; she's gone; went this morning."
For one moment Lawson sat speechless. He saw the dark vistas of the
wood, the desolate road, the bare trees and whirling leaves and thin
undergrowth. Then he felt he must speak, "When, did you say?" dully.
"This morning!"
"Did she expect to go?"
"Oh, yes! Whoa! whoa!" the horses hurrying for stable and supper, now
that they were set on the homeward way, were starting off. "Come on!"
"I don't believe I will," called Lawson after him, striving to collect
himself and not to seem the fool he felt himself to be. "I was going
down the country," he called, "and I thought I would stop and see her.
I'll go on," he bawled after the fast disappearing wagon, "as she's not
there."
It was a half hour later that, drawing rein in the deserted road--he had
been too proud and too stingingly hurt to turn short on his way--the
dusk of night settling over the country, an indescribable air of
dreariness with it, he suddenly remembered he had not asked where she
was gone.
She was not at home, he was sure of that, when he began to reason it
out, and he would not ask that wretched old negro again, he was sure of
that, also; though Susan, when he glimpsed her, was innocently friendly.
He would find out and he would wait. Meanwhile he settled down to grim
work at law and at football; practice was heavy again and the
Thanksgiving game was booked for Richmond. The University men would play
against the North Carolina boys from Wake-Forest.
He heard nothing but the games talked of everywhere. A special train was
to take the team and their friends down. The Beauty was going and many
other young women of the neighborhood. He learned it was one of the
events, social as well as athletic, of the year. Theatre parties were
being formed by those who would stay a day or two of the holidays there;
plans for sightseeing and drives and visits were being made; and Lawson,
in the current whether he wished it or not, heard yet no word of
Frances. Still the house looked blank and empty, still he saw the
professor coming and going with little company save the tall, fair young
fellow Susan had named to him.
Finally, coming along the corridor one day as he passed the professor's
house, Mr. Holloway hurried out.
The impulse was irresistible. Lawson doffed his cap, held out his hand.
The professor paused on his doorstep.
Lawson talked hurriedly of the weather, of college affairs; finally for
very desperate fear that the professor would go and his chance be lost,
he blurted "Miss Frances is away?"
"Yes!"
"You must miss her very much."
Her father smiled a little sadly, "I am not used to doing without her,"
he said whimsically.
"Where is she?" Lawson could hear the heavy throb of his heart when the
question had been put.
"In Richmond," the professor answered, as if it were quite a question
without special interest to any one. "Good-day!" he added as he looked
at his watch, "I'm due! Come and see me, some time!"
The professor had been touched by the anxious air of the man and set it
down to diffidence. He wished the students would not show that awe of
him. None of them knew how friendly he would like to be; but he was
studying, working, reading, dreaming, all the while. He dwelt in a world
of abstractions and carried the atmosphere with him. It was an alien
atmosphere and kept him apart.
"Richmond!" said the young man to himself. "Richmond!" he could have
shouted. His boot heels rang it in the pavement, his pulses throbbed it.
"Richmond," and they were going there to-morrow. He rushed to his room,
threw down his books, and began singing:--
"Gayly the Troubadour touched his guitar
As he was hastening home from the war,
Singing in search of thee fain would I roam,
Lady love, lady love--"
"Hello! What's the matter with you?" called some one through the door
he had forgotten to close tightly, "it's time for practice."
"I'm getting ready; come in and wait."
The man entered. They had not been receiving many invitations to
Lawson's rooms lately.
"What's the matter with you?" he repeated as he leaned against the
mantel. "Good news?"
"Sure!" cried Lawson, slipping his sweater over his head.
The young fellow leaning against the mantel, though he was clad in full
toggery of padded trousers and sweater and socks showing the University
colors gaudily, was yet no comparison for Lawson, and they both knew it.
Lawson was far and away the best-looking man on the eleven. The very
garb served to show his fine physique and animal beauty, and with this
look of flushed pleasure and full life--
"Come on," growled the visitor; "you've primped enough!"
"Primped! You saw me, didn't you?"
"Well, you've got your clothes on; come on!"
Lawson ran his arm through his visitor's arm and they went singing
across the quadrangle--
"Hark 'twas the Troubadour, breathing her name:
Under the battlement softly he came;
Singing 'from Palestine, hither I come;
Lady love, lady love, welcome me home.'"