When he had returned to the college after the summer, he came to his
first call on Jean Story with a confident enthusiasm, eager for the
first look in her eyes. He had not corresponded with her during the
summer. He had not even asked for permission to write, confident though
he was that her consent would now be given. He was resolved, as a
penance for his first blunder, to hold himself in reserve on every
occasion. Bob had written the news, always pressing him to take two
weeks off for a visit to the camp, but Dink, despite the tugging at his
heart, had stuck to Regan, perhaps a little secretly pleased to show his
earnestness.
Now, as he came swinging impatiently toward the glowing white columns
under the elms, he realized all at once what was the moving influence in
his struggle for growth and independence.
"Here is the horny-handed son of toil," he said, holding out his hand
with a laugh.
She took it, turning over the firm palm with a little curiosity, and
looked at him sharply, aware of a great change--they were no longer boy
and girl. The vacation had made of the impetuous Dink Stover she had
known a new personality that was strange and a little intimidating.
He did not understand at all the sudden dropping of her look, nor the
uneasy turning away, nor the quick constraint that came. He was hurt
with a sudden sharp sting that he had never known before and the ache
of unreasoning jealousy at the bare thought of what might have happened
during the summer.
"I'm awfully glad to see you," she said, but the words sounded formal.
He followed her into the parlor puzzled, irritated by something he did
not understand, something that lay underneath everything she said, and
seemed to interpose itself as a barrier between them and the old open
feeling of camaraderie.
"Mother will be so glad to see you," she said, after a little moment of
awkwardness. "I must call her."
This maneuver completed his bewilderment, which increased when, Mrs.
Story joining them, suddenly the Jean Story of old returned with the
same cordiality and the same enthusiasm. She asked a hundred questions,
leading him on until he was launched into an account of his summer
experiences, the little bits of real life that had brought home to him
the seriousness of the world that waited outside.
He spoke not as the Stover of sophomore year, filled with the enthusiasm
of discovery, but with a maturer mind, which had begun to reflect and to
reason upon what had come into his knowledge.
Mrs. Story, sunk in the old high-backed arm-chair near the fire,
followed him, too, aware also of the change in the boy, wondering what
lay in the mind of her daughter, camped at her knee on the hearth rug,
listening so intently and yet clinging to her as though for instinctive
protection.
Stover spoke only of outward things; the thoughts that lay beneath, that
would have come out so eagerly before the girl, did not appear in the
presence of another. As he understood nothing of this sudden
introduction of a third into the old confidential relationship, he
decided to be more formal than the girl, and rose while still his
audience's attention was held by his account.
"It's been awfully jolly to see you again," he said with a perfect
manner to Mrs. Stover.
"But you're going to stay to dinner," she said, with a little smile.
"Awfully sorry, but I've got a dozen things to do," he said, in the same
careful, matter-of-fact tone. "Bob sent word he'd come later."
Jean Story had not urged him. He went to her with mechanical cheeriness,
saying:
"Good-by. You're looking splendidly."
She did not answer, being in one of her silent moods. Mrs. Story went
with him towards the door, with a few practical housekeeping questions
on the ménage that had just begun. As they were in the ante-room, Jim
Hunter entered and, greeting them, passed into the salon.
Stover, deaf to anything else, heard her greeting:
"Why, Jim, I _am_ glad to see you."
Mrs. Story was asking him a question, but he did not hear it. He heard
only the echoes of what seemed to him the joy in her laugh.
"If you need any rugs let me know," said Mrs. Story in patient
repetition.
"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "Yes--yes, of course."
She looked at him with a little maternal pity, knowing the pang that had
gone through him, and for a moment a word was on her lips to enlighten
him. But she judged it wiser to be silent, and said:
"Come in for dinner to-morrow night, surely."
This invitation fitted at once into Stover's scheme of mislogic. He saw
in it a mark of compassion, and of compassion for what reason? Plainly,
Jean was interested in some one else, perhaps engaged. In ten minutes,
to his own lugubrious satisfaction, he had convinced himself it was no
other than Jim Hunter. But a short, inquisitive talk with Joe
Hungerford, who magnanimously appeared stupidly unconscious of the real
motives, reassured him on this point. So, after the hot tempest of
jealousy, he began to feel a little resentment at her new, illogical
attitude of defensive formality.
Gradually, as he gave no sign of unbending from his own assumption of
strict politeness, she began to change, but so gradually that it was not
for weeks that he perceived that the old intimate relations had
returned. This little interval, however, had brought to him a new
understanding. With her he had lost the old impulsiveness. He began to
reason and analyze, to think of cause and effect in their relationship.
As a consequence the initiative and the authority that had formerly been
with her came to him. All at once he perceived, to his utter surprise,
what she had felt immediately on his return: that he was the stronger,
and that the old, blind, boyish adoration for the girl, who was
companion to the stars, had steadied into the responsible and guiding
love of a man.
This new supremacy brought with it several differences of opinion. When
the question of the football captaincy had come up he did not tell her
of his decision, afraid of the ambition he knew was strong in her for
his career.
When he saw her the next night, Bob had already brought the news and the
reason. She received him with great distance, and for the first time
showed a little cruelty in her complete ignoring of his presence.
"You are angry at me," he said, when finally he had succeeded in finding
her alone.
"Yes, I am," she said point blank. "Why didn't you tell me what you
were planning?"
"I didn't dare," he said frankly. "You wouldn't have approved."
"Of course I wouldn't. It was ridiculous. Why shouldn't you be the
captain?"
"There were reasons," he said seriously. "I should not have had a united
team back of me--oh, I know it."
"Absurd," she said with some heat. "You should have gone out and made
them follow you. Really, it's too absurd, renouncing everything. Here's
the Junior Prom; every one says you would have led the class if you'd
have stood for it."
"Yes, and it's just because a lot of fellows thought they knew my whole
game of democracy that I wouldn't stand for it."
She grew quite angry. He had never seen her so stirred.
"Stuff and nonsense. What do you care for their opinion? You should be
captain and chairman of the Prom, but you renounce everything--you seem
to delight in it. It's too absurd; it's ridiculous. It's like Don
Quixote riding around."
He was hurt at this, and his face showed it.
"It's something to be able to refuse what others are grabbing for," he
said shortly. "But all you seem to care for is the name."
The flash that was in his eyes surprised her, and the sudden stern note
in his voice that she had never heard before brought her to a quick
realization of how she must have wounded him. Her manner changed. She
became very gentle, and before he went she said hurriedly:
"Forgive me. You were right, and I was very petty."
But though he had shown his independence of her ambitions for him, and
gained thereby, at heart he had a foolish longing, a senseless dream of
winning out on Tap Day--just for the estimation he knew she held of that
honor. And, wishing this ardently, he was influenced by it. There were
questions about the senior societies that he had not put to himself
honestly, as he had in the case of the sophomore. He knew they were way
back in his mind, claiming to be met, but, thinking of Jean, he said to
himself evasively again and again:
"Suppose there are bad features. I've done enough to show my nerve. No
one can question that!"
With the passing of the winter, and the return to college in the
pleasant month of April, the final, all-absorbing Tap Day loomed over
them only six weeks away. It was not a particularly agreeable period.
The contending ambitions were too keen, too conflicting, for the
maintenance of the old spirit of comradeship. The groups again defined
themselves, and the "lame ducks," in the hopes of being noticed,
assiduously cultivated the society of what are called "the big men."
One afternoon in the first week in April, as Dink was returning from the
gymnasium, he was suddenly called to from the street. Chris Schley and
Troutman, in a two-seated rig, were hallooing:
"Hello there, Dink."
"Come for a ride."
"Jump in--join us."
The two had never been of his intimates, belonging to a New York crowd,
who were spoken of for Keys. He hesitated, but as he was free he
considered:
"What's the game?"
"We're out for a spin towards the shore. Tommy Bain and Stone were
going but had to drop out. Come along. We might get a shore supper, and
toddle back by moonlight."
"I've got to be here by seven," said Dink doubtfully.
"Oh, well, come on; we'll make it just a drive."
"Fine."
He sprang into the front seat, and they started off in the young,
tingling air. Troutman, at the reins, was decidedly unfamiliar with
their uses, and, at a fervent plea from Schley, Stover assumed control.
Since freshman year the three had been seldom thrown together. He
remembered Troutman then as a rather overgrown puppy type, and Schley as
a nuisance and a hanger-on. He scanned them now, pleasantly surprised at
their transformation. They had come into a clean-cut type, affable,
alert, and if there was small mark of character, there was an abundance
of good-humor, liveliness, and sociability.
"Well, Dink, old chap," said Troutman, as he passed along quieter ways,
"the fatal day approaches."
"It does."
"A lot of seniors are out buying nice brand-new derbies to wear for our
benefit."
"I'll bet they're scrapping like cats and dogs," said Schley.
"They say last year the Bones list wasn't agreed upon until five minutes
before five."
"The Bones crowd always fight," said Schley, from the point of view of
the opposite camp. "I say, Dink, did you ever think of heeling Keys?"
"No, I'm not a good enough jollier up for that crowd."
"They say this year Keys is going to shut down on the sporting life and
swipe some of the Bones type."
"Really?" said Stover, in disbelief.
"Sure thing; Tommy Bain has switched."
"I heard he was packer," said Stover, not particularly depressed. In the
college the rumor had always been that the Keys crowd had what was
termed a packer in the junior class, who helped them to pledge some of
their selections before Tap Day.
"Sure he is," said Troutman, with conviction.
"Wish he'd stuck to Bones," said Schley. "Yours truly would feel more
hopeful."
"Why, you fellows are sure," said Stover to be polite.
"The deuce we are!"
Schley, tiring of the conversation, was amusing himself from the back
seat by well-simulated starts of surprise and a sudden snatching off of
his hat to different passers-by, exclaiming:
"Why, how _do_ you do. I remember meeting you before."
He did it well, communicated his good spirits to the pedestrians, who
took his banter good-naturedly.
All at once his mischievous eye perceived two girls of a rather
noticeable type. Instantly he was on his feet, with an exaggerated sweep
of his hat, exclaiming:
"Ladies, accept my carriage, my prancing horses, my groom and my
footman."
The girls, bursting into laughter, waved to him.
"Yes, it's a lovely day," continued Schley, in imitation of McNab.
"Mother's gone to the country, aunty's visiting us now, Uncle John's
coming to-morrow--he'll be sober then. Too bad, girls, you're going the
other way, and such lovely weather. Won't you take a ride? What? Oh, do
now. Here, I say, Dink--whoa there! They're coming."
"Rats," said Troutman, glancing uneasily up the street.
"Sure they are. Whoa! Hold up. We'll give 'em a little ride, just for a
lark. What's the diff?"
He was down, hat off, with exaggerated Chesterfield politeness, going to
their coming.
"Do you mind?" said Troutman to Stover. "Schley's a crazy ass to do this
just now."
"I wouldn't take them far," said Stover, who did not particularly care.
He had no facility for bantering of this sort, but it rather amused him
to listen to Schley. He saw that while they were of an obvious type one
was insipid, and the other rather pretty, dark with Irish black eyes.
"Ladies, I wish to make you acquainted with my friends," said Schley, as
he might speak to a duchess. "The ill-favored gent with the vermilion
hair is the Reverend Doctor Balmfinder; the one with the padded
shoulders is Binks, my trainer. Now what is this little girl's name?"
"Muriel," said the blonde, "Muriel Stacey."
"Of course, I might have known it. And yours of course is Maude, isn't
it?"
"My name is Fanny Le Roy," said the brunette with a little pride.
"Dear me, what a beautiful name," said Schley. "Now girls, we'll take
you for a little ride, but we can't take you very far for our mammas
don't know we're out, and you must promise to be very good and get out
when we tell you, and not ask for candy! Do we promise?"
Schley sat on the rear seat, chatting along, a girl on either side of
him, while Troutman, facing about, added his badinage. It was not
excruciatingly witty, and yet at times Stover, occupied with the
driving, could not help bursting into a laugh at the sheer nonsense. It
interested him as a spectator; it was a side of life he knew little of,
for, his nature being sentimental, he was a little afraid of such women.
"What's our real names?" said Troutman in reply to a demand. "Do you
really want to know? We'll send them to you. Of course we've met before.
In New York, wasn't it, at the junior cotillion?"
"Sure I saw this fellow at the Hari-gori's ball," said Fanny, appealing
to her companion.
"Sure you did."
"If you say so, all right," said Troutman, winking at Schley. "Fanny,
you have beautiful eyes. Course you don't know it."
"You two are great jolliers, aren't you?" said Fanny, receiving the
slap-stick compliment with pleasure.
"They think we're easy," said Muriel, with a look at Schley.
"I think the fellow that's driving is the best of the lot," said Fanny,
with the usual method of attack.
"Wow," said Troutman.
"Come on back," said Schley, "we don't count."
Stover laughed and drove on. The party had now passed the point of
interest. He had no desire for a chance meeting that would require
explanations, but he volunteered no advice, not caring to appear prudish
in the company of such men of the world.
They were in the open country, the outskirts of New Haven just left
behind. For some time Fanny Le Roy had been silent, pressing her hand
against her side, frowning. All at once a cry was wrung from her. The
carriage stopped. All turned in alarm to where the girl, her teeth
compressed, clutching at her side, was lying back against the seat,
writhing in agony.
Troutman swore under his breath.
"A devil of a mess!"
They descended hurriedly and laid the girl on the grass, where her agony
continued increasingly. Schley and Troutman were whispering apart. The
other girl, hysterically bending over her companion, mopped her face
with a useless handkerchief, crying:
"She's got a fit; she's got a fit!"
"I say it's appendicitis or gripes," said Troutman, coming over to
Stover. His face was colorless, and he spoke the words nervously. "The
deuce of a fix Chris has got us into!"
"Come, we've got to get her back," said Stover, realizing the gravity of
the situation. He went abruptly to the girl and spoke with quick
authority. "Now stop crying; I want you to get hold of yourself. Here
Schley, lend a hand; you and Troutman get her back into the carriage. Do
it quickly."
"What are you going to do?" said Troutman, under his breath.
"Drive her to a doctor, of course."
"Couldn't we go and fetch a doctor here?"
"No, we couldn't!"
With some difficulty they got the suffering girl into the carriage and
started back. No one spoke; the banter had given place to a few muttered
words that broke the moaning, delirious tones of the stricken girl.
"Going to drive into New Haven this way?" said Troutman, for the second
time under his breath.
"Sure."
"Hell!"
They came to the city streets, and Stover drove on hastily, seeking
from right to left for a doctor. All at once he drew up at the curb,
flung the reins to Troutman, and rushed into a house where he had seen a
sign displayed--"Dr. Burke." He was back almost immediately with the
doctor at his heels.
"I say, Dink, look here," said Schley, plucking him aside, as the doctor
hurriedly examined the girl. "This is a deuce of a mess."
"You bet it is," said Stover, thinking of the sufferer.
"I say, if this gets out it'll be a nasty business."
"What do you mean?"
"If we're seen driving back with--well, with this bunch!"
"What do you propose?" said Stover sharply.
Troutman joined them.
"See here, leave her with the doctor, I'll put up all the money that's
necessary, the doctor'll keep a close mouth! Man alive, you can't go
back this way!"
"Why not?"
"Good Lord, it'll queer us,--we'll never get over it."
"Think of the papers," said Schley, plucking at his glove.
"We can fix it up with the doctor."
At this moment Dr. Burke joined them, quiet, business-like, anxious.
"She has all the symptoms of a bad attack of appendicitis. There's only
one thing to do; get her to the hospital at once. I'll get my hat and
join you."
"Drive to--drive to the hospital?" said Troutman, with a gasp, "right
through the whole city, right in the face of every one?"
"Don't be a fool, Dink," said Schley nervously. "We'll fix up Burke;
we'll give him a hundred to take her and shut up."
Stover, too, saw the danger and the inevitable scandal. He saw, also,
that they were no longer men as he had thought. The thin veneer had
disappeared--they were boys, terrified, aghast at a crisis beyond their
strength.
"You're right, it would queer _you_," he said abruptly. "Clear out--both
of you."
"And you?"
"You're going to stay?" said Schley. Neither could face his eyes.
"Clear out, I tell you!"
When Burke came running down the steps he looked at Stover in surprise.
"Hello, where are your friends?"
"They had other engagements," said Dink grimly. "All ready."
"I've seen your face before," said Dr. Burke, climbing in.
"I'm Stover."
"Dink Stover of the eleven?"
"Yes, Dink Stover of the eleven," said Stover, his face hardening.
"Where do I drive?"
"Do you want to go quietly?" said Dr. Burke, with a look of sympathetic
understanding.
From behind the girl, writhing, began to moan:
"Oh, Doctor--Doctor--I can't stand it--I can't stand it."
"What's the quickest way?" said Stover.
"Chapel Street," said the doctor.
Stover turned the horses' heads into the thoroughfare, looking straight
ahead, aware soon of the men who saw him in the full light of the day,
driving through the streets of New Haven in such inexplicable company.
And suddenly at the first turn he came face to face with another
carriage in which were Jean Story and her mother.