BOOK II

_Sylvia Lingers_

§ 1

At the railroad station in Boston, on an afternoon in May, Sylvia

Castleman and Mrs. Tuis were arriving from New York. You must picture

Sylvia in a pale grey cloak, with a pale blue blouse; also a grey hat

with broad brim and “bluets” on top. You can imagine, perhaps, how her

colors shone from under it. She was meeting Frank for the first time in

eight months.

The host of the occasion was Cousin Harley Chilton, now also a student

at Harvard. It was mid-afternoon, and he had borrowed a motor-car to

show her something of Cambridge. Their bags were sent to their hotel in

the city, and Frank took his place by Sylvia’s side. They had to talk

about commonplaces, but he could feel her delight and eagerness like an

electric radiance. As they flew over the long bridge, he wrapped a robe

about her. What a thrill went through him as he touched her! “Oh, I’m so

happy! so happy!” she exclaimed, her eyes shining into his. He had given

her a new name in his letters, and he whispered it now into her ear:

“Lady Sunshine! Lady Sunshine!”

They came to a vista of dark stone buildings, buried in the foliage of

enormous elms. “Here are the grounds,” he said; and Sylvia cried, “Oh

Harley, go slowly. I want to see them.” Her cousin complied, and Frank

began pointing out the various buildings by name.

But suddenly the car drew in by the curb and stopped. Harley leaned

forward, remarking, “Spark-plug loose, I think.”

Now the sparking seemed to be all right, so far as Frank could judge,

but he did not know very much about automobiles. In general he was a

guileless nature, and did not understand that this was the beginning of

Sylvia’s social career at Harvard. But Sylvia, who knew about

automobiles, and still more about human nature, saw two men strolling in

her direction, and now about twenty yards away—upper-classmen, clad in

white flannel trousers, blue coats, huge straw hats like baskets, and

ties knotted with that elaborately studied carelessness which means that

the wearer has spent fifteen minutes before the mirror prior to emerging

from his room.

Naturally Sylvia looked at them, for they were interesting figures; and

naturally they looked back, for Sylvia was an interesting figure too.

One could not hear, but could almost see them exclaiming: “By Jove! Who

is she?” They went by—almost, but not quite. They stopped, half turned

and stood hesitating.

Harley looked up from his spark-plugs, a frown of annoyance on his face.

He glanced toward the two men. “Hello, Harmon,” he said.

“Hello, Chilton,” was the reply. “Something wrong?”

“Yes,” said Harley. “Can’t make it out.”

The two approached, lifting their hats, the one who had spoken a trifle

in advance. “Can I help?” he asked, solicitously.

“I think I can manage it,” answered Harley; but the men did not move on.

“Whose car?” asked the one called Harmon.

“Bert Wilson’s,” said Harley. “I don’t know its tricks.”

The other’s eyes swept the car, and of course rested on Sylvia, who was

in the seat nearest the curb. That made an awkward moment—as he intended

it should. “Mr. Harmon,” said Harley, “let me present you to my cousin,

Miss Castleman.”

The man brightened instantly and made a bow. “I am delighted to meet

you, Miss Castleman,” he said, and introduced his companion. “You have

just arrived?” he inquired.

“Yes,” said Sylvia.

“But you’ve been here before?”

“Never befo-ah,” said Sylvia; whereupon he knew from what part of the

world she had come. There began an animated conversation—Harley and his

spark-plugs being forgotten entirely.

All this Frank watched, sitting back in his seat in silence. He knew

these men to be Seniors, high and mighty swells from the “Gold Coast;”

but he had never been introduced to them, and so he was technically as

much a stranger to them as if he had just arrived from the far South

himself. Sylvia, who was new to the social customs of Harvard, never

dreamed of this situation, and so left him to watch the comedy

undisturbed.

There came along a couple of Freshmen; classmates of Harley’s and

members of his set. He was buried in his labors, but they were not to be

put off. “What’s the matter, old man?” they asked; and when he answered,

“Don’t know,” they stood, and waited for him to find out, stealing

meantime fascinated glances at the vision in the car.

Next came two street-boys; and of course street-boys always stop and

stare when there is a car out of order. Then came an old gentleman, who

paused, smiling benevolently, as he might have paused to survey a

florist’s window. So there was Sylvia, quite by accident, and in perfect

innocence, holding a levee on the sidewalk, with two men whose ties

proclaimed them members of an ineffable and awe-inspiring “final” club

doing homage to her.

“My cousin’s a Freshman,” she was saying. “So I’ll have three years more

to come here.”

“Oh, but think of us!” exclaimed the basket-hats together. “We go out

next month!”

“Can’t you manage to fail in your exams?” she inquired. “Or is that

impossible at Harvard?” She looked from one to another, and in the laugh

that followed even the street-boys and the benevolent old gentleman

joined.

By that time the gathering was assuming the proportions of a scandal.

Men were coming from the “Yard” to see what was the matter.

“Hello, Frank Shirley,” called a voice. “Anybody hurt?” And Sylvia

answered in a low voice, “Yes, several.” She looked straight into

Harmon’s eyes, and she got his answer—that she had not spoken too

rashly.

The _séance_ came to a sudden end, because Harley realized that he was

subjecting club-men to an ordeal on the street. He straightened up from

his spark-plug. “I think she’s all right now,” he said—and to one of the

street-boys, “Crank her up, there.”

“Where are you stopping?” asked Harmon.

Harley named the hotel, but did not take the hint—which was presumptuous

in a Freshman.

“Good-bye, Miss Castleman,” said the Senior, wistfully; and the crowd

parted and the car went on.

After which Sylvia sank back in her seat and looked at Frank and

laughed. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she exclaimed, “what a woman can do with

her eyes!”

§ 2

They returned to the hotel, where there were engagements—a whole world

waiting to be conquered. But Sylvia delivered an ultimatum; she would

pay no attention to anyone until she had an hour alone with Frank. When

Aunt Varina had meekly left her, she first flew into Frank’s arms and

permitted him to kiss her; and then, seated decorously in a separate

chair, she proceeded to explain to him the mystery of her presence

there.

She had come to New York to buy clothes for herself and the rest of the

family; that much Frank had known. He had begged her to run up to

Cambridge, but the family had refused permission. Celeste was going to

have a house party, the baby had been having more convulsions—these were

only two of a dozen reasons why she must return. Frank had been

intending to go down to New York to see her—when suddenly had come a

telegram, saying that she would arrive the next afternoon.

“It was my scheme,” she said, “and I expect you to be proud of me when

you hear it. If you scold me about it, Frank——!” She said this with the

tone of voice that she used when it was necessary to disarm some one.

It was difficult for Frank to imagine himself objecting to any device

which had brought her there. “Go ahead, honey,” said he.

“It has to do with Harley,” she explained. “Mother sent me one of his

letters, telling about the terrible time he’s been having here. You see,

he’s scared to death for fear he won’t make the ‘Dickey’—or that he

won’t be among the earlier tens. So they were all upset, and they’ve

been scurrying round getting letters of introduction for him, moving

heaven and earth to get him in with the right people. I read his letter,

and then suddenly the thought flashed over me, ‘There’s my chance!’

Don’t you see?”

“No,” said Frank, and shook his head—“I don’t see at all.”

“Sometimes,” said the girl, “when I think about you, I get frightened,

because—if you knew how wicked I really am—! Well, anyhow, I sat down

and wrote to Harley that he was a goose, and that if he had sense enough

to get me to Harvard, he’d make the ‘Dickey,’ and one of the ‘final’

clubs as well. I told him to write Aunt Nannie at once; and sure enough,

just about the time they got Harley’s letter, there came a telegram

saying I might come!”

It was impossible for Frank not to laugh—if it were only because Sylvia

was so happy. “So,” he said, “you’ve come to be a social puller-in for

Harley!”

“Now, Frank, don’t be horrid! I saw it this way—and it’s obvious

arithmetic: If I do this, I’ll see Frank part of every day for a couple

of weeks; if I don’t, I’ll only see him for a day when he comes to New

York. There’s only one trouble—you must promise not to mind.”

“What is it?”

“We must not tell anybody that we’re engaged. If people knew that, I

couldn’t do much with them.”

“But I’ve told some people.”

“Whom?”

“Well, my room-mate.”

“He’s not a club man, so that won’t matter. It doesn’t really matter, if

we simply don’t announce it. You must promise not to mind, Frank—be

good, and let me have my fun in my foolish way, and you sit by and

smile, as you did in the car.”

Frank’s answer was that he expected to sit by and smile all his life; a

statement which led to a discussion between them, for Sylvia made

objection to his desire to shrink from the world, and declared that she

meant to fight for him, and manage him, and make something out of him.

When these discussions arose he would laugh, in his quiet, good-natured

way, and picture himself as a diplomat at St. James’, wearing

knee-breeches and winning new empires by means of the smiles of “Lady

Sunshine.” “But, you forget one thing,” he said—“that I came to Harvard

to learn something.”

“When you go out into the world,” propounded Sylvia, “you’ll realize

that the things one knows aren’t half so important as the people one

knows.”

Frank laughed. “That wouldn’t be such a bad motto for our Alma Mater,”

he said; then, thinking it over, “They might put it up as an

inscription, where Freshmen with social ambitions could learn it. A

motto for all college climbers—‘Not the things one knows, but the people

one knows!’”

Sylvia was looking at him, a trifle worried. “Frank,” she said, “suppose

you go through life finding fault with everything in that fashion?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “But I shall always fight a wrong when I see

one. Wait till you’ve been here a while, and you’ll see about this!”

“I ought to have come before,” she said; “I could have solved so many

problems for you. It’s the same everywhere in life—those who are out

rail at those who are in, but when you hear both sides, you see the

matter differently. I’ve a grudge against you, Frank—you misrepresented

things. You told me they had abolished the Fraternity system here, and I

didn’t know about the clubs, and so I permitted you to be a ‘goat.’”

“They call it a ‘rough-neck’ here,” he corrected.

“Well, a ‘rough-neck.’ Anyway, I let you take a back seat. And just as

if you didn’t have ability——”

“Ability!” Frank exclaimed. Then, checking himself, he went on gently to

explain the social system he had found at Harvard. In the Southern

colleges, ability and good breeding might still get a poor man

recognition. But the clubs here were run by a little group of Boston and

New York society men, who had been kept in a “set” from the day they

were born. They went to kindergarten together, to dancing school

together—their sisters had private sewing circles, instead of those at

church. They had their semi-private dormitories on Auburn Street—one

might come with a string of automobiles and a stud of polo ponies, but

he would find that his money would not rent one of those places unless

the crowd had given its O. K. They roomed apart, they ate and drank

apart, and the men in their own class never even met them.

Sylvia listened in bewilderment. “Surely, Frank,” she exclaimed, “there

must be some friendliness——”

He smiled. “Just as I said, honey—you’re judging by the South. We’ve

snobbery enough there, God knows—but some of us are kind-hearted. You

can’t imagine things up here—how cold and formal people are. They have

their millions of dollars and the social position this gives them; they

are jealous of those who have more and suspicious of those who have

less—and they’ve been that way for so long that every plain human

feeling is dead in them. Take a man like Douglas van Tuiver, for

example. You’ve heard of him, I suppose?”

“I’ve heard of the van Tuivers, of course.”

“Well, Douglas is our bright particular social star just now. He’s

inherited from three estates already—the Lord only knows how many tens

of millions in his own right. He’s gone the ‘Gold Coast’ crowd one

better—has his own private house here in Cambridge, and an apartment in

Boston also, I’m told. He entered society there at the same time that he

entered college; and he doesn’t think much of our social life—except the

little set he’d already met in Boston and New York. He’s stiff and

serious as a chief justice—self-conscious, condescending——”

“Do you know him?” asked Sylvia.

“I never met him, of course; but I see him all the time, because he’s in

some of my sections.”

“In some of your sections!” cried Sylvia. “And you never met him?”

The other laughed. “You see, honey,” he said, “how little you are able

to imagine life at Harvard! Douglas, my dear, has been yachting with

English peers; he has Scotch earls for ancestors, and an accent that he

has acquired in their honor. He sets more store by them, I suppose, than

he does by his old Knickerbocker ancestors, who left him several farms

between Fifth and Madison Avenues.”

“Is he a club man?” asked Sylvia.

“He lives to set the social standards for our clubs; a sort of _arbiter

elegantiarum_. It’s one of the sayings they attribute to him, that he

came to Harvard because American university life was in need of ‘tone.’”

“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Sylvia; and again, in a lower voice, “Oh, dear

me!” She pondered, and then with sudden interest inquired, “He’d be a

good man for Harley to meet, wouldn’t he?”

“None better,” smiled Frank, “if he wants to make the ‘Dickey.’”

“Then,” said Sylvia, “he’s the man I’d best go after.”

The other laughed. “All right, honey. But you’ll find him hard to

interest, I warn you. His career has all been planned—he’s to marry

Dorothy Cortlandt, who’ll bring him ten or twenty millions more.”

And Sylvia set her lips in a dangerous expression. “He can marry Dorothy

Cortlandt,” she said, “but not until I’ve got through with him!”

§ 3

That evening was reserved for a performance of the “Glee Club;” and just

before dinner Harley came in, bubbling over with delight, to say that

Harmon had called up and invited him to bring his cousin and share his

box.

And so behold Sylvia, clad in pale blue silk, with touches of gold

embroidery and a gold band across one shoulder, swimming like a new

planet into the ken of the watchers of these brilliantly lighted skies.

There were few acquaintances of “Bob” Harmon who did not come to the

door of the box to get a closer view of the phenomenon; while the

delighted cousin found himself besieged. Sedate upper-classmen put their

arms across his shoulders, tremendous club-men got him by the coat

sleeve in the lobby. “Let us in on that, Chilton!” “Now don’t be a hog,

old man!”—“You know me, Chilton!” Yes, Harley knew them all, and

calculated to keep knowing them for some time to come.

The next morning he came early, and took Sylvia for a drive, to lay

before her the whole situation, and coach her for the part she was to

play; for this was the enemy’s country, and there were many pitfalls to

be avoided.

It ought perhaps to be explained at the outset how it happened that Aunt

Nannie, whose time was spent in erecting monuments to Southern heroes,

had sent one of her sons to the headquarters of those who had slain

them. It had come about through the seductions of a young lady named

Edith Winthrop, whose father was building a railroad through half a

dozen of the Southern states. He had brought a private-train party upon

an inspection trip, and the Major and Harley, happening to be at the

capital, had met them at a luncheon given by the Governor. Everybody

knows, of course, that the Winthrops live in Boston; and everybody in

Boston knows of Mrs. Isabel Winthrop, that charming matron whose home

has been as the axle of the Hub for the past twenty years. At Cambridge

it was at first a scandal, and later a tradition, how the lovely lady

was strolling in the “Yard” one spring evening, and a group of Seniors

broke into the merry chorus of a popular musical-comedy air—

“Isabella, Isabella,

Is a queen of good society!

Isabella, Isabella,

Is the dandy queen of Spain!”

And now Harley had come to Cambridge to lay siege to the princess of

this line. They had invited him to tea, where he had felt himself an

obscure and humiliated Freshman. In his pride he had gone away, vowing

that he would not return until he had made the “Dickey,” and made it

without any social aid from the lady of his adoration. But, alas, Harley

had found this a task of undreamed-of difficulty. There were so many

Edith Winthrops in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and other centers of

good breeding; and there were so many obscure Freshmen trying to make

the “Dickey” in order to shine before them!

“You can’t imagine how it is, Sylvia,” he said. “They don’t know us

here—we’re nobodies. I’ve met all the Southern men who amount to

anything, but it’s Eastern men who run the worth-while clubs. And it’s

almost impossible to meet them—I’d be ashamed to tell you how I’ve had

to toady.”

“Harley!” exclaimed the girl.

“I’ll tell you the facts,” he answered—“you’ll have to face them—just as

I did.”

“But how could you stay?”

He laughed. “I stayed,” he said, “because I wanted Edith.”

He paused, then continued: “First I thought I’d try football; but you

see I haven’t weight enough—I only made the Freshman ‘scrub.’ I joined

the Shooting Club—and I certainly can shoot, you know; but that hasn’t

seemed to help very much. I went in for the Banjo Club, and I’ve worked

my fingers off, and I expect to make the Board, but I don’t think that

will be enough. You see, ability really doesn’t count at all.”

“That’s what Frank said,” remarked Sylvia, sympathetically. “What is it

that counts? Learning?”

“Rot—no!” exclaimed Harley.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s knowing the right people. But you can’t manage that here—it has to

be done before you get to college. The crowd doesn’t need you, they

don’t care what you think about them—and I tell you, they know how to

give you the cold shoulder!”

Sylvia was indignant in spite of herself. “You, a Castleman!” she

exclaimed. “Why, your ancestors were governors of this place while

theirs were tavern-keepers and blacksmiths!”

“I know,” said the other—“but it isn’t ancestors that count here—it’s

being on the ground and holding on to what you’ve got.”

“They’re all rich men, I suppose?”

“Perfectly rotten! You’re simply out of it from the start. I heard of a

man last year who spent fifty thousand dollars trying to make the

‘Dickey,’ and then only got in the seventh ten! You’ve no idea of the

lengths men go to; they pull every sort of wire, social and business and

financial and political—they bring on their fathers and brothers to help

them——”

“And their cousins,” said Sylvia, and brought the discussion to an end

with a laugh. “Now come, Harley,” she said, after a pause. “Let’s get

down to business. You want me to meet the right men, and to make them

aware of the existence of my Freshman cousin. Have you got a list of the

men? Or am I to know by their ties?”

Harley named and described several she would meet. Through them she

would, of course, meet others; she must feel her way step by step, being

guided by circumstances. There was another matter, which was delicate,

but must be broached. “I don’t want to seem like a cad,” said he, “but

you see, Frank Shirley isn’t a club man—he hasn’t tried to be—”

“I understand,” said Sylvia, with a smile.

“Of course, the fact that you come from his home town, that’s excuse

enough for his knowing you. But if you make it too conspicuous—that is—”

Harley stopped. “It’s all right, Harley,” smiled Sylvia; “you may be

sure that Frank Shirley has too much of a sense of humor to want to get

in our way.”

The other hesitated over the remark. It looked like deep water, and he

decided not to venture in. “It’s not only that,” he went on—“there’s

Frank’s crowd. They’re all outsiders, and one or two of them especially

are impossible.”

“In what way?”

“Well, there’s Jack Colton, Frank’s room-mate. He’s gone out of his way

to make himself obnoxious to everybody. He’s done it deliberately, and I

suppose he has his reasons for it. I only hope he has sense enough not

to want to ‘queer’ you.”

“What’s he done?”

“He’s a Western chap—from Wyoming, I think. Seems to have more money

than he knows how to spend decently. He insisted on smoking a pipe in

his Freshman year, and when they tried to haze him, he fought. He’s wild

as anything, they say—goes off on a spree every month or two—”

“How does Frank come to be rooming with such a man?” asked Sylvia, in

surprise.

“Met him traveling, I understand. They were in a train-wreck.”

“Oh, that’s the man! But Frank didn’t tell me he was wild.”

“Well,” said the other, “Frank would naturally stand up for him. I

suppose he’s trying to keep him straight.”

There was a silence. Then suddenly Sylvia asked, “Harley, did you ever

meet Douglas van Tuiver?”

“No!” replied Harley. “Why do you ask?”

“Nothing—only I heard of him, and I was thinking perhaps he’d be a good

man to help you.”

“Small doubt of that,” said the boy, with a laugh. “But it might be

difficult to meet him.”

“Why?”

“Well, he picks the people he meets. And he doesn’t come to public

affairs.”

“Stop and think a minute. Is there nobody who might know him?”

“Why—there’s Mrs. Winthrop.”

“He goes there?”

“They’re great chums, I understand. I could get her to invite you.”

But Sylvia, after a moment’s thought, shook her head. “No,” she said, “I

think I’ll let him take me to her.”

“By Jove!” laughed Harley. “That’s cool!” And then he asked, curiously,

“What makes you pick him out?”

“I don’t know,” said Sylvia. “I find myself thinking about him. You see,

I meet men like Mr. Harmon and the others last night—they’re all

obvious. I’ve known them by the dozen before, and I can always tell what

they’ll say. But this man sounds as if he might be different.

“Humph!” said Harley. “I wish you could get a chance! But I fear you’d

find him a difficult proposition. Girls must be forever throwing

themselves at his head—”

“Yes,” said Sylvia. “But I wouldn’t make that mistake.” Then, after a

pause, she added, “I think it might be good for him, too. I might make a

man of him!”

§ 4

There was a Senior named Thurlow, whom Sylvia had met at the “Glee Club”

affair, and who, after judicious approach through Harley and Aunt

Varina, had secured her promise to come to tea in his rooms. So she saw

one of the dormitories on Auburn Street, having such modern conveniences

as “buttons,” a squash court, and a white marble swimming pool—with a

lounging room at one end, and easy chairs from which to watch one’s

fellow mermen at play.

Thurlow showed her about his own apartments, equipped with that kind

of simplicity that is so notoriously expensive. He showed her his

tennis cups and rowing trophies, talking most interestingly about the

wonderful modern art, the pulling of an oar—in which there are no less

than seventy errors a man can commit in the “catch,” and a

hundred-and-seventy in the “stroke.” Thurlow, it appeared, must have

committed several in last year’s race, for he had snapped his oar, and

only saved the day by jumping overboard, being picked up in a state of

collapse, and reported as drowned in the first newspaper extras.

There came others of his set: Jackson, the coxswain of the crew, known

as “Little Billee,” a wizened up and drolly cynical personage; also

Bates, his room-mate, who was called “Tubby,” and was hard put to it

when the ladies asked him why, because he could not explain that he was

“a tub of guts.” The vats declared that he weighed two hundred and

twenty when he was in training for the fat man’s race; he had been

elected the official funny man of his class, and whenever he made a joke

he led off with a queer little cackle of high-pitched laughter, which

never failed to carry the company with him. There came Arlow Bynner, the

famous quarter-back, and Tom, his twin brother, so much like him that

when he had first come to college the Sophomores had dyed his hair.

There came Shackleford, millionaire man of fashion, who had been picked

for president of the new Senior Class, and who looked so immaculate that

Sylvia thought of magazine advertisements of leisure-class brands of

tobacco.

There were six men in the room, and only two women—of which one was Aunt

Varina, the chaperone. You can imagine that it was an ordeal for the

other woman! It is easy enough for a girl to make out when she is

looking at memorial inscriptions and historic elm trees, at smoking

outfits and rowing sculls; but it’s another matter to be cornered by six

fastidious upper-classmen, their looks saying plainer than words: “We’ve

been hearing about you, but we’re from Missouri—now bring out your bag

of tricks!”

Poor Sylvia—she began, as usual, by having a fright. She could think of

nothing to say to all these men. She chose this moment to recollect some

warnings which had been given by Harriet, before she left home, as to

the exactingness and blaséness of Northern college men; also some

half-ventured hints of her cousin, that possibly her arrows might be too

light in the shaft for the social heavyweights of this intellectual

center. She gazed from one to another in agony; she bit her tongue until

she tasted blood, scolding and exhorting herself like a football coach

driving a “scrub” team.

It was “Bob” Harmon whose coming saved her. The very sight of him

brought her inspiration. She had managed him, had she not? Where was the

man she had ever failed to manage? She recollected how she had looked at

him, and what she had said to him in the auto; there came suddenly the

trumpet-call in her soul, in the far deeps of her the trampling and

trembling, the fluttering of banners and murmuring of voices—signs of

the arrival of that rescuing host which came to her always in

emergencies, and constituted the miracle of Sylvia. Her friend Harriet

Atkinson, herself no dullard in company, would sit by and watch the

phenomenon in awe. “Sunny,” she would say, “I can see it coming! I can

see it beginning to bubble! The light comes into your eyes, and I

whisper to myself, ‘Now, now! She’s going to make a killing!’”

What is it—who can say? That awakening in the soul of man, that sense of

uplift, of new power arriving, of mastery conscious and exultant! To

some it is known as genius, and to others as God. To have possessed it

in some great crisis is to have made history; and most strange have been

the courses to which men have been lured by the dream of keeping it

continuously—to stand upon a pillar and be devoured by worms, to hide in

desert caves and lash one’s flesh to strips—or to wear tight stays and

high-heeled shoes, and venture into a den of Harvard club-men!

§ 5

Half an hour or so later, when they were passing tea and cake, the flame

of her fun burned less brightly for a few minutes, and she had time to

remember a purpose which was stored away in the back of her mind. All

her faculties now became centered upon it; and those who wish may follow

the winding serpent of her cunning.

She had been telling them about the negro boy who had bitten a piece out

of the baby. Thurlow remarked, “Yours must be an interesting part of the

world.”

“We love it,” she said. “But you wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’d miss too many things you are used to. Our college boys have no

such luxury as this.” She looked about her.

“You think this so very luxurious?”

“I do indeed. I’m not sure that I think it’s good taste for young

fellows.”

“But why not?”

“It gets you out of touch with life,” replied Sylvia, with charming

gravity. (“Don’t play too long on one string!” had been a maxim of Lady

Dee.) “I think it’s demoralizing. This place might be a sanatorium

instead of a dormitory—if only you had elevators to take the invalids

upstairs.”

Somebody remarked, “We have elevators in many of the dormitories.”

“Is that really so?” asked Sylvia. “I don’t see how you can go beyond

that—unless some of you take to having private houses.”

There was a laugh. “We’ve come to that, too,” said Bates.

“What?” cried the girl. “Surely not!”

“Douglas van Tuiver has a house,” replied Bates.

“Surely you are jesting!”

“No! I’ll show it to you, Miss Castleman.”

“Who is Douglas van Tuiver?”

The men glanced at one another. “Haven’t you ever heard of the van

Tuivers?” asked one.

“Who are they?” countered Sylvia, who never lied when she could avoid

it.

“They are one of our oldest families,” said Shackleford—who came from

New York. “Also one of the best known.”

“Well,” said Sylvia, duly rebuked, “you see how very provincial I am.”

“He’s a nephew of Mrs. Harold Cliveden,” ventured Harmon.

“Cliveden?” repeated Sylvia. “I think I’ve heard that name.” She kept a

straight face—though the lady was the reigning queen of Newport, and a

theme of the society gossip of all American newspapers. Then, not to

embarrass her friends by too great ignorance, she hurried on, “But you

surely don’t mean that this man has a house all to himself?”

“He has,” said Thurlow.

“He has more than that,” said Jackson. “He has a castle in Scotland.”

“I don’t mind castles so much. One can inherit them——”

“No, he bought this one.”

“Well, even so—castles are romantic and interesting. One might have a

dream of founding a family. But for a man to come to college and occupy

a whole house—what motive could he have but ostentation?”

No one answered—though she waited for an answer. At last, with a grave

face, she pronounced the judgment, “I would expect to find such a man a

degenerate.”

They were evidently shocked, but covered it by laughing. “Lord!” said

Bates, “I’d like to have van Tuiver hear that!”

“Probably it would be good for him,” replied Sylvia, coldly.

Everybody grinned. “Wish you’d tell him!” said the man.

“I’d be delighted.”

“Would you really?”

“Why certainly.”

“By Jove, I believe you’d do it!” declared Bates.

“But why shouldn’t I do it?”

“I don’t know. When people meet van Tuiver they sometimes lose their

nerve.”

“Is he so very terrible?”

“Well, he’s rather imposing.”

Then Sylvia took a new line. “Of course,” she said, hesitatingly, “I

wouldn’t want to be irreverent——”

“May I go and bring him here?” inquired Bates, eagerly.

To which she replied, “Perhaps one owes more deference to Royalty.

Shouldn’t you take me to him?”

“We’ll keep you on a throne of your own,” said Thurlow—“at least, while

you are here.” (It was quite as if he had been a Southern man.)

But Bates was not to be diverted from his idea. “Won’t you let me go and

get him?” he inquired.

“Does he visit in dormitories?”

“Really, Miss Castleman, I’m not joking. Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

“Why should I?”

“Because—we’d all like to see what would happen.”

“From what you say about him,” remarked Sylvia, “he sounds to me like a

bore. Or at any rate, a young man who is in need of chastening.”

“Exactly!” cried Bates. “And we’d like to see you attend to it!”

The time had come, Sylvia thought, to play upon a new string. She looked

about her with a slightly _distrait_ air. “Don’t you think,” she

inquired, “that we are giving him too large a portion of this charming

afternoon?”

The men appreciated the compliment; but the other theme still enticed

them. Said Jackson, “We can’t give up the idea of the chastening, Miss

Castleman.”

“Of course, if you are afraid of him—” added Bates, slyly.

There was a momentary flash in Sylvia’s eyes. But then she laughed—“You

can’t play a game like that on me!”

“We would _so_ like,” said Jackson, “to see van Tuiver get a drubbing!”

“Please, Miss Castleman!” added Harmon, “give him a drubbing!”

But the girl only held out her white-gloved hands. “Look at these,” she

said, “how pure and spotless!”

Said “Tubby”: “I hereby register a vow, I will never partake of food

again until you two have met!”

Sylvia rose, looking bored. “I’m going to run away,” she said, “if you

don’t find something interesting to talk about.” And strolling towards a

cabinet, “Mr. Thurlow, come and introduce me to this charming little

Billikin!”

§ 6

Sylvia had promised to go with Frank the next day to a luncheon in his

rooms. She found herself looking forward with relief to meeting his

“crowd.” “Oh, Frank,” she said, when they had set out together, “you’ve

no idea how glad I am to see you. I have such a craving for something

home-like. You can’t understand, perhaps——”

“Perhaps I can,” said Frank, smiling. “I can’t say that I’ve been in

Boston society, but I’ve been on the outskirts.”

“Frank,” she exclaimed, “you don’t ever worry about me, do you? Truly,

the more I see of other people, the more I love you. And all I want is

to be alone with you. I’m tired of the game. Everybody expects me to be

pert and saucy; and I can be it, you know——”

She stopped, and he smiled. “Yes, I know.”

“But since I’ve met you, I get sorry, sometimes even ashamed. You see

what you’ve done to me!”

“What in the world have you been doing?” he asked.

“Oh, some day I’ll tell you—don’t ask me now. It’s just that I’m tired

of society—I wasn’t cut out for the life.”

“Why, it was only a few days ago that you were talking about bringing me

out!”

“I know, Frank. I try to play the game, but deep down in my soul I hate

it. I’m successful now, but it’s the truth that in the beginning I never

took a step that I wasn’t driven. When I went into a ball-room, my teeth

would chatter with fright, and I’d want to hide in a corner. Aunt Nannie

would get hold of me, and take me into the dressing-room, and scold me

and stir me up. I can hear her now. ‘You! Sylvia Castleman, my niece, a

wallflower! Have you forgotten who you are?’ So then, of course, I’d

have to think of my ancestors and be worthy of them. She’d pinch my

cheeks until they were red, and wipe the wet corners of my eyes, and put

a fresh dab of powder on my nose, and stick in a strand of hair, and

twist a curl, and shift a bow of ribbon to the other shoulder—and then

out I’d go to be stared at.”

“You’ve got the job pretty well in hand by now,” smiled Frank.

“Yes, I know, but I don’t really like it—not with my real self. I’m

always thinking what fun it would be to be natural! I wonder what I’d

turn into! And whether you’d like me!”

“I’d take my chances.”

“Would you really, Frank? Just suppose I stopped dressing, for instance?

Suppose I never wore high heels and stiff collars? Suppose I dispensed

with my _modiste_, and you discovered that I had no figure.”

“I’d take my chances,” he laughed again.

“You look at me, and you like what you see. But you’ve no idea what a

work of art I am, nor how much I cost—thousands and thousands of

dollars! And so many people to watch me and scold me—so much work to be

done on me, day after day! Suppose my hair wasn’t curled, for instance!

Or suppose my nose were shiny!”

“I don’t mind shiny so much, Sylvia——”

“Ah! But if it was red! That’s what they’re always hammering into

me—whenever I forget my veil. Or look at these lovely soft hands of

mine—such beautiful nails. Do you realize that I have to keep them in

glycerine gloves all night—and ugh! how clammy and nasty they are when

it’s cold! And the time it takes to keep the nails polished!”

“You see,” she went on, after a pause, “you don’t take my wickedness

seriously. But you should ask Harriet Atkinson about some of the things

we’ve done. She’ll come and say, ‘There’s a new man coming to-night.

Teach me a “spiel”!’ She’ll tell me all about him, where he comes from

and what he likes, and I’ll tell her what to say and what to pretend to

be. And I’ve done it myself—hundreds of times.”

“Did you do it for me?” asked Frank, innocently.

Sylvia paused. “I tried to,” she said. “Sometimes I did, but then again

I couldn’t.” She put her hand upon his arm, and he felt a pressure,

thrilling him with a swift delight.

But they had come now to the dormitory, so her outburst had to end. She

took her hand from his arm, saying, “Frank, I don’t want you to kiss me

any more until we’re married. I’m going to stop doing everything that

makes me ashamed!”

§ 7

Behold now a new “Lady Sunshine,” in a clean white apron which her hosts

had provided for the occasion, stirring mushrooms in cream and

superintending stewed chicken, while Frank washed salad in the bathroom,

and Jack Colton was half way up to his elbows in mayonnaise. This was

the first time that Sylvia had met Frank’s room-mate, with whom she had

intended to be very stern, because of his “wildness.” Although she was

used to wild boys, and had helped to tame a number of them, she did not

approve of such qualities in a companion of her lover.

Jack, however, was a boy with what the Irish call “a way with him.” He

had curly brown hair and a winning countenance, and such a laugh that it

was not easy to disagree with him. Moreover a halo of romance hung about

him, owing to the fact that Frank had first met him after a railroad

wreck, sitting in the snow and holding in his lap a baby whose mother

had been killed. Jack had engaged a nurse and sent the child all the way

out to his own mother in Wyoming; and how could any girl object to a

friendship begun under such auspices? If his mother was indulgent and

sent him more pocket money than he could decently spend, might not one

regard that as the boy’s misfortune rather than his fault?

There was Dennis Dulanty, a fair-haired young Irishman who wrote poems,

and was Sylvia’s slave from the first moment she entered the room. There

was Tom Firmin, a heavily built man with a huge head made bigger by

thick, black hair. Firmin was working his way through college and had no

time for luncheon parties, but he had come this once to meet Sylvia. The

girl listened to him with some awe, because Frank had said he had the

best mind in the class. Finally there was Jack’s married sister, who

lived in Boston, and was chaperone.

There were four little tables with four chafing dishes, and two study

tables put together and covered with a spread of linen and silver. There

were strawberries which Dulanty had dropped upon the floor; there were

sandwiches which Tom Firmin had tried in vain to cut thin, and wine

about which Jack Colton talked far too wisely, for one so young. Jack

had been round the world, and had tasted the vintage of many countries,

and told such interesting adventures that one forgot one’s disapproval.

Sylvia found herself happy here, and decided that Frank’s crowd was far

more interesting than Thurlow’s. All these men were outsiders, holding

themselves aloof from the social life of the University and resentful of

the conditions they had found there. After awhile it occurred to Sylvia

that it would be entertaining to hear what these men would have to say

upon a subject which had been occupying her mind; so, by a few deft

touches, she brought the conversation to a point where some one else was

moved to mention the name of Douglas van Tuiver.

Immediately she discovered that she had touched a live wire. There was

Tom Firmin, frowning under his thick black eyebrows. “For my part, I

have just one thing to say: a man who has any pretense at self-respect

cannot even know him.”

“Is he as bad as all that?” Sylvia asked.

“It’s not a question of personality—it’s a question of the amount of his

wealth.”

Sylvia would have appreciated this if it had been a jest. But apparently

the speaker was serious, and so she gazed at him in perplexity. “Is a

very rich man to have no friends?” she asked.

“Never fear,” laughed Jack, “there are plenty of tuft-hunters who will

keep him company.”

“But why should you sentence him to the company of tuft-hunters, just

because he happens to be born with a lot of money?”

“It isn’t I that sentence him,” said Firmin—“it’s the nature of things.”

“But,” exclaimed the girl, “I’ve had millionaires for friends—and I hope

I’m not the dreadful thing you say.”

The other smiled for the first time. “Frank Shirley insists that there

are angels upon earth,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, Miss Castleman,

I’d prefer to illustrate this argument by every-day mortals like myself.

I’m willing to admit, as a theoretical proposition, that there might be

a disinterested friendship between a poor man and a multimillionaire;

but only if the poor man is a Diogenes and stays in his tub. I mean, if

he has no business affairs of any sort, and takes no part in social

life; if he never lets the multimillionaire take him automobiling or

invite him to dinner; if he has no marriageable sisters, and the

multimillionaire has none either. But all these, you must admit, make a

difficult collection of circumstances.”

“Miss Castleman,” said Jack, “you can see why we call Tom Firmin our

Anarchist.”

But Sylvia was not to be diverted. She had never heard such ideas as

this, and she wanted to understand them. “You must think hardly of human

nature!” she objected.

“As I said before, it has nothing whatever to do with personality, it’s

the automatic effect of a huge sum of money. Take my own case, for

example—so I can talk brutally and not hurt anyone. I want to be a

lawyer, but meanwhile I have to earn my living. I love a girl, but I’ve

no hope of marrying, because I’m poor and she’s poor. If I struggle

along in the usual way, it’ll be five years—maybe ten years—before we

can marry. But here I am in college, and here’s Douglas van Tuiver; if

by any device of any sort I can manage to penetrate his consciousness—if

I can make him think me a wit or a scholar, a boon companion or a great

soul, the best halfback in college or an amusing old bull in the social

china shop—why, then right away things are easier for me. You’ve heard

what Thackeray said about walking down Piccadilly with a duke on each

arm? If I can walk across the Yard with Douglas van Tuiver, then a lot

of important men suddenly realize that I exist; the first thing you know

I make a club, and so when I come out of college I’m the chum of some of

the men who are running the country, and I have a salary of five

thousand a year at the start, and ten thousand in a year or two, a

hundred thousand before I’m forty, and a go at a rich marriage into the

bargain. Do you think there are many would-be lawyers to whom all that

would be no temptation? Let me tell you, it’s the temptation which has

turned many a man in this college into a boot-licker!”

“But, Mr. Firmin!” cried Sylvia, in dismay. “What is your idea? Would

you forbid rich men coming to college?”

To which the other replied, “I’d go much farther back than that, Miss

Castleman—I’d forbid rich men existing.”

Sylvia was genuinely shocked. She had never heard such words even in

jest, and she thought Tom Firmin a terrifying person. “You see,” laughed

Jack, “he really _is_ an Anarchist!” And Sylvia believed him, and

resolved to remonstrate with Frank about having such friends. But

nevertheless she went out from that breakfast party with something new

to think about in connection with Douglas van Tuiver—and with her mind

made up that Mr. “Tubby” Bates would have to die of starvation!

§ 8

That afternoon Sylvia was invited to one of the club teas. These were

very exclusive affairs, and Jackson, who asked her, mentioned that among

those who poured tea would be Mrs. Isabel Winthrop; also that Mrs.

Winthrop had expressed a particular desire to meet her.

This would mark a new stage in Sylvia’s campaign for her cousin; but

quite apart from that, she was curious to meet this _belle ideal_ of

Auburn Street. Sylvia had listened attentively to what the denizens of

the “Gold Coast” had to say about “Queen Isabella,” and had found

herself rather awe-stricken. When one spoke of a favorite hostess in the

South, one gave her credit for tact, for charm, perhaps even for

brilliance. But apparently Mrs. Winthrop was the possessor of a much

more difficult and perplexing attribute—a rare and lofty soul. She was a

woman of real intellect, they said—she had written a book upon theories

of æsthetics, and had taken a degree in philosophy at the older

Cambridge across the seas. Such things were quite unknown in Southern

society, where a girl was rather taught to hide her superfluous

education, for fear of scaring the men away.

So Sylvia found herself in a state of considerable apprehension. If it

had been a man, she would have taken her chances; when she had attended

Commencement at her State University, there were professors who would

call and talk about Assyrian bricks, and the relation between ions and

corpuscles—yet by listening closely, and putting in a deft touch now and

then to make them talk about themselves, Sylvia had managed to impress

them as an intellectual young lady. But now she had to deal with that

natural enemy of a woman—another woman. How was the ordeal to be faced?

Lady Dee had handed down the formula: “When in difficulty, look the

person in the eyes, and remember who you are.” This was the counsel

which came to Sylvia’s rescue at the moment of the dread encounter. She

knew Mrs. Winthrop as soon as she caught sight of her; she looked a

woman of thirty-five—instead of forty-five, which she really was—tall

and slender, undoubtedly beautiful, undoubtedly proud, and yet with a

kind of _naïve_ sincerity. They met in the dressing-room by accident,

and the lady, recognizing Sylvia, took her hand and gazed into her face;

and Sylvia gazed back, with those wide, clear eyes of hers, steadily,

unflinching, without a motion or a sound. At last Mrs. Winthrop, putting

her other hand upon the girl’s, clasped it and whispered intensely, “We

met a thousand years ago!”

Sylvia had no information as to any such event, and she had not expected

at all that kind of welcome. So she continued to gaze—steadily,

steadily. And the spell communicated itself to Mrs. Winthrop. “I heard

that you were lovely,” she murmured, in a strange, low voice, “but I

really had no idea! Sylvia Castleman, you are like a snow-storm of pear

blossoms! You are a Corot symphony of spring time!”

Now Sylvia had seen some of Corot’s paintings, but she had not learned

to mix the metaphors of the arts, and so she had no idea what Mrs.

Winthrop meant. She contented herself with saying something about the

pleasure she felt at this meeting.

But the other was not to be brought down to mundane speech. “Dryad!” she

murmured. She had a manner and voice all her own, sybilline, oracular;

you felt that she was speaking, not to you, but to some disembodied

spirit. It was very disconcerting at first.

“You bring back lost youth to the world,” she said. “I want to talk to

you, Sylvia—to find out more about you. You aren’t vain, I know. You are

proud!”

“Why—I’m not sure,” said Sylvia, at a loss for a moment.

“Oh, don’t be vain!” said the lady. “Remember—I was like you once.”

Which gave Sylvia an opportunity of the sort she understood. “I will

look forward,” she said, “to the prospect of being like you.”

The radiant lady pressed her hand. “Very pretty, my child,” she said.

“Quite Southern, too! But I must take you in and give the others some of

this joy.”

Such was the beginning of the acquaintance so utterly different from all

possible beginnings, as Sylvia had imagined them. She found in Edith

Winthrop, whom she met a few minutes later, a person much nearer to what

she had expected in the mother. Miss Edith had her mother’s beauty and

her mother’s pride, but no trace of her mother’s sybilline qualities. A

badly spoiled young lady, was Sylvia’s first verdict upon this New

England _belle_; a verdict which she delivered promptly to her

infatuated cousin, and which she never found occasion to revise.

The friendship thus begun progressed rapidly. Mrs. Winthrop asked if she

might call, and coming the next day, discovered in Aunt Varina the

perfect type of the Southern gentlewoman. So the three were soon

absorbed in talking genealogy. At Miss Abercrombie’s Sylvia had been

surprised to learn that it was bad form to talk about one’s ancestors;

but apparently it was still permissible in Boston—as it assuredly was in

the South.

Mrs. Winthrop invited Sylvia to a party she was giving; and when Sylvia

spoke of having to leave Boston, “Oh, stay,” said the great lady. “Come

and stay with me—always!” Finally Sylvia said that she would come to the

party.

“I’ll invite your cousin for the extra man,” said the other. “It is to

be a new kind of party—you know how desperately one has to struggle to

keep one’s guests from being bored. I got this idea from a Southern man,

so perhaps it’s an old story to you—a ‘Progressive Love’ party?”

“Oh, yes, we often have them,” replied Sylvia. She had not supposed that

these intellectual people would condescend to such play—having pictured

Boston society as occupied in translating Meredith and Henry James.

“People have to be amused the world over,” said Mrs. Winthrop. And when

Sylvia looked surprised to have her thought read, the other gave her a

long look, and smiled a deep smile. “Sylvia,” she propounded, “you and I

understand each other. We are made of exactly the same material.”

§ 9

There followed after this meeting a trying time for the girl. She went

to a theatre in the evening, and when she came back to the hotel she

found her aunt suffering acutely, with symptoms of appendicitis.

Although there was a doctor and a nurse, she spent the entire night and

half the next day by her aunt’s bedside. Sylvia’s love for her family

appeared at a time like this a sort of frenzy; she would have died a

thousand deaths to save them from suffering, and there was no getting

her to spare herself in any way.

Her sympathy for Aunt Varina was the greater, because this poor little

lady was so patient and unselfish. Whenever there was anything the

matter with her, she would make no trouble for anyone, but crawl away

and endure by herself. She was one of those devoted souls, of which

there is one to be found in every big family, who do not have a life of

their own, but are ground up daily, as it were, to make oil to keep the

great machine running smoothly. Sylvia, who had in herself the making of

such a family lubricant, was irresistibly drawn to this gentle soul in

distress.

All night she helped the nurse with hot “stoups;” and even when the

danger was passed she could not be persuaded to rest, but sat by the

bedside, applying various kinds of smelling salts and lavender water,

trying to be so cheerful that the patient would forget her pain. She

smoothed the white forehead, noticing as she did so how thin the gray

hairs were getting. She could look back to childhood days, when Aunt

Varina had been bright and young-looking—there were even pictures of her

as a girlish beauty; but now her neck was scrawny and her cheeks were

wan, and most of her hair lay upon her dressing-table.

The day passed, and then Sylvia was reminded that she had promised to go

to a college entertainment with Harley. She ought to have gone to bed,

but she did not like to disappoint her cousin, so she drank a cup or two

of strong coffee, and was ready for anything that might come along.

I used to say that I never knew a person who could _disappear_ so

rapidly as Sylvia; who could literally eat up the flesh off her bones by

nervous excitement. After a night and a day like this she was another

woman—that strange arresting creature who made men start when they saw

her, and set poets to dreaming about angels and stars. She wore a soft

white muslin dress and a hat with a white plume in it—not intending to

be ethereal, but because an instinct always guided her hand towards the

color that was right.

The entertainment being not very interesting, and the hall being close,

after an hour or so she asked her cousin to take her out. It was a

perfect night, and she drank in the soft breeze and strolled along,

happy to watch the lights through the trees and to hear singing in the

distance. But suddenly she discovered that she had lost a medallion

which she had worn about her neck. “We must find it!” she exclaimed.

“It’s the one with the picture of Aunt Lady!”

“Are you sure you had it?”

“I remember perfectly having it in the hall. We’ll find it if we’re

quick. Hurry! I can’t, with these heels on my shoes.” So Harley started

back, and Sylvia began to walk slowly, looking on the sidewalk.

Five or ten minutes passed thus; when, hearing steps behind her, she

glanced up, and saw a man attired in evening dress. There was a light

near by, shining into her face, and she saw that he looked at her; also,

with her woman’s intuition, she realized that he had been startled.

He stopped. “Have you lost something?” he asked, hesitatingly.

“Yes,” she said.

“Could I be of any help?”

“Thank you,” said Sylvia. “My cousin has gone back to look. He will be

here soon.”

That was all. Sylvia resumed her search. But the man’s way was the same

as hers, and he did not go as fast as before. She was really worried

about her loss, and barely thought of him. His voice was that of a

gentleman, so his nearness did not disturb her.

“Was it something valuable?” he asked, at last.

“It was a medallion with a picture that I prize.”

She stopped at a corner, uncertain of the street by which she and Harley

had come. He stopped also. “I would be very glad to help,” he said, “if

you would permit me.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I really think that my cousin will find it.

We had not come far.”

Again there was a pause. As she went on, he was near her, looking

diligently. After a while she began to find the silence awkward, but she

did not like to send him away, and she did not like to speak again. So

it was with real relief that, looking down the street, she saw Harley

coming. “There’s my cousin!” she said. “Oh, I _do_ hope he’s found it.”

“He doesn’t act as if he had,” remarked the other; and Sylvia’s heart

sank, for she saw that Harley walked slowly, and with his eyes on the

ground.

When he was near enough she asked, “You haven’t found it?”

“No,” he answered. “It’s gone, I fear.”

“Oh, too bad! too bad! What can we do?”

Harley had come near. Sylvia saw that he looked at the man she was with,

but there was no recognition between them. Evidently they did not know

each other. Then, without offering to stop, Harley passed them, saying,

“I’ll look back this way.”

“I don’t think that’s worth while,” said the girl. “I’ve searched

carefully there.”

“I’d better look,” replied the other, who had quickened his pace and was

already some distance off.

“But wait, Harley!” she called. She wanted to explain to him how

thoroughly she had searched; and, more important yet, she wanted to get

decently rid of the stranger.

But Harley went on, paying no attention to her. She called him again,

with some annoyance, but he did not stop, and in a moment more had

turned a corner. She was perplexed and angered by his conduct—more and

more so as she thought of it. How preposterous for him to brush past in

that fashion, and leave her with a man she did not know! “What in the

world can he mean?” she exclaimed. “There’s no need to search back there

any more!”

She stood, staring into the half-darkness. When after a moment he did

not reappear, she repeated, helplessly, “What did he mean? What did he

mean?”

She looked at her companion, and saw an amused smile upon his face. Her

eyes questioned him, and he said, “I suspect he saw you were with _me_.”

For a moment Sylvia continued to stare at him. Then, realizing that here

was a serious matter, she looked down at the ground—something which the

search for the medallion gave her the pretext for doing.

“He saw you were with _me_.” The more she pondered the words, the more

incredible they seemed to her. Taken as they had come, with the tone and

the accent and the smile, there was only one thing they could mean. A

week ago Sylvia would have been incapable of comprehending that meaning;

but now she had seen so much of social climbing that she had developed a

new sensitiveness. She understood—and yet she could not believe that she

understood. This man did not know Harley, but Harley knew him, and knew

him to be somebody of importance—of such importance that he had

deliberately gone on and left her standing there, so that she might pick

up an acquaintance with him on the street! And the man had watched the

little comedy, and knowing his own importance, was chuckling with

amusement.

As the realization of this forced itself upon Sylvia, the blood mounted

to the very roots of her hair. She was seized by a perfect fury of shame

and indignation; it was all that she could do to keep from turning upon

the man and telling him what a cad and a puppy she thought him. But then

came a second thought—wasn’t it true, what he believed? What other

explanation could there be of Harley’s conduct? It was her cousin who

was the puppy and the cad; she wanted to run after him and tell him in

the man’s hearing. But then again her anger turned upon the stranger. If

he had been a gentleman, would he ever have let her know what he

thought? Would he have stood there now, grinning like a pot-boy?

Sylvia finished her meditations, and lifted her eyes from the ground.

She was clear as to what she would do—she would punish this man, as

never in her life had she punished a man before. She would punish him,

even though to do it she had to walk on the proprieties with the sharp

heels of her white suede slippers.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, gently. “I hope I don’t presume——”

“What is it?” he asked, and she looked him over. He was a tall man, with

a pale, lean face, prominent features, and a large mouth which drooped

at the corners with heavy lines. He was evidently a serious person,

mature looking for a student.

“Are you by any chance an instructor in the University?” she asked.

“No, no,” he said, surprised.

“But then—are you a public official of some sort?”

“No,” he said, still more surprised. “Why should you think that?”

“Well, my cousin seemed to know you, and yet not to know you. He seemed

willing to leave me with you, so I thought you might be—possibly a city

detective——”

She saw him wince, and she feigned quick embarrassment. “I hope you’ll

excuse me!” she said. “You see, my position is difficult.” Then, with

one of her shining smiles, “Or have I perchance met Sir Galahad—or some

other comforter of distressed damsels—St. George, or Don Quixote?”

When an outrage is offered to you by one of the loveliest beings that

you have ever beheld, with the face of a higher order of angels, and a

look straight into your eyes, so eloquent of simplicity and

trustfulness—what more can you do than to look uncomfortable?

And Sylvia, of course, did not help him. She just continued to gaze and

smile. He got his breath and stammered, “Really—I think—if you will

permit me——” He paused, and then drew himself up. “I think that I had

best introduce myself.”

“I am willing to accept the rebuke,” said Sylvia, “without putting you

to that trouble.”

She saw that he did not even understand. He went on—his manner that of a

man laboring with a very serious purpose. “I really think that I should

introduce myself.”

“Are we not having a pleasant time without it?” she countered.

This, of course, was a complete blockade. He stood at a loss; and

meantime Sylvia waited, with every weapon ready and every sense alert.

“I beg pardon,” he said, at last, “but may I ask you something? I’ve a

feeling as if I had met you before.”

“I am sure that you have not,” she said, promptly.

“You are from the South, are you not? I have been in the South several

times.”

But still she would not give an inch; and he became desperate. “Pardon

me,” he said, “if I tell you my name. I am Douglas van Tuiver.”

Now if there was ever a moment in her life when Sylvia needed her social

training, it was then. He was looking into her face, watching for the

effect of his announcement. But he never saw so much as the flicker of

an eyelid. Sylvia said, quietly, “Thank you,” and waited to load her

batteries. She had meant harm to him before. Imagine what she meant now!

“It is an unusual name,” she observed, casually. “German, I presume?”

“Dutch,” said he.

“Ah, Dutch. But then—you speak English perfectly.”

“My ancestors,” he said, “came to this country in sixteen hundred and

forty.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sylvia. “How curious! Mine came the same year. Perhaps

that was where we met—in a previous incarnation.” Then, after a pause,

“Van Tuivel, did you say?”

She could feel his start, and she waited breathlessly to see what he

would do. But there were the soft, red-brown eyes and the look of utter

innocence—how _could_ he gaze into them and doubt? “Van Tuiver,” he

said, gravely. “Douglas van Tuiver.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” Sylvia responded. “Van Tuiver. I have it now.”

She waited, feeling sure that he could not bear to leave it there. And

so it proved. “The name is well known in New York,” he remarked.

“Ah,” she said, “but then—there are so _many_ people in New York!”

Again there was a pause, while he took thought. Sylvia remarked,

helpfully, “In the South, you see, everybody knows everybody else.”

“I am not at all sure,” said he, stiffly, “that I should find that a

desirable state of affairs.”

“Neither should I,” said she—“in New York.”

Now perhaps you think that this kind of thing is no particular strain

upon the nerves of a young girl; but Sylvia was seeking a way of escape.

Where was the villain Harley, and how much longer did he mean to keep

her on the rack? At this moment she saw a taxicab coming down the

street, and she recognized her chance.

“Please call it!” she exclaimed.

Instinctively her companion raised his hand. Equally instinctive was his

exclamation: “Are you going?”

Her answer was her action; as the vehicle drew up by the curb, she

opened the door herself, and stepped in. “To Boston,” she said; and the

cab moved on. “Good-bye, Mr. van Tuiver,” she called to her surprised

companion. “Good-bye, until the next incarnation!”

§ 10

News spread rapidly in Cambridge, Sylvia found. The next afternoon she

received a call from Mr. “Tubby” Bates, and one glimpse of his features

told her that he was moved by some compelling impulse.

“May I sit down, Miss Castleman?” he asked. “I’ve something to ask you

about. But I’m not sure, Miss Castleman—that is—whether I’ve a right to

talk about it. You may think that I’m gossiping——”

“Oh, but I adore gossiping,” put in the girl; whereat the other stopped

stammering and beamed with relief. He was more like a Southern man than

anyone Sylvia had met here; she knew just how to deal with him.

“Thank you ever so much!” he exclaimed. “It’s really very good of you.”

He drew his chair an inch or two nearer, and in a confidential voice

began, “It’s about Douglas van Tuiver.”

“Yes, I supposed so,” said Sylvia, with a smile.

“Oh, then something _did_ happen!”

“Now, Mr. Bates,” she laughed, “tell your story.”

“This noon,” he said, “van Tuiver called me on the ’phone—or at least

his secretary did—and asked me if I’d lunch at the club. When we sat

down, there were two other chaps, both wondering what was up. Pretty

soon he got to a subject—” Bates stopped uneasily. “I’m afraid that

perhaps I won’t express myself in the right way, Miss Castleman—that I

may say something you don’t like——”

“Go on,” smiled Sylvia. “I’m possessed by curiosity.”

“Well, it came out that he’d had an adventure. He was walking last

evening, and he met a lady. She was tall and rather pale, he said—a

Southern girl. She was dressed in white and had golden hair. ‘Have any

of you met such a girl?’ he asked. I kept silent and let the rest do the

answering. They hadn’t. ‘It was a lady in distress,’ van Tuiver went on,

‘and I offered my assistance and she accepted’——”

“Oh, I did _not_!” cried Sylvia.

“Oho!” exclaimed Bates, “I knew it! Tell me, what did you do?”

“This is your story,” she laughed.

“Well, he said it was a novel rôle for him—that of Sir Galahad, or St.

George, or Don Quixote. He found it embarrassing. I said, ‘Was it the

novelty of the rôle—or perhaps the novelty of the lady?’ ‘Well,’ said

van Tuiver, ‘that’s just it. She was one of the most bewildering people

I ever met. She talked’—you won’t mind my telling this, Miss Castleman?”

“Not a bit—go on.”

“Some of it isn’t very complimentary——”

“I’m wild with suspense, Mr. Bates!”

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘she looked like a lady, but she talked like an

actress in a comedy. I never heard anybody rattle so—I never knew a girl

so pert. She talked just—_amazingly_.’ That was his word. I asked him

just what he meant, but that was all I could get him to say. Finally he

asked, ‘Do you know the lady?’ and of course I had to answer that I

thought I did; I could be sure if he’d give me a sample of her

conversation. ‘She has a cousin named Harley,’ he said, and I said,

‘Yes—he’s Chilton, a Freshman. Her name is Miss Castleman.’ Then he

wanted to know all about you. I said, ‘I met her at a tea at Thurlow’s,

and about all I know of her is that she talks amazingly.’ I thought that

was paying him back.”

“And then?” laughed Sylvia.

“Well, he wanted to know what I thought of you; and I said I thought you

were the loveliest, and the cleverest, and the sweetest person that I’d

ever met in my life. I really think that, you know. And then van Tuiver

said—” But here Bates stopped himself suddenly. “That’s all,” he said.

“No, surely not, Mr. Bates!”

“But really it is. You see, we were interrupted——”

“But not until Mr. van Tuiver had said that he thought I was horrid, and

he thought I was shallow, and he thought I was vain.”

The other flushed slightly. Sylvia went on, “I don’t mind it, because

the truth is, I’d been thinking it myself. You see, I really _was_ mean

to him, Mr. Bates. I said things to hurt him, without his knowing I

meant them; but after he went off, he must have understood. Why should

we want to hurt people?”

“I don’t know,” said Tubby, bewildered by this unexpected new turn. He

wanted Sylvia to tell him the story of what had happened that evening;

but she refused. Then he went on to a new proposition—he wished to bring

van Tuiver to call. But she refused again and begged him not to think

about the matter any further. He pleaded with her, in semi-comic

distress; he was so anxious to see what would happen—everyone was

anxious to see what would happen! He implored her, in the name of good

society; it was cruel, wicked of her to refuse! But Sylvia was obdurate,

and in the end he took his departure lamenting, but vowing that he would

not give up.

Just as he was leaving, Harley arrived. He came to get his scolding for

his conduct of the previous night. But the scolding was more serious

than he had expected. To his dismay Sylvia declared that she was sincere

in her refusal to meet van Tuiver again.

“The truth is,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind about the whole matter.

I don’t care to have anything to do with the man.”

“But why not?” asked Harley, in amazement.

“Because—I don’t think that poor people like us have any right to. We

can’t meet him and keep our self-respect.”

“Great God, girl! Aren’t we van Tuiver’s social equals.”

“We think we are, but he doesn’t; and his view prevails. When you came

up here and fell in love with a girl in his set, you found that his view

prevailed. And look what you did last night! Don’t you see the

degradation—simply to be near such a man?”

“That’s all very well,” objected Harley, “but can I keep van Tuiver from

coming to Harvard?”

“No, you can’t; but you can help to keep him from having his way after

he has got here. You can stand out against him and all that he

represents.”

There was a pause. Harley had nothing to say to that. Sylvia stood with

her brows knitted in thought. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said, “there’s

something very wrong about it all. The man has too much money. He has no

right to have so much—certainly not unless he’s earned it.”

Whereat her cousin exclaimed, “For God’s sake, Sylvia, you talk like an

Anarchist!”

§ 11

A couple of days later came Mrs. Winthrop’s “Progressive Love” party. At

this party there were twenty-four guests, twelve men and twelve women,

appearing in purple silk dominoes and golden silk masks supplied by the

hostess. Twelve short dances were followed by intermissions, during

which the guests retired to cosy corners, and the men made ardent love

to their unknown partners. “Tubby” Bates, of whom there was too much to

be concealed by any domino, was appointed door-keeper, and it was his

business to select the couples, so that each would have a new partner

for every dance. At the end, every person voted for the most successful

“lover” and also the worst, and there were prizes and “booby” prizes.

Love-making, more or less disguised, being the principal occupation of

men and women in the South, Sylvia counted herself an expert at this

game. She had learned to assume a different personality, disguising her

voice, and doing it quite naturally—not by the crude method of putting a

button under her tongue. She took her seat after the first dance,

perfectly mistress of herself and pleasantly thrilled with curiosity.

All of the “younger set” at home had made love to her in earnest, and

their methods were an oft-told tale. But how would these strange men of

Harvard play the game?

The tall domino at her side was in no hurry to begin. He sat very stiff

and straight upon the velvet cushions; and finally it came to Sylvia

that he was suffering from embarrassment. She leaned towards him, so as

to display “a more coming-on disposition.” “Sir,” she whispered, “faint

heart ne’er won fair lady.”

The tall domino considered this in silence. “You’ll have to excuse me,”

he said, “I never played this game before.”

“It is the most wonderful game in the world!” said Sylvia, fervently.

“Perhaps,” was the reply. “To me it seems a very foolish game, and I

think it was poor taste on Mrs. Winthrop’s part.”

“Dear me!” thought the girl, “what kind of a fish have I caught here?”

There was something strangely familiar about the voice, but she could

not place it. She had met so many men in the last week or two.

“Sir,” she said, “I fear me that you lack a little of that holiday glee

which is necessary to such occasion as this. I would that I could sing a

song to cheer your moping spirit—”

‘Nymphs and shepherds come away,

For this is Flora’s holiday!’

Then, leaning a little nearer yet, “Come, sir, you must make an effort.”

“What shall I do?”

“You must manage to throw yourself into a state of rapture. You must

tell me that you adore me. You must say that my blue eyes make dim the

vault of heaven——”

“But I can hardly see your eyes.”

“You should not expect to see them. Have you not been told that Love is

blind?”

So she tried to drive this tall domino to play; but it was sorry

frisking that he did. “You must fall down upon your knees before me,”

she said; but he protested that he could really not do that. And when

she insisted, “You must!” he got down, with such deliberation that the

girl was half convulsed with laughter.

“Sir,” she chided, “that will not do. When you stop to ease each

trouser-knee, how can I believe that you are overcome with the ardor of

your feelings? You must get up and try again.” And actually she made him

get up and plump down suddenly upon his knees; and was so mischievous

and so merry about it that she got even him to laughing in the end.

She was sure by this time that she had met the man before, and she found

herself running over the list of her acquaintances, trying to imagine

which one could be capable of making love in such a fashion. But she

could not think of one. She fell to studying the domino and the mask

before her, wondering what feelings could be behind them. Was it

timidity and lack of imagination? Or could it be that the man was sulky

and uncivil as he seemed? When the bell rang and she rose, she breathed

to herself the prayer that she might be spared running into another

“stick” like that.

The next partner was Harmon, as she recognized before he had said a

dozen sentences. Harmon did not know her, but being in love, he knew how

to behave. He poured out to Sylvia all the things which she had known

for the past week he was longing to say to her; and Sylvia said in reply

everything which she had no intention of saying in reality. So the

episode passed pleasantly, and the girl thought somewhat better of Mrs.

Winthrop’s talents as a hostess.

Number Three was again a tall domino. He seated himself, and there was a

long pause. “Well, sir,” said Sylvia, inquiringly.

The domino delayed again. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, at last;

“I never played this game before.”

And Sylvia realized in a flash of dismay that it was the first man

again! The same voice—even the same words! “Sir,” she said, coldly, “you

are mistaken. You played the same game with me not twenty minutes ago.”

The tall domino expressed bewilderment. “I beg your pardon—there has

been some mistake.”

“There has indeed,” said Sylvia. “The door-keeper has evidently got our

numbers mixed.” She pondered for a moment. Should she go and tell Mr.

Bates?

But she realized that it was too late. The couples were all settled and

the game proceeding. It was the kind of blunder that was always being

made at these parties—either because the door-keeper was stupid, or was

bribed by some man who wanted to make love in earnest. It spoiled the

game—but then, as Sylvia had just said, Love is blind.

“What shall we do—wait?” she asked; to which the man replied, “I don’t

mind.”

“Thank you,” she said, graciously. “We’ll have to make the best of it.

Don’t you think you can manage to do a little better than the last

time?”

“I’ll try,” he replied. “It’s beastly stupid, I think.”

Sylvia considered. “No,” she declared, “I believe it’s the game of all

games for you.”

“How so?”

“Go down into the deeps of you. Haven’t you something there that is

real—something primitive and untamed, that chafes against propriety, and

wishes it had not been born in Boston?”

“I was not born in Boston,” said he.

“Perhaps not in your body,” said Sylvia, “but your soul is a Boston

soul. And now think of this opportunity to fling loose, to be just as

bad as you want to be—and quite without danger of detection, of having

your reputation damaged! Surely, sir, there could be no game more

adapted to the New England conscience!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the man; and actually there was warmth in his tone.

Sylvia’s heart leaped, and she caught him by the hand. “Quick! Quick!”

she cried. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may—old time is still a-flying!”

“By Jove!” exclaimed the man again; and Sylvia, kindling with mischief,

pressed his hand more tightly and brought him upon his knees before her.

“Make haste! You have but one life—one chance to be yourself—to vent

your emotions! I’ve no idea who you are, I can’t possibly tell on

you—and so you may utter those things which you keep hidden even from

yourself!”

“By Jove!” he exclaimed for the third time. “Really, if I had you to

make love to——”

“But you have me! You have me! For several precious minutes—alone and

undisturbed! You are not a Boston Brahmin in a domino—you are a faun in

the forests of Arcady. Come, Mr. Faun!” And Sylvia began to sing in a

low, caressing manner:

“Oh, come, my love, to Arcady!

A dream path leads us, dear.

One hour of love in Arcady

Is worth a lifetime here!”

There was a pause. She could feel the man’s hand trembling. “I am

waiting!” she whispered; to which he answered, “I wish _you_ would talk!

You make love so much better than I!”

Sylvia broke into one of her merry laughs. “A leap-year party!” she

cried.

But the other was in earnest. “I like to listen to you,” he said.

“Please go on!”

Sylvia was laughing so that she felt tears in her eyes, and she wanted

to wipe them away under her mask. Her handkerchief was gone, and she

looked for it—in her lap, beside her on the seat, and then on the floor.

This led to a curious and unexpected turn in the adventure—her

recognition of this New England faun. Seeing what she was doing, he

said, “I beg pardon. Have you lost something?”

It was like an explosion in Sylvia’s mind. Not merely the same words—but

the same manner, the same accent, the same personality!

The search for the handkerchief gave her the chance to recover her

breath. The Lord had delivered him into her hands again!

“Sir,” she said. “I resume. You have overwhelmed me with the torrent of

your ardor. I feel myself swept away in a flood which my feeble will

cannot resist. You come to me like a royal wooer—like some god out of

the skies, stunning the senses of a mere mortal maiden! Who can this

be—I ask myself. From what source can such superhuman eloquence and

fervor spring? Can I endure it? I cry—or shall I be burned up and

destroyed, like Danaï in the legend? It is just so that he descends upon

me—like Jupiter, in a shower of gold!”

Sylvia could feel the tall domino stiffen and rear himself. She had

meant to go on, but she stopped, so great was her curiosity. How would

he take it?

At last came the voice from under the mask. “I see,” it said, “that you

have the advantage of me. You _do_ know who I am.”

Sylvia was almost transported—by a combination of amazement and

amusement. “Know who you are?” she cried. “How could I fail to know who

you are? You, my divinity! You, to whom all the world bends the knee!

Sire, receive my homage—I bow in adoration before the Golden Calf!”

And she sunk down upon one knee before the tall domino!

It was putting herself into his hands. She was fully prepared to see him

rise and stalk away—but so possessed was she that she would have enjoyed

even that! Fortunately, however, at this moment the bell rang, saving

her. She sprang to her feet, and caught the hand of her divinity in one

quick clasp of parting. “Good-bye, Mr. van Tuiver!” she exclaimed.

“Good-bye—until the next incarnation!”

§ 12

For the next dance Sylvia’s partner was a youth whom she could not

identify. He had evidently been reading the poets, for his declarations

of devotion were lacking in naught but rhyme. Sylvia accepted him

politely, hardly hearing his words—so busy was she with the thought of

van Tuiver. Had it been accident, or a trick? She would soon know.

There came another dance—and again a tall domino. Sylvia suspected, but

was not sure, until they were in their seats, when the domino sat stiff

and straight, and she was certain. “Is that you?” she asked; and the

answer came, “It is.”

“It is evident that some one is amusing himself at our expense,” said

Sylvia, coldly. “I really think we shall have to stop it.”

“Miss Castleman,” broke in the other. “I hope you will believe me that I

have had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

She answered, consolingly, “I assure you, Mr. van Tuiver, your

unpreparedness has been quite evident.”

There was a pause, while he considered that. “What shall we do?” he

asked.

“I think that you had best see Mr. Bates, and make clear to him that we

have had enough.”

He hesitated. “Is—is that really necessary?”

“What else can we do—spend the evening together?”

“I really wish we could, Miss Castleman!”

“What—and you making love as you have been?”

“I can do better now. I really am quite charmed with the game. I’d like

to make love to you—for a long time.”

“Most flattering, Mr. van Tuiver—but how about me? We’ve conversed a lot

already, and you haven’t said one interesting thing.”

“Miss Castleman!”

“Not one—excepting one or two that have been insolent.”

There was a pause. “Really,” he pleaded, “that is a hard thing to say!”

“Do you mean,” she inquired, coldly, “that you have not realized the

meaning of what you said to me when we met on the street?”

“I don’t know just what you refer to,” he replied, “but you must admit

that you had me at a great disadvantage that evening.”

“What disadvantage, Mr. van Tuiver? The fact that I did not know who you

were?”

She could feel him wince. She was prepared for a retort—but not so

severe as the one which came. “The disadvantage,” he said, “that you

_pretended_ not to know who I was.”

“Why,” she exclaimed, “what do you mean?”

He answered. “If we are going to fight, it ought to be upon a fair

field. You pretended that evening that you had never heard my name. But

I learned since that only a day or two before you had had a quite

elaborate conversation about me.”

Sylvia’s first impulse was to inquire sarcastically what right he had to

assume that his illustrious name would stay in her memory. But she

realized that that was a poor retort; and then her sense of fair play

came in. After all, he was right—the joke was on her, and she rather

admired his nerve.

So she began to laugh. “Mr. van Tuiver,” she said, “you have annoyed me

so that I won’t even take the trouble to think up new lies to tell you.

Realize, if you can, the impression you managed to make upon a young

girl—you and your reputation together—that she should be moved to use

such weapons against you!”

He forgot his anger at this. “That’s just it, Miss Castleman! I don’t

understand it at all! What have I done that you should take such an

attitude towards me?”

Sylvia pondered. “I fear,” she said, “that you would not thank me for

telling you.”

“You are mistaken!” he exclaimed. “I really would like to know.”

“I could not bring myself to do it.”

“But why not?”

“I know it could not do any good.”

“But how can you say that—when I assure you I am in earnest? I have a

very sincere admiration for you—truly. You are one of the most—one of

the most amazing young women I ever met. I don’t say that in a bad

sense, you understand——”

“I understand,” said Sylvia, smiling. “I have tried my best to be

amazing.”

“It is evident that you dislike me intensely,” he went on. “I ask you to

tell me why. What have I done?”

“It isn’t so much what you have done—it is what you _are_.”

“And what _am_ I, Miss Castleman?”

“I don’t know just how to put it into words. You are some sort of

monstrosity; something that when I see it, fills me with a blind rage,

so that I want to fly at its throat. And then I realize that even in

attacking it I am putting myself upon a level with it—and so I want to

turn and flee for my life—or rather for my self-respect. I want to flee

from it, Mr. van Tuiver, and never see it, never hear its voice, never

even know of its existence! Do you see?”

“I see,” said the man, in a voice so faint as to be hardly audible; and

then suddenly came the sound of the bell, and Sylvia sprang up.

“I flee!” she said.

§ 13

There came a new dance, the sixth, and a new partner, who was short, and

was speedily discovered to be Jackson. Then came the seventh dance, and

Sylvia expected that it would be her Faun again, but was disappointed.

It was a man unknown, and she wondered if Bates had lost his nerve. But

with Number Eight came the inevitable return.