A SHADOW ON THE PATH
Across the campus the ivy procession wound its lovely length, flanked by
rainbow clad Junior ushers immensely conscious of themselves and their
importance as they bore the looped laurel chains between which walked the
even more important Seniors, all in white and each bearing an American
Beauty rose before her proudly, like a wand of youth.
At the head of the procession, as president of the class, walked
Antoinette Holiday, a little lady of quality, as none who saw her could
have helped recognizing. Her uncle, watching the procession from the
steps of a campus house, smiled and sighed as he beheld her. She was so
young, so blithe-hearted, so untouched by the sad and sordid things of
life. If only he could keep her so for a little, preserve the shining
splendor of her shield of innocent young joy. But, even as he thought, he
knew the folly of his wish. Tony would be the last to desire to have life
tempered or kept from her. She would want to drain the whole cup, bitter,
sweet and all.
Farther back in the procession was Carlotta, looking as heavenly fair and
ethereal as if she had that morning been wafted down from the skies. Out
of the crowd Phil Lambert's eyes met hers and smiled. Very sensibly and
modernly these two had decided to remain the best of friends since fate
prevented their being lovers. But Phil's eyes were rather more than
friendly, resting on Carlotta, and, underneath the diaphanous, exquisite
white cloud of a gown that she wore, Carlotta's heart beat a little
faster for what she saw in his face. The hand that held her rose trembled
ever so slightly as she smiled bravely back at him. She could not forget
those "very different" kisses of his, nor, with all the will in the
world, could she go back to where she was before she went up the mountain
and came down again in the purple dusk. She knew she had to get used to a
strange, new world, a world without Philip Lambert, a rather empty world,
it seemed. She wondered if this new world would give her anything so
wonderful and sweet as this thing that she had by her own act
surrendered. Almost she thought not.
Ted, standing beside his uncle, watching the procession, suddenly heard a
familiar whistle, a signal dating back to Holiday Hill days, as
unmistakable as the Star Spangled Banner itself, though who should be
using it here and why was a mystery. In a moment his roving gaze
discovered the solution. Standing upon a slight elevation on the campus
opposite he perceived Dick Carson. The latter beckoned peremptorily. Ted
wriggled out of the group, descended with one leap over the rail to the
lawn, and made his way to where the other youth waited.
"What in Sam Hill's chewing you?" he demanded upon arrival. "You've made
me quit the only spot I've struck to-day where I had room to stand on my
own feet and see anything at the same time."
"I say, Ted, what train was Larry coming on?" counterquestioned Dick.
"Chicago Overland. Why?"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am sure. He wired Tony. What in thunder are you driving at?
Get it out for Pete's sake?"
"The Chicago Overland smashed into a freight somewhere near Pittsburgh
this morning. There were hundreds of people killed. Oh, Lord, Ted! I
didn't mean to break it to you like that." Dick was aghast at his own
clumsiness as Ted leaned against the brick wall of the college building,
his face white as chalk. "I wasn't thinking--guess I wasn't thinking
about much of anything except Tony," he added.
Ted groaned.
"Don't wonder," he muttered. "Let's not let her get wind of it till we
have to. Are you sure there--there isn't any mistake?" Ted put up his
hand to brush back a refractory lock of hair and found his forehead wet
with cold perspiration. "There's got to be a mistake. Larry--I won't
believe it, so there!"
"You don't have to believe it till you know. Even if he was on the train
it doesn't mean he is hurt." Dick would not name the harsher possibility
to Larry Holiday's brother.
"Of course, it doesn't," snapped Ted. "I say, Dick, is it in the
papers yet?"
"No, it will be in an hour though, as soon as the evening editions get
out."
"Good! Dick, it's up to you to keep Tony from knowing. She is going to
sing in the concert at five. That will keep her occupied until six. But
from now till then nix on the news. Take her out on the fool pond, walk
her up Sunset Hill, quarrel with her, make love to her, anything, so she
won't guess. I don't dare go near her. I'd give it away in a minute, I'm
such an idiot. Besides I can't think of anything but Larry. Gee!" The boy
swept his hand across his eyes. "Last time I saw him I consigned him to
the devil because he told me some perfectly true things about myself and
tried to give me some perfectly sound advice. And now--I'm damned if I
believe it. Larry is all right. He's got to be," fiercely.
"Of course, he is," soothed Dick. "And I'll try to do as you say about
Tony. I'm not much of an actor, but I guess I can carry it through
for--for her sake."
The little break in the speaker's voice made Ted turn quickly and stare
at the other youth.
"Dick, old chap, is it like that with you? I didn't know."
Ted's hand went out and held the other's in a cordial grip.
"Nobody knows. I--I didn't mean to show it then. It's no good. I know
that naturally."
"I'm not so sure about that. I know one member of the family that would
be mighty proud to have you for a brother."
The obvious ring of sincerity touched Dick. It was a good deal coming
from a Holiday.
"Thank you, Ted. That means a lot, I can tell you. I'll never forget your
saying it like that. You won't give me away, I know."
"Sure not, old man. Tony is way up in the clouds just now, anyway. We are
all mostly ants in our minor ant hills so far as she is concerned. Gee! I
hope it isn't this thing about Larry that is going to pull her down to
earth. If anything had to happen to any of us why couldn't it have been
me instead of Larry. He is worth ten of me."
"We don't know that anything has happened to Larry yet," Dick reminded.
"I say, Ted, they must have got the ivy planted. Everybody's coming back.
Tony is lunching with me at Boyden's right away, and I'll see that she
has her hands full until it is time for the concert. You warn Miss
Carlotta, so she'll be on guard after I surrender her. I'm afraid you
will have to tell your uncle."
"I will. Trot on, old man, and waylay Tony. I'll make a mess of things
sure as preaching if I run into her now."
Tony thought she had never known Dick to be so entertaining or talkative
as he was during that luncheon hour. He regaled her with all kinds of
newspaper yarns and related some of his own once semi-tragic but now
humorous misadventures of his early cub days. He talked, too, on current
events and world history, talked well, with the quiet poise and
assurance of the reader and thinker, the man who has kept his eyes and
ears open to life.
It was a revelation to Tony. For once their respective roles were
reversed, he the talker, she the listener.
"Goodness me, Dick!" she exclaimed during a pause in what had become
almost a monologue. "Why haven't you ever talked like this before? I
always thought I had to do it all and here you talk better than I ever
thought of doing because you have something to say and mine is just
chatter and nonsense."
He smiled at that.
"I love your chatter. But you are tired to-day and it is my turn. Do you
know what we are going to do after luncheon?"
"No, what?"
"We are going to take a canoe out on your Paradise and get into a shady
spot somewhere along the bank and you will lean back against a whole lot
of becoming cushions and put up that red parasol of yours so nobody but
me can see your face and then--"
"Dicky! Dicky! Whatever is in you to-day? Paradise, pillows and parasols
are familiar symptoms. You will be making love to me next."
"I might, at that," murmured Dick. "But you did not hear the rest of
my proposition. And then--I shall read you a story--a story that I
wrote myself."
"Dick!" Tony nearly upset her glass of iced tea in her amazement at this
unexpected announcement. "You don't mean you have really and truly
written a story!"
"Honest to goodness--such as it is. Please to remember it is my maiden
effort and make a margin of allowance. But I want your criticism,
too--all the benefit of your superior academic training."
"Superior academic bosh!" scoffed Tony. "I'll bet it is a corking
story," she added unacademically. "Come on. Let's go, quick. I can't
wait to hear it."
Nothing loath to get away speedily before the newsboys began to cry the
accident through the streets, Dick escorted his pretty companion back to
the campus and on to Paradise, at which point they took a canoe and,
finally selecting a shady point under an over-reaching sycamore tree,
drifted in to shore where Tony leaned against the cushions, tilted her
parasol as specified at the angle which forbade any but Dick to see her
charming, expressive young face and commanded him to "shoot."
Dick shot. Tony listened intently, watching his face as he read, feeling
as if this were a new Dick--a Dick she did not know at all, albeit a most
interesting person.
"Why Dick Carson!" she exclaimed when he finished. "It is great--a real
story with real laughter and tears in it. I love it. It is so--so human."
The author flushed and fidgeted and protested that it wasn't much--just a
sketch done from life with a very little dressing up and polishing down.
"I have a lot more of them in my head, though," he added. "And I'm
going to grind them out as soon as I get time. I wish I had a bigger
vocabulary and knew more about the technical end of the writing game.
I am going to learn, though--going to take some night work at the
University next fall. Maybe I'll catch up a little yet if I keep
pegging away."
"Catch up! Dick, you make me so ashamed. Here Larry and Ted and I have
had everything done for us all our lives and we've slipped along with the
current, following the line of least resistance. And you have had
everything to contend with and you are way ahead of the rest of us
already. But why didn't you tell me before about the story? I think you
might have, Dicky. You know I would be interested," reproachfully.
"I--I wasn't talking much about it to anybody till I knew it was any
good. But I--just took a notion to read it to you to-day. That's all."
It wasn't all, but he wanted Tony to think it was. Not for anything would
he have betrayed how reading the story was a desperate expedient to keep
her diverted and safe from news of the disaster on the Overland.
He escorted Tony back to the campus house at the latest possible moment
and Carlotta, in the secret, pretended to upbraid her roommate for her
tardiness and flew about helping her to get dressed, talking
continuously the while and keeping a sharp eye on the door lest some
intruder burst in and say the very thing Tony Holiday must not be
permitted to hear. It would be so ridiculously easy for somebody to ask,
"Oh, did you hear about the awful wreck on the Overland?" and then the
fat would be in the fire.
But, thanks to Carlotta, nobody had a chance to say it and later Tony
Holiday, standing in the twilight in front of College Hall's steps, sang
her solo, Gounod's beautiful Ave Maria, smiled happily down into the
faces of the dear folks from her beloved Hill and only regretted that
Larry was not there with the rest--Larry who, for all the others knew,
might never come again.
After dinner Ted rushed off again to the telegraph office which he had
been haunting all the afternoon to see if any word had come from his
brother, and Doctor Holiday went on up to the campus to escort his niece
to the informal hop. He had decided to go on just as if nothing was
wrong. If Larry was safe then there was no need of clouding Tony's joy,
and if he wasn't--well, there would be time enough to grieve when they
knew. By virtue of his being a grave and reverend uncle he was admitted
to the sacred precincts of his niece's room and had hardly gotten seated
when the door flew open and Ted flew in waving two yellow telegraph
blanks triumphantly, one in each hand, and announcing that everything was
all right--Larry was all right, had wired from Pittsburgh.
Before Tony had a chance to demand what it was all about the door opened
again and a righteously indignant house mother appeared on the threshold,
demanding by what right an unauthorized male had gone up her stairway and
entered a girl's room, without permission or escort.
"I apologize," beamed Ted with his most engaging smile. "Come on outside,
Mrs. Maynerd and I'll tell you all about it." And tucking his arm in hers
the irrepressible youth conveyed the angry personage out into the hall,
leaving his uncle to explain the situation to Tony.
In a moment he was back triumphant.
"She says I may stay since I'm here, and Uncle Phil is here to play
dragon," he announced. "She thought at first Carlotta would have to be
expunged to make it legal, but I overruled her, told her you and I had
played tiddle-de-winks with each other in our cradles," he added with an
impish grin at his sister's roommate. "Of course I never laid eyes on
you till two years ago, but that doesn't matter. I have a true
tiddle-de-winks feeling for you, anyway, and that is what counts, isn't
it, sweetness?"
Carlotta laughed and averred that she was going to expunge herself anyway
as Phil was waiting for her downstairs. She picked up a turquoise satin
mandarin cloak from the chair and Ted sprang to put it around her bare
shoulders, stooping to kiss the tip of her ear as he finished.
"Lucky Phil!" he murmured.
Carlotta shook her head at him and went over to Tony, over whom she bent
for an instant with unusual feeling in her lovely eyes.
"Oh, my dear," she whispered. "I wish I could tell you how I feel. I'm so
glad--so glad." And then she was gone before Tony could answer.
"Oh me!" she sighed. "She has been so wonderful. You all have. Ted--Uncle
Phil! Come over here. I want to hold you tight."
And, with her brother on one side of her and her uncle on the other, Tony
gave a hand to each and for a moment no one spoke. Then Ted produced his
telegrams one of which was addressed to Tony and one to her uncle. Both
announced the young doctor's safety. "Staying over in Pittsburgh. Letter
follows," was in the doctor's message. "Sorry can't make commencement.
Love and congratulations," was in Tony's.
"There, didn't I tell you he was all right?" demanded Ted, as if his
brother's safety were due to his own remarkably good management of the
affair. "Gee! Tony! If you knew how I felt when Dick told me this
morning. I pretty nearly disgraced myself by toppling over, just like a
girl, on the campus. Lord! It was fierce."
"I know." Tony squeezed his hand sympathetically. "And Dick--why Dick
must have kept me out in Paradise on purpose."
"Sure he did. Dick's a jim dandy and don't you forget it."
"I shan't," said Tony, her eyes a little misty, remembering how Dick had
fought all day to keep her care-free happiness intact. "I don't know
whether to be angry at you all for keeping it from me or to fall on your
necks and weep because you were all so dear not to tell me. And oh! If
anything had happened to Larry! I don't see how I could have stood it. It
makes us all seem awfully near, doesn't it?"
"You bet!" agreed Ted with more fervor than elegance. "If the old chap
had been done for I'd have felt like making for the river, myself. Funny,
now the scare is over and he is all safe, I shall probably cuss him out
as hard as ever next time he tries to preach at me."
"You had better listen to him instead. Larry is apt to be right and you
are apt to be wrong, and you know it."
"Maybe it is because I do know it and because he is so devilish right
that I damn him," observed the youngest Holiday sagely, his eyes meeting
his uncle's over his sister's head.
It wasn't until he had danced and flirted and made merry for three
consecutive hours at the hop, and proposed in the exuberance of his mood
to at least three different charmers whose names he had forgotten by the
next day, that Ted Holiday remembered Madeline and his promise to keep
tryst with her that afternoon. Other things of more moment had swept her
clean from his mind.
"Thunder!" he muttered to himself. "Wonder what she is thinking when I
swore by all that was holy to come. Oh well; I should worry. I couldn't
help it. I'll write and explain how it happened."
So said, so done. He scribbled off a hasty note of explanation and
apology which he signed "Yours devotedly, Ted Holiday" and went out to
the corner mail box to dispatch the same so it would go out in the
early morning collection, and prepared to dismiss the matter from his
mind again.
Coming back into his room he found his uncle standing on the threshold.
"Had to get a letter off," murmured the young man as his uncle looked
inquiring. He turned to light a cigarette with an air of determined
casualness. He didn't care to have Uncle Phil know any more about the
Madeline affair.
"It must have been important."
"Was," curtly. "Did you think I was joy riding again?"
"No, I heard you stirring and thought you might be sick. I haven't been
able to get to sleep myself."
Seeing how utterly worn out his uncle looked, Ted's resentment took
quick, shamed flight. Poor Uncle Phil! He never spared himself, always
bore the brunt of everything for them all. And here he himself had just
snapped like a cur because he suspected his guardian of desiring to
interfere with his high and mighty private business.
"Too bad," he said. "Wish you'd smoke, Uncle Phil. It's great to cool off
your nerves. Honest it is! Have one?" He held out his case.
Doctor Holiday smiled at that, though he declined the proffered weed. He
understood very well that the boy was making tacit amends for his
ungraciousness of a moment before.
"No, I'll get to sleep presently. It has been rather a wearing day."
"Should say it had been. I hope Aunt Margery doesn't know about the
wreck. She'll worry, if she knew Larry was coming east."
"I wired her this evening. I didn't want to take any chance of her
thinking he was in the smash."
Ted laid down his cigarette.
"You never forget anybody do you, Uncle Phil?" he said rather
soberly for him.
"I never forget Margery. She is a very part of myself, lad."
And when he was alone Ted pondered over that last speech of his uncle's.
He wondered if there would ever be a Margery for him, and, if so, what
she would think of the Madelines if she knew of them.