I
It was all over. Kate Barrington had her degree and her graduating
honors; the banquets and breakfasts, the little intimate farewell
gatherings, and the stirring convocation were through with. So now she
was going home.
With such reluctance had the Chicago spring drawn to a close that, even
in June, the campus looked poorly equipped for summer, and it was a
pleasure, as she told her friend Lena Vroom, who had come with her to
the station to see her off, to think how much further everything would
be advanced "down-state."
"To-morrow morning, the first thing," she declared, "I shall go in the
side entry and take down the garden shears and cut the roses to put in
the Dresden vases on the marble mantelshelf in the front room."
"Don't try to make me think you're domestic," said Miss Vroom with
unwonted raillery.
"Domestic, do you call it?" cried Kate. "It isn't being domestic; it's
turning in to make up to lady mother for the four years she's been
deprived of my society. You may not believe it, but that's been a
hardship for her. I say, Lena, you'll be coming to see me one of
these days?"
Miss Vroom shook her head.
"I haven't much feeling for a vacation," she said. "I don't seem to fit
in anywhere except here at the University."
"I've no patience with you," cried Kate. "Why you should hang around
here doing graduate work year after year passes my understanding. I
declare I believe you stay here because it's cheap and passes the time;
but really, you know, it's a makeshift."
"It's all very well to talk, Kate, when you have a home waiting for you.
You're the kind that always has a place. If it wasn't your father's
house it would be some other man's--Ray McCrea's, for example. As for
me, I'm lucky to have acquired even a habit--and that's what college
_is_ with me--since I've no home."
Kate Barrington turned understanding and compassionate eyes upon her
friend. She had seen her growing a little thinner and more tense
everyday; had seen her putting on spectacles, and fighting anaemia with
tonics, and yielding unresistingly to shabbiness. Would she always be
speeding breathlessly from one classroom to another, palpitantly yet
sadly seeking for the knowledge with which she knew so little what
to do?
The train came thundering in--they were waiting for it at one of the
suburban stations--and there was only a second in which to say good-bye.
Lena, however, failed to say even that much. She pecked at Kate's cheek
with her nervous, thin lips, and Kate could only guess how much anguish
was concealed beneath this aridity of manner. Some sense of it made Kate
fling her arms about the girl and hold her in a warm embrace.
"Oh, Lena," she cried, "I'll never forget you--never!"
Lena did not stop to watch the train pull out. She marched away on her
heelless shoes, her eyes downcast, and Kate, straining her eyes after
her friend, smiled to think there had been only Lena to speed her
drearily on her way. Ray McCrea had, of course, taken it for granted
that he would be informed of the hour of her departure, but if she had
allowed him to come she might have committed herself in some absurd
way--said something she could not have lived up to.
* * * * *
As it was, she felt quite peaceful and more at leisure than she had for
months. She was even at liberty to indulge in memories and it suited her
mood deliberately to do so. She went back to the day when she had
persuaded her father and mother to let her leave the Silvertree Academy
for Young Ladies and go up to the University of Chicago. She had been
but eighteen then, but if she lived to be a hundred she never could
forget the hour she streamed with five thousand others through Hull
Gate and on to Cobb Hall to register as a student in that young,
aggressive seat of learning.
She had tried to hold herself in; not to be too "heady"; and she hoped
the lank girl beside her--it had been Lena Vroom, delegated by the
League of the Young Women's Christian Association--did not find her
rawly enthusiastic. Lena conducted her from chapel to hall, from office
to woman's building, from registrar to dean, till at length Kate stood
before the door of Cobb once more, fagged but not fretted, and able to
look about her with appraising eyes.
Around her and beneath her were swarms, literally, of fresh-faced,
purposeful youths and maidens, an astonishingly large number of whom
were meeting after the manner of friends long separated. Later Kate
discovered how great a proportion of that enthusiasm took itself out in
mere gesture and vociferation; but it all seemed completely genuine to
her that first day and she thought with almost ecstatic anticipation of
the relationships which soon would be hers. Almost she looked then to
see the friend-who-was-to-be coming toward her with miraculous
recognition in her eyes.
But she was none the less interested in those who for one reason or
another were alien to her--in the Japanese boy, concealing his
wistfulness beneath his rigid breeding; in the Armenian girl with the
sad, beautiful eyes; in the Yiddish youth with his bashful earnestness.
Then there were the women past their first youth, abstracted, and
obviously disdainful of their personal appearance; and the girls with
heels too high and coiffures too elaborate, who laid themselves open to
the suspicion of having come to college for social reasons. But all
appealed to Kate. She delighted in their variety--yes, and in all these
forms of aspiration. The vital essence of their spirits seemed to
materialize into visible ether, rose-red or violet-hued, and to rise
about them in evanishing clouds.
* * * * *
She was recalled to the present by a brisk conductor who asked for her
ticket. Kate hunted it up in a little flurry. The man had broken into
the choicest of her memories, and when he was gone and she returned to
her retrospective occupation, she chanced upon the most irritating of
her recollections. It concerned an episode of that same first day in
Chicago. She had grown weary with the standing and waiting, and when
Miss Vroom left her for a moment to speak to a friend, Kate had taken a
seat upon a great, unoccupied stone bench which stood near Cobb door.
Still under the influence of her high idealization of the scene she lost
herself in happy reverie. Then a widening ripple of laughter told her
that something amusing was happening. What it was she failed to imagine,
but it dawned upon her gradually that people were looking her way. Knots
of the older students were watching her; bewildered newcomers were
trying, like herself, to discover the cause of mirth. At first she
smiled sympathetically; then suddenly, with a thrill of mortification,
she perceived that she was the object of derision.
What was it? What had she done?
She knew that she was growing pale and she could feel her heart pounding
at her side, but she managed to rise, and, turning, faced a blond young
man near at hand, who had protruding teeth and grinned at her like a
sardonic rabbit.
"Oh, what is it, please?" she asked.
"That bench isn't for freshmen," he said briefly.
Scarlet submerged the pallor in Kate's face.
"Oh, I didn't know," she gasped. "Excuse me."
She moved away quickly, dropping her handbag and having to stoop for it.
Then she saw that she had left her gloves on the bench and she had to
turn back for those. At that moment Lena hastened to her.
"I'm so sorry," she cried. "I ought to have warned you about that old
senior bench."
Kate, disdaining a reply, strode on unheeding. Her whole body was
running fire, and she was furious with herself to think that she could
suffer such an agony of embarrassment over a blunder which, after all,
was trifling. Struggling valiantly for self-command, she plunged toward
another bench and dropped on it with the determination to look her world
in the face and give it a fair chance to stare back.
Then she heard Lena give a throaty little squeak.
"Oh, my!" she said.
Something apparently was very wrong this time, and Kate was not to
remain in ignorance of what it was. The bench on which she was now
sitting had its custodian in the person of a tall youth, who lifted his
hat and smiled upon her with commingled amusement and commiseration.
"Pardon," he said, "but--"
Kate already was on her feet and the little gusts of laughter that came
from the onlookers hit her like so many stones.
"Isn't this seat for freshmen either?" she broke in, trying not to let
her lips quiver and determined to show them all that she was, at any
rate, no coward.
The student, still holding his hat, smiled languidly as he shook his
head.
"I'm new, you see," she urged, begging him with her smile to be on her
side,--"dreadfully new! Must I wait three years before I sit here?"
"I'm afraid you'll not want to do it even then," he said pleasantly.
"You understand this bench--the C bench we call it--is for men; any man
above a freshman."