AN AQUARELLE

ALLARDYCE felt both aggrieved and bored when he found that his sister had gone off with a walking-party and was not likely to return for an hour or two. He had this unwelcome bit of news from the young woman in cap and gown who had come from the office into the reception-room and was standing before him, glancing every now and then from his face to the card she held, with a severely kind look out of her gray eyes.

“I telegraphed her I was in Boston and would be out,” remarked Allardyce, in an injured tone.

“Yes,” assented the young woman, “Miss Allardyce had left word in the office that she was expecting her brother, but that as he had not come by the 2.30 or 3.10 train, she had concluded he was detained in Boston, and that if he did arrive later he was to wait.” She added that he would be obliged to do so in any case, as there was no express back to Boston for two hours, and that if he would like to see the college while he waited she would send someone to take him over it.

But Allardyce seemed so doubtful as to whether he cared to become better acquainted with the architecture of the college, and so disappointed about it all, that the kindly senior felt sorry for him and suggested sympathetically that he “might amuse himself by strolling through the grounds.” She could not have been over twenty, but she had all the seriousness and responsibility of an undergraduate, and Allardyce suddenly felt very young and foolish in her presence and wondered hotly how old she thought he was, and why she hadn’t told him to “run out and play.” He decided that her idea was a good one, however, so he took his hat and stick and wandered down the south corridor to the piazza. Standing there he could see the lake and the many private boats lying in the bend of the shore, each fastened to its little dock, and beyond, the boat-house with the class practice-barges, slim and long, just visible in the cool darkness beneath. He thought it all looked very inviting, and there was a rustic bench under a big tree half-way down the hill where he could smoke and get a still better view of the water.

So he settled himself quite comfortably, lit a cigarette, and looked gloomily out over the lake. He assured himself bitterly that after having been abroad for so many years, and after having inconvenienced himself by taking a boat to Boston instead of a Cunarder to New York—his natural destination—in order to see his sister, that she was extremely unkind not to have waited for him. He was deep in the mental composition of a most reproachful note to her when he discovered that by closing his eyes a little and looking intently at the Italian Gardens on the opposite side of the water, he could easily fancy himself at a little place he knew on Lake Maggiore. This afforded him amusement for a while, but it soon palled on him, and he was beginning to wonder moodily how he was ever to get through two hours of the afternoon, when he saw a young girl come out of the boat-house with a pair of sculls and make her way to one of the little boats. She leaned over it, and Allardyce could see that she was trying to fit a key into the padlock which fastened the boat to its dock, and that after several attempts to undo it she looked rather hopelessly at the lock and heavy chain. He went quickly down the hill and along the shore. He was suddenly extremely glad that he was in America, where he could be permitted to speak to and help a girl, even if a total stranger, without having his assistance interpreted as an insult.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his hat. “Can I be of any help?”

The girl looked up a little startled, but when she saw the tall, good-looking youth, she smiled in a relieved sort of way and rose quickly from her knees.

“Indeed, yes,” she said, without any embarrassment. “I can’t unlock this; perhaps you can.”

Allardyce took the key, and kneeling down fitted it in its place and turned it with very little effort. The girl looked rather ruefully at him as he jumped up.

“Thank you,” she said in a politely distant way. “I don’t see why I could not have done that. I am very strong in my hands, too.”

Allardyce smiled indulgently. All girls were under the impression that they were strong. At any rate this one was tremendously pretty, he decided—much prettier than the stately senior he had encountered up at the college, and he was glad there were no cap and gown this time. He was aware, of course, that he ought to lift his hat and move on, and not stand there staring at her, but his previous solicitude had made him feel sociable.

“Perhaps you will let me put the oars in for you,” he suggested. He was rather alarmed after he had spoken, but when he glanced at the girl to see how she had taken his further self-invited assistance he found her looking at him in a very friendly way. All at once he felt quite elated and at his ease. It had been a long while since he had had much to do with American girls, and he concluded that all that had been said about their charming freedom and cordiality of manner had not been exaggerated. But when he had put the sculls in the boat it occurred to him that it would not do to presume too far on that freedom and cordiality, and that if he was not to depart immediately—and he felt no inclination to do so—he must offer some sort of explanation of himself.

“I am waiting for my sister,” he remarked genially.

“Oh! your sister,” echoed the girl.

“Yes—Miss Allardyce. Perhaps you are in the same class,” he hazarded.

She looked at him for a moment in a slightly surprised way, and then out across the water, and Allardyce saw, as she turned her head away from him, that she was smiling.

“No,” she said slowly, “but I know her quite well.”

“Ah! I’m glad of that,” said the young man, boldly and cheerfully. “Now I feel quite as if I had been properly introduced! ‘Les amis de nos amis,’ you know!”

The girl smiled back at him. “I am Miss Brent. By the way, your sister has the distinction of being the only Allardyce in college. It’s a rather unusual name.”

“Yes,” assented Allardyce, delightedly. “Scotch, you know.” And then in a sudden burst of confidence—“My people were Scotch and French. I have been educated abroad and have come home for the law course at the University. Awfully glad to be in America again, too, for, after all, I am an American through and through.” He pulled himself up sharply in some confusion and amusement at his unusual loquacity.

But the girl before him did not seem to find it strange, and was quite interested and politely attentive.

“And where is your sister?” she demanded.

“Oh, that’s the essential, and I forgot to mention it,” he replied, laughing a little and digging his stick into the soft earth. “She’s gone off walking!” and then he went on insinuatingly and plaintively—“And I don’t know a soul here—never was here before in my life—and there’s no train to Boston, and I have to wait two hours for her!”

The young woman smiled sympathetically. “That’s too bad,” she said, and then she looked doubtfully at Allardyce. He seemed very young and to be having a rather bad time of it, and there is an unwritten law at the college which constitutes every member of it the natural protector and entertainer of lost or bored strangers.

“I am going across the lake for water-lilies,” she went on after a little hesitation. “If you care to come you may, and pull me about while I gather them. It is hard work to do it alone.”

“You are very kind,” said Allardyce promptly, “and it is very nice of you to put it that way. It will be a great favor to me to let me go.”

He rowed her across the water in the direction of the Italian Gardens, and they found a good deal to say to each other, and she seemed very unaffected and friendly, although Allardyce fancied once or twice that when she replied to some of his remarks her voice trembled in an odd way as if she were secretly amused. But he thought her delightful, and he was very much obliged to her for taking him off his hands in this way, though he could not help feeling some surprise at her invitation. Of course he could not imagine such a thing happening to him on the Continent. No French or German girl would have the chance or enough savoir faire to treat him as this girl was treating him. He told her all this in more veiled terms when they had reached the water-lilies, and he had turned around in his seat and was carefully balancing the boat while she pulled the dripping, long-stemmed flowers. Miss Brent laughed outright at his remarks, and Allardyce laughed good-naturedly too, although what he had said did not strike him as being at all amusing. But he was glad that she was so easily diverted. He reflected that perhaps her invitation had not been entirely disinterested—that she considered it as stupid to go out rowing alone, as he did to wander around the college without his sister—and that as she had been kind enough to save him from a solitary afternoon, it was his part to be as amusing and entertaining as possible.

“You must not consider us in the light of very young girls,” she explained. “You know this is a woman’s college.”

“That’s what is so nice,” returned Allardyce confidently. “You are girls with the brains and attainments of women. That is a very delightful combination.” He gave her an openly admiring, rather patronizing glance. He did not mean to be superior or condescending, but he reflected that in spite of her ease of manner she was yet in college, and so must be very young. He seemed to himself to be quite old and world-worn in comparison.

Miss Brent looked over at the college towering up on the other side of the lake.

“How do you like it?” she asked politely, after a moment’s silence.

“Oh, I didn’t see anything of it,” replied Allardyce easily, leaning his elbows comfortably on the unshipped oars. “I got my walking papers promptly from a young woman up there, and so I left. She rather frightened me, you know,” he ran on. “Awfully severe-looking, cap and gown, and that sort of thing. I thought if that was only an undergraduate I didn’t want to encounter any of the teachers—professors, I believe you call them—and so I fled. You do have women professors, don’t you?” he inquired with a great deal of awe.

“Yes,” said the girl.

“Well—they must be pretty awful,” he said cheerfully, after a moment’s pause.

The girl straightened up cautiously, pulling at the rubber-like stem of an immense lily.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said carelessly. She was bending over the side of the boat, and Allardyce could not see her face; but he heard the laugh in her voice again. “There! there’s a boutonnière for you.”

Allardyce caught the lily she swung toward him by the stem, and stuck it in his coat.

“I suppose that’s about the size of the Russian Giant’s button-hole flower,” he remarked frivolously. They were quite good friends now. Allardyce looked over at the college again.

“You must find it pretty slow up there,” he said confidentially. “Can’t imagine how you girls exist. You ought to go to a Paris boarding-school. You can have no end of fun there, you know.” He was nodding his head enthusiastically at her. “I have a cousin at one in the Avenue Marceau. Went to see her just before I sailed and it was tremendously amusing. These French girls are awful flirts! When I went away every girl in that school came to the windows and looked at me. It was rather trying, but I felt that for once I knew what popularity was!”

Miss Brent buried her face in the biggest lily of the bunch.

“And—and what did you do?” she inquired, in suppressed tones.

“Oh—I? Why I bowed and smiled at the whole lot. Must have looked rather like an idiot, now I come to think of it; and my cousin wrote me she got into no end of trouble about it. One of the maîtresses happened to see me. But it was great fun while it lasted. And after all where is the harm of a little flirting?” he concluded, judicially.

“Where indeed?” assented the girl, with a laugh.

“That’s right—I am glad to hear you say that,” broke in Allardyce, approvingly. “There’s something wrong with a woman who doesn’t cry or flirt—it’s a part of her nature,” he went on, with the air of having made a profoundly philosophic discovery. “You know you agree with me,” he urged, insinuatingly.

She shook her head.

“Personally I don’t know,” she said; “you see I am so busy——”

“Oh! I say,” cried Allardyce, “you don’t mean you study as hard as that! Of course,” he added impartially, “it’s all very well for some girls to grind—” he stopped in alarm as the girl drew herself up slightly.

“I hope my sister doesn’t study too much,” he hastened to add, lamely.

Miss Brent put her handkerchief suddenly to her lips, which were trembling with laughter.

“I don’t think you need worry!” she said.

Allardyce was considerably mystified and a little offended.

“But she’s very bright,” added the girl, quickly; “especially in mathematics, where I see most of her; but I believe she is not a very hard student.”

“Well,” said Allardyce, jocosely; “I’ll tell you a secret. I am the hard student of the family, and that’s much better than that my sister should be, I think. I don’t approve of girls working too hard. It makes them old—takes away their freshness—especially if they go in for mathematics. Do you know I have never been able to imagine a girl mathematician anyway,” he ran on, confidentially. “Always seemed like a sort of joke. Now there was that English girl—what was her name, who was worse than a senior wrangler? Her photographs were just everywhere. I was in Cambridge that summer and they were in all the shop-windows, and I would stop and look carefully to see if they were not different from the ones I had seen the day before. For they were quite pretty you know, and I was always hoping that there was some mistake and that they had got some other young woman, entirely innocent, mixed up with her.”

There was so much genuine distress in his tone that Miss Brent made an heroic attempt not to laugh.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “don’t say that—some people think I am good at mathematics myself.”

Allardyce shook his head at her. “I’m sure it’s a mistake—you are trying to impose on me,” he said, with mock severity. “At any rate I am glad my sister is guiltless of any such accusation. We are under the impression that she goes in for a good time at college—at least one would suppose so from her letters. I got one from her just before I left Paris in which she gave me a very amusing account of some blow-out here—some class function or other, and she seemed dreadfully afraid that the faculty would get hold of the details. She says you stand tremendously in awe of your faculty. Wait a minute—I’ve got the letter here somewhere,” he went on, fumbling in his pockets. “Didn’t think much of the affair considered in the light of a scrape, but she seemed to think it exciting and dangerous to the last degree. That’s where you girls are so funny—you think you are doing something immensely wrong and it is just nothing at all. I see I haven’t the letter with me; but perhaps you were in it all and know a great deal more about it than I do.”

Miss Brent suddenly twisted herself around in the boat, and reached for an especially big lily.

“No—” she said, “I—I don’t think I was there. Will you pull a little on the left oar—a little more, please. It’s that lily I want!”

“There’s another thing about girls,” resumed Allardyce meditatively and kindly, when the boat had straightened back. “You seem to think it a terrible calamity, a disgrace, to get plucked in an examination. Now a man takes it philosophically. Of course, it isn’t a thing one especially cares to have happen one; but it doesn’t destroy a fellow’s interest in life, nor make him feel particularly ashamed of himself. He just goes to work with a tutor and hopes for better luck next time. That’s the best way to take it, don’t you think? But perhaps you don’t know anything about it. Ever get plucked?—I beg your pardon,” he added hastily.

But the girl did not appear at all offended.

“Oh, you mustn’t ask that,” she said, leaning back and laughing at him; “at any rate,” she added, with an air of careful consideration, “I don’t think I ever got ‘plucked’ in—mathematics. And now you must take me back.”

Allardyce gave a shudder of mock horror. “Oh, mathematics!” he said, picking up the oars.

When they were half-way across the lake Allardyce saw a young girl standing on the shore waving at them.

“Why,” he said, looking intently at the figure, “I believe it is my sister.”

Miss Brent leaned forward.

“Yes, it is your sister,” she said slowly, and she smiled a little.

Miss Allardyce kissed her brother with a great show of affection, and told him how sorry she was to have missed him. “And I am sure it was very good of you to have taken care of him,” she went on impressively and gratefully, turning to Miss Brent. But that young lady disclaimed any merit.

“We’ve had a delightful afternoon,” she declared, “and your brother has been very good to pull me about and keep the boat from tipping over, while I gathered these lilies. I am very glad to have met him. Good afternoon.”

“Charming girl!” murmured Allardyce, appreciatively, digging his stick in the earth, and leaning on it as he looked after Miss Brent.

“We had an awfully jolly time together,” he went on, to the girl beside him; “sort of water-picnic, without the picnic.”

Miss Allardyce looked sharply at her brother. Something in his manner made her anxious. “How did you meet her?” she demanded.

“Oh! that’s the best part,” said Allardyce joyously. “Wasn’t introduced at all. I offered to unlock her boat for her, and I liked her looks so much that I hated to go away, so I asked her if she was in your class, and she said ‘No,’ but that she knew you, and that I considered was introduction enough. We just went off together and had a very good time. Lucky for me that somebody took me up when my own sister went off and left me,” he added reproachfully.

Miss Allardyce shook her head impatiently. “Never mind about me.” She looked anxiously at her brother. “What did you say to her?”

“Oh! I don’t remember exactly;” he replied vaguely and cheerfully. “We talked a good deal—at least I did,” with a sudden realization of how he had monopolized the conversation. “About French boarding-schools and women professors and getting plucked in examinations, and I told her about that scrape you wrote me of. She hasn’t a bit of nonsense about her,” he went on enthusiastically. “She didn’t say much, but I am sure she agreed with me that girls are by nature flirts, and not mathematicians.”

Miss Allardyce gave a little gasp. “Well,” she said, with a sort of desperate calmness, “you’ve done it now! Do you know who that was you were talking to? That was the assistant-professor of mathematics. Oh! yes, I know she looks awfully young, and she is young. I suppose you think a woman has to be fifty before she knows anything. Why she only took her degree two years ago, and she was so tremendously clever that she went off and studied a year in Leipsic and then came back as instructor in mathematics, and this year when one of the assistant-professors was called suddenly to Europe, she was made assistant-professor in her place, and they say she’s been a most wonderful success. And I know she is pretty; but that doesn’t prevent her examinations from being terrors, and I didn’t get through the last one at all, and if you told her about that scrape, and that women ought not to be mathematicians——” she stopped breathlessly and in utter despair.

Allardyce whistled softly and then struck his stick sharply against the side of the little dock. “Well,” he exclaimed indignantly, “she’s most deceitfully young and pretty,” and then he turned reproachfully upon his sister. “It’s all your fault,” he said; “what did you go off walking for?”