BOOK II Sylvia Lingers

147

§ 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 148cousin 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.”

149The 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.

150There 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 151voice, “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.

152She 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.”

153“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.”

154Frank’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. 155It’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——”

156He 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! 157Douglas, 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!”

158

§ 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 159through 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, 160Philadelphia 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 161manage 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 162guided 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—”

163“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?”

164“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 165about 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.

166There 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 167fluttering 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 168became 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.

169“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?”

170No 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.)

171But 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!”

172But 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——”

173She 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 174with 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 175and 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.

176Jack, 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 177Tom 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.

178“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.

179“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. 180“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 181“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. 182Winthrop 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, 183not 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 184perfect 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.”

185

§ 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 186smoothed 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. 187But 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.”

188She 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 189quickened 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 190the 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 191eyes 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?”

192When 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, 193“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.

194“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 195his 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. 196He 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. 197‘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 198a 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?”

199“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” 200and 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 201strangely 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 202again.” 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.”

203And 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 204primitive 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:

205“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 206wooer—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!”

207

§ 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!”

208“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 209what 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.”

210“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.

211Van Tuiver was so anxious this time that he asked before he began to dance, “Is that you?” And when Sylvia answered “Yes,” she could hear his sigh of relief. All through the dance she could feel his excitement. Once or twice he tried to talk, but she whispered to him to keep the rules.

The moment they were seated he said, “Miss Castleman, you must explain to me what you mean.”

“I knew I’d have to explain,” she responded. “I’ve been thinking how I could make you understand. You see, I’m a comparative stranger to this world of yours, and things might shock me which would seem to you quite a matter of course. I suppose I’m what you’d call a country girl, and have a provincial outlook.”

“Please go on,” he said.

“Well, Mr. van Tuiver, you have an enormous amount of money. Twenty or thirty million dollars—forty or fifty million dollars—the authorities don’t seem to agree about it. As well as I can put the matter, you have so much that it has displaced you; it isn’t you who think, it isn’t you who speak—it’s your money. You seem to be a sort of quivering, uneasy consciousness of uncounted millions of dollars; and the only thing that comes back to you from your surroundings is an echo of that quivering consciousness.”

“Do I really seem like that to you?”

“It’s the impression you’ve made upon everyone who knows you.”

212“Oh, surely not!” he cried.

“Quite literally that,” said Sylvia. “I hated you before I ever laid eyes on you—because of the way you’d impressed your friends.”

There was a pause; when van Tuiver spoke again it was in a low and uncertain voice. “Miss Castleman,” he said, “has it ever occurred to you to think what might be the difficulties of my situation?”

“No, I haven’t had time for that.”

“Well, take this one fact. You say that I have made a certain impression upon everyone who knows me. But you are the first person in my whole lifetime who’s ever told me.”

Sylvia gave an exclamation of incredulity.

“Don’t you see?” pressed on the other, eagerly. “What is a man to do? I have a great deal of money. I can’t help that. And I can’t help the fact that it gives me a great deal of power. I can’t help having a sense of responsibility.”

“The sense of responsibility has been too much for you,” said Sylvia.

This was too subtle for him. He hurried on: “Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s wrong—but circumstances have given me a certain position, and I have to maintain it. I have certain duties which I must fulfill, which I can’t possibly get away from.”

There was a pause. He seemed to feel that the situation was not satisfactory, and started again. “It’s all very well for you, who don’t realize my position, the responsibilities I have—it’s all 213very well for you to talk about my consciousness of money. But how can I get away from it? People know about my money, they think about it—they expect certain things of me. They put me in a certain position, whether I will or not.”

He stopped again. He was so greatly agitated that Sylvia was beginning to feel pity. “Do you have to be what people expect you to be?” she said.

“But,” he argued, “I have the money, and I have to make use of it—to invest it—to protect it——”

“Ah, but all that is in the business world. What I’m talking about is in a separate sphere—your social relations.”

“But, Miss Castleman, that’s just it—is it separate? It ought to be, you’ll say—but is it? I tell you, you simply don’t know, that’s all. People profess friendship for me, but they want something, and by and by I find out what it is they want. You say that’s monstrous; I know, I used to think it was, myself. You say, I ought not to know it; but I can’t help knowing it; it’s forced upon me by all the circumstances of my life. Sometimes I think I’ve never had a disinterested friend since I was born!”

Sylvia perceived the intensity behind his words, and was silent for a minute. “But surely,” she said, “here—in the democracy of college life——”

“It’s exactly the same here as anywhere else. Here are clubs, social cabals, everybody pushing and intriguing, exactly as in New York society. 214Take that fact you spoke of—that all the fellows dislike me, and yet not one of them has dared to tell me so!”

“Dared?” repeated Sylvia.

“Oh, well, perhaps they dared—the point is, they didn’t. The ones who had to make their own way were busy making it; and the others, who had got in of right—well, they believe in money. They’d all shrug their shoulders and say, ‘What’s the use of antagonizing such a man?’”

“I see,” said Sylvia, fascinated.

“Whatever the reason is, they never call me down—not a man of them. And then, as for the women——”

Sylvia had not made any sound, but somehow he felt her sudden interest. He said, with signs of agitation, “Please, Miss Castleman, don’t be offended. You asked me to talk about it.”

“Go on,” she said. “I’m really most curious. I suppose all the women want to marry you?”

“It isn’t only that. They want anything. They just want to be seen with me. Of course, when they start to make love to me—” He paused.

“You stop them, I hope,” said Sylvia, modestly.

“I do when I know it. But, you see——”

He paused again; it was evidently a difficult topic. “Pray don’t mind,” said Sylvia, laughing. “They’re subtle creatures, I know. Do many of them make love to you?”