Chapter XII: Good-By

COLLEGE had opened; but they had slipped into it so quietly that there hardly seemed to be a break. For Peggy and Priscilla, perhaps, there was a bit of a pang at the realization that this was the last year of what would probably be one of the sweetest periods in their lives to look back on; and they privately vowed to make it rich in experience and the beauty of living. Ruth and Amy, like Southey's brother who said that "no young man believes that he will ever die," felt that college life would never, could never, end. So a week after the beginning of classes found the four girls trying conscientiously to live in the present, and stifling vague, tantalizing memories of the past three months.

A number of letters passed between Nelson Hallowell and his friend in Oklahoma before the great step was decided on. And it must be confessed that in the meantime Ruth's college work suffered. Nelson came almost every evening to pour into her attentive ears the story of his hopes and ambitions, and Ruth listened with the happy confidence that her approval meant more to him than to any one in the world.

Ruth and Nelson were living in an enchanted world, where perfect understanding took the place of speech. Nelson did not feel himself at liberty to say to her the thing that was constantly in his thoughts. The salary Mr. Flynn had paid him had not enabled him to save any money, and his venture in Oklahoma, promising as he believed it, was, after all, only a venture, with a possibility of failure. Nelson knew that he himself was bound fast and irrevocably, but he wanted to leave Ruth free as air. Yet he talked to her with the assurance that she knew all he was in honor bound not to say, and her look, as she listened, confirmed that certainty.

Those weeks during which the matter was being settled were a happy time for both of them. Youth has a way of making the most of a present joy, regardless of what the future has in store, and while this seems very short-sighted to some older people, who can always look ahead far enough to be miserable, the young will probably continue to enjoy to-day's sunshine--regardless of the weather prognosticator, who assures them of a storm in the middle of the week with a drop in temperature. Nelson and Ruth saw as much of each other as they could, and looked no further than a happiness born of a confidence and understanding.

But the thing was settled at last, and the generous offer of Nelson's soldier friend definitely accepted. Nelson gave Mr. Flynn notice, and that irritable gentleman promptly lost his temper, and accused his reliable clerk of folly and ingratitude. Later he realized his mistake, and offered to raise his salary. But Nelson was as little moved by Mr. Flynn's smiles as he had been by his frowns, and Mr. Flynn promptly relapsed into his former irascibility.

"The war spoiled a lot of you young fellows. You're sick of hard work. Loafing is the only thing that appeals to you."

"I never heard," laughed Nelson, "that life on a cattle ranch was considered a soft snap."

"Well, if it isn't, you'll soon give it up," said Mr. Flynn disagreeably. "An easy berth is what you're looking for, and it's my opinion that you'll look some time before you find it."

The next two weeks fairly flew. Nelson was getting his necessary outfit, and every afternoon, on the way home, he stopped to exhibit to Ruth his latest purchases. And now the time had come when it was hard for Ruth to smile and show the proper interest. Sometimes when she remembered that the decision had been left to her, and that she had brought this on herself, her heart almost failed her. It would have been so much easier to have gone on in the old way. The thought of the thousands of miles that would soon stretch between Nelson and herself gave her a weak feeling in the knees. They had a great deal to say in those days about letters but each realized, only two well, that the best letter ever penned is a poor substitute for the exchange of speech and of smiles.

The day of Nelson's departure Ruth went through the customary routine with a curious sense of unreality. She had suggested Nelson's coming to dinner, but he had declined, and she would never know what that refusal cost him.

"I'd love to, Ruth. You don't know how I'd love to. But I think I should take my last meal with mother."

"Yes, Nelson, I think so, too."

"She says she won't go down to the station to see me off," Nelson went on. "She's been keen about my going from the start, but now that it's come to the point, it's harder than she thought."

Ruth reflected that she could sympathize with Mrs. Hallowell perfectly.

"The train goes at ten," Nelson continued with a sprightly air that would not have deceived the most gullible, "so I'll have plenty of time to bore you stiff before you see the last of me."

Ruth forced the smile his jest demanded. "You know we're all going to the station with you," she said. "Even Bob Carey's coming."

"I hope that Hitchcock won't show up," exclaimed Nelson apprehensively.

Ruth laughed. "No, I don't think Horace expects to honor us. Isn't it the queerest thing," she added, "what Priscilla can see in him?"

"I should say so. Priscilla's one of the finest girls you'd meet in a day's journey, and Hitchcock is a nut. I shouldn't think she could stand it to have him around. Though I suppose," concluded Nelson with customary modesty, "that Priscilla thinks just the same about you and me."

"Priscilla! She wouldn't dare." Ruth's indignation was so intense that Nelson shouted with laughter, but it warmed his heart, nevertheless.

In that last quick-moving Saturday, Ruth saw Nelson for a few moments in the morning, and again about three in the afternoon. His stay was short and rather unsatisfactory for he had some last errands to attend to, and his mind was so full of them that his thoughts wandered from what he was saying, and he left his sentences unfinished in the most irritating fashion.

After he had answered a question of Ruth's in a way which showed he had hardly heard what she had said, he looked up quickly at her half-vexed exclamation, laughed, and jumped to his feet.

"It's no use, Ruth," he said. "I'm one of the fellows who's good for only one thing at a time. I'll attend to these thousand-and-one things that have been left over, and I'll see you about eight o 'clock to-night. That will give us time for a nice little visit."

Up till that time the hours had fairly flown. Now they dragged. Ruth watched the clock and waited for the tiresome, leisurely hour hand to point to eight. The clan was to gather at a little after nine, and she was thankful when Graham departed for Peggy's shortly after finishing dinner. Peggy would keep him till the last minute. Peggy would understand. Ruth had taken great pains in dusting the living-room that morning, and she looked around it thinking that it made a picture of cosy comfort Nelson might be glad to carry with him.

It was eight o'clock at last. Ruth straightened a book on the table, brushed a speck of dust from her gown, and sat down facing the door. There were quick steps on the side walk, and she never doubted that they would come on up the walk, and then up the steps, and she meant to have the door open before he had time to ring. But the footsteps went on and the minute hand of the clock was also moving.

At quarter past eight Ruth was nervous. She got up and down, adjusted the window shades, changed the arrangement of the chairs, fussed with the flowers on the mantel, looked at herself in the mirror, and did something to her hair. At half past eight she sat very still, frowning slightly and biting her lip. At quarter of nine her cheeks had reddened and she tapped the carpet with the toe of her shoe. And at nine o'clock her heart gave a jump and she forgot how near she had come to being angry. For the footsteps for which she had waited were coming up the walk.

"Hello!" It was Priscilla's voice. "Don't tell me I'm the first one."

"The others will be here in a minute," Ruth replied in an even voice. "Come right in and take off your coat, Priscilla, for this room's awfully warm."

Priscilla complied with her friend's suggestion, and glanced at her admiringly. She thought she had never seen Ruth look so pretty. "You've got a lovely color to-night," she exclaimed.

"It's just because it's so hot here. I always get flushed when I'm warm."

Priscilla was looking around the room as if in search of something. "Why, where's Nelson?"

"He'll be here right away. You know there are always so many things to be attended to in the last few minutes." But though Ruth gave this explanation with a matter-of-fact cheerfulness that deceived even Priscilla who knew her so well, she was seething inwardly. So this was all he cared. He had sacrificed their quiet hour together. Now there would be a crush and a crowd and everybody talking at once, and no chance to say any of the things she had saved up for their last evening.

Not that she cared. Ruth flung up her head and laughed gaily at something Priscilla was telling. Her hands were cold and her mouth felt very dry, and her heart was pounding furiously. Nelson could come when he was ready, and so that he didn't miss the train, it made no difference to her.

Amy and Bob were next to arrive. Then came Peggy and Graham. "Nelson's late, isn't he?" said Peggy with an uneasy glance at the clock. "He hasn't any time to spare."

"I'll put on my things so we'll all be ready to start when he gets here," Ruth returned casually. She had put on a little blue frock, of which Nelson was especially fond, for the last evening, and she was glad to conceal it by a long coat. Her hand trembled as she pinned her hat in place. She hoped Nelson Hallowell wasn't conceited enough to suppose she cared whether he came at one hour or another.

It was twenty minutes past nine when Nelson arrived, and he looked rather white and shaken. As he had left for camp two years before, his mother had stood smiling in the doorway to watch him go. When it was whispered that they were going across, and he had told her she was not likely to see him again till the war was over, she had kissed him with lips that did not tremble. But then she had been lifted above herself by the exalted spirits of the times. Now she had no sense of patriotic service to sustain her. She realized that she was no longer a young woman, that life was uncertain, and that her boy was going very far away. Over their last meal together she had broken down, and wept as Nelson had never seen his mother weep in all his life.

It is not to Nelson's discredit that he had forgotten Ruth. Or if that is saying too much, his thought of her was vague and shadowy. Nelson's father had died when he was a little boy, and through the years that he was growing to manhood, his mother and he had been everything to each other. The sight of her grief was torturing. He had put his arms about her, and comforted her as best he could. He had offered to give up the whole thing, and had started to go out to telegraph his friend in Oklahoma that he was not coming. That, more than anything else, had helped her to regain her self-control. As mothers have been doing from time immemorial she wiped her wet eyes and tried to smile, that he might go on his great adventure without a shadow on his heart. Throughout that distressing, solemn, sacred time, it had never occurred to Nelson to look at the clock. The thought of Ruth had hardly crossed his mind. Even on his way to her homo, he was still thinking of the mother he had left.

It was Graham who, hearing Nelson's step outside, rushed to admit him. Nelson entered, blinking a little in the bright light of the room, and speaking first to one and then another. Ruth in the corner by the fireplace was talking to Bob Carey, and was so interested that she only glanced in Nelson's direction, to toss him a smiling nod, and then resume her conversation with Bob. Nelson gave a little start as if some one had pinched him in the middle of a dream and he had suddenly awakened.

"Well, old man," remarked Graham cheerfully, "you haven't left yourself much leeway. It's just about time to start."

"I--yes, I suppose it is." Nelson looked in Ruth's direction and then looked quickly away. As for Ruth, she was so absorbed by what Bob Carey was saying, that her brother had to repeat his remark for her benefit. "Come, Ruth. Better get a move on. We haven't any time to waste."

"Oh, is it really time to start?" Ruth asked carelessly. "I hadn't noticed." And with that fib on her conscience, she rose and joined the others.

Fond as Peggy was of Ruth, that evening she could have shaken her in her exasperation. For on the walk to the street-car, Ruth clung to her arm and chattered unceasingly. As Graham stuck doggedly to Peggy's other side and Bob was with Amy, Nelson and Priscilla found themselves walking together. But since Nelson was too dazed for speech, and Priscilla was wondering what Horace would say to this juxtaposition, they walked in an almost unbroken silence.

It was no better on the street car. Peggy maneuvered shamelessly to put Nelson and Ruth into the one vacant seat, but Ruth slipped past and took her seat beside a fat woman, who left so little space that Ruth was in imminent danger of falling into the aisle, whenever the car turned the corner. In Peggy's opinion such a catastrophe would have been no more than she deserved. Peggy had to take the place she had designed for Ruth, and did her best to be agreeable, but Nelson's wandering replies showed the futility of her efforts.

A slight delay on the way brought them to the station less than ten minutes before train time. Nelson's tickets were bought, of course, and his reservations made. They stood in a group in the station waiting-room and said the aimless things people generally say five minutes before train-time. All but Ruth, that is. When Nelson looked at her he found her attention absorbed by an Italian family, whose bundles and babies occupied the nearest row of seats.

It was Graham who again took on himself the ungracious duty of calling Nelson's attention to the flight of time. "I guess you'd better go aboard, Nelson. You don't want to stand right here in the station, and miss the train."

Nelson started violently. "Oh, no," he replied, "certainly not." He turned to Bob Carey and shook hands with him, murmuring a mechanical good-by. Amy stood at Bob's side and Nelson held out his hand to her.

Amy had shared Peggy's feeling of vexation with Ruth, and like Peggy had resented her sense of impotence. Neither one of them would have hesitated to take Ruth roundly to task for her conduct, but it was impossible to scold her in Nelson's presence, and after he had started on his long journey westward it would be too late. But as Amy looked into the young fellow's down-cast face, a brilliant inspiration came to her aid. She grasped his hand, pulled herself up on tiptoes, and kissed the astonished youth squarely on the lips. "Good-by, Nelson, and good luck."

Peggy, the next in line, saw her friend's ruse, and seconded her admirably. It was impossible to tell whether Nelson blushed at the second kiss, for the flaming color due to Amy's salute still dyed him crimson. Priscilla pushed aside the obtrusive thought of Horace, and backed up the others. And then Nelson came to Ruth.

For a moment Ruth had been in a quandary. After their warm friendship, to part with Nelson with a formal handshake when the other girls had kissed him, would be to proclaim publicly that she was angry, and Ruth did not wish to seem angry, but only indifferent. And yet if she kissed Nelson good-by, she had a suspicion that the barrier her pride had built between them would melt like mist in the sun. She raised her eyes and met his, those honest eyes in which she read bewilderment and grief and appeal and something greater than all. And then, all at once, her resentment seemed incomprehensibly petty. Whatever the reason that Nelson had come late, it was not because he did not care. And so their first kiss was exchanged in the garish light of a railway waiting-room, with the calls of the trainmen blending with the unmelodious crying of babies, with travelers coming and going, and a little circle of friends standing by and taking everything in. But there are some experiences it is impossible to spoil.

"All aboard," cried Graham, and carried Nelson away. Ruth slipped her arms through Peggy's, and turned toward the door, swallowing hard at something that refused to be swallowed.

"If ever a girl deserved a scolding!" said Peggy in the tenderest tones imaginable. "But I'm not going to do it now, because at the last minute you redeemed yourself--thanks to Amy."