Chapter XIV: At the Foot-Ball Game

THE foot-ball season was on. It had opened auspiciously when the university had crushingly defeated the visitors, and the attendance upon the second game showed that the public anticipated a similar victory. Priscilla, sitting demurely beside Horace Hitchcock, was a-tingle with excitement. Not for the world would she have allowed Horace to guess how momentous the occasion seemed.

The tiers of seats gave a dazzling effect of color. Pennants and flags and the bright-colored hats of the girls made Priscilla think of terraces covered with flowers. Every one was talking, almost drowning out the noisy efforts of the 'varsity band. It seemed to Priscilla an unfitting time to quote Schopenhauer, but the Schopenhauer pose was Horace's latest, and it recognized neither time nor seasons.

Priscilla leaned impulsively across Horace to wave to Amy, whose good-humored face had suddenly differentiated itself from the mass of surrounding faces. Horace interrupted in the midst of a peculiarly pessimistic utterance, looked frankly vexed, and Priscilla apologized. "Excuse me, I just happened to see Amy."

"It is not a surprise to me, Priscilla, to find you uninterested. It is the fate of some souls to be solitary. Once I had hoped--but it doesn't matter."

Priscilla's mood was a little perverse. "Perhaps the reason you're solitary is that you choose such unpleasant paths. If you'd only walk where it was nice and sunny, you'd have plenty of company."

"Plenty of company! Heavens!" Horace shuddered. "That suggests the crowd. It is bad enough for the body to be jostled, but at least the spirit can command unhampered space. I had dreamed once that you might follow me to the heights where the atmosphere is too rare for the multitude, but--Why do we cling to life, when each hour that passes shatters another illusion?"

"I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment, Horace," Priscilla bit her lip. She was young and eager. She wanted passionately to be happy. She longed to respond to the charm of the hour, to enjoy it ardently, and instead she was obliged to listen to quotations from Schopenhauer, and think of Horace's lost illusions. The thought crossed her mind that since she could not make Horace happy even for an afternoon, and since he was certainly not making her so, it promised ill for the future. If only Horace could be brought to see that they had made a mistake. A little flutter of hope stirred in Priscilla's heart.

Horace was speaking in a tone of extreme bitterness. "Blessed is the man who expects nothing from life, for he shall not be disappointed."

"Horace," began Priscilla firmly. "Don't you think that we--I mean wouldn't it be better--"

A number of people were coming into the vacant places on her left. A young man seated himself beside Priscilla, and involuntarily she turned. Then she gave an impulsive start and her ready color flamed up. The young man, who wore glasses, also started and after an almost imperceptible hesitation lifted his hat. Simultaneously Priscilla bowed in the most unresponsive fashion possible, and looked away.

Horace stared suspiciously at her flushed cheeks. Horace had never heard the story of the supper at the Green Parrot, and the fragment of roll that had sought to drown itself in the stranger's coffee-cup. If Priscilla had ever taken him into her confidence, he might have guessed the explanation of her present embarrassment. As it was, he leaned close and said in her ear, "Who is that fellow?"

"Sh! I'll tell you afterward."

Poor Priscilla! The game to which she had looked forward had become an impossible nightmare. Horace's philosophical pursuits had not freed him from that ready jealousy which is the characteristic of small natures. He sat glowering across Priscilla's shoulder at the young man seated on her left. As it was impossible to misunderstand Horace's expression, the young man, after his first recognition of Priscilla's presence, obligingly ignored her.

The finishing of the first half was an enormous relief to Priscilla. The majority of the seats in the grand-stand were immediately vacated. The flower bed had become kaleidoscopic, with the bits of color continually rearranging themselves, as laughing girls and glowing youths moved about, excitedly discussing the points of the game they had witnessed. But though Priscilla was so ardent a fan, she knew little of the game and cared less.

The young man at her left had been one of the first to rise. As he moved away, Priscilla turned to Horace, and without giving herself time to be frightened by his forbidding expression, she told him the story of her first and only visit to the Green Parrot.

After she had finished, Horace seemed to be waiting for more. "Do you mean that is all?" he demanded at length.

"All? Of course it's all."

"Then why did you blush that way?"

The red went out of Priscilla's cheeks. Even the color due to the frostiness of the outdoor air was replaced by an angry pallor. "Do you mean," she said in a level voice, "that you don't believe me?"

"A fellow crowds in and sits down beside you, a fellow I've never seen. You recognize each other and then you turn crimson. You refuse to give me any explanation till enough time has elapsed for fabricating a story, plausible from your point of view--"

"Horace!"

"And you then tell me a yarn that is no explanation whatever. What if a piece of roll did fly out of your hand and fall into somebody's coffee cup! What is there in that to turn you all colors of the rainbow? You're stringing me, that's all." The Horace who quoted Schopenhauer, and talked like the hero of a society novel, had magically disappeared, and in his place was a slangy young man, very much like other young men in a bad temper.

"Horace," said Priscilla, her lips trembling, "I've been afraid for a long time that we'd made a mistake. I can't seem to please you, no matter how hard I try, and probably it won't surprise you to know that I've been perfectly miserable for the last six months. And it seems to me the best thing we can do--"

The people were beginning to come back to their seats. A couple just in front of Horace and Priscilla turned to scream something to a row of young people back of them. Priscilla tightened her grip on her self control and looked straight ahead. It was not the time nor place for breaking an engagement. She must wait till she could get away from this noisy, laughing crowd. Oh, if only the dreadful afternoon were over.

The university triumphed again, as its friends had anticipated. There was the usual tumultuous cheering, the usual frantic demonstrations. Priscilla gave Horace the benefit of a frigid profile. Her sense of indignity kept her sternly silent. He had accused her of lying, and that meant all was over between them. Underneath her hurt and humiliation was a sense of relief she refused to acknowledge even to herself. Fortunately the young man in eye-glasses did not return to take the vacant place at Priscilla's left, and the situation was not further complicated by his embarrassing presence.

She stood up as the crowd rose, thankful for the prospect of escape. Horace put his hand lightly on her arm. "Wouldn't you like something hot to drink?" he asked. "Chocolate or coffee?" His tone was caressing.

"I don't want anything except to get home."

"Then we'll go home, little girl. I only thought you might be chilled sitting here in the cold so long."

He spoke with placid tenderness, as if their quarrel belonged to the Babylonian era of their acquaintance. Priscilla cast a frightened glance at him. She felt like a fly, partially disentangling itself from the spider's web, only to find itself again mysteriously ensnared. "Don't, Horace," she exclaimed impulsively.

"Don't what, Priscilla?"

"Don't talk as if nothing had happened. If you believe that I'm a liar--"

"My dear girl, don't be absurd. We'd better not talk till you're calmer."

"I'm as calm as I'm likely to be when I'm talking of this, Horace. If you think it a little thing to doubt my word, I don't agree with you."

He took her arm and bent down till his face was very close to hers. "Can't you make allowances, Priscilla, for a man crazed with love and jealousy?"

"You haven't any right--" Her voice broke in a sob. She fought desperately against the tears that placed her, she vaguely realized, at such a serious disadvantage, but they were too much for her. They splashed down on her white cheeks, and the couples crowding past glanced at her curiously.

"Forgive me, Priscilla. I accept your explanation. I ask your forgiveness. I am at your feet."

She was lost and she knew it, but she struggled nevertheless. "We've made a mistake. We're not happy, either of us. It's better to stop now than later."

"Priscilla--are you in love with him?"

Horace's tone had changed magically. It was no longer tenderly matter-of-fact, but tragic, desperate. She stared at him aghast. "In love--why, what, do you mean?"

"With that man who sat beside you to-day, the man who did not dare come back and face me."

"Horace,--why, Horace, you must be crazy. I told you I had never seen him but once before, and I told you what happened then."

Her disclaimer did not afford him any especial relief. He was muttering to himself. She caught the words, "As well now as later," and fear gripped her heart. He did not directly address her till they had left the field behind, and were no longer surrounded by the laughing, buoyant throng.

"I have foreseen this, Priscilla. I have known that happiness was not for me. But I have tried to shut my eyes to the truth, to hope for the impossible. Now you have thrown me away like a ripped glove--"

"Horace, I didn't." Even at this tragic moment the thought crossed Priscilla's mind that instead of throwing away a ripped glove as worthless, she would sit down conscientiously to mend it. She brushed aside the reflection as unworthy the occasion and hurried on, "It isn't that. But if we can't be happy now, if we're always irritating and hurting each other--"

"You don't need to say more, Priscilla. You are weary of me. I had dreamed I had found a soul capable of constancy--but no matter. This is good-by, Priscilla. I cannot live without you. When you take away your love from me, you take away all that makes life endurable. All I ask now is forgetfulness, and only death can promise me that--Good-by, Priscilla."

Poor Priscilla! She should have known better. Long before she had discovered Horace's weakness for posing. It was no secret to her that he experienced the keenest satisfaction in contemplating the ravages wrought in his nature by successive disillusionments. Yet though she understood, at this crisis her good sense failed her. In spite of herself, she interpreted Horace's speech by her own sincerity, and a chill terror took possession of her. He would kill himself and she would be to blame. Although the law would not recognize her crime, at the bar of her own conscience she would be adjudged guilty of murder.

"Horace," she wailed, "you did not understand me. I want to make you happy, that's all. If you think we haven't made a mistake, I'm satisfied."

It took a long time to reassure Horace. It was so hard to explain matters satisfactorily that it almost seemed as if he were stupid or else wilfully perverse. Much of the time he stared blankly ahead, so lost in gloomy reflections that she had to speak his name twice, before she could attract his attention. His lips moved, too, but without a sound, as if he were saying things too dreadful to be heard. Altogether Priscilla suffered intolerably before she could bring the unhappy young man to reconsider his desperate purpose.

At last she was partially successful. He became calm enough to listen to her repeated assurances that all she thought of was his happiness and, though his mood was still sober when they parted, he had given a half-hearted and reluctant promise that he would surrender, for the present at least, all thought of doing away with the life he valued so lightly.

Priscilla was not sure how she got through the rest of the day. Her mother noticed her abstraction and speculated hopefully as to whether she had quarreled with Horace. While Priscilla's parents had never been let into the secret of the engagement, they could not be unaware of the significance of Horace's attentions. Like most American fathers and mothers, they believed a girl should be allowed to choose her own friends, unless there was some decided reason to oppose her choice. Although neither of them liked Horace, the reasons for their prejudice were too vague and too personal to constitute a ground for opposing the intimacy. Moreover, both of Priscilla's parents were of the opinion that if she saw enough of the young man she would tire of the mannerisms they found so objectionable.

It was not till Priscilla was safe in bed that she dared relieve her over-burdened heart by tears. And as she lay sobbing with the coverlet over her head, she solemnly relinquished all hope of happiness in this world.

"It was my vanity that got me into this," lamented Priscilla. "I didn't like to feel I was less attractive than the other girls and so I fairly snatched at Horace. Now I've got to stand by my promise if it kills me, but Oh, how am I going to bear it!"

So Priscilla cried herself to sleep. And there was an added poignancy in her grief as she remembered that the Combs family was notably long-lived, boasting some distant ancestors who had rounded out a full century of existence.