Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

"No, I don't believe she is. My aunt brought a whole crowd down that time. Mamma was on the other side, or she would not have allowed it. Louise is not out yet." Then he dropped his big brown eyes and blushed because he felt that he was talking too much and because he had said "mamma" before the senior.

But Lawrence was only looking grave and interested and well-bred, and he replied, "I see. That's too bad. I wish she could come."

"Yes," said Darnell, "I wish she could come," and then, although he did not want to, he arose to go, because he thought that Lawrence wished to talk confidentially with his freshman, Jansen.

Lawrence, who did not care about his going, because he found it as easy to talk to two freshmen as to one, said, "I hope I'm not driving you out, Bonnell. Good-night. If your sister should decide to come down this year, don't forget to let me have a chance at her card before it's filled. Good-night, Bonnell."

"Oh, I won't," said the freshman. "Good-night."

As if he could forget. As if he would be allowed to forget, indeed! She, dear little thing, in her own becoming little way, worshipped him, too. And at Mrs. Somebody's School in Somethingtieth Street, she used to slip an arm about the waist of her latest everlasting friend, and whisper something about it on the way upstairs after prayers.

During her evening's acquaintance with him in June she had told the great, dark, wonderful man that had "a whole tragedy in his face," "a certain indefinable something" in his manner, and many other things, too, no doubt, that she had a brother who was coming to college the next fall, and she asked Lawrence in a very timid, pretty, natural manner if he would please look out for her brother, who would be a freshman and only sixteen years old. And Lawrence, who was watching the way she held her head and approving of it, said, "Of course I will," and forgot about it during the next dance, which was with a Newark girl, who asked him how the Sunday night hot-liquor club was prospering. That was last June.

To be sure Lawrence did not get his name just right, but then many people did not come that near when they first heard it. Besides, what of that? Had he not looked at him and addressed him twice? That was more than most freshmen could say.

But it hurt a little the next day, when Darnell changed his mind about going to the library because he saw that if he kept on up the walk he would meet Lawrence coming toward Dickinson's with three other seniors. For he received only an absent-minded glance without the movement of an eyelash. But you could not expect Lawrence to remember all the people he met. And, perhaps, he was worshipped all the more for it.

On Sunday he used to gaze with his big brown eyes from his seat in the freshman section way over through the juniors and past some of the seniors, back to Lawrence's place. Sometimes a big head of football hair was in the way, so that he could not tell whether he was there. He was absent so frequently. But when they all arose to sing the first hymn, then he could see, and then he would recall what the football column in the paper he had been reading before chapel reported that "President Lawrence" had done or said, and he wondered whether he himself had read it and how it felt to see one's own words in type.

He seldom joined in the singing, Darnell noticed, unless it was "Ein Feste Burg" or "Lead, Kindly Light," and though he could not tell why, Darnell admired him all the more for his not singing every time. At any rate, it was just like him to stand there with his hands in his pockets and his aristocratic head thrown back and look dark and grave and mysterious. He always looked especially so, Darnell thought, in chapel. His mien seemed to be haughty and kingly, not merely dignified and exclusive like that of many upper-classmen. Lawrence when a freshman could never have been hazed or guyed. He could not imagine him stooping to haze anyone either.

Lawrence could do anything. Anyone could see that from his eyes and chin and the straight, firm mouth with the thin lips. Darnell knew very well that Lawrence could stand high in his class if he wanted to. Probably he could play football. He was built well enough. Darnell thought it would not be quite Lawrence's style to play football. He would hate to see him tackled or rolling in the mud. That would never do for him. Lawrence, he thought, would not have played on the team if he were asked. Darnell had been a Princeton man less than a month.

But he had what was far better than playing on the team--the management of it. And he was just right as he was. He was a dignified, weighty senior, respected by all and feared by many, no doubt, and a man, not a boy, who had travelled much and lived much and had had all sorts of experiences in his younger days. He was old now, nearly twenty-two.

But the most wonderful thing about him was his composure and his commanding reserve. He had the look of the gentleman. His manner seemed altogether impervious to excitement. He was master of every situation. To have such a man in their classes must have been rather embarrassing to the professors. Darnell supposed that the other Lawrences were rather afraid of him when he came home.

His perfect command of himself and of everyone and of everything about him was what most impressed the freshman. That was the reason that when his idol fell, it jarred him.

* * * * *

On Thanksgiving evening his head was throbbing and his ears ringing with the echo of horns and cheers, and before his eyes were flashing little kodak recollections of how the line looked when the ball was put in play, and how the crowd waved and yelled when the full-back tried for a goal. But there was a lot of aunts and cousins and things-in-law for dinner, whom he had to kiss and smile at when they said, "How you have grown!" He wanted to get near some class-mate and put his arm about him and talk it all over, like any other healthy young man after the game. And, as early as he decently could, he slipped on his big new coat and stole out by the basement door.

He walked down the avenue to Madison Square, getting jostled and excited once more. Noisy gangs of fours and eights and dozens were marching and dancing along the street. Some wore orange, others blue. Some were students at various colleges, most of them had never seen one.

He went into the Hoffman. Closely packed streams of men were crowding in and out. The air was hot and there was a confused din of many voices. He worked his way to the end of the glaring room, but saw none of his intimates and but few fellows that he had ever seen before. Most of the crowd were of the sort he had seen on the street, young men of the town with college ribbons all over them, and such boisterous noises grated on him, so he started out again. Some hoarse cheering and husky laughter made him turn and look toward the corner where the throng was thickest. Then he hurriedly pushed his way through the crowd to gain a nearer view of what he saw upon the table.

He tried to persuade himself that it was someone else. He did not understand how he could be among people of this sort.

But there was no mistaking that mouth, though he had never seen the hair hanging down that way, nor the eyes as they were now. About the neck was the rim of a hat.

Suddenly two other fellows brushed past Darnell. He looked up and thought he remembered having seen their faces on the campus. They seemed to be excited, and they wedged their way roughly through the crowd to the table. "Leave him alone," one of them was calling out above the din. Brushing aside some slight interference, they picked up the heap from the table, half carried it through the crowd, saying, as they went along, "You're all right, Harry. Brace up, Harry, you're all right," and paying no attention to the crowd, they hurried across the room to the Twenty-fourth Street entrance and disappeared.

For a moment the freshman only stared at a long, tall clock and wondered. Then he suddenly turned and hurried out into the street.

It was no affair of his. The others were there. They were the ones to take care of him. But the electric light had given him one glimpse, and for the moment it was very revolting. He turned and walked slowly home.

He tried to reason himself out of it. It was nothing to feel so queer over. It was not such a terrible thing, after all, especially after having the game turn out as it did. Most every young man was indiscreet at some time or other. Lawrence was a young man like many others, only he happened to have been indiscreet under unfortunate circumstances. That was all. It seemed worse than it really was.

But he did not want Lawrence to be like others. That was just the point. If it had been someone else he would not have cared. But for Harry Lawrence, Lawrence the superb, his Lawrence, there in that glaring place--jeered at and made a fool of--by that mob of muckers. It was all wrong.

"Well," he said to himself, as he went upstairs to his room, "I suppose I'm too much of a kid, and I'll have to get over my kid ways of looking at things. The sooner the better."

But all the same, it hurt, and when he was dropping off to sleep, he was startled into wakefulness again by one of those queer, sudden pangs which make one ask, "What is it I've lost?"

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LAWRENCE