Chapter V: Book ONE: The Golden Child (4)

“I will leave school,” she decided. “I can’t breathe in that place.”

But she resolved to tell Allen Blynn first. It grieved her to disappoint him; so she would not take the decisive step until she had informed him of all the necessities of the case. He had certain rights, she admitted.

But Allen Blynn was hard to find. His visits to the Leverings had been most infrequent and casual. A suspicion had come to her sensitive soul that he had preferred not to see much of her. Her entrances had usually been the sign for his leave-takings.

She tried to get courage to go directly to him; she had even got so far as the house; but always she fled. So she took the weak course and wrote him:

_Dear Mr. Blynn_:

I am going to leave school immediately.

I remain,

Very sincerely yours,

GORGAS LEVERING.

The next mail brought an answer.

_Dear Miss Gorgas_:

You are not going to do anything of the sort--at least not until we
have had a good talk on Saturday afternoon, beginning promptly at
three o’clock.

I also remain,

Very sincerely but very firmly yours,

ALLEN BLYNN.

On Saturday afternoon she was waiting for him on the old-fashioned settle before the door of her home.

“Hello, missy!” he called to her from the gate. “When do you graduate?”

“S-sh!” she whispered, and nodded toward the house.

As he drew near he gave a mock whisper in return, “I’ve figured it out that they must have promoted you a class every two days and a half. So you’re to graduate immediately. Tell me about it.”

“We’ve got to walk,” she spoke low.

“Whither, fellow conspirator.”

“To the tennis-courts.”

“Ah!” he mimicked an actor, “’twas there we met.”

“This is no joke,” she declined to catch his spirit. “I’m going to quit.”

It was October and the tennis-courts were bare; so they had the field to themselves as they sat on the home-made judge’s bench.

“‘Begin at the beginning,’” said Blynn, “as the King said to the White Rabbit, ‘go on until you come to the end, and then stop.’”

The tale was unfolded, populations, scoldings, subjunctive and all.

Blynn laughed. “Is it as bad as that? I had no idea the school was such a dungeon. Why, it is supposed to be a first-class institution! I’ll never believe another prospectus.”

“Do _you_ know, Mr. Blynn, how many people are in New York city at this minute?”

“Bless my soul, no!” he shook his head ruefully. “I shouldn’t want to have that on my conscience. It’s much easier to take the count of 1880.”

“But that wasn’t right, even in 1880,” she continued seriously.

“Yes,” he laughed; “New York has grown bigger even while we’ve been talking; or maybe smaller, for half the town may have gone to Coney Island for over Sunday.”

“What does it matter how many people live in New York?” she asked. “I want to know; really. Miss Warren thinks it very important--although she doesn’t know herself how many were there even in 1880.”

“Well, bless my soul, did you ask her?”

“Yes; she told me to come in and see her if ever I wanted to know anything. So one morning I asked her about New York. She made a guess, but she was thousands off. ‘Excuse me, Miss Warren,’ I said--I was sticky with politeness, ‘but I think that’s what it was in 1820. I’m _sure_ it’s grown bigger every year since that time; but I suppose that was the correct answer when _you_ went to school.’”

“Ha! And what did she say to that?”

“She looked me over _very_ carefully, but decided that I didn’t look bright enough. I didn’t. I flattened my face out--this way.” Her face took on the appearance of a dull image; life went out of her eyes.

“Bless my soul, Gorgas, don’t! You look feeble-minded!” And Gorgas knew that Allen Blynn was paying the actress a stupendous compliment. “Go on!” he said. “Go on! This is great!”

“Then I told her the right number, but pretended to guess it--1,202,299--that’s what the book says, anyway. All the time she was hunting for a geography. ‘I’m sure that is not right, Miss Levering,’ but it was: 1,202,299. She hated me for knowing it, too; I could see it in her eye, and I just knew she wouldn’t let me stay right. ‘In 1880,’ I helped her. ‘Ah!’ she swallowed the bait. ‘Of course, Miss Levering, in 1880! But that was eight years ago. Since then, I have no doubt, it has increased considerably--considerably.’ ‘How much is it now, Miss Warren?’ I asked as if she knew everything; ‘how much exactly?’ She swelled up and said, ‘Well, we shan’t be able to tell that until the next census is completed. Of course, no one knows exactly.’”

“Treason!” cried Blynn. “She ought to have been scolded for that speech!”

“And in public!” Gorgas was still vibrating from that open rebuke. “That’s why I got my dressing down before the whole class, too. I’ll never forgive her for that. It was beastly. So I just said sweetly, ‘I am _so_ glad you say that, Miss Warren. That’s what I told Miss Lewis, but she said it was still 1,202,299. It’s funny, too,’ I went on; ‘for that’s what you reprimanded me for before the class. Thank you _so_ much. Goodby,’ and I shot out before she could recover.”

“That’s very subtle,” Blynn commented. “Do you really think she caught your jab?”

“Oh, yes indeedy! If you could see the beady look in old Bong-jour’s eye the next morning. She was ready for me, but so was I. When she bong-joured me I bong-joured her back. Bong-jour! Huh! She doesn’t know French, either.”

“Of course, she doesn’t,” Blynn chuckled. “Most of that school French is the woodenest stuff. How did you find out, Missy?”

“Oh, when she Bong-joured me that morning, I came back fast. It took her off her pins. I asked her questions in French, and then told her in English that she hadn’t answered ’em. I came later than the rest so as there’d be a crowd around. I made her own up that she couldn’t follow me. She tried to talk me down high-and-mighty-like, and pretend that my French was bad; but I jabbered right off to Mlle. Schwartz. Ma’m’selle isn’t very strong on the French herself--”

“What! Another fraud!”

“Well, she can do the French all right, but she’s really German and got her French mostly out of books. But she’s a demon on conjugations and rules.”

“Well, did Ma’m’selle stand by you?”

“You bet. I just went a little slower for her. She’s afraid of me--more afraid of me than she is of Bong-jour--so she always slams French back at me, to show she understands.”

“Well!” Blynn was delighted. “Did the old lady own up?”

“Partly, but everybody in school knows she’s an old fraud. She cried, ‘Slower! Oh, slower! _ma cherie, s’il vouz plait_,’ with a gasp after each word. But I never slower-ed a minute. I jabbered all the faster.”

“And so you’re going to chuck it?” he inquired mildly.

“Yes.”

He thought for awhile--to her a disconcerting thing; it made her feel in the wrong.

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind the fool lessons, perhaps,” she took new ground, “if it weren’t for the hours of silence, sitting at wooden desks without so much as a squirm. Some day I’ll break out and scream.... You don’t think I ought to stay, do you, Mr. Blynn?”

“Yes,” he nodded cheerfully. “Bad as it is, my advice is to stick.”

“Why?”

“It’s a part of my philosophy.”

“What’s philosophy?”

“Philosophy?” He dug his stick in the sod at the edge of the court. “It’s one’s theory of life.”

She hugged both knees and settled back on the bench.

“I like your theories. Tell me about it.”

“My theory is--”

They both laughed at the memory of the time they had talked over “Andrea del Sarto,” and he had been prolific of “theories.”

“It’s hard to put into words,” he mused. “You know, I’m what the Irish call a ‘spoiled priest.’”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a man who starts out to be a priest, but falters on the way and becomes a teacher. He’s a priest just the same; the religious strain is strong in him; he will preach on the slightest provocation. No matter what he does to earn a living, he will find his main interest in soul saving. There’s always something of the religious zealot in him.”

A look came into his eyes that explained better than words what he meant by zealot; it is the same sort of intense stare, a focusing on some distant ideal, that gives the mark to ascetics and martyrs and socialists, and certain types of reformers. It wasn’t a pleasant look, but it made one confident in the man; confident that he would drive himself, against his own interests, to fulfill the duty as he saw it.

“Well,” he made an attempt to begin, “it seems very unreasonable to you that teachers should ask you to know what they don’t know themselves; to learn things that are of no use; to walk ‘in line’ when you might saunter out your own way; to keep silent when it would do no harm to talk. It seems unreasonable, doesn’t it?”

“Well; it is!”

“I agree with you--absolutely senseless and unreasonable. At the same time, I would obey the rules.”

“Why?”

“Because I am afraid of sensible and reasonable things.”

“I’m not!”

“If it were the custom everywhere to walk into the schoolroom backwards, I should do just that.” His eyes narrowed, and the lines about his mouth grew tense.

“That would be silly.”

“So is the commandment, ‘Thou shall not kill.’”

“What!”

“The reasonable, sensible thing to do is to kill. That’s why we go to war. Killing is the most natural emotion, and it is the acme of reason. No murderer ever feels guilty. He has justified his act by the highest reasons of self-preservation and self-advancement. We live in the most rational age the world has ever known. We have reasoned away all restrictions. There is no such thing as authority any more. In some western states they have abolished the common law, and in the east certain classes of society have abolished even the common decencies. It is unreasonable, they say, to be true to one’s wife, to revere one’s mother, to obey parents, to pay debts, to stand by a friend, to vote for civic betterment. All the commandments are unreasonable, including the greatest, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ All that we call moral and right is unreasonable. And I believe they are unreasonable. Sin is as justifiable as righteousness--more so, perhaps. I believe that, but I also believe that ‘the wages of sin is death’; that’s why I am afraid of reason.”

“Isn’t it reasonable to be good to others?” Gorgas inquired wonderingly.

“I’m afraid not.” Blynn’s lips were compressed; his gaze was fixed on the farther trees. “Books have been written against it. Goodness is weakness, they tell us; and so it is. The only right is might, they tell us; and that is undoubtedly the law of survival. Deceit, the snare, devouring murder--that is the supreme law of Nature. I believe that; and yet.... I cannot take my side with evil, even though I perish.”

Suddenly he laughed. The slight hardness went out of his eyes--that hidden scourging priest deep within him--and _mon capitaine_ took its place.

“Heigh-ho!” he whistled. “Don’t let me get started on that sort of speech. I’m a little mad on that side. I warn you. If ever I get going again like that, say, ‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus.’... It’s a charm out of ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.’ Shakespeare invented it.”

“I’ll never say it.”

“Say ‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus,’ and keep your fingers crossed.”

“I won’t. That would be _most_ unreasonable. I want to hear more.”

But he did not go on. “Mother had a horse once who got into the oats,” she offered in illustration. “He foundered. I suppose he thought eating oats was reasonable enough.”

“Well, is it not?” Blynn looked at her. “There are things I want to do that are as reasonable as that. I have gone over every point of the argument and I can’t find a flaw in the reasoning. Every decent instinct I have says, Go ahead. But the unwritten code of my race, the summed up wisdom that we call custom, says, ‘No. Go ahead and you will repent in unforeseen miseries.’... ‘There is a way that _seemeth_ right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.’... So I obey. There are those who scoff at the candles on the altar, who grow pert at the expense of old mysterious faiths, who would jostle cheek and jowl with Deity. I can quite understand them; but I would hesitate to follow them in very deed.... Did I hear you say ‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’?”

“No.”

“What are you puzzling over?”

“I was wondering what all this has to do with old Bong-jour. I know it means I’ll have to go back and stand it; but it isn’t--” she laughed--“it isn’t reasonable.”

“No; it isn’t,” he nodded, “and that’s the very reason you should go back. The wisdom that is older than either you or I, Gorgas, says that youth must submit; must endure; must bow to other wills. ‘A boy’s will’--and a girl’s will--‘is the wind’s will.’ The way toward strength and mastery is first to submit. In some respects you should be thankful that the way is hard. The more foolish your school exactions are, the wiser you will become in discovering them. Already you have grown enormously, due to the Warren School. It has brought out your wits to match their stupidity. Remember, I don’t say to submit ignorantly. There’s no growth in that. Give yourself up to the law; but keep your judgment ever on the alert. Extract every ounce of knowledge from your serfdom; but yourself be free. The essence of freedom is not rebellion, but intelligent surrender.”

The sun began to drop down behind Chestnut Hill. A pleasant crispness came into the October afternoon.

“It’s time to go back,” Blynn arose. “I’m afraid the ‘spoiled priest’ has bored you.”

“I like him.”

“He likes you; you are a splendid communicant. You never interrupt the service.”

“Service on the tennis-courts!” she laughed as they jogged down the hill together. “But you won your service,” she smiled up at him.

“Good girl!” he spoke quietly, a deep, congratulatory tone that gave her a joyous surge of delight. Troubles vanished. Her mind became clean-swept as if by magic; pure, sterilized of rebellious miseries. It was mental healing. “Good girl! I’ve won my service; yes; and I’m glad. But according to the rules it’s your turn to serve now. I’ll be watching every gain you make. It’s a great fight, the fight against oneself. Glorious! Don’t give in an inch!”

He was of only fair height, a spare youngish sort of chap; she was tall for fourteen; so they might have been taken at that darkened hour for a pair of loitering swains.

“Where will you be waiting?” Gorgas asked.

“From a near distance,” he answered.

“Why are you so stingy with your talks?” She darted the question with characteristic abruptness. “This is the first real good one we’ve had since ‘Andrea.’”

A group of friendly neighbors passed. The frank smiles on their faces showed that they appreciated the joke of twenty-four and fourteen promenading together. But it struck Blynn like a slap in the face. He glared and raised his hat energetically.

“I must not hover about you,” he spoke almost sharply. “The neighbors would be talking in no time.”

“Oh, they began that long ago,” she spoke without the least concern. “What do I care what people say! Don’t stalk like that. I can’t keep up with you.”

“Well, I do!”

“Do what?”

“Care what people say!” he was terribly in earnest. “I care mightily. You can’t ignore the mass of unseen thoughts and opinions about you. It’s a force like the sea that can rise and swallow you. Don’t set your own opinions up and ignore all that,” he waved his hand over Mount Airy. “You will be like a canoe in mid-ocean. ‘You don’t care what people say!’ Be careful. Sometimes the voice of the race is speaking. And the race is older and wiser than any single person in it. Buried instincts of the race come to the top, and, behold, you have ‘what people say.’ The voice of the people is sometimes the voice of the devil; and sometimes it is the voice of God.”

“What _was_ that word I was to say--Honorifica--what?”

“‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus!’” he laughed heartily, like a good sportsman.

“Well, honorifica--whatever it is!” she said firmly. “What you said this afternoon may have been all right; but this is just stuff and nonsense. Do you think I’d care what anybody in Mount Airy said about me? They’re a pack of blithering fools.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right,” he said cheerfully as he bade her goodby at the gate. “‘Honorificabilitudinitatibus’ is a great charm. It always brings me to my senses! Goodby, Gorgas.”

“Goodby,” she repeated, and turned slowly up the walk. To herself she said, “The fools! The fools!” The memory of the smirking faces that passed them was full upon her. “The fools! Now they’ve scared him off; just when things were going nice!”