Chapter VI: Book TWO: The Hidden River (1)

“I wish you wouldn’t squeeze so,” said the Dormouse, who was sitting next to her. “I can hardly breathe.”

“I can’t help it,” said Alice very meekly. “I’m growing.”

XI

SIXTEEN

Gorgas was now fastened up to a schedule--her life became organized. Without a word she gave up her open fight against the unreasonableness of the traditional school customs; accepted the absurdities, and performed the mechanical tasks as if they were really worth doing; and she found, after a while, that, once the ritual was learned, the service was not very exacting either in brain or time.

The need for tutoring being eliminated, the regular weekly dinners at Levering’s gradually broke off. Readings in literature were tried once or twice with a small group, but they developed into rather tame and stilted affairs, and were dropped.

The winter of ’88 and ’89 drifted by before anyone was ready for it to go. The next year Blynn spent in Germany, where all good scholars went in those days, and during the winter that followed his return, the intimate connection with the Leverings seemed almost ready to break off naturally.

Several times Blynn and Gorgas took the afternoon to themselves and read poetry and talked. There was nothing tame nor stilted about these literary exercises; rather, they were warm with the glow of sincere feeling; but they never achieved the perfect freedom of the earlier meetings. Allen Blynn seemed to be growing aloof and pedagogic, and Gorgas was enveloped for good in the protective reserve of the young woman.

Leopold dropped in upon the Leverings with a semblance of regularity. In a crowd he was smilingly silent; but as an intimate guest he came out and talked. The latest news of the biological sciences--all the new mysteries and dramatic new discoveries--he put before them simply and clearly, although he made no concessions to Gorgas’ youth. She thrilled with gratitude because he never once spoke to her in a patronizing way or seemed to consider for one moment that she could not comprehend every discussion; and her acquisitive young soul expanded.

And Ned Morris went on playing tennis with Gorgas until a place had to be set for him regularly at the Levering luncheons and dinners, and on the days of five a. m. practice games, at breakfast, too.

She was sixteen in September--September 10, 1891--and gave a “party”--one of those affairs where everything is planned seriously, as if for excited children--a cake with candles, ice cream in animal moulds, snap bonbons, and guests in semi-masquerade--but where all the so-called children smile satirically and go through the ceremonies in exaggerated earnest. It is really a farewell to childhood.

Kate wrote Blynn his invitation. “Gorgas,” she said, “insists upon celebrating her sixteenth anniversary with due ceremonies of cake and candle and partner. At her suggestion and with the approval of myself I herewith invite you to come and be my partner. Take care before accepting. I have no idea of the duties of partners. Perhaps you may have to bob for apples in tubs; or you may have to play ‘Copenhagen’ and kiss the little girls. It will be outlandish and _non compos_ and characteristic of the Levering Liberty Hall--that you may be assured. I fancy that we old folks will look on, (Gracious! I am twenty-five. O Petruchio, why stayest thou so long in Verona!) while the children cavort.

“The ladies will masquerade mildly. I shall wear my mother’s evening gown of 1861; so you must perforce keep a respectable distance.”

To the great satisfaction of everyone--they all were busy folks and had had a slight chill at the suggestion of children’s party--the guests were simply the old dinner group with the addition of Bea Wilcox. Diccon and Davis were wringing each other’s hands as Blynn entered; Leopold was gaily chatting with Gorgas in French; and Mary Weston and Betty Sommers were crowding around Ed Morris, shaking both hands at once.

“What has Ed been up to now?” inquired Blynn. “Graduated or something?”

Everyone laughed; Blynn looked so eager and so innocent of the world’s doings.

“Ed’s ’89,” Leopold reminded Blynn.

“You ought to know,” chirped Davis, “your marks probably pulled him through.”

Mary Weston took Blynn by the lapels. “Allen Blynn, don’t you really and honestly read the newspapers? Ed Morris has done gone and won the tennis singles championship of Philadelphia county.”

“By the Great Horn Spoon, boy!” Blynn gripped his hand. “I’m mighty glad to know that. Why, I did see an account of some Morris taking the trophy,” he defended himself, “but I didn’t connect you with the business. Why, man, I’d have been there to see you do it.”

“And you didn’t hear about the exhibition mixed doubles, either,” Bea tugged at his other lapel.

“Bless us all!” cried Allen, “don’t tell me you have taken in Montgomery and Lancaster counties, too?”

“It was only an exhibition, Bea,” Gorgas called out from across the room, “the others didn’t half try.”

“Hush, child,” retorted Bea, “when yo’ mammy’s talkin’! The fact is--the latest news is--that Gorgas Levering and Edwin Morris gave a jim-crickety exhibition against the champion ‘mixers’ of the East and--”

“Bless us again!” exclaimed Allen, “don’t tell me that they beat ’em; eh?”

“Yes!” said Bea, “they beat ’em.”

Chorus of protests followed; a babel of correction. Blynn stopped his ears, until Gorgas could be heard.

“No, Mr. Blynn,” she said, “we lost two sets of 10-8 each. We were nearly fagged, weren’t we, Ed? And they were fresh as daisies. They didn’t try; and Ed did all the work. What did you fib for, Bea, and drop us down so hard?”

“I repeat,” said Bea solemnly, “_They_ beat _’em_. Who’s to dispute that? The professor of English here asked, ‘Did _they_ beat _’em_,’ and I just wanted him to take more care and pains with his English and not go sp-pilling his p-pronouns p-promiscuously all over the p-place. So, I just said, ‘Yes; _they_ did beat _’em_.’ And so they did.”

“Aw! What’s pronouns between friends?” queried Diccon, the editor. “Here the girls get all togged out in their mothers’ clothes, and we’re talking ‘newspaper.’” That brought a fresh outburst, mainly an attack on Diccon.

“Sport’s ‘newspaper,’” he explained laconically. “I make ’em--’em here stands for both sports and newspaper. What’s in the newspaper is sport; the rest don’t happen. Blynn didn’t know anything about Morris because he forgets to read the newspapers--and I ran Ed in on the first page, too. Ah!” he sighed, “What is fame?”

At that moment Kate came slowly into the room and courtesied. She wore the small hoops of a young lady of ’61, a dainty costume, when it is not exaggerated; and some of the charm of that sedate attire found its way by contagion into the personality of the wearer. Gentleness and sweetness were her prevailing charms that evening.

Blynn watched her with open interest; an occupation which she did not miss, even when her back was toward him; but he was only thinking how that crinoline period had been much maligned, and was fancying that her mother must have been just such a shy, timorous creature a quarter of a century ago.

Mary and Betty had discovered ill-mated parts of gowns of the early ’80’s--skin-tight sleeves, lace shawl and enormous bustles. Bea Wilcox wore a genuine child’s dress, her younger sister’s, and, with her height, looked as scandalous as she intended.

Later, on the lantern-lighted porch, Blynn was aware of Gorgas standing beside him holding out a hand and asking:

“Weren’t you ever coming over to greet me and wish me congratulations?”

“By the Great Horn Spoon!” he ejaculated, looking her over open-eyed. “What’s happened to you?”

“I’ve growed up, M’sieu’.” Something had certainly happened to her. Her masquerade consisted simply of the gown her sister Keyser would have worn that evening if there had been no disguising. Besides, she had coiled her hair.

“This beats the tennis-court all hollow,” he murmured, patently dumbfounded by the change. “_Retro, Sathanas!_ Get thee behind me, silk and satin!”

“Do you like it?” she asked; but staring admiration glowed from him.

“_Ein tousand ein hundred ein und zwanzig!_” he swore à la Bardek. “It’s uncanny, eerie, spooky!”

“I did it all for you,” she confided frankly. “Hid the--uh-- underpinnings.”

“But good Scotland, girl!” he replied. “That’s not the way to please me! Oh, it’s glorious. Goodness! You are stunning! But you always upset me when you--uh--go without--uh--underpinnings, you know. Disconcerts me.” His tone was that of the older-man-joking-with-little-girl; but his eyes shone with admiration. “Makes me think I ought to treat you the way--eh--I ought to be ashamed of myself for wanting to. If you’d only giggle or simper--things you never do, thank Peter!--it would give me the cue, occasionally.”

“I see you are impressed,” she smiled and tapped him on the arm. “That’s what I did it for--just that.... You’ve got the wrong idea about fifteen and sixteen. Older persons always do. Fifteen and sixteen don’t feel at all childlike, I can tell you. I’ll never be any older than I am now. My mind’s grown up--”

“‘I do not wear motley in my brain, madonna,’” he quoted the wise clown, Feste.

“That’s just it,” comprehending; “and it’s insufferable to dress us the way they do--skirts that are neither long nor short, hair hanging or half brought up with ribbons. And,” she whispered, “you get positively ashamed of your--underpinnings. I’ve let out the hem of some of my skirts myself--on the quiet. You don’t know how comfortable and at home I feel in this.” She took several easy steps forward and back. “But mother won’t listen to me. I’d be grown up from now on if she’d let me.”

Others of the party were swarming out on the porch. Kate was coming forward to claim her partner.

“Listen, _mon capitaine_,” Gorgas spoke hurriedly. “I want to have a powwow with you. Stay a few moments after the others are gone; will you?”

He agreed, hardly comprehending what she had said. Her eyes were searching him as of old and her hand was ever so lightly touching his arm. All convention to the contrary, she was a woman, no doubt; but it was the delightful childlike quality about her that really thrilled him. He was thinking, now that she looked so stately and poised, how, after all, it was as a child that she appealed to him. A strong, painful desire swept him to have just such a brood of his own about him. His impulses were domestic and parental, and he was twenty-six and childless.

Kate was talking to him and he was answering with one-half of his mind. The other half was following Gorgas as she swept across the porch and onto the lawn to claim her partner, Ed Morris. Morris was offering an arm grotesquely in tribute to her long skirts. They marched off gaily.

That’s the way she would go, he tried to assure himself. Some chap of her own generation would take her away, and then she would be lost. It was the fate of parents to lose their offspring. Real fathers, however, had rights and claims. They could put their arms about their daughters, pat their cheeks and listen to their prattle, no matter who else owned them; and there would be no horrid suspicions about the matter. As he heard the ripples of laughter that came from their confidential talks out on the lawn, he had a little pang of regret. “_Mon père_,” he remembered how she had once dubbed him. “_Mon père_,” he nodded to himself, “is about to lose his _enfant_; and it isn’t at all a pleasant sensation.... It’s like pups,” he grinned. “There’s no use trying to own them. You get your affection all tied up and then they die and you have to begin all over with a new lot. The thing to do is to give ’em away quick and forget ’em.”

XII

MIXED RENDEZVOUS

Everywhere at the “party” Morris and Gorgas were naturally together. They made such a perfect tennis team that each got to know instinctively what the other was thinking. Scraps of private pass-words and codes flashed back and forth, references to games and experiences they had in common. He was always being called upon to work at setting up chairs or untying ribbons or fastening up a fallen lantern.

“Edwin,” she would turn. “Take a look at my back hair, will you? Isn’t that hair-pin tumbling out?”

He would inspect critically and put the offending member into shape, like a familiar brother.

“Don’t forget the bonbons,” she would call after him, as he hurried about preparing things, like one of the family. “They’re where you put them--on the top shelf in the pantry, you know.”

At supper the cake was cut and each candle blown out with a rhymed wish. Gorgas had arranged the seating with Blynn on one side and Morris on the other. With Morris she squabbled playfully like a child, but to Blynn she turned an impish womanly mien.

“Take your elbows off the table, Eddie,” she pretended to give little sisterly slaps. “Where are your company manners?”

To Blynn she would turn the next minute, and mimic a lady dining out.

“The plans for this winter’s opera are stupid; don’t you think? Nothing but Wahgner--we’re getting our share of Wahgner--and the old Fausts and Carmens and Trovatores. That new opera of Puccini is already stale in Vienna, and we haven’t heard even excerpts in the orchestra. It’s like a stage given up to continuous Uncle Tom’s Cabins.”

Another time she came at him with the intonation of a gushing old lady. “How _int_’r’sting!” she beamed suddenly at one of his remarks about the Academy exhibition, a topic she had forced on him. “_Have_ you seen the Cyclor_ah_ma of Gettysburg? They say it is _re_-ally _thrill_-ling. _Quite_ the illusion of distance, you know. One _ought_ to go.”

For some unexplainable reason Blynn’s humor failed him. He tried to talk with her on the strange themes she irrelevantly suggested, inwardly registering his protest at the changes of personality in people. Some of his best college chums had grown into impossible young-old men and the liveliest girls of his teens frequently developed into stupid matrons. Gorgas, he conjectured gloomily, was losing all her naturalness; her individual mind was being moulded in the common cast.

He turned his attention to Kate. She had not changed, save in so far as her delicate silk attire gave her a temporary flavor of blue china and tea roses.

“What is the good news out of Verona?” he inquired.

“Petruchio has not yet arrived,” she answered promptly.

“Ah! You are not shrewish enough. Katharina had a reputation for ugliness of temper.”

“Ask Gorgas,” she smiled. “She and I have some fearful fracases sometimes--not often, though.” She leaned back to get a good view of her sister. “Doesn’t she look lovely, tonight! It is so droll to see her in my gown. I hope I look as well in it. The child is growing up fast. Ah, me! She’s my age-warner. I shall be jealous of her soon.”

“I say, Allen,” Diccon called, “going to take that professorship at Holden?”

“Why, how under heaven did you know about that?” asked the astonished Blynn.

“Newspaper,” said Diccon. “We know everything; before it happens, too. Want me to run it in, front-page display?” he grinned.

“Bless my soul! Please don’t do anything like that, Diccon. It’s a small matter--big for me, of course--but of no public interest.”

A general chorus forced him to a more public explanation. Holden College had offered him the chair held by his old professor of English. It meant more money--an unimportant matter; but, it meant the head of things, even though they were small things, and the chance to work under his own lead. He had not decided, although as it stood now he believed he would not go. The big university had its own attraction; one might meet an intolerable narrowness in a small place; and there were his “children,” about whom he felt more or less responsibility. To be sure, they could be taken care of.

“Go!” said Diccon with almost a snap. “Get out of this. You’re just a trailer here. Never get anything in your home town. Go away. Be a mystery. They’ll want you back some day, when others find out you’re worth wanting. Band waiting for you, too. My advice is to clear out. That’s what I ought to’ve done--long ago.”

The company fell to a discussion of why prophets and professors were honored in all cities save their own. Under cover of the general talk, Gorgas tapped Allen on the sleeve, her characteristic way of getting his attention, and spoke in her proper rôle, as old-time “pal.”

“Does this mean something for you, _mon capitaine_?”

“I suppose it does,” he replied. “Somehow I don’t seem to have any judgment in my own affairs. Prudence tells me to go; it _is_ an opportunity; but I have almost made up my mind to plod along where I am.”

“Just what do you mean by opportunity?” she asked.

He explained. As he talked, the really flattering offer began to have some meaning for him. It seemed now as if he had been careless in letting the letter from the President go for three or four days without so much as a reply. But that’s the way he had always neglected his personal advancement.

“I don’t know whether to let you go or not,” Gorgas speculated. “Of course, you would be down Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and vacations?”

“Sure to.”

“You might just as well go, for all I have seen of you lately,” she added. “Why did you suddenly give me up?”

“I think you have hit upon the one reason that made me think of declining the Holden offer,” he was thinking hard and did not seem to have heard her question. “I’m lazy, I suppose; I hate to make changes. Holden would mean boarding and no real home. It would mean giving up a mighty pleasant work here and a lot of good fellows,” looking about the table.

Her question seemed to come slowly to the front of his mind. He would have made some sort of rejoinder, but she was at the moment scolding Morris, who was pretending to eat ice cream from a knife.

They were rising and breaking up before she spoke to him again.

“Don’t forget, _mon capitaine_,” she plucked his sleeve. “You are to stay after the others.”

“Oh, yes,” his face lighted up. “Count on me.... It will be like old times.”

“How frightfully time flies,” she reverted suddenly to a burlesque of the bored lady-out-to-dinner. “Why it seems only yestehdee that we wuh children togetheh.”

Like a belated jest he began to see through her strange airs. “I’ve been frightfully stupid tonight,” he admitted. “Some of your fooling was too delicate for me; it got completely by--”

“I’m simply living up to my gown, sir,--in spots.”

His rather old-young face looked its honest admiration.

“What’s that thing-em-bob on your--oh! Do you belong to a sorority? Why, bless my soul! It’s a fraternity pin--eh? remade into a brooch.... Whose is it?”

“Edwin’s; he had it done for my birthday; nifty, isn’t it?... You didn’t give me anything, miser.”

“Little girls shouldn’t wear men’s fraternity pins,” he scolded gently.

“_Oui, mon père._”

“‘_Mon père_’--ugh! That’s wicked of you, to remind me of my years.... But you know about the custom, don’t you?”

“Tell me.”

“Oh, perhaps it doesn’t always count. In my ‘frat’ it’s a pretty serious crime, punishable by drinking a quart of quashia-water, to give your emblem to anyone but _the_ lady. It’s the old, ancient ‘token’ over again; love is blind and lovers are dumb; the token given and the token received is the time-honored language of a contract begun.... But there! That’s all nonsense.... Of course, you can wear it without any significance at all. You’re hardly old enough to contemplate an engagement.”

“Don’t you be too sure, Mr. Professor,” she hummed wisely as she strolled away to bid farewell to her guests.

Edwin was sauntering by. She whistled a private signal which brought him swiftly about with an “Aye! aye! sir!” “Don’t forget, you’re to stay till the rest have gone,” she whispered quite audibly.

“Not your Uncle Dudley,” Edwin responded cheerily.

* * * * *

Kate seemed to know that Blynn would remain later, for she piloted him to the library as a matter of course. Mr. and Mrs. Levering were reading in the alcove in the far end of the big room.

“Let’s ‘owl,’” she suggested. “Owl” was the family name for the family habit of staying up late. “Let’s ‘owl’ and talk. I’m broad awake. What kind of chairs did they have, mother, in ’61? I have the hardest time finding one that fits the hoop.”

She tried several chairs prettily. Certainly that style of apparel increased the helplessness of women, usually a beauty asset.

“Come over here, child,” called the mother, “and I’ll show you a trick.”

The trick consisted in slyly slipping out of the hoops--a kind of detachable understructure--and leaving them in the alcove.

While he waited, Blynn could hear little contagious, intimate laughters from the lawn. Gorgas and Morris were helping McAlley extinguish the Chinese lanterns and, youthlike, were taking their time about it.

“I’m the decoy,” thought Allen, rubbing one palm along the side of the face. “Oh, these children! They fascinate me with their nimble intelligence and their mysterious changes. It’s a great business, dealing in children. They give one an enormous amount of joy--I fancy it’s the best thing I do, after all; but they set me hungering for a pack of my own that won’t desert me when I’ve given them all my toys to play with.... I believe that little minx was flirting with both of us tonight. Trying out her new wings! The gown made her conscious of things. Ah, well,” he yawned.... “Hello! What did you do with the flare-bellows?”

Kate trailed in with a large quantity of subdued skirt.

“I took the machinery out.... Now! I can sit comfortably at last. Oh! I’m tired.”

She dropped among a lot of cushions in front of him.

“Any more interesting Elizabethan theories?” she began.

“Plenty,” he replied. “At present I am interested in Elizabethan devils.”

“Tell me about them.”

“Well,” he hesitated, and then went on, just like a professor! “King James claimed that flying devils tried to upset his boat in the North Sea, and he personally attended the trial of a lot of old bedlams, who confessed and were burned. But in some old documents in the University I have found something even more exciting. One of the genuinely thrilling things that I’ve come across is Dr. Dee’s diary, scribbled on the margins of old almanacs. He was an astrologer, alchemist, mathematician, spiritualist, physician, in other words, a 16th century scientist. Elizabeth consulted him for propitious days; that is, she had her fortune told.”

Kate snuggled up to listen. He went on thoughtfully.

“Dee records his cases. Susan G. came to see him about her devil. He tries to exorcise it by the laying on of hands and much imperative Latin. Then she goes away relieved. A servant in the house has an incorrigible evil spirit. There is much praying over her case and a deal of incantation without permanent cure. One day she slips by him on the stairs. His professional eye has seen symptoms of the inward struggle between imp and human. He follows quickly. She slides behind a door at the bottom of the stair. He hears a gurgling sound and the fall of a heavy body. Behind the door lies the poor maid. The devil had tempted her to cut her throat, he says, so that she could die in sin and be his in æternum.”

“I suppose you believe in the Elizabethan devil?”

“Doesn’t everybody? We’re coming back to witches and devils. The Psychological Research Society is only 19th century for Dr. Dee; and what with telepathic influence urging to crime, and multiple personalities, I don’t see anything in Elizabethan so-called superstition that we moderns haven’t improved upon.”

“So love is a contagious disease,” Kate ruminated, “and most of us are possessed of devils. Charming thoughts! At that rate, one might marry a devil.”

“Many do,” he laughed.

“The devil might have me,” she mused, “if he came in some guises.”

“You think you’re joking, but you’re not,” he came back in his characteristic bluntness. “Beatrice jested in exactly the same tone. ‘I may sit in a corner,’ she sighed, ‘and cry heigh-ho for a husband!’--but gave herself mightily away then. And do you remember Margaret’s reply? ‘Methinks you look with your eyes as other women do,’ said she. Now you, Miss Levering, you want to marry; of course, you do. It’s as natural a desire as hunger. ‘You look with your eyes as other women do.’ Millions of women feel exactly as you do; and, alack, millions for some confounded civilized reason don’t get the chance; or they won’t take a chance when they get one. If I were you I’d learn to do something--fill your mind with an absorbing occupation, basket weaving, rug making, study, writing--something; act as if you were never to catch the infection, or whatever it is.... That’s what I’m doing.... Why don’t you be a librarian?”

“You are the frankest man I know,” she spoke after a moment’s contemplation of his earnest face. “I believe you are right.... I am loafing my life away. And I’m useless as--” she shut her lips together firmly. Tears glistened in the lamp-light.

He leaned forward with great brotherly sympathy.

“I did not mean to hurt--”

“Oh, no! no! no! You? You hurt? My dear, dear man! You haven’t the power to hurt--you are so transparent and sincere. It’s--it’s the devil in me, I suppose,” she laughed nervously, “that did the stabbing.... But what is a woman to do? Sit and wait for some accidental man to give her the only thing she has been made fit for? I wish I did have a job. But, lordy! wouldn’t there be a roar if I hired out! Father Levering would have a stroke!”

She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief.

“Let’s go out in the air,” she suggested.

The lanterns had been extinguished, but in the September starlight the wide lawn was awake and glowing. There they talked familiarly until the Seminary tower spoke a heavy “one.”

Kate had unburdened, as women and children did to Blynn; and he had filled her with good, courageous thinking, his native gift. They seemed infinitely acquainted as they approached the cosy light of the library; and Kate was happy again. Her little laugh punctuated the conversation often.

Gorgas? Where had she gone? Blynn made a futile search. Ah, children! children! he thought grimly; the subtle September night had taken them off. He tried the bower at the end of the orchard, whistling first, as a precaution--Blynn was a good sportsman--but she was not on the grounds, nor in the house.

McAlley, with his lantern, came sleepily out into the light of the path.

“Mr. Blynn,” he beckoned; and then in great secrecy, “Gorgas--she’s went to bed. She gives me this letter for you. Faith! It’s a cat-nap I’ve been takin’, and almost forgot it all.... Good night, Mr. Blynn.”

“Good night, Mac.”

The little note said:

_Mon Capitaine:_

I waited for you ever so long, and then I peeked in at you, but you
seemed so happy with Kate that I just waited a little longer and
then went trotting off to sleep. I have so much to tell you. Edwin
plays in the finals at Haverford, Wednesday. Come and take me, please
do. You’re to get your own luncheon. We start promptly at twelve,
because Mac is going to drive us over. We can watch the game from
the carriage. Edwin will get the Club to serve tea. I’ve seen Bardek
again. And I’m to have an exhibit at the Art School.

_Comme toujours toute à toi_,

G.

P. S’s. 1. Mother says I may go if you take me. She won’t listen to
anybody else going along.

2. I gave Edwin back his frat. pin temp--would say temperarilly if I
could spell it.

3. Kate looked happy, too. _Wouldn’t that be fine!!_

“The little matchmaker!” he chuckled at the stars; “concocted the rendezvous and all.... It’s young Bianca getting the elder Katherina out of the way, again!... Shrewd!... And her whole-hearted unselfish self, too.... Well, I feel decidedly better. Morris--dandy chap, clean, straight sort. I know ’em; true as--” His mind trailed off in search of a strong comparison. “Indecision is the vice of life.” He walked briskly and tried to shake off uncomfortable thoughts. “It’s fine to have things settled.... Oh, the luxurious sensation of a mind finally made up!” But he walked with a long stride, his hands thrust deep into pockets; and his eyes were staring ahead as if trying to pluck a new decision out of the darkness.

XIII

TOPIC NUMBER FOUR

Where are the landaus and barouches of yesteryear, overpowering symbols of upper caste? Gone with the calash, the chaise, the coach and the cabriolet. The formal vehicle of the Leverings was called “the carriage” to distinguish it from the informal surrey. The “carriage” was always driven by Mac, who donned for the purpose a special outfit--Mr. Levering’s minim of Quaker blood balked at anything suggesting livery--aimed to indicate that Mac was just a remove and a half from membership in the family. Mac’s name for them was “his blacks,” which the Leverings adopted as a private code.

“Oh, Mac!” Kate would haloo from the rear porch. “‘Blacks’ at three.”

“’Right, Mis’ Lev’ring.” Mac would quite comprehend that a call or a drive was on the program for the afternoon.

On the drive to Haverford, Mac was resplendent in new “blacks”; his white linen ascot shone beatifically from its dark setting, and his new square-blocked hat had a small cockade at the side--clearly contraband that had escaped the eye of Father Levering. The carriage was eloquent of labor.

Blynn remarked the added note of luxury.

“We just had to smart up a bit,” explained Gorgas. “We can’t look shabby and have those ‘main-liners’ elevating lorgnettes at us _all_ the afternoon.... Oh, I’ve been preparing for this for months, getting a little new harness here and there, and some fresh paint, and working Dad for new ‘blacks’ for Mac. This is the first time I put them all together. Ain’t we stylish?... Come, get in; we must make the most of every minute--”

“But aren’t we frightfully early? The games aren’t until four o’clock, I understand,” Blynn stood stupidly contemplating his watch.

“In, _mon capitaine_!” she commanded, “before mother changes her mind and sends Kate along.... Do exactly what you’re told. I’m Pippa today,” parodying, “This is my _one_ holiday in the _whole_ year!... We’re off, Mac; Cresheim, you know.”

“I ought to have worn my store clothes,” Blynn remarked ruefully. “This is awful grand.... Ought to have been a band playing as we started off, flags waving, whistles blowing--”

“Hush!” she plucked his arm eagerly. “Don’t let’s waste time. I have so much to tell you.”

“Well,” he looked at her in his old rôle of father-confessor, “what has the naughty child been doing lately?”

“First, this is the longest skirt I ever owned.” She kicked out and showed just an inch or two above her high shoe-tops. “We had a big row over it. Kate says I’m rushing things too fast; want to be old before my time. Mother says the neighborhood wouldn’t hear of long skirts and hair completely up. I say, I’m as old as I dress. Nobody looks you up in the Bible as you walk along the street. I don’t wear ‘1874 September 10th’ on my forehead. And as for the neighbors--” she laughed. “Do you remember how Bardek bristled once when you spoke about something being all right, but dangerous because contrary to public opinion?”

“Oh, I want to know,” he interrupted; “you say you’ve seen Bardek.”

“We haven’t reached that topic yet, Mr. Professor;” she settled back comfortably. “That’s a subject we shall take up later in the course. At present, we are discussing clothes. You got me this long dress. Thank you.”

“I? Pray, how?”

“I put it to mother how you would feel taking care of a child all day. They had me all planned for a dotted Swiss, pink sash, and a floppy leghorn--ugh! and my hair down like Alice in Wonderland’s!... So, I stormed and used you for argument. Quoted you, too--things you would have said, if--if you had said ’em. I pictured the thing; made them see us walking hand-in-hand, before all that Main-line crowd, Father Rollo and daughter Rollo--me lost in that leghorn! Well, they compromised on this.”

“You did it mighty quick,” he remarked thoughtfully. His eye took in the satisfying effect of the close-fitting silk “basque,” with its soft, flaring sleeves drooping in mysterious folds from the shoulders, and the oldish dark hat with its snug cluster of blood-red roses.

“One whole month,” she told him. “The dressmaker comes only on Mondays, you know.”

“A month?” He was puzzled. “You didn’t know I was coming with you a month ago?”

“Oh, yes, I did, _mon capitaine_,” she chuckled. “You were all planned, too.”

“Bless my soul!” he ejaculated.

“Topic number two,” she announced, “is Holden. Of course, you are going to take that professorship?”

“No!” he spoke sharply. “I can’t possibly do it--The fact is--well, I’ll tell you--Diccon got it for me. He’s a member of the trustees. I didn’t know that. He just pulled for me--awfully fine of him; but he used the bludgeon of newspaper power and every trick he could lay hold of. There was an immense competition--I didn’t know that, either--and he won out by a big majority, against the President’s candidate, too. I wormed it out of him. He says it’s all right--says that’s the way it’s done.... Says he’ll make me President next.... Gross!... And I thought they had read my little studies--Pooh! There’s something humiliating in that sort of thing--even if it is customary. I told Diccon I couldn’t take it.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said, ‘Think it over.’ I have thought it over. It’s no use.”

“I agree with Diccon,” she spoke firmly. “You ought to go. You must take things the way they’re given. I got this dress by arguing the family out of their best judgment. I fibbed a little and put up an artificial storm--pure dramatics, every bit of it--all the time I was thinking how nice a chocolate soda water would taste--I just bulldozed them into giving in. I asked for more than I possibly could get and got what I really wanted. You’re too--too poetic. My advice is to go to Holden and be somebody. The other fellows were playing the same game--don’t forget that!--and they lost. Oh, it was not ideal, but it was perfectly fair. Your friends had the stronger pull, that’s all.”

“I abominate ‘pull,’” he muttered, “all I’ve ever--”

She put a hand squarely across his lips and held it there.

“Hush!” she warned. “That topic is overboard, for the present. Let’s be happy on this ‘_one_ holiday of the _whole_ year.’” She rolled her eyes, like an ingenuous Pippa. “Topic number three is very near. I can hear it.” She raised her hand to make a funnel of it. “Hoo-eeee!” she called across the ravine.

“Hoo-eee!” came a familiar bass, followed by a crashing of bushes. Mac stopped as if on signal.

“_Grüss Gott! Herr Professor!_” he greeted Blynn; “H’lo, Mac!” he dropped into colloquial English for the driver; but nothing but French would do for the lady, “_Jolie à croquer, la petite gosse!_”

Bardek, round-faced and smiling, held out gripping hands to all three. As if it had been arranged he clambered into the carriage and drove on with them.

“How fine it is to see you!” he looked affectionately at Blynn. “This is not a good French day--only half and half,” he swept the sky critically, “or I would kiss you on both cheek. Ha! How you would jump! Oh, but you are so cold in America! You shake the hand, sometimes--good!--but you miss much warmth, much flow of blood. The love of man for woman, you have so! so!” a shrug that showed our lack even there, “but the love of man for man you have not at all--a great thing.”

“Bardek,” Gorgas broke in, “I will not have you making speeches all over the place. You--”

“In Bohemia,” he went joyfully on, waving an apologetic hand at the interrupter, “we embrace and kiss and have hot feelings. Here, you bow or say, ‘H’lo’ or ‘So long, ol’ man.’ Ach! We are flesh and blood. We were made to tingle when we touch. You don’t half love what you don’t touch. I keep my hands off this little missy--she would not let me smooth her and pat her; she jump so! And you, Miester Bleen--là! là! _là!_ là!--if I hold you in my arms--or the good Mac there, who I love, too--and kiss you on the ears and on the head! Cr-r-azy! What you say? Nut-ty! To ze Blockley Assylumm, queek! Before he run about and bite somebody else. Eh? It is so, is it not?”

“I often feel like that,” Blynn confessed, “with men, I mean.”

“Of _course_, you do,” Bardek arched his brows. “You are human being wit’ nerves,” he said “ner-r-ufs”--“and you have gr-reat power of affection bottled up, corked, inside of you. But, you are ashamed, eh? to show it?”

“Undoubtedly, quite ashamed. I often want to throw my arms over a good man friend--like Leopold, for instance--but--I’d die first.”

“There!” he turned to Gorgas. “He would die for that! For a little not’ing peoples die. In Turkey the lady would die if she show the lip; in America, the lady would die if she show the foot; in Paris, the lady would die if she _not_ show the foot. In England, the lady and the man sneak away quiet and take the baths in boxes in the ocean; in America they dance together in the water and show the ladies how to float, so! And, oh! so little clothes. Poof! Bah! I would die but for only one thing--when I cannot longer get a good breath! All else is jus’ foolishness. I--”

“Bardek,” interrupted Gorgas, “if you talk any longer I’ll turn you over to the police as a public nuisance.”

“See!” he cried. “How queek I be still. _Me voilà! Silencieux comme une carpe_--still like fish!”

“This is strictly business, Mr. Blynn. Bardek has been helping me with my exhibition at the Applied Arts--”

“And it is won-derful, her work. I--ach! That is one thing I die for, if they pass law to make me to shut up.”

“They’re going to give me a special exhibition--‘One-man Show,’ they call it. Bardek came back in August, and we’ve been working together in my smithy--the old spring-house, you know. I couldn’t go down the Valley any longer; it wouldn’t look right--”

“_Nom d’une pipe_!” he blurted. “The land of liberty. Bah!... Excuse!--_Toujours silencieux!_”

“So, we worked him in as a friend of Mac’s. Dad actually hired him once to whitewash the palings!” she chuckled merrily at the thought, as did Bardek.

“Me! W’itewashes! Oop!” he clapped his hand across his ready mouth.

“Now I have a plan. Bardek is to take that little house back of us.”

“_Take_?” asked Bardek. “How do you _take_ house?”

She shook a warning finger.

“The little white cottage, with the garden. You own it; don’t you? It is never rented. Well, Bardek is to live there, and do copper work. You come to see Mother Levering and pump her full of Bardek and have him hired for a teacher--to get ready for the exposition, you know. Say anything; make up something. Mother believes anything you tell her.”

“_Wait!_” exploded Bardek. “Please give me to speak. I to live in a house? W’ite house wit’ garden? and plumbing? and window sashes? and tables and chairs? and doors?”

To each article of the inventory Gorgas nodded.

“For me,” she added. “All for me.”

He turned energetically to Blynn. “I make mistake. There is one other t’ing I die for--to live like chicken in a house....” He looked at her curiously. “_Nom d’une pipe!_” he speculated. “I see I am going to do that t’ing.... _Nom du nom d’une pipe!_ I am going to live in a house! Wah!” he laughed aloud, head thrown back. “You do not know w’at you ask. And I do not know w’at I do. I swear, ten, fifteen year ago, I take big oath that I nevair again live in house--some day I tell you zat story--and now,” he recovered and looked at Gorgas solemnly, “I do t’at t’ing.... All ri’--for you! Good! Bury me in your w’ite house.... _Nom du nom du nom d’une pipe!_”

“That’s settled,” she turned now to Blynn. “We think twelve dollars a month is a good price for the cottage--especially since you haven’t rented it for ever so long. Mac will get it put in good shape for you. Is it a go?... For me!”

“Take it for nothing,” said Blynn.

“Well, we’ll call it eight dollars, then,” she resumed.

“Ho!” cried Bardek, highly amused. “She is good at the bargain. In my country the woman get everything cheap.”

“Here’s where you get out, Bardek.”

“Ach, so soon! Well, I get in, I go housekeeping, I get out--_comme tu voudras, mon enfant_. Some day, she say, ‘Bardek, go jump in Schuylkill river, please,’ and I say, ‘Yes, miss, jus’ please wait till I put on my coat.’... Goodby, Mr. Blynn; Goodby, ol’ Mac; adieu, Madam Pompadour, who make kings of the earth go live in little w’ite closets. _Adieu!_”

Farewells were waved until Bardek could be seen no longer.

“Topic number four,” she took up the next part of her program abruptly. “I’m not going to let you drop me, Allen Blynn.... I just won’t stand it.”

She spoke hurriedly and nervously. Allen Blynn was quite taken by surprise.

“It isn’t fair. You said you would take charge of me, my education, I mean; you told mother you would; everybody thought so, too; and then, you just--walked out.... For the last year I’ve seen you only once or twice on the streets, and you’re always rushing somewhere.... What have I done?... We’ve got to settle this thing right here and now. I’ve been thinking and thinking and I can’t make it out. You just avoid me as if I weren’t fit to--” the storm began to subside. “Of course, I don’t mean that. But why can’t we be good pals, like we were? Why not, _mon capitaine_?”

The abruptness of the thing almost overwhelmed him. The contrast between her gaiety in dealing with Bardek and the almost bitter seriousness of the present mood was a shock.

His excuses she listened to without a word of interruption. He began by showing that when he found schools for her his business as educational agent was at an end. Then his university teaching, his studying, his writings, and the care of his little charges, who could not always go to expensive schools, all that had absorbed him. Besides, the old group had broken up of its own accord--one of those accidental, unplanned things that happen. His year in Germany, too, had made an unlooked for break. There he ended.

“When you were in Germany,” she spoke with great deliberation, “I wrote to you. Didn’t you get the letter?”

“Why, yes--to be sure, I did. Of course, I did--eh--Didn’t I answer it?”

“You know you did not.”

He knew, and showed it painfully.

“Why?” she kept to the point.

He couldn’t exactly say; he was always careless; wretched personal habits he had.

“I am asking you a question. Why did you not answer my letter?”

“Oh, how can I tell you, Gorgas,” he writhed, but she was merciless.

“That’s what I intend to find out. It’s got to be settled right now--this whole business.”

“Very well,” he concluded. “I’ll try to tell you. Your letter was all right--”

“No, it wasn’t. It was six, gushing, gloomy pages of homesickness for you. I had the blues awfully. Nobody around the house attempts to try to understand me or give me a fair show. You came along with a whole new world and called me ‘pal’ and let me in, and when you shipped off without ever giving me a hint that you were going, I was so flabbergasted I sat down and poured out. I posted it that night--in the rain--and cried the rest of the night because I had sent it. But I said, ‘Allen Blynn is the one man on earth who will understand a lonely child.’... But, it seems you didn’t.... Can’t you realize the--the--agony of every day that brought--nothing? If you had scolded me or something, I should have felt all right. But you just--shut up.”

She stared ahead of her in blurred indignation. The little, blood-red roses on her hat were trembling. He could see that she was striving to control her excited breathing.

“Little girl,” he spoke kindly, “that was a great blunder of mine. To think that I hurt you--is almost unbearable.... I thought I understood children, but, bless my soul!--I don’t know the beginnings. Let me tell you something. I am quite sure that every time I got hold of a pen or pencil, even to write so much as a postal card, I thought of your letter and wondered what I should do. I couldn’t decide. Several times I planned letters to you--”

“Honest! You really did?” she gasped.

“Yes, indeed. But, you see, I didn’t at all understand your letter. I’ve received loads of letters from children, but this one--why, child, it was--oh, now that I understand your ‘blues’ and all that sort of thing, it’s clear enough. But, you see, this was too--too--”

“Go on,” she spoke determinedly; “it was! I meant it to be!”

He made up his mind to speak plainly to her.

“You were a little child,” he began.

“I wish you wouldn’t forever harp on ‘child.’ I was no child. I was fifteen years old, and knew exactly what I was about. If I had been a fifteen-year-old puppy you’d have given me credit for something.”

“That’s just the point--the only point; you were not a puppy, but a girl-child of fifteen, writing a very sentimental letter to a man of twenty-five. The rules of the game are very clear, my dear. The man of twenty-five must not encourage sentiment, or he is a--a--foul thing. It’s the law of our civilization; and I was not free to break it.”

“‘America! Ze lant of Leeberty!’” she mimicked Bardek softly. “‘You couldn’t write what you thought.... No, I see that.... You’d have been ashamed, wouldn’t you?... It is one of t’ t’ings you would die for, eh? _Wass?_’”

“Absolutely!” he spoke with conviction. “Bless my soul!”

“All right,” she regarded him carefully. “You are forgiven--almost.... You made me so blamed mad, by just letting me slide that way, that I could have done things to you. Well, that’s all over and I feel better. I couldn’t quarrel with anybody very long today; this new dress fits too well; but I just had to have this thing out with you, Allen Blynn, or--or--” She could not think of an adequate figure of speech.

“Now,” she went on; “topic number--what number is it? Five, I think. Topic number five. Tell me all about Germany. That’s the last topic till we reach Haverford. Just go on, and on, and talk and talk, and I’ll snuggle up in this corner and listen.... Hurry!... Begin!”

She leaned back in the cushion with a rug tucked up and around her as warm and contented as a sleepy kitten.

He talked of Germany, and world politics, and literature and pedagogy. When he drooped, she stirred him on.

As they drew near Haverford he asked her a question about the games. She gave no answer. Propped in her corner, just beside the wrinkles made where the hood of the carriage is thrown back, she was having a contented, smiling slumber.

He watched her as she slept, mused on her calms and her storms, speculated as to what sort of character was emerging. As they drew into the Club gateway, he touched her gently.

“I have guarded thy couch, fair Titania,” he said; “I, Bottom, the weaver, have done that thing.”

“Where’s Peaseblossom?” he took her cue quickly.

Blynn jerked his thumb toward the diminutive Mac, who had now begun to stiffen up and look his smartest before the superior broughams in the lane about him.

“Peaseblossom in ‘blacks,’” she gurgled. “Oh! oh! That is _too_ funny!”

“Topic number six,” he announced quietly. “I intend to take your advice about Holden. I’m going.”

“When?”

“October; next month.”

She pondered for a second or two and then nodded a determined head.

“Good boy!” she patted him on the arm. “Bully! Now you’re talking like a grown-up man.”

XIV

A MORRIS DAY

Only a small gallery followed the tennis tournament. Although there were some splendid outside entries and the match took on the flavor of a semi-official eastern championship, the newspapers--according to Diccon--had not yet made tennis a sport. A magnificent cup, with some good names already on it, was the trophy; and the finals in singles, between Morris and Clarke, would decide the year’s holder.

While Mac was engineering a good spot for the carriage, Gorgas scanned the players’ quarters for signs of Morris. Soon a white figure--“ducks,” white cap, open-throated shirt--waved in the distance and began to make toward them.

“Allen Blynn,” Gorgas spoke quietly, “don’t you back-pedal for one minute on that Holden job.” It was the day of the bicycle. “You’ve won it according to the rules. You’ve just got to go. I’m mighty glad you’re thinking sensibly about it. Now, that’s all the time I can give you--the rest of the day belongs to Edwin Morris. Wish it were baseball, so we could root for him. Hello, boy, how are you feeling?”

“Never better,” said the boy.

Morris tossed back a lock of hair as he came up smiling. Lithe, clean-looking suppleness he showed; shy almost; lounging; giving no sign of superior physical power; that unique creature, a new species, the American college-athlete.

“You’re going to win, of course,” Gorgas searched his face admiringly.

“The trouble is,” he drawled, “Clarke says he feels fit, too. We’ve agreed to let loose and give you a show for your penny.”

Blynn inquired, “Forgive me, Edwin, for not knowing who Clarke is. He’s your friend, the enemy; is he not?”

“Fancy not knowing Clarke, Hudson Clarke!” Gorgas looked at him in wonderment. “He’s the foxiest tenniser outside of dear old Lun’non. We’d be lucky to get his scalp, I tell you.”

Her loyalty was immense. She filled Morris with the glow of success, keyed him up with little whispers of faith, and gave him something to fight for.

On his white shirt the tiny fraternity brooch made a conspicuous mark. Gorgas reached over and carefully disengaged the patent fastening and, with equal care, pinned it upon her own proud new gown. Morris watched her without speaking. She gave it several little pats to see if it were secure and then talked into his right ear.

“That’s for good luck.”

“Going to keep it?” he grinned. He knew all about the significance of wearing a man’s fraternity pin.

“There’s never no telling. Mebbe; if you win.”

“She’s rather savage, don’t you think?” Blynn leaned forward and rallied her. “Think how all Clarke’s little girls will feel if he loses.”

“That’s their affair,” she shut her lips. “We’re after that cup, aren’t we, boy? When we play we go in hard; no quarter; divil take the hindmost. That’s the only way to play. Slash ’em, knock ’em over, go for ’em. I just hate the chap I’m playing against--until the game’s over.”

“Contrariwise?” Morris jested.

“_Sans doute_,” she patted him on the head, “until the game’s over.”

They chatted together like chums, until the call came for the finals.

To Blynn those two young persons seemed suddenly alien; it was his first sense of moving away from very young life. It comes to some men in the twenties and to others not until much later. One day you find yourself a stranger to the prattle about you; it may be you grow a little testy at its inanities, its silly repetitions and obvious repartee; or perhaps you try to join in, and find the youngsters combining to laugh at your clumsiness. Over there, smoking stolidly in the easy chairs, there is where you belong. You stare and figure out ages and discover to your consternation that you do belong over there. Then some old, old, lady to whom you feel like saying, “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am”--if that was the salutation of your own day--comes burbling forward to claim you as a contemporary. And with the laughter of the children still in your ears, and half claiming your attention, you begin lamely to talk life insurance or the present administration’s foreign policy.