Part 1

College Girls

College Girls

By

Abbe Carter Goodloe

Illustrated by

Charles Dana Gibson

New York Charles Scribner’s Sons 1895

_Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner’s Sons_

TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK

CONTENTS

_Page_

_A Photograph_, 1

_An Aquarelle_, 17

“_La Belle Hélène_,” 37

_As Told by Her_, 67

_A Short Career_, 95

_An Episode_, 107

_Her Decision_, 145

_Revenge_, 163

_The College Beauty_, 187

_A Telephoned Telegram_, 203

“_Miss Rose_,” 213

_A Short Study in Evolution_, 225

_The Genius of Bowlder Bluff_, 243

_Time and Tide_, 267

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“_Is it this?_” _Frontispiece_

_Facing page_

_She stopped and her face grew whiter_, 12

“_They wanted him to put them in his stories_,” 14

_The political economist_, 76

“_It has been a long while since you were a student here_,” 78

“_How kind you are_,” 90

“_You cannot imagine how anxious the girls are to see you_,” 174

“_Play!_” 176

_A rather chilling influence_, 230

_She had stolen furtive glances at her_, 232

_When the two women were within a few feet of each other_, 240

A PHOTOGRAPH

There was a great deal of jangling of bells, and much laughter and talk, and the chaperon, who was an assistant Greek professor, looked as if she had never heard of Aristophanes, and listened apparently with the most intense interest to a Harvard half-back eagerly explaining to her the advantages of a flying wedge; and when the College loomed in sight, with its hundreds of lights, and the sleigh drew up under the big _porte cochère_, and while a handsome youth was bidding his sister, the hostess of the party, an unusually affectionate good-by, she explained to the rest how very sorry she was she could not invite them in. But the Harvard men, in a feeling sort of way, said they understood, and after much lifting of hats and more laughter, the sleigh went off, and the chaperon and her charges were left standing in the “Centre.”

She confessed then that she was extremely tired and that she did not think she ever cared again to see the “winter sports.” She thought the sight afforded her that afternoon, of two nice boys, very scantily clothed and with bloody faces, banging away at each other until they could hardly stand, compared with the view of those same young gentlemen the week before at the College, immaculately dressed and with very good-looking noses and eyes, was entirely too great a strain on her. So she went off to her study and left the excited and pleased young women to stroll down the corridor to Miss Ronald’s room, to talk it over and to decide for the twentieth time that Somebody of ’94 ought to have come off winner in the fencing match, instead of Somebody else of ’93.

The room they went into was a typical college room, with its bookstands and long chairs and cushions and innumerable trophies, of which Miss Ronald was rather proud. She was a stylish girl, with New York manners and clothes, and a pretty, rather expressionless face, strongly addicted to fads, and after almost four years of college life still something of a fool. She had become popular through her own efforts and the fact that she had a brother at Harvard. If a girl really wishes to be a favorite in college she must arrange to have some male relative at a neighboring university.

The sleighing party over to Harvard for the winter sports had been an especial success, so her guests took off their wraps and settled themselves in her chairs in a very cordial sort of way, and discussed amiably the merits of the tug-of-war, while someone made chocolate. After a while, when they had all had their say about the pole-vaulting and the running jumps, the conversation flagged a little and the room came in for its share of attention.

There was a comparative stranger among the guests--a Miss Meredith--to whom Miss Ronald could show her numerous souvenirs for the first time. She was especially glad to have them to show to this particular girl because she thought they would impress her--although it would have been a little difficult for a casual observer to understand just why, for as Miss Meredith was led around the room by her hostess, from the screen made of cotillion favors and the collection of lamp-post signs presented to her by Harvard admirers afflicted with kleptomania, over to the smoking-cap and tobacco-pouch of some smitten undergraduate, anyone could see what a handsome girl she was, and though more plainly dressed than the others, that she seemed to be thoroughly at her ease. Perhaps Miss Ronald expected her to be impressed because she had taken her up, and had first introduced her to this set and made a success of her. No one had known anything about her or her people, and she had entered shortly before as a “special student,” and therefore belonged to no particular class. She was evidently a little older than Miss Ronald and her friends, and her face was somewhat sad, and there was a thoughtful look in the eyes. She seemed to be rather haughty, too, and as if afraid she would be patronized. But Miss Ronald, whose particular craze in the beauty line was a cream complexion, gray eyes, and red-brown hair, had declared the new-comer to be lovely, and even after she had discovered that this handsome girl was not of her own social standing, that her people were unknown and unimportant, she still declared her intention of cultivating her. She had found this harder to do than she had expected, and so, as she led her around the room, she rather delighted in the belief that she was impressing this girl by the many evidences of a gay social career.

The others, who had seen all the trophies many times before, and who knew just which one of Miss Ronald’s admirers had given her the Harvard blazer, and where she had got the Yale flag and the mandolin with the tiger-head painted on it--for Miss Ronald, being a wise young lady, cultivated friends in every college--sat back and talked among themselves and paid very little attention to what the other two were doing. They were a little startled, therefore, by a low exclamation from the girl with Miss Ronald. She had stopped before a long photograph-case filled with pictures of first violins and celebrated actors and college men--all the mute evidences of various passing fancies. Miss Ronald, who was putting away the faded remains of some “Tree-flowers” and some pictures of Hasty Pudding theatricals, looked over at the girl.

“What is it?” she said, carelessly, and then noting her pallor and the direction of her gaze she laughed in an embarrassed little way and went over to her.

“Is it this?” she said, taking a half-hidden photograph from among the jumble of pictures and holding it up to the view of all.

It was the photograph of a young man, a successful man, whose name had become suddenly famous and whose personality was as potent as his talents. He was not handsome, but his fine face was more attractive than a handsome one would have been. There was a look of determination in the firmly closed lips and square-cut jaw, and an indefinable air of the man of the world about the face which rendered it extremely fascinating. On the lower edge of the picture was written his name, in a strong, bold hand that corresponded with the look on the face.

“My latest craze,” said Miss Ronald, smiling rather nervously and coloring a little as she still held the picture up. There was a slight and awkward pause, and then half a dozen hands reached for it. There was not a girl in the room who had not heard of this man and wished she knew him, and who had not read his last book and the latest newspaper paragraphs about him. But their interest had been of the secretly admiring order, and they all felt this girl was going a little too far, that it was not just the thing to have his picture--the picture of a man she did not know. And as she looked around and met the gray eyes of the girl beside her she felt impelled to explain her position as if in answer to the unspoken scorn in them. She was embarrassed and rather angry that it had all happened. She could laugh at the first-violins and the opera-tenors and the English actor--they had only been silly fancies--but this one was different. Without knowing this man she had felt an intense interest in him and his face had fascinated her, and she had persuaded herself that he was her ideal and that she could easily care for him. She suddenly realized how childish she had been and the ridiculousness of it all, and it angered her.

“Of course I know it isn’t nice to have his picture--in this way--” she began defiantly, “but I know his cousin--it was from him that I got this photograph--and he has promised to introduce us next winter.” She seemed to forget her momentary embarrassment and looked very much elated. “Won’t that be exciting? I shan’t know in the least what to say to him. Think of meeting the most fascinating man in New York!”

“Be sure you recognize him,” murmured one of the girls, gloomily, from the depths of a steamer-chair. “I met him last winter. I had never seen a photograph of him then, and not knowing he was _the_ one, I talked to him for half an hour. When I found out after he had gone who he was, I couldn’t get over my stupidity. My mother was angry with me, I can tell you!”

Each one knew something about him, or knew someone who knew him, or the artist who illustrated his stories, or the people with whom he had just gone abroad, or into what thousandth his last book had got. They all thought him a hero and fascinatingly handsome, and they declared with the sentimental candor of the very young girl, that they would never marry unless they could marry a man like that--a man who had accomplished great things and had a future before him, and who was so clever and interesting and distinguished-looking.

The girl who had had the singular good fortune to meet him was besieged with questions as to his looks and manner of talking, and personal preferences, to all of which she answered with a fine disregard for facts and a volubility out of all proportion to her knowledge. They wondered whether his play--he had just written one, and the newspapers were saying a great deal about its forthcoming production--would be as interesting as his stories, and they all hoped it would be given in New York during the Christmas holidays, and they declared that they would not miss it for anything.

Only one girl sat silent, her gray eyes bright with scorn--she let them talk on. Their opinions about his looks, and whether he was conceited or only properly sensible of his successes, and whether the report was true that he was going to Japan in the spring, seemed indifferent to her. She sat white and unsmiling through all their girlish enthusiasm and sentimental talk about this unknown god and their ideals and their expectations for the future--and when the photograph, which had been passed from hand to hand, reached her, she let it fall idly in her lap as though she could not bear to touch it. As it lay there, a hard look came into her face. When she glanced up, she found Miss Ronald gazing at her with a curious, petulant expression.

Suddenly she got up and a look of determination was upon her face and in her eyes. Their talk was all very childish and silly, but she could see that beneath their half-laughing manner there was a touch of seriousness. This man, with his fine face and his successes and personal magnetism, had exercised a strange fascination over them, and most of all over the pretty, sentimental girl looking with such a puzzled expression at her.

After all, this girl had been good to her. She would do what she could. She stood tall and straight against the curtains of the window facing the rest and breathing quickly.

“Yes--I know of him,” she said, answering their unspoken inquiry. “You think you know him through his books and the reviews and newspaper notices of him.” Her voice was ringing now and she touched the picture lightly and scornfully with her finger.

“I know him better than that. I know things of him that will not be told in newspaper paragraphs and book reviews.” She paused and her face grew whiter. “You read his stories, and because they are the best of their kind, the most correct, the most interesting, because his men are the men you like to know, men who are always as they should be to men, because there is an atmosphere of refinement and elegance and pleasing conventionality about them--you think they must be the reflex of himself. O yes! I know--the very last story--you have all read it--who could be more magnificent and correct than _Roscommon_? And you think _him_ like his hero! There is not one of you but would feel flattered at his attentions, you might easily fall in love with him--I dare say you would scarcely refuse him--and yet”--she broke off suddenly.

“There was a girl,” she began after a moment’s hesitation, in a tone from which all the excitement had died, “a friend of mine, and she loved him. Perhaps you do not know that before he became famous he lived in a small Western town--she lived there too. They grew up together, and she was as proud of him--well, you know probably just how proud a girl can be of a boy who has played with her and scolded her and tyrannized over her and protected her and afterward loved her. For he _did_ love her. He told her so a thousand times and he showed it

to her in a thousand ways. And she loved him! I cannot tell you what he was to her.” They were all looking curiously at her white face and she tried to speak still more calmly.

“Well, after a time his ambition--for he was very ambitious and very talented--made him restless. He wanted to go East--he thought he would succeed. She let him go freely, willingly. His success was hers, he said. Everything he was to do was for her, and she let him go, and she told him then that he could be free. But he was very angry. He said that he would never have thought of going but to be better worthy of her. He succeeded--you know--the world knows how well he has succeeded, and the world likes success, and what wonder that he forgot her. She was handsome--at least her friends told her so--but she was not like the girls he knows now. She was not rich, and she had never been used to the life of luxury and worldliness to which he had so quickly accustomed himself. But,” she went on, protestingly, as if in reply to some unspoken argument or some doubt that had assailed her, “she could have been all he wished her. She was quick and good to look at, and well-bred. She could have easily learned the world’s ways--the ways that have become so vital to him.”

She stopped, and then went on with an air of careful impartiality, as if trying to be just, to look at both sides of the question, and her beautiful face grew whiter with the effort.

“But, of course, she was not like the girls he had met. He used to write to her at first how disgusted he was when those elegant young ladies would pet him and make much of him and use him and his time as they did everything else in their beautiful, idle lives. He did not like it, he said; and then I suppose it amused him, and then fascinated him. They would not let him alone. They wanted him to put them in his stories, and he had to go to their dinners and to the opera with them. He said they wanted someone to ‘show off’; and at first he resented it, but little by little he came to like it and to find it the life he had needed and longed for, and to forget and despise the simpler one he had known in his youth----”

She stopped again and pulled nervously at the silk fringe of the curtain, and looked at the strained faces of the girls as if asking them whether she had been just in her way of putting the thing. And then she hurried on.

“And so she released him. He had not been back in two years--not since he had first gone away, and she knew it would be easier to do it

before she saw him again. And so when she heard of his success and how popular he was, and that he was the most talked about of all the younger authors, she wrote him that she could not be his wife. But she loved him, and she let him see it in the letter. She bent her pride that far--and she was a proud girl! She told herself over and over that he was not worthy of her--that success had made a failure of him, but she loved him still and she let him see it. She determined to give him and herself that chance. If he still loved her he would know from that letter that she, too, loved him. Well, his answer--she told me that his answer was very cold and short. That if she wished to give him up he knew she must have some good reason.”

Someone stirred uneasily, and gave a breathless sort of gasp.

“That was hard,” she went on. She was speaking now in an impassive sort of way. “But that was not the hardest. She saw him again. It was not long ago----” She stopped and put one hand to her throat. “She had gone away. She desired to become what he had wished she was, although she could never be anything to him again, and she was succeeding, and thought that perhaps she would forget and be happy. But he found out where she was, and went to her. Something had gone wrong with him. You remember--he was reported to be engaged to a young girl very well known in society--the daughter of a senator, and a great beauty. Well, there was some mistake. He came straight to my friend and told her that he did not know what he had been doing, that she was the only girl he had ever loved and he asked her forgiveness. He told her that his life would be worthless and ruined, that his success would mean less than nothing to him if she did not love him, and he implored her to be what she had once been to him and to marry him.”

Miss Ronald looked up quickly, and the petulant expression in her eyes had given place to a look of disdain.

“What did she say then?” she asked.

The girl shook her head, mournfully.

“She could not,” she said, simply. “She would have given her soul to have been able to say yes, but she could not!”

When the door had quite closed behind her, they sat silent and hushed. Suddenly Miss Ronald walked over to the window, and picking up the photograph where it had fallen, face downward, she tore it into little bits.

AN AQUARELLE

Allardyce felt both aggrieved and bored when he found that his sister had gone off with a walking-party and was not likely to return for an hour or two. He had this unwelcome bit of news from the young woman in cap and gown who had come from the office into the reception-room and was standing before him, glancing every now and then from his face to the card she held, with a severely kind look out of her gray eyes.

“I telegraphed her I was in Boston and would be out,” remarked Allardyce, in an injured tone.

“Yes,” assented the young woman, “Miss Allardyce had left word in the office that she was expecting her brother, but that as he had not come by the 2.30 or 3.10 train, she had concluded he was detained in Boston, and that if he did arrive later he was to wait.” She added that he would be obliged to do so in any case, as there was no express back to Boston for two hours, and that if he would like to see the college while he waited she would send someone to take him over it.

But Allardyce seemed so doubtful as to whether he cared to become better acquainted with the architecture of the college, and so disappointed about it all, that the kindly senior felt sorry for him and suggested sympathetically that he “might amuse himself by strolling through the grounds.” She could not have been over twenty, but she had all the seriousness and responsibility of an undergraduate, and Allardyce suddenly felt very young and foolish in her presence and wondered hotly how old she thought he was, and why she hadn’t told him to “run out and play.” He decided that her idea was a good one, however, so he took his hat and stick and wandered down the south corridor to the piazza. Standing there he could see the lake and the many private boats lying in the bend of the shore, each fastened to its little dock, and beyond, the boat-house with the class practice-barges, slim and long, just visible in the cool darkness beneath. He thought it all looked very inviting, and there was a rustic bench under a big tree half-way down the hill where he could smoke and get a still better view of the water.

So he settled himself quite comfortably, lit a cigarette, and looked gloomily out over the lake. He assured himself bitterly that after having been abroad for so many years, and after having inconvenienced himself by taking a boat to Boston instead of a Cunarder to New York--his natural destination--in order to see his sister, that she was extremely unkind not to have waited for him. He was deep in the mental composition of a most reproachful note to her when he discovered that by closing his eyes a little and looking intently at the Italian Gardens on the opposite side of the water, he could easily fancy himself at a little place he knew on Lake Maggiore. This afforded him amusement for a while, but it soon palled on him, and he was beginning to wonder moodily how he was ever to get through two hours of the afternoon, when he saw a young girl come out of the boat-house with a pair of sculls and make her way to one of the little boats. She leaned over it, and Allardyce could see that she was trying to fit a key into the padlock which fastened the boat to its dock, and that after several attempts to undo it she looked rather hopelessly at the lock and heavy chain. He went quickly down the hill and along the shore. He was suddenly extremely glad that he was in America, where he could be permitted to speak to and help a girl, even if a total stranger, without having his assistance interpreted as an insult.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his hat. “Can I be of any help?”

The girl looked up a little startled, but when she saw the tall, good-looking youth, she smiled in a relieved sort of way and rose quickly from her knees.

“Indeed, yes,” she said, without any embarrassment. “I can’t unlock this; perhaps you can.”

Allardyce took the key, and kneeling down fitted it in its place and turned it with very little effort. The girl looked rather ruefully at him as he jumped up.

“Thank you,” she said in a politely distant way. “I don’t see why I could not have done that. I am very strong in my hands, too.”