Part 11

_gauche_ and decidedly of a social class that Miss Hungerford was not in the habit of mingling with away from college. For even in a very democratic college there are social grades, and although it is the thing to meet in a most friendly way at all class functions, still, a narrow line of distinction may be perceived on social occasions.

Altogether Miss Hungerford felt rather aggrieved and hoped she would not be bothered again. But she was. Miss Betty Harmon, of Sioux City, Ia., had had a fearful struggle with her timidity and retiring nature, when she called on Miss Hungerford, and having gained a victory over herself, she had no intention of resigning the benefits. So she would smile first when they met in the corridors, and was not above showing how much she appreciated a few words from Miss Hungerford in praise of her tennis serve, and that young woman was even uncomfortably conscious that her youthful admirer had more than once followed her to the library, where, under pretence of reading, she had stolen furtive glances at her. Later there were notes, and roses, and requests to go boating.

Miss Hungerford strongly objected to such proceedings, not only because she did not wish to be rendered ridiculous by an insignificant freshman from Iowa, but also because she was a very sensible girl, and entirely disapproved of the “eclectic affinity” business, and she had no intention of allowing the young girl’s admiration for herself to develop into that abnormal sort of attraction that exists between girls in so many schools and colleges.

The temptation to exalt some upper-class girl into an ideal and lavish upon her an affection which in society would naturally fall to the lot of some very unideal boy, or man, is one of the greatest ordeals a college girl goes through, and one who successfully resists all inducements to become a “divinity student,” or who gets out of the entanglement without damage to herself, is as successfully “proven” as was Lieutenant Ouless after his little affair with Private Ortheris. Even the least romantic girl is apt to find unexpected possibilities in her nature in the way of romantic devotion, so that it was not surprising that Miss Betty Harmon, unimaginative and unsentimental as she was, should have admired so extravagantly as handsome and interesting a girl as Eva Hungerford. The crude Western girl found something extremely attractive in the senior--grace, a social ease and distinction, and that indefinable magnetism which a wealthy, consciously beautiful girl possesses.

But Miss Hungerford, who had no notion of getting herself talked about, and whose Eastern sensitiveness and prejudices were continually being shocked by the younger girl’s crudities, so persistently frowned down upon and ignored her under-class admirer, that even Miss Harmon’s devotion paled, and the roses and notes and boating excursions ceased. She began to perceive that the faint line of social distinction, so rarely perceptible in the college, had been drawn in her case.

During the last semestre of the year Miss Hungerford, who was very tired and busy, seemed almost oblivious of the young girl’s existence, and even forgot to smile at her when they met on the campus. And when on her Baccalaureate Sunday a box of white roses--the last mute expression of Miss Harmon’s expiring affection--was handed her without any card, she wondered who had sent them and concluded they must have been ordered by a man she knew.

* * * * *

Three years after leaving college Miss Hungerford married, much to her friends’ surprise, and a year after that she and her husband went abroad. Of course they went to Paris, where Mrs. Stanhope, who had spent much time there after leaving college, had a great many friends, and innumerable dinners were given to them and they enjoyed themselves very much, until it got so cold that Mrs. Stanhope said she must go to Cannes. Of course it immediately struck Stanhope, who adored his wife, that it was entirely too cold to stay in Paris, and so they went south, though their friends made a great fuss over their departure.

They stayed away much longer than they had intended, having been enticed into going to Malta by some American acquaintances, and when they got back to Paris hundreds of interesting things seemed to have happened in their absence, and a great many people and events were being talked about of which they knew nothing. But the wife of the American minister, who was an old friend, went to see Mrs. Stanhope immediately to invite her to an informal dinner the next evening, and stayed the entire afternoon, telling her of everything that had happened and who all the new people were--the New American Beauty for instance. She could not believe that her friend had not heard of nor seen _the_ New Beauty.

“Why, haven’t you ever seen her pictures--and the notices of her?”

Mrs. Stanhope was slightly aggrieved. She knew absolutely nothing about her.

“And I am completely astonished that they aren’t talking of her at Cannes.”

Mrs. Stanhope reminded her friend that she had been immured at Malta since leaving the Riviera.

“Oh, well, of course her fame has reached there by this time. Why, all Paris is talking about her--and you know yourself”--observed that astute lady, impressively--“how much it takes to make Paris stop and look at you.” Mrs. Stanhope said “Yes,” and wanted to know who The Beauty’s people were, and where she had come from.

“Oh, I don’t know,” declared her friend. “No one seems to inquire. She is so beautiful and sufficient in herself that one does not care much for the rest. They are immensely rich--recently, I believe--though you would never know it from her manner. She is charming and thoroughly well-bred. Her father, I hear, is a typical American business man--not much _en évidence_, you know. He leaves that to his daughter, and she does it very well. He is a Senator--or something--from the West, and made such a name for himself at Washington that they thought he was too bright to stay there, so they sent him over here to help settle that international treaty affair--you know perhaps--I don’t, I only pretend to.”

“How did she do it?” demanded Mrs. Stanhope, in that simply comprehensive way women have when talking about another woman.

“Oh, she just started right in. Courtelais raved over her, and her father paid him twenty thousand dollars to have her painted. The Colony took her up, and the rest just followed naturally. The portrait is really charming, though she was dressed--well, I don’t think any French girl would have sat in that costume.”

“Is she really so beautiful?”

“Well--not regularly beautiful, perhaps--but charming and fascinating, and awfully clever, they say--so clever that very few people suspect her of it, and--oh! well, you can judge for yourself to-morrow evening. By the way, everyone says she is engaged already--Comte de la Tour. You used to know him, I think.” She rose to go. “He is very much in love with her, that is evident.” She thought it best to let Mrs. Stanhope have that piece of news from herself. She did not wish her friend to be taken at a disadvantage, especially in her own house.

Mrs. Stanhope felt the least bit startled. She had known the Comte de la Tour very well indeed in Paris, several years before, and he had been very much in love with her, and had appeared quite genuinely broken-hearted when she refused him. She had not seen him--he had not been in Paris when she was there during the earlier part of the season--but with the comforting faith of people who have never been in love, she had always believed that he would get over his devotion to her, though she felt a rather curious sensation on hearing that her expectations had been so fully realized, and she felt a pardonable curiosity to see the girl who had made him forget her.

She dressed very carefully for the American Minister’s the next evening, and looked a little more than her usual handsome self, when her carriage turned rapidly into the Avenue Hoche. She was somewhat late, and although the Minister and his wife were old friends, she felt worried with herself, for she had made it a rule to be punctual at all social functions, and when she entered the rooms she could see that the guests wore that rather expectant air which signifies that dinner is already slightly behind time. She hurried forward and denounced herself in polite fashion, but her hostess assured her that several others had not yet arrived, and, much relieved, she turned to speak to a bright newspaper man, an old acquaintance, who had arrived in Paris during her absence.

“I am so glad to find you again,” he murmured in his drawl; “they tell me you have been to Malta. How fortunate for you! I suppose now you have been happy in an idyllic, out-of-the-world way, and have not heard a word about Brice’s accident, nor the newspaper duel, nor the New Beauty----”

“But I am not happy, and shall not be until I see your Beauty,” protested Mrs. Stanhope. “I’ve heard about her until I have an all-devouring curiosity to behold her. I haven’t even seen _the_ portrait, or a photograph!”

He fell away from her in mock surprise and despair, and was about to reply, when the portières were drawn aside and Mrs. Stanhope saw coming into the room a very beautiful young girl, with a rather childish, mobile face, and magnificent eyes. She seemed to know everyone, and bowed and smiled right and left in an easy, bright sort of way. Mrs. Stanhope would have known this was The Beauty, even if her entrance had not been accompanied by that significant hush and rather ridiculous closing up of the men in her wake. There was a special charm about the soft contour of her face, and the heavy white satin of her gown, though rather old for such a young girl, set off her beauty admirably.

“Looks just like one of Goodrich’s girls, doesn’t she?” murmured the man at Mrs. Stanhope’s elbow. But that lady was not paying any attention to his remarks. She was looking in a puzzled fashion at the girl’s face, and wondering what there was about it so familiar.

“Isn’t she deliciously beautiful?” he insisted, “and clever! I found it out quite by accident. She’s very careful about letting people know how well informed she is. She’s been to a college somewhere,” he ran on. Mrs. Stanhope was not listening. She was still looking, in a rather abstracted way, at the young girl who was holding a little court on the other side of the room. Her hostess rustled up.

“I am going to send my husband to bring The Beauty to you,” she said, laughingly, and swept across the room. In a moment Mrs. Stanhope saw the girl take the Minister’s arm, and, followed on the other side by the Comte de la Tour, start toward her. For some inexplicable reason she felt annoyed, and half wished to avoid the introduction. The newspaper man was interested. Mrs. Stanhope had never posed as a professional beauty, and she was too noble a woman to have her head turned by flattery, but that did not alter the fact that she had been considered the handsomest woman in the American colony at Paris, and, of course, she knew it. He thought it would be interesting to see how the acknowledged beauty received the younger one.

When the two women were within a few feet of each other, and before the American Minister could say “Mrs. Stanhope,” they each gave a little cry of recognition, and it was the younger one who first regained her composure and extended her hand. She stood there, flushed and smiling, the lights falling on her dark hair and gleaming shoulders, making of her, as the newspaper man had said, one of “Goodrich’s girls.” The childish look had gone out of her eyes, and a little gleam of conscious triumph was in them. There was just a shade of coldness, almost of condescension, in her manner. While the Comte was looking from one to the other, in a rather mystified way, and the American Minister was saying, “Why, I didn’t know--I thought--” Mrs. Stanhope’s mind was running quickly back to her first meeting with the girl before her, and she could only remember, in a confused sort of way, what this girl had once been like. And so they stood for a moment--it seemed an interminably long time to the men--looking a little constrainedly at each other and smiling vaguely. But the older woman quickly recovered herself. She had no notion of being outdone

by the girl before her, and spoke brightly.

“I did not recognize you! How stupid of me! But you see the ‘Beatrice’ confused me, and then the French way everyone has of pronouncing H-a-r-m-ö-n completely put me off the track!”

She tried to be very friendly, and the young girl smiled and looked easily--the newspaper man thought almost defiantly--at her, but it was plain to the three onlookers that in some inscrutable way the meeting had been unfortunate, and they each felt relieved, in an inexplicable fashion, when dinner was announced and the snowy, gleaming length of damask and silver and wax lights stretched between the two women.

* * * * *

That night the Comte thought a good deal about the reception of his _fiancée_ by the woman he had once loved, and decided that the American woman was a trifle _exigeante_, and wondered whether Mrs. Stanhope had really expected him never to marry.

The American Minister confided to his wife that he was disappointed in Eva Stanhope, and that she had always appeared so free from vanity and so superior to the little meannesses of women that he was very much surprised at the way she had acted.

The newspaper man, being exceedingly wise in his generation, smoked three cigars over it on the way to his hotel, and then--gave it up.

THE GENIUS OF BOWLDER BLUFF

Miss Arnold found him wandering aimlessly, though with a pleased, interested look, around the dimly lit College Library. She had gone there herself to escape for a few moments from the heat and lights and the crowd around the Scotch celebrity to whom the reception was being tendered, and was looking rather desultorily at an article in the latest _Revue des Deux Mondes_, when he emerged from one of the alcoves and stood hesitatingly before her. She saw that he was not a guest. He was not in evening dress--it occurred to her even then how entirely out of his element he would have looked in a conventional dress-suit--but wore new clothes of some rough material which fitted him badly. He was so evidently lost and so painfully aware of it that she hastened to ask him if she could do anything for him.

“I’m lookin’ fur my daughter, Ellen Oldham,” he said, gratefully. “Do you know her?”

He seemed much surprised and a little hurt when Miss Arnold shook her head, smilingly.

“You see, there are so many----” she began, noting his disappointed look.

“Then I s’pose you can’t find her fer me. You see,” he explained, gently, “I wrote her I wuz comin’ ter-morrer, an’ I came ter-night fur a surprise--a surprise,” he repeated, delightedly. “But I’m mighty disappointed not ter find her. This is the first time I ever wuz so fur east. But I hed to see Ellen--couldn’t stan’ it no longer. You see,” he continued, nervously, “I thought mebbe I could stay here three or four days, but last night I got a telegram from my pardner on the mountain sayin’ there wuz trouble among the boys an’ fur me ter come back. But I--I jest couldn’t go back without seein’ Ellen, so I came on ter-night fur a surprise, but I must start back right off, an’ I’m mighty disappointed not ter be seein’ her all this time. Hed no idea yer college wuz such a big place--thought I could walk right in an’ spot her,” he ran on meditatively--“I thought it wuz something like Miss Bellairs’s an’ Miss Tompkins’s an’ Miss Rand’s all rolled inter one. But Lord! it’s a sight bigger’n that! Well, I’m glad of it. I’ve thought fur years about Ellen’s havin’ a college eddication, an’ I’m glad to see it’s a real big college. Never hed no schoolin’ myself, but I jest set my heart on Ellen’s havin’ it. Why shouldn’t she? I’ve got ther money. Hed to work mighty hard fur it, but I’ve got it, an’ she wanted ter come to college, and I wanted her to come, so of course she came. I met another young woman,” he continued, smiling frankly at the girl before him; “she wasn’t so fine-lookin’ as you, but she was a very nice young woman, an’ she promised to send Ellen ter me, but she hasn’t done it!”

Miss Arnold felt a sudden interest in the old man.

“Perhaps,” she began, doubtfully, “if you could tell me what her class is, or in what building she has her rooms, I might find her.”

He looked at the young girl incredulously.

“Ain’t you never heard of her?” he demanded. “Why, everybody knew her at Miss Bellairs’s. But p’r’aps”--in a relieved sort of way--“p’r’aps you ain’t been here long. This is Ellen’s second year.”

Miss Arnold felt slightly aggrieved. “I am a Senior,” she replied, and then added courteously, “but I am sure the loss has been mine.”

She could not make this man out, quite--he was so evidently uncultivated, so rough and even uncouth, and yet there was a look of quiet power in his honest eyes, and he was so unaffectedly simple and kindly that she instinctively recognized the innate nobility of his character. She felt interested in him, but somewhat puzzled as to how to continue the conversation, and so she turned rather helplessly to her magazine.

But he came over and stood beside her, looking down wonderingly at the unfamiliar words and accents.

“Can you read all that?” he asked, doubtfully.

Miss Arnold said “Yes.”

“Jest like English?” he persisted.

She explained that she had had a French nurse when she was little, and afterward a French governess, and that she had always spoken French as she had English. He seemed to be immensely impressed by that and looked at her very intently and admiringly, and then he suddenly looked away, and said, in a changed tone:

“I never hed no French nurse fur Ellen. Lord! it wuz hard enough to get any kind in them days,” he said, regretfully. “But she’s been studyin’ French fur two years now--p’rhaps she speaks almost as good as you do by this time--she’s mighty smart.”

Miss Arnold looked up quickly at the honest, kindly face above her with the hopeful expression in the eyes, and some sudden impulse made her say, quite cheerfully and assuringly, “Oh, yes--of course.”

She was just going to add that she would go to the office and send someone to look for Miss Oldham, when a slender, rather pretty girl passed the library door, hesitated, peering through the half-light, and then came swiftly toward them.

With a cry of inexpressible tenderness and delight the old man sprang toward her.

“Ellen!” he said, “Ellen!”

She clung to him for a few moments and then drew off rather shyly and awkwardly, with a sort of _mauvaise honte_ which struck disagreeably on Miss Arnold, and looked inquiringly and almost defiantly from her father to the girl watching them.

“This young woman,” he said, understanding her unspoken inquiry, “has been very kind to me, Ellen--we’ve been talkin’.”

Miss Arnold came forward.

“I think we ought to be friends,” she said, graciously. “I am Clara Arnold. Your father tells me this is your Sophomore year.”

The girl met her advances coldly and stiffly. She had never met Miss Arnold before, but she had known very well who she was, and she had envied her, and had almost disliked her for her good looks and her wealth and her evident superiority. She comprehended that this girl had been born to what she had longed for in a vague, impotent way, and had never known. She wished that Miss Arnold had not witnessed the meeting with her father--that Miss Arnold had not seen her father at all. And then, with the shame at her unworthy thoughts came a rush of pity and love for the man standing there, smiling so patiently and so tenderly at her. She put one hand on his arm and drew herself closer to him.

“Father!” she said.

Miss Arnold stood looking at them, turning her clear eyes from one to the other. It interested her tremendously--the simple, kindly old man, in his rough clothes, and with his homely talk and his fatherly pride and happiness in the pretty, irresolute-looking girl beside him. It occurred to her suddenly, with a thrill of pity for herself, that she had never seen her father look at her in that way. He would have been inordinately surprised and--she felt sure--very much annoyed, if she had ever kissed his hand or laid her head on his arm as this girl was now doing. He had been an extremely kind and considerate father to her. It struck her for the first time that she had missed something--that after providing the rather pretentiously grand-looking house and grounds, and the servants and carriages and conservatories, her father had forgotten to provide something far more essential. But she was so much interested in the two before her that she did not have much time to think of herself. She concluded that she did not want to go back to the Scotch celebrity, and resolutely ignored the surprised looks of some of her friends who passed the library door and made frantic gestures for her to come forth and join them. But when they had moved away it occurred to her that she ought to leave the two together, and so she half rose to go, but the man, divining her intention, said, heartily:

“Don’t go--don’t go! Ellen’s goin’ to show me about this big college, an’ we want you to go, too.”

He was speaking to Miss Arnold, but his eyes never left the girl’s face beside him, while he gently stroked her hair as if she had been a little child.

And so they walked up and down the long library, and they showed him the Milton shield, and dragged from their recesses rare books, and pointed out the pictures and autographs of different celebrities. He seemed very much interested and very grateful to them for their trouble, and never ashamed to own how new it all was to him nor how ignorant he was, and he did not try to conceal his pride in his daughter’s education and mental superiority to himself. And when Miss Arnold realized that, she quietly effaced herself and let the younger girl do all the honors, only helping her now and then with suggestions or statistics.

“You see,” he explained, simply, after a lengthy and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, a somewhat fruitless dissertation on the splendid copy of the “Rubaiyat” lying before them--“you see I don’t know much about these things. Never hed no chance. But Ellen knows, so what’s the use of my knowin’? She can put her knowledge to use; but, Lord! I couldn’t if I hed it.