Part 4

The waiters had served the coffee and were retiring in long rows down the sides of the big dining-hall. The rattle of knives and forks and the noise of general and animated talk were subsiding, and the pleased, expectant hush which always precedes the toasts, was falling upon the assembly. At the lower end of the room, farthest from the “distinguished-guest” table, the unimportant people began to turn their chairs around toward the speakers and to say “’Sh!” and “Who’s that?” to each other in subdued whispers, and the seniors grasped their sheepskins less nervously and began to realize their importance and the fact that they were no longer undergraduates but full-fledged alumnæ. And with the realization came a curious disagreeable sensation and a queer tightening in the throat, accompanied by a horrible inclination to shed tears over the closed chapter of their lives. Then they fiercely thought how their brothers act under similar circumstances, and wished they were men and could give the class yell and drink champagne to stifle their feelings. That being impossible they tasted a very mild decoction of coffee and turned their troubled eyes to the far end of the room, and wished ardently that the President would get on her feet and say something funny to make them forget that this was the end, the last act of politeness on the part of the faculty to them, that they were being gracefully evicted, as it were, and could never be taken back upon the same terms or under the same conditions.

It was the annual Commencement dinner to the retiring senior class, and the senior class was, as usual, feeling collapsed and blank after the excitement of Commencement week and the discovery that they were B.A.’s or B.S.’s, and that the world was before them and there would be no more faculties to set them going or haul them up, but that they would have to depend on their own faculties in the future. There was the annual foregathering of brilliant men and women whose presence was to be an incentive to the newly fledged alumnæ, and the display of whose wit and wisdom in after-dinner speeches was to be a last forcible impression of intellectual vigor and acquirements left on their minds.

Suddenly the President arose. She stood there, graceful, perfectly at ease, waiting for a moment of entire silence. Her sensitive, bloodless face looked more animated than usual, her brown eyes quietly humorous. It was a face eminently characteristic--indicative of the element of popularity and adaptability in her nature that made her, just then, so valuable to the college. When she spoke her voice carried a surprising distance, notwithstanding its veiled, soft quality, so that those farthest from her were able to catch and enjoy the witty, gnomic, sarcastic manner of her speech.

What she said was taken down by the shorthand reporter smuggled in for the occasion by the enterprising class-president and is enrolled in the class-book, so it need not be recorded here; but when she had finished, the editor of one of the foremost magazines in the country was smiling and nodding his head appreciatively, and a man whose sermons are listened to by thousands every Lord’s Day leaned over and made some quick side remark to her and ran his hands in a pleased, interested way through his long hair; and the young and already famous President of a certain college said, on rising, that he felt very genuine trepidation at attempting any remarks after that. He fully sustained his reputation, however, of a brilliant talker, and was followed by the honorary member of the juniors, whose post-prandial speeches have made him famous on both sides of the water.

The room became absolutely quiet, save for the voice of the speaker, the occasional burst of applause, and the appreciative murmur of the listeners. Outside, the afternoon began to grow mellow, long shadows thrown by the pointed turrets of the building lay across the green campus, the ivy at the big windows waved to and fro slightly in the cool breeze. Attention flagged; people began to tire of the clever, witty responses to the toasts and to look about them a little.

At one of the tables reserved for the alumnæ, near the upper end of the room, sat a girl dressed in deep mourning. Her face was very beautiful and intelligent, with the intelligence that is more the result of experience than of unusual mental ability. There were delicate, fine lines about the mouth and eyes. She could not have been more than twenty-four or five, but there was an air of firmness and decision about her which contradicted her blond--almost frivolous--beauty and lent dignity to the delicate figure.

After awhile she leaned back in her chair a trifle wearily and looked about her curiously as if for changes. The general aspect of the place remained the same, she decided, but there were a great many new faces--new faces in the faculty, too, where one least likes to find them. Here and there she saw an old acquaintance and smiled perfunctorily, but, on the whole, there was no one present she cared very much to see. She had just come to the conclusion that she was sorry she had made the long journey to be present at the dinner when she became conscious that someone was looking intently at her across the room. She leaned forward eagerly and smiled naturally and cordially for the first time. And then she sank back suddenly and blushed like a school-girl and smiled again, but in a different way, as if at herself, or at some thought that tickled her fancy. It certainly did strike her as rather amusing and presuming for her to be smiling and bowing so cordially to Professor Arbuthnot. She remembered very distinctly, in what awe she had stood of that learned lady, and that in her undergraduate days she had systematically avoided her, since she could not avoid her examinations and their occasionally disastrous consequences. She recalled very forcibly the masterly lectures, the logical, profound, often original talks, which she had heard in her lecture-room, though she had to acknowledge to herself reproachfully, that the matter of them had entirely escaped her memory. She had been one of a big majority who had always considered Professor Arbuthnot as a very high type--perhaps the highest type the college afforded--of a woman whose brains and attainments would make her remarkable in any assembly of savants. In her presence she had always realized very keenly her own superficiality, and she felt very much flattered that such a woman should have remembered her and not a little abashed as she thought of the entire renunciation of study she had made since leaving college. She wondered what Professor Arbuthnot might be thinking about her--she knew she was thinking about her, because the bright eyes opposite were still fixed upon her with their piercing, not unkindly gaze. It occurred to her at last, humorously, that perhaps the Professor was not considering her at all, but some question in--thermo-electric currents for instance.

But Miss Arbuthnot’s mind was not on thermo-electric currents; she was saying to herself: “She is much more beautiful than when she was here, and there is a new element of beauty in her face, too. I wonder where she has been since, and why she is in mourning. She was unintelligent, I remember. It’s a great pity--brains and that sort of beauty rarely ever go together. Her name was Ellis--yes--Grace Ellis. I think I must see her later.” And the Professor gave her another piercing smile and settled herself to listen to a distinguished political economist--a great friend of hers--speak.

The Political Economist got upon his feet slowly and with a certain diffidence. He was a man who had made his way, self-taught, from poverty and ignorance to a professorship in one of the finest technical schools of America.

There was a brusqueness in his manner, and the hard experiences of his life had made him old. He spoke in a quiet, authoritative way. He declared, with a rather heavy attempt at jocoseness, that his hearers had had their sweets first, so to speak, and that they must now go back and take a little solid, unpalpable nourishment; that he had never made a witty or amusing remark in his life, and he did not propose to begin and try then, and finally he hinted that the President had made a very bad selection when she invited him to respond to the toast--“The Modern Education of Woman.” As he warmed to his subject he became more gracious and easy in manner. He spoke at length of the evolution of women’s colleges, their methods, their advantages, their limitations; he touched upon the salient points of difference between a man’s college life and that of a girl; differences of character, of interests, of methods of work. And then he went on:

“I believe in it--I believe firmly in the modern education of woman. It is one of the things of most vital interest to me; but my enthusiasm does not blind me. There are phases of it which I do not indorse. I object to many of its results. The most obvious bad result is the exaggerated importance which the very phrase has assumed.” He smiled plaintively around upon the company. “Are we to have nothing but woman’s education--_toujours l’éducation de la femme_? There is such eagerness to get to college, such blind belief in what is to be learned there, such a demand for a college education for women, that we are overwhelmed by it. Every year these doors are closed upon hundreds of disappointed women, who turn elsewhere, or relinquish the much-prized college education. The day is not far distant when it will be a distinct reproach to a woman that she is not college-bred.” He looked down thoughtfully and intently and spoke more slowly.

“It is this phase of it which sometimes troubles me. Life is so rich in experience for woman--so much richer and fuller for woman than for

man--that I tremble at this violent reaction from nature to art. To-day woman seems to forget that she must learn to live, not live to learn. At the risk of being branded as ‘behind the times,’ of being considered narrow, bigoted, old-fashioned, I must say that until woman re-discovers that life is everything, that all she can learn here in a hundred times the four years of her college course is but the least part of what life and nature can teach her, until then I shall not be wholly satisfied with the modern education of woman.”

When he ceased there was an awkward and significant silence, and the editor looked over at him and smiled and shook his head reprovingly. And then the President got up quickly and with a few graceful, apropos remarks restored good-humor, and taking the arm of the distinguished divine, led the way from the dining-hall to the reception-rooms, and people jostled each other good-naturedly, and edged themselves between chairs and tables to speak to acquaintances, and there was much laughter and questioning and exclamations of surprise and delight, until finally the long procession got itself outside the dining-hall into the big corridors.

At the door Professor Arbuthnot caught sight of Miss Ellis again. She beckoned to the girl, who came quickly toward her.

“I am tired and am going to my rooms for awhile, will you come?” The girl blushed again with pleasure and some embarrassment.

“I should be delighted,” she said simply, and together they walked down the broad hallway.

“It’s very good of you,” she broke in nervously, looking down at the small, quiet figure beside hers--she was head and shoulders taller than the Professor.

“Not at all,” declared Miss Arbuthnot, kindly. “I want to see you--it has been a long while since you were a student here--four or five years I should say--and you recall other faces and times.”

“It has been four years--I can hardly believe it,” said the girl, softly. She wondered vaguely what on earth Miss Arbuthnot could wish to see her for--she had been anything but a favorite with the faculty as a student, but she felt very much flattered and very nervous at the attention bestowed upon her.

When she reached Professor Arbuthnot’s rooms, the embarrassment she had felt at being noticed by so distinguished a member of the faculty visibly increased.

The place was typical--the absence of all ornament and feminine bric-à-brac--the long rows of book-shelves filled with the most advanced works on natural sciences, the tables piled up with brochures and scientific magazines, enveloped her in an atmosphere of profound learning quite oppressive. She had never been in the room but once before, and that was on a most inauspicious occasion--just after the mid-year’s. She wondered uneasily, and yet with some amusement, if Professor Arbuthnot remembered the circumstance. But that lady was not thinking of the young girl. She was busy with her mail, which had just been brought in, opening and folding up letter after letter in a quick, methodical way.

“More work for me,” she said, smiling; “here is an invitation to deliver six lectures on electro-optics.” The girl looked at her admiringly.

“Absolutely I’ve forgotten the very meaning of the words; and as for lecturing!” she broke off with a little laugh. “Are you going to give them?”

“Yes: it makes a great deal of work for me, but I never refuse such invitations. Besides I shall be able to take these lectures almost bodily from a little book I am getting out.” Professor Arbuthnot went over to the desk and lifted up a pile of manuscript, and smiled indulgently at the girl’s exclamation of awe.

“It isn’t much,” she went on. “Only some experiments I have been making in the optical effects of powerful magnets. They turned out very prettily. I have a good deal of hard work to do on the book yet. I shall stay here a week or two longer, quite alone, and finish it all up.”

The girl touched the papers reverently.

“Here is a note I have just received from Professor ----” (Miss Arbuthnot named one of the most distinguished authorities of the day on magnetism and electricity). “I sent him some of the first proof-sheets, and he says he’s delighted with them. We are great friends.”

The girl’s awe and admiration increased with every movement. She looked at the small, slight woman whose intelligent, ugly face had an almost child-like simplicity of expression, contrasting strangely enough with the wrinkled, bloodless skin and piercing eyes. Her hair, which was parted and brushed severely back, was thickly sprinkled with gray.

She gasped a little. “You actually know him--know Professor ----?”

Miss Arbuthnot laughed. “Oh, yes,” she said; “we often work together. We get along famously; we are ‘sympathetic’ in our work, as the French say.”

The girl swept her a mock courtesy.

“I feel too flattered for anything that you deign to speak to me,” she said, laughing and bowing low.

Professor Arbuthnot looked pleased; she was far above conceit, but she was not entirely impervious to such fresh, genuine admiration. She was feeling particularly happy, too, over the results of her experiments--particularly interested in her work.

“If you are so impressed by that,” she laughed, “I shall have to tell you something even more wonderful still. I have just received an honorary degree from ---- College. It was quite unexpected, and I must say I am extremely pleased. It is very agreeable to know that one’s work is appreciated when one has given one’s life to it.”

It seemed to the girl, with these evidences of success appealing to her, that a life could not be more nobly spent than in such work. She went slowly around the room after that, looking at a great many interesting things. At books with priceless autographs on their title-pages, and photographs of famous scientists, and diagrams of electrical apparatus, and editions in pamphlet form of articles by Professor Arbuthnot, published originally in scientific journals.

The girl suddenly felt sick and ashamed of herself. It struck her very forcibly just how little she knew, and how she had neglected her opportunities.

“What an awful ignoramus I am!” she burst out at length. “I don’t know what these mean; I have only the vaguest idea what these men have done. How different you are! Your life has had a high aim and you have attained it. While I----!” she stopped with a scornful gesture. “If it were not for Julian I believe I would come back here and start over!”

Miss Arbuthnot looked at her critically. She admired the girl’s beauty tremendously--it was her one weakness--this love of beauty. She never looked at herself in a mirror oftener than necessary.

“Ah! Julian; who is Julian?”

The girl blushed again--she had a pretty way of flushing quickly.

“Julian?--why he’s my husband. I forgot to tell you that I married my cousin, Julian Ellis, as soon as I left college.”

“Really!” Miss Arbuthnot came over and sat down on the divan beside the girl. “You look so young,” she said, rather wistfully. “And you have been married four years?”

The girl nodded. “It seems much longer,” she said. “I have had--a great deal of trouble.”

“Tell me about it,” said the older woman kindly. But the girl was much embarrassed at the idea of talking of her own little affairs to Professor Arbuthnot.

“I am afraid it would only bore you,” she said, hurriedly. “Your interests--you are interested in so many----”

But Miss Arbuthnot was firm. “Let me hear,” she insisted.

“I’m sure I hardly know what there is to tell,” the girl began nervously. “My father was much opposed to my marrying Julian. He did not wish me to leave college; and he did not believe in cousins marrying. He said that if we did he would disinherit me--you know he is rich. But Julian and I were in love with each other, and so of course we got married.” She stopped suddenly and drawing off her glove looked at her wedding-ring. Professor Arbuthnot watched her curiously. The girl’s simple statement--“and of course we got married” struck her forcibly. She wondered what it would feel like to be swayed by an emotion so powerful that a father’s commands and the loss of a fortune would have absolutely no influence upon it. She could not remember ever having felt anything like that.

“Julian was awfully poor and I of course had nothing more, and so we went to Texas--Julian had an opening there,” she went on. “It was awfully lonely--we lived ten miles from the nearest town--and you know what a Texas town is.” Miss Arbuthnot shook her head. She had never been west of Ohio.

The girl gave a little in-drawn gasp. “Well, it’s worse than anything you can conceive of. I think one has to live in one of them and then move away and have ten miles of dead level prairie land between you and it to know just what loneliness is. But we were so happy, _so_ happy at first--until Julian was taken ill.” She leaned back against the couch and clasped her hands around her knees.

“It was awful--I can’t tell you,” she went on in a broken voice. “But you know what unspeakable agony it is to see what you love best on earth ill and suffering, and you nearly powerless to do a thing. And how I loved him! I never knew until then what he was--how much of my life he had become. You must know what agony I went through?” she looked interrogatively, beseechingly at the woman beside her.

Miss Arbuthnot looked away. “I am not sure--I--I was never in love,” she said uncertainly. A curious wave of jealousy swept over her that she who had been such a student, whose whole life had been a study, should have somehow missed experiences that this girl had lived through already. The girl shook her head softly, pityingly, as if she could hardly believe her.

“I shall never forget it, and that night,” she went on, closing her eyes faintly. “I thought he was dying. I had to have a doctor, but I was afraid to leave him. I remember how everything flashed through my mind. It was a decision for life or death. If I left him I knew I might never see him alive again, and yet if I did not----” She opened her eyes wide and clasped and unclasped her hands. “It was the most horrible moment of my life.”

“My poor child!” Miss Arbuthnot put her hand timidly on the girl’s arm. She suddenly felt absurdly inexperienced in her presence.

“I got Ivan’s saddle on him--I don’t know just how--and we started. It was about two o’clock I remember. The prairie looked just like the sea, at night--only more lonesome and quite silent. I was horribly frightened. Even Ivan was frightened. He trembled all over--it’s a terrible thing to see a horse tremble with fright.”

“Do you mean to say,” demanded Professor Arbuthnot, “that you rode twenty miles in the dead of night, alone upon a Texas prairie?”

“Yes,” answered the girl mechanically. “It was for Julian,” she added as if in entire explanation.

Miss Arbuthnot looked at her; she could not realize such wealth of courage and devotion. She wondered with a sudden, hot shame whether she would have dared it had she been in this girl’s place.

“I don’t think I ever prayed before--really _prayed_ you know,” she ran on meditatively as if she had forgotten the Professor’s presence. “It was dawn when we got back.” She stopped entirely and looked out through the window onto the cool green campus. Miss Arbuthnot scarcely dared move. There was something so intimate, almost sacred in the girl’s revelations.

“Did he live?” she inquired softly at length.

The girl turned her face toward her. An almost illuminated look had come into it.

“Yes--the doctor saved his life, but he said if I had been two hours later----!”

“_You_ saved his life!” Professor Arbuthnot got up and walked to the window. She could not quite take it all in. The girl appeared entirely different to her. She was looking at a woman who had saved the life of the man she loved.

“And then--” the girl gave a little laugh--“I fainted--wasn’t it ridiculous? I _am_ such an idiot. It makes me ashamed to think of it now--when there was so much to be done--and for me to faint!” She gave an impatient little shake of the head.

“I am sure you never did anything so silly as to faint!” She glanced admiringly at Professor Arbuthnot.

“I don’t think I ever experienced any emotion sufficiently strong to make me.” Miss Arbuthnot spoke so grimly that the girl jumped up hurriedly.

“I’m awfully afraid I am boring you and keeping you from your work----” She gave a glance at the manuscript upon the desk. “I’m sure you are wanting to get at it, and think me very troublesome to tell you all this about myself.”

Professor Arbuthnot looked at her a moment.

“Sit down!” she said imperiously. “I am learning more than if I were working on the physical principles of the nebular theory!”

The girl gave a gay, puzzled little laugh.

“Are you making fun of me? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Miss Arbuthnot waved her remark away impatiently.

“And after you had recovered from your fainting spell, what happened?”

“Oh--I helped the doctor and we pulled Julian through together somehow. And then I went to work. He was ill all winter--something had to be done--I sing fairly well----”

“I remember now,” broke in Miss Arbuthnot. “You used to sing at College Vespers. I liked your voice.”

The girl gave a gasp of pleasure. She felt immensely flattered that Professor Arbuthnot had liked to hear her sing.