Part 8

Then she sat down at her desk and tried to write. She remembered the keen sense of pleasure she always experienced when she had finished a sonnet or scene of a play, but she was thinking now of how she would receive Stanhope. “I will give him my hand in a very quiet, friendly way that will show at once what my decision is. Nothing shall make me alter or give up my career.”

But it was very hard to give up everything, and she was very young and her friends thought her beautiful. Could there be no compromise? After all life need not be so dreary, and Paul Stanhope was distinctly the nicest and most eligible man she knew. Any number of girls liked him tremendously, and she sighed as she thought that she was keeping some girl from getting a very good husband indeed. This idea, though not wholly distasteful to her, brought her sharply back to her resolutions, and she picked up her Calderon. She had been reading it the day before and had left it turned down at the page. Suddenly a great pity for Calderon took possession of her. After all he was so dead now! Could he know how famous he was? Was he famous while he lived? Did his fame bring him love and happiness? She did not even know. Underneath the Calderon lay a copy of a poet’s works--a poet now famous and beloved, but who had died miserably poor and unknown. By the side of this volume lay the last number of a popular magazine. She had bought it because it contained a story by a man whom all the world was talking about. She had read in the morning’s paper that he had just been divorced from his wife. The sight of the book sickened her. She turned away and opened the case where she kept her Shakespeare, and took out a book at random. It was the sonnets. He, too, the greatest and wisest, had been wretchedly unhappy.

Suddenly the futility of all effort took hold of her. Suppose she should drudge her life away, never taste of happiness, die, and be only known as “Hungerford the dramatist.” She shuddered. In the years to come many people might not even know whether “Hungerford” had been a man or a woman. But she could never hold up her head again if she should relinquish her “career” now. What would her friends think? She felt that she had burned her ships behind her when she had published her tragedy, and that the eyes of her world were upon her.

She wished she were not so stylish and so distressingly well off in this world’s goods. Geniuses, she reflected, were always ugly and poor. Only lately had it come to be considered not infra dig. to grow rich off one’s brains. She would have liked to be an old-time ugly, poverty-stricken genius. As that could not be, however (her family might have objected to being dispossessed of a most generous income), the best thing she could do was to work on to the end. Better to die in harness, nobly striving after perfection, than to live to an ingloriously happy old age. She saw herself a melancholy woman, whose youth and beauty had fled before the exhausting demands of her genius. Fame had come, but too late. Her name was on every lip, but death awaited her. Nothing was left her but to choose her biographer and epitaph. She had long thought that the lines (adapted) from the “Adonais” would be very appropriate:

“Peace, peace! she is not dead, she doth not sleep; She hath awakened from the dream of life!”

She considered them very sweet, and Shelley had always been one of her gods. There was a sort of poetical justice in the selection. She felt very sad and firm.

Just then someone tapped at the door, and a card was handed her. She trembled a little as she took it, but there was no change in her voice as she told the man to take Mr. Stanhope to the library and that she would be down immediately.

But she did not go at once. She stopped at her own door and went to the mirror, where she loosened her hair a little at the sides, and after looking critically at the effect, she went slowly down the stairs. At each step she repeated to herself “I must be firm. My career before everything.”

She was saying this over to herself for the twentieth time when she found, rather to her dismay, that she was at the door. Pushing aside the curtains, she extended her hand as she planned to do, but something in Stanhope’s expression as he came quickly toward her made her falter and let it drop to her side. The next thing she knew he had his arms around her and she was not repulsing him. He had not given her the least chance to explain, she thought indignantly. She would never have allowed it if he had given her a moment’s time! As for Stanhope, no idea of explanation entered his head. He saw no necessity for one.

After a while she told him that she did not love him, but he did not seem to believe her, and she could think of no way of proving it after what had happened. Then she assured him that she had always planned to spend her life in writing and study, and that it was impossible for her to marry him. But he declared that there were no end of writers in the world and absolutely but one woman who could be his wife, so that he did not think her decision just or warranted. And then he went over to her very tenderly and asked her if she really cared more for her musty books and a “brilliant career” (Stanhope was careful to use the word “career”) than she did for a man who loved her so devoutly that he would willingly lay down his life for her? At this Miss Hungerford cried a little, and he put her head on his shoulder while she thought about it.

While they were thus engaged the clock struck five and the servant appeared punctually with tea-things. He was much confused when he caught sight of them, and Miss Hungerford privately determined to speak to the man for his officiousness.

The wedding was very brilliant and Miss Hungerford’s “most intimate friend” was maid of honor. She never told the bride, but she told everyone else, “that she had never expected Eva Hungerford to marry and give up her career, but that she was thankful it had happened, and she was sure she would be happy!”

In the meantime Daly’s is without the curtain-raiser.

REVENGE

Miss Atterbury put the paper she was reading carefully and slowly down upon the table. It was the _Boston ---- _, and there was a long article upon the first page marked ostentatiously around with a blue lead-pencil, and headed in glaring letters, “Athletics in Girls’ Colleges.”

There was a dangerous gleam in Miss Atterbury’s dark-gray eyes, and she seemed a trifle more than her ordinary five feet eight inches as she drew herself up and turned, with that careful repression of irritation which always denotes the extreme limit of self-control, upon an inoffensive freshman, comfortably installed in the window-seat, playing a mandolin.

“I was in Antwerp two weeks last summer,” she remarked, with careful emphasis, “and I heard the cathedral chimes play ‘La Mandolinata’ twice every five minutes, I think. I would be obliged if you would play something else, or even stop altogether for a while--I have something important to talk about just now.”

The freshman stuck her pick guiltily in the strings, and shifted her position upon the cushions into one of extreme and flattering attention, while the four girls who had been playing whist over in a corner turned hastily around toward Miss Atterbury.

“What is it now, Katharine?” inquired Miss Yale, reproachfully, laying down her cards. “She always takes things so terribly _au grand sérieux_,” she explained plaintively to the rest. Miss Yale had her rooms with Miss Atterbury, and stood rather in awe of that young woman, and was very proud of her athletic prowess, and could always be relied upon to tell her friends “that Katharine Atterbury was the captain of the senior crew, and could pull an oar as well as a ’Varsity stroke, and that the champion tennis-player of a certain year had said that she was an antagonist to be feared and respected.”

“_This_ is what is the matter,” said Miss Atterbury, in a tragic voice, picking up the paper. “I don’t know who it is that writes such absurd, such wilfully misleading articles about us, but I do know that if I could get at him I would----”

What Miss Atterbury would do was apparently too awful to speak of just then.

One of the girls got up and went over to her.

“But what is it?--what have they said about us now?” she inquired, impatiently.

“What they are always doing--poking fun at us,” replied Miss Atterbury, hotly, and with a fine disregard of grammar. “To read this article one would imagine that we were imbecile babies. One would think that a girl was as weak as a kitten, and didn’t know a boat from an elevator, or a five-lap running track from an ice-wagon, or a golf club from a sewing-machine. He--whoever the man is who wrote this ridiculous article--seems to think that all our training and physical development is a huge joke. He don’t even know how stupid he is. That’s the worst of it--he isn’t even aware of his unutterable, his colossal ignorance!”

“Wouldn’t it be fun to have him drawn and quartered, as an awful example, a sort of warning to the other newspaper men not to write about what they are totally ignorant of, and to leave us alone,” suggested the inoffensive little freshman, with a base but entirely successful attempt to get back into Miss Atterbury’s good graces.

The senior gave her a brief but cordial glance, and then ran on:

“Something must be done about it. I’m tired of reading this sort of trash about women’s colleges. It is time the public was learning the true state of things--that girls can and do swim, and row and play golf and tennis, and run and walk about, just as their brothers do, and that we have courage and muscle enough to go in for football even, except that we have some _little_ regard for our personal appearance!”

“And it’s so degrading and irritating to go home in the vacations, and have one’s brother tease one to death about it all, and try to be funny, and ask one if the color of one’s gymnasium suit is becoming, and if the golf captain knows the caddie from a cleek,” interposed Miss Thayer, a pretty blond girl who got up slowly and sauntered over to Miss Atterbury, putting her face over that young lady’s shoulder to get a look at the unfortunate paper. As she did so she gave a little cry of surprise.

“Why, I know the man who wrote that,” she gasped. “There! J. E. N.--see those initials at the end?--they mean Jack Newbold. I remember now he is writing for that paper. He told me this summer at the sea-shore that he was going in for newspaper work. His grandfather owns this paper, you know, and has promised him half a million when he is twenty-five if he will go through the whole thing--learn everything a newspaper man must know. He didn’t want to do it much, but, of course, he would go in for almost anything sooner than lose all that pile of money.”

Miss Atterbury looked thoughtfully and intently at Miss Thayer.

“You say he is a friend of yours?” she demanded, slowly.

“Oh, yes; we got to be very good friends this summer. He taught me how to play fifteen-ball pool--that’s about all he knows,” went on the girl, scornfully. “He’s an awful duffer about everything else. You ought to see him play tennis! It’s not very edifying, but it’s awfully funny.”

Miss Atterbury gave a little gasp of delight.

“That’s too good to be true,” she said, enthusiastically.

Miss Thayer rather stared. “Why?” she demanded, and then, without waiting for a reply, she swept on. “You wouldn’t think so if you had to play doubles with him! And he simply can’t walk--gets awfully tired, he says. _I_ think it’s his clothes. Gets ’em in London, and they are terribly swell and uncomfortable. And he is always afraid his collar is going to melt; it’s quite painful to be with him on a warm day. And I couldn’t induce him to come out in my cat-boat with me. Said he didn’t think a girl could learn to handle one with any degree of safety. Did you ever hear of anything so unjust? I think he was _afraid_.”

Miss Atterbury was leaning on the table now, and her countenance had assumed such a cheerful look that the freshman felt quite relieved and ventured to pick up her mandolin again.

“Go on!” demanded the senior, delightedly.

“Well, I don’t know anything more,” declared Miss Thayer, impatiently. “Isn’t that enough for you? He’s no good at out-door sports, and what he is doing writing us up or down is more than I can imagine. He oughtn’t to be allowed to do so. He don’t know anything about it at all, and I should think he would be ashamed of himself. I suppose his editor told him to do it, and he simply ‘made up’ and put down everything he had ever heard about us, and worked in all the old jokes about girls’ colleges.”

Miss Atterbury got up slowly.

“Well!” she said, impressively, to Miss Thayer, “I’m sorry if that young man is much of a friend of yours, for we have got to make an example of him. I suppose you know him well enough to invite him out here Monday afternoon?--for you’ve got to do it,” she added, with calm decision.

Miss Thayer said she thought she might venture on that simple act of courtesy, though she could not quite understand why Miss Atterbury was so anxious to see him since she disapproved of him so entirely; to which that young woman replied that she wished to see him once, so that she might never see him again, and that the next day she would explain her plans, in which she expected their hearty co-operation.

* * * * *

Mr. Jack Newbold had just comfortably installed himself in the 1.50 B. and A. train, when it occurred to him that he might possibly have made a mistake as to the time Miss Thayer expected him. He pulled out the note which he had received from her, and read it again.

“MY DEAR MR. NEWBOLD: I have been so interested in what you have written about athletics in girls’ colleges! I saw the article in your paper and knew immediately by the initials that it was your work. Ever since seeing it I have been wishing to redeem my promise to have you come out here and see our college.

“All the girls are anxious to see you. I hope you won’t mind receiving a great deal of attention! You know how enthusiastic and unconventional college girls are, and you are of the greatest interest to us just now. Miss Atterbury, a charming girl, is especially eager to meet you. Don’t be _too_ flattered! But we shall all be delighted to see the man who has so ably written up girls’ colleges, and unless I hear from you to the contrary, shall look for you out Monday afternoon by the 1.50 train.

“Of course I shall expect you to take dinner and go to the concert in the evening. I tell you this now, so you can wear just the right ‘dress’--men are so ridiculously particular about their clothes!

“Very cordially yours, “ELEANOR THAYER.”

Mr. Jack Newbold was not a particularly vain youth, but he had a slight feeling of satisfaction on perusing that note which made him settle himself even more comfortably in his seat and resign himself cheerfully to the short journey.

“Had no idea that article would make such a sensation,” he was saying to himself, “and I’m glad she expects me by this train. Of course she will bring her trap to the station for me. I believe the college is quite a little distance from the town. Nice little trap--she drives well for a girl, I remember.” And then he fell to wondering whether he had selected just the right things to wear. “Girls are so deucedly critical,” he soliloquized, and it had been rather hard to decide on just what would be in good taste for an afternoon call and would still do without change for the concert in the evening, and he rather complimented himself on his judicious selection, and was assuring himself that the particular shade of his gloves had not been a mistake, when he found that he was at the station.

Miss Thayer welcomed him effusively.

“I knew you wouldn’t have the vaguest idea of how to get up to the college,” she was saying, “and so I came down for you myself. No, I didn’t bring my trap. I knew you would enjoy the walk up, and I wanted to show you it myself. I remember how fond you were of walking, last summer,” she added, with a bright smile at him.

Newbold stared a little.

“I don’t think,” he began doubtfully; but Miss Thayer interrupted him quickly--

“You cannot imagine how anxious the girls are to see you. Each one wants to show you what she is particularly interested in. Really you are quite a martyr--I mean a hero--in our eyes! We will go up this way,” she ran on. “It’s a little longer and there is a pretty bad hill, but of course a man doesn’t mind a little extra exertion, and it’s even more beautiful than the other way.”

Newbold said he would be charmed to go any way that Miss Thayer might choose, but that he didn’t want to lose any of his visit at the college, and that perhaps it would be wiser to take the short cut. But Miss Thayer said that if they walked a little faster they would get there just as soon, and he would see the finer view, too. So they started off briskly, and Newbold wished that he had worn the other pair of patent leathers, and finally, when he felt ready to drop, and thought they must have walked about five miles, and she told him they had only two more to go, he blamed himself most severely for not having firmly refused anything but the short cut and a cab. One of Miss Thayer’s friends who met her told her the next day that she was glad to see that she had joined the Pedestrian Club, and that she had often wondered why she had not done so before.

“I hardly think it is worth while to go into the drawing-room now,” remarked Miss Thayer, argumentatively, as they strolled up the broad drive to the college. “I see Miss Atterbury down there on the campus playing tennis, and I promised to bring you to her immediately,” she went on. Newbold felt a horrible inclination to say that he didn’t care if he never met Miss Atterbury, and that personally he would very

much prefer going into the drawing-room and stopping there for the rest of the afternoon, in the most comfortable chair to be found; but he managed to murmur a weary assent to Miss Thayer’s proposition, and together they started down the steep hill at the bottom of which stretched the campus. But he could not seem to keep up with Miss Thayer, and by the time he had reached the tennis grounds and had decided that in all probability his heart would never beat normally again, he was conscious that he was bowing, and that Miss Atterbury, flushed from playing, was standing before him and was laughing and saying--“I don’t often give acquaintances such a warm welcome!” The next thing he knew was that someone had thrust a racket into his hand, and he heard, as in a dream, Miss Thayer telling her friend that Mr. Newbold was a splendid tennis-player, and that she would have to do her best to beat him, but that she hoped she would for the honor of the college. And then he found himself, somehow, walking over to the court, and, before he could protest, Miss Atterbury was on the other side, and was asking him kindly but briskly if he were ready to play. He thought he was as near ready as he ever would be, so he said “Play!” and waited resignedly for her serve.

It was just after Miss Atterbury had piled up an appalling number of games against him, and he had come to the conclusion that he knew what it would be like to stand fire from a Krupp gun, and had decided that tight patent leathers and a long coat were not just what he would have chosen to play tennis in, that he saw Miss Atterbury, to his intense relief, throw down her racket and run up the hill a little way. She was back in an instant with Miss Thayer and a tall, handsome girl, carrying a lot of golf clubs. When young Newbold saw the golf clubs he felt so tired that he thought he would sit down on the cold ground, although he knew how dangerous such a proceeding was, especially when he was so painfully aware of how hot his head was and how clammy his linen felt.

“Mr. Newbold!” he heard Miss Atterbury say, “I want to present you to Miss Yale. She is the captain of the Golf Club, and I knew you would want to meet her. Anyone who is such an authority on the subject as you proved yourself to be in that article would, of course, want to see the links out here.”

“Ah! thank you!” murmured Newbold; “but I play very little, you know, and I wouldn’t interrupt your game for the world!”

But Miss Yale told him how interested she

had been in his article, and that she wouldn’t feel that she had done her duty by the college unless she showed him the links, and that he really must come with them and tell them whether the meadow-land was too stiff a bit of ground to be gone over. And so Newbold found himself trudging wearily along again between Miss Atterbury and Miss Yale, who seemed as fresh as though they hadn’t moved that day. The links seemed distressingly far off, and the holes absurdly distant from each other. His arms ached so from tennis that he could scarcely hold the driver Miss Yale gave him.

“I wish you would drive off this tee once--men do that sort of thing so much better than girls,” she was saying, admiringly. “They don’t seem to need any practice at all--just comes natural to them.” Newbold had a very distinct impression that it hadn’t come at all natural to him, and he would greatly have preferred not trying before Miss Yale and the knot of young women who had drawn together at some little distance, and were very obviously watching him under the shallowest pretence of hunting for a lost ball. He felt desperately nervous, and his nervousness did not tend to disappear when he made a frantic try at the ball, digging a hole in the ground about a foot in front of the tee, and almost hitting Miss Atterbury, who jumped back with a little cry very unlike her ordinary calm self.

“I--I beg your pardon,” he began, desperately; but Miss Atterbury assured him that she was all right, and urged him to try again. He did so, and although he balanced himself cautiously on one foot and then on the other, and snapped at the ball several times before trying to hit it, and wobbled his driver after the most approved methods, he topped his ball miserably, and had the mortification of seeing it land in a most difficult hazard. And then he watched Miss Yale drive off with a good backward swing of her club, which hit the ball “sweet and clean,” and sent it a good ninety yards.

“Of course, as you said in your article,” remarked that young woman, picking up her clubs and starting off energetically after the ball, “this is no game for women. It is pre-eminently a man’s game, and a woman’s short collar-bone is never such an obvious mistake as in golf. A man can do so much with a driver or a cleek or a lofter, and the walking is so easy for him, and he is so entirely independent of the weather.” Newbold murmured inarticulate assents as he walked wearily by her. He wondered if she could keep up that pace all around the course, and he especially wondered how far around it was. He had a great deal of difficulty in getting his ball out of the hazard and lofting it up a steep hill, and he savagely wished that he had joined that golf club all his friends were urging him to join, and decided firmly to do so before he slept that night, and to engage the professional’s services for himself, and to practise till he could drive a ball off without utterly destroying all the turf in the vicinity.