CHAPTER V.

DINNER AT THE DE FREVILLE’S.

“_Her voice, whate’er she said, enchanted;_ _Like music to the heart it went._ _And her dark eyes—how eloquent!_ _As what they would ’twas granted._”—_Samuel Rogers, Jacqueline._

Mauney soon realized that, unsatisfactory as was the progress of his affair with Lorna Freeman, he was gaining some advantages from his connection with the family. Life was now a very different thing from that of Lantern Marsh farm. He had at last arrived into the midst of education. He had found people who knew things and were willing to teach him out of their knowledge. Moreover, he could discern that he was being gradually adopted by the Freemans. Through their influence he received an invitation to a dinner at the home of François de Freville. It was written in French. It was to be, for him, a most unusual pleasure and a very exciting one. He had a tailor measure him for a dinner-jacket suit. Lorna fell in love with it, when she saw it, on the evening of the function at de Freville’s. They met at Freeman’s and walked up Crandall Street behind the professor and his wife.

François de Freville, the popular professor of French, always entertained charmingly. He could not do it in any other way. This was a “Faculty dinner,” all the guests being members of the university staff, with a few exceptions, as in Mauney’s case. As a matter of fact it was a rare privilege to be invited and to meet personally the brilliant men who, on such an occasion, put off the garments of their wonted academic restraint, to indulge in free, good-fellowship. François himself lent a distinctly exotic atmosphere. With delightful informality he stood butler inside his own street door, and roared greetings to the guests as they arrived. He was a giant who must bow his head on entering doorways to avoid striking his skull—a man of unusual stature, big-bodied, big-handed, big-headed. Perhaps the charm of being received tempestuously by François lay in the ludicrous idea that this herculean host need not necessarily receive anyone, for if a party of armed militia presented themselves demanding reception they would certainly never get in. François, standing with his big, red face, his enormous black eye-brows, his enormous smile, that burst forth from lairs of brows and black moustaches, would hurl back invasion with smiling ease. In every detail of appearance he suggested the strong-sinewed “kicker-out” of the continental restaurant—just as brusque, just as impulsive, just as toweringly imposing. It was his perversion of function that titillated the fancy, for he was welcoming his guests. One by one he received them, with a fitting word for each, a word of liberty, in fact, which only François would be permitted, of all men, to speak.

“Ah! Madame Freeman!” he took her hand, as she entered, between his own enormous hands to pet it. “Vous êtes très charmante ce soir!”

Mrs. Freeman was not charming to-night. She was never charming, being always too instinct with the soft, great mystery of her personal tragedy. That, however, was quite immaterial. Even if, after thirty years of married life, only dim relics of charm had survived, there was still a truant delight in being told this falsehood. Mauney saw her warm to the salutation of François, and manage to get past his great bulk in excellent spirits.

“Ah, M’sieur le Professeur!” bellowed the giant as he greeted Freeman. What a contrast the two men formed! Freeman smiled apprehensively at the pile of vibrant life before him, as if dreading the forthcoming _bon mot_.

“Le grand homme, mes amis,” François vociferously announced to a cluster of guests in the drawing-room. “Le grand homme est arrivé!”

The laughter which greeted this announcement was restrained because, apparently, the guests felt that Freeman actually was a great man.

“Bon soir, Mam’selle,” to Lorna.

“Bon soir, M’sieur Bard. Vous êtes bienvenue.”

The host still stood at his post, when Mauney wandered, a few minutes later, through the hallway, and beheld him welcoming a new arrival. Mauney was impressed with the new arrival’s appearance. A woman of perhaps twenty-two, and of bewitching beauty, she stood, her hand still grasped by the Frenchman and laughing at his words.

“Bon soir, bon soir, Oiseau!” burst forth François and bent to kiss her hand with perfect gallantry. “Bienvenue, ma petite Oiseau, la maison est à toi!”

Mauney wondered at the nickname. Perhaps her movements, her manner, as lightsome as a bird’s, had suggested it, or perhaps the plaintive alto note of her voice made François think—as it did Mauney—of treetops on summer evenings. She stood for a moment looking up with admiration into her host’s eyes.

“I don’t know the French for it,” she laughed, “but if your house is Oiseau’s it’s a roost, isn’t it?”

Thereat de Freville roared, and, holding his sides, watched Oiseau’s neat ankles (as did Mauney also) while she climbed the staircase to remove her cloak.

While the guests waited for dinner, they talked in several groups about the hall and the tastefully arranged drawing-room. De Freville found Mauney standing alone and introduced him to “Oiseau.” Mauney had difficulty understanding the Professor’s French, his only admitted language, but managed to draw from his explosive encomium, that Miss MacDowell was in some way or other an exceptional person in the University of Merlton. When François left them she laughed with amusement, turning from his hulk of a figure to her new acquaintance.

“Have you known the professor long, Mr. Bard?” she asked.

“Just met him to-night. A good sort, isn’t he?”

“Oh, remarkable,” she said. “His robust voice always makes me think of somebody yelling into an empty rain barrel.”

Miss MacDowell was a decided brunette, with very beautiful dark brown eyes that permitted themselves to be looked into. Mauney at once felt depth after depth revealing themselves as he looked—comforting eyes, that seemed as much alive as the rest of her oval face. She gained strength from her arched nose, and tenderness from her delicate lips. Her upper lip drew up at times, exposing a white gleam of teeth. There was an unusual sympathy about her upper lip. It drew up with delicate quiverings as if attuning itself to catch his mood. Her black hair and brows, together with her youthful color, completed the outward appearance of a woman in whom he became immediately interested.

“Do you attend the university?” he ventured.

“Yes. It’s a habit,” she laughed. “Three years of it.”

“What line are you especially interested in, Miss MacDowell?”

“None, Mr. Bard. I didn’t come to college to get an education.”

“Indeed! Why, then, did you come, may I ask?”

“Oh, just to get enough highbrow information so that I would know what highbrows were talking about.” She said this quite seriously, with a note of unexpected bitterness in her voice. “If there’s one cruel advantage one person ever takes of another it’s to talk about something of which the other person knows nothing. If I hadn’t come to the university, then, no matter where I went, any girl who had waded through Horace, or physics, or solid geometry, could make me shrivel into insignificance by mentioning ‘O fons Bandusiæ,’ or Boyle’s law or conic sections. As it stands now I know a Latin poem by its sound. I know that a law in physics isn’t essential to individual happiness, and that conic sections (so far as I’m concerned) are nothing but an inconsiderate imposition.”

Mauney laughed and drew up a couple of chairs.

“Now, for argument’s sake,” he said, when they were seated—“mathematics is great. It’s wonderful to know that there is an eternal principle of fitness governing problems of numbers.”

“It may be wonderful enough,” she conceded, leaning over the arm of her chair, “but to dwell on it would take the pastoral quality clean out of life for me. I’m lacking in appreciation of such marvels. I’m interested in folks—just folks. I want to know how they feel. I want to understand folks.”

Mauney was somewhat put to it to gauge the strong individualistic note in Miss MacDowell, but was determined to try still harder.

“Do you believe in woman suffrage?” he ventured.

She shook her head.

“Surely,” he said, “you believe in women’s rights.”

“Certainly not,” replied Miss MacDowell, calmly. “We are the weaker sex. God made us weak on purpose.”

“Never!” argued Mauney, although he liked her attitude. “That’s an old bogy that got a fatal foothold in antediluvian days, and it’s taken about fifty centuries to get the idea even questioned. Ask any woman. She’ll tell you that the greatest movement of the twentieth century is the emancipation of women!”

“Tell me,” she said, pointedly, “from what do women seek to be emancipated?”

“Why! from an inferior rating. Woman’s intelligence and her equality demand a better label than man’s helpmeet.”

She cast a shrewd glance at Mauney, as if doubting his sincerity.

“Aren’t you a bit of a bluffer?” she asked. “Well, listen; you’re off the track. Woman’s inherent weakness is the very secret of her strength. Take any man, no matter how stubbornly masculine, and there’s a woman somewhere who can just simply make or mar him.”

“Do you think so?” queried Mauney, looking more deeply into her pretty, dark eyes.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, open your eyes and look at life!”

Mauney enjoyed her mild exasperation and determined to extract her viewpoint still further. There was as yet no sign of dinner, and the score of guests still kept up a monotonous buzz of conversation. He noticed Lorna talking with Mr. Nutbrown Hennigar, a lecturer in the history department.

“Don’t you think men are irrational beings, Miss MacDowell?” he said, turning his chair a little toward her.

“What difference does that make?”

“You might have more respect for them if they weren’t!”

“Respect men!” she laughed. “Why I think they’re just wonderful. I just love men. But, tell me, Mr. Bard, what are you taking at the university?”

“History.”

“Like it?”

“Yes, I do. What are you taking?”

“General course.”

“Like it?”

“Oh, please don’t ask me!” she implored, playfully putting up her slender hands in mock impatience. “The college game never quite phizzed on me, I’m afraid. I’m tired of it. May as well tell the truth, as lie about it, eh?”

“Surely. But what is it you dislike about education?”

“Education’s all right. It’s the university. Some day I’m going to write a book on how to run one’s university—just like a hand-guide on how to run one’s automobile. I’ll send you a copy, if I don’t forget.”

“Please don’t. I imagine it would be hot stuff.”

“Thanks. I take that as a compliment, whether it is or not.” She laughed as she turned toward the other guests. “There’s Nutbrown Hennigar over yonder talking with Lorna Freeman. He’d murder me if he heard me talk about college this way. You know him of course. Funny chap. Likeable in many ways. And he’s certainly in the swim.”

“Swim—how?”

“Why! His father owns the university—Senator Hennigar, yonder, talking with Madame de Freville. He looks like cupid at seventy, minus the wings.”

“He’s the Chancellor, isn’t he?” Mauney asked. “I’m just a green-horn in Merlton. I’m afraid of my shadow at an affair like this.”

“Chancellor—yes—and then some! You certainly are green if you don’t know all about the Hennigars. However, you’ll learn, Mr. Bard. Hennigar is the great password. You can do anything if you have a little bit of Hennigar. There’s Nutbrown, for example, lecturing in history. Someday he’ll be the professor. There’s Professor Freeman, married to Hennigar’s daughter.”

“No,” said Mauney, suddenly sitting up in astonishment.

“But, yes,” quoth Miss MacDowell in surprise. “Didn’t you know that?”

“I certainly did not.”

“Well, how much will I tell you? Who are your friends here?”

“The Freemans.”

“That’s too bad,” she sighed playfully. “My tongue will get me in wrong, sooner or later.”

“Not at all. Shoot ahead. I’m very keen on what you’re telling me.”

“In that case I’ll continue. Professor Freeman is a brilliant man, but, without a little bit of Hennigar, his brilliance would have been doomed to obscurity like the jewel in the cave. He started life as poor as a church mouse, but saw help in two directions. I know him like a book. He got a job as lecturer in history. He stuck to business and avoided individualistic tendencies. I give him great credit. He knew that since the days when Socrates held tutorial groups in porches down to the present when he held his own in university halls, a fair volume of knowledge had been amassed—quite enough historical data to engage anyone comfortably. He had opinions of his own, but ascension on the academic ladder meant consistent self-suppression. He quietly taught the young idea old ideas, and rose in favor, until, gradually passing through assistant-ships and associate-ships, he stretched out finally in the chair of history. But, of course, the magic behind it all was his connection with the Hennigar family. You see, the senator is Chancellor, chairman of the building committee, friend of the university in general, and heaviest endower in particular. If Freeman could have done a cleverer thing than marry Miss Hennigar, it would have required a committee of corporation lawyers to discover it.”

“That’s news to me,” said Mauney. “I appreciate getting in on a little gossip like this, too. Who’s your friend here, Miss MacDowell?”

“I haven’t any,” she said. “Nutbrown Hennigar fusses over me at times. But I’m here just because François met me in the east corridor this morning and told me I had to come up for dinner. I never made any bids for getting in with this crowd. I don’t fit, anyway. But François insisted, and then Madame ’phoned me, so what could I do?”

“They seem like a friendly bunch of people, though,” Mauney remarked.

“Friendly!” she returned. “Why not? They’re pretty nearly all related. There is Alfred Tanner—he’s a real fellow—but he married Senator Hennigar’s other daughter. Everybody else here, if not related to Hennigar, has a very special stand in. It’s the great eternal family compact. I’ll mention that in my hand-book, too.”

“But the senator seems to be a good old chap!”

“Certainly. I admire him. You know how he made all his money, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Jam,” said Miss MacDowell simply. It was apparent from her animation that she loved talking about the man. Mauney wondered at her, nevertheless, for it struck him that she was ill-advised to say so much to a stranger. Fortunately, everything she had said, thus far, had struck home with unusual force and greatly appealed to him. But how could she take the risk of committing herself so freely?

“You see, it’s just like this,” she said, lowering her voice and smiling with the mischievous glee of a child consciously undertaking some deviltry, “Hennigar discovered early in life that plums and ginger-root blend in a manner most gratifying to the palate. He persevered with his formula. With the austere self-denial of the specialist, he worked hard and became the arch-confectioner. He pyramided profits into advertising—”

“Is he the maker of Hennigar’s jam?” interrupted Mauney, incredulously.

“Of course he is. He kept at it, as I was saying, until to-day a ten-acre factory buzzes with its manufacture and the plum-trees on a thousand hills grow for Hennigar alone. Oh, but it was wonderful jam,” she laughed, smacking her lips prettily. “It has ‘jammed’ out a small-sized marble palace in Riverton, a fleet of motor cars from Rolls to Buick, one for every mood, an army of liveried servants, one for every duty. It has ‘jammed’ Elias Hennigar into the Senate, into the front ranks of the Church, into the intimate counsels of the university—in fact, this jam has made him. But, of course, one doesn’t mention jam, now. He’s got it all washed off his hands by this time.”

“Doesn’t that beat the devil!” exclaimed Mauney. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss MacDowell.”

“Not at all,” she laughed. “I like to hear a man cuss. I sort of know where he stands, then. Listen and I’ll tell you a secret.”

Mauney leaned a little nearer her.

“I’m going to drop my course this spring,” she whispered, “and take a job under Professor Freeman as departmental secretary in history. Won’t that be fun? I’ll have Alfred Tanner to work with. He’s better than a circus any time, and then there’s Nutbrown Hennigar. Have you had him to lecture to you yet? No? I guess he sticks to the general course students. Well, he’s a scream, anyway. He’s very, very fond of me, mind you. Just imagine a Hennigar on my trail. He takes me to theatres often. And dances—oh, he can’t dance at all; he just rambles. He thinks it’s awfully queer of me to have accepted this job in the history department.”

Mauney’s attention was completely engaged by his charming companion. She puzzled him beyond measure. Why, he wondered, did she talk so confidently to him? She did not appear to be a rattle-brained woman, and yet how strangely familiar she had become.

“Say,” he said, after a little pause. “You’re kind of human, and I’m just going to ask you a question, if I may.”

She nodded.

“Why do you tell me so much?” he asked. “Mind you, I like it a whole lot. But how did you know I would like it?”

She laughed tantalizingly.

“Because I know all about you, Mr. Bard,” she replied.

“Me?”

“Certainly. You’re a pal of Max Lee’s, aren’t you?”

His eyes opened with enlightenment.

“Are you Freda MacDowell?” he asked eagerly.

She nodded and teased him with her eyes.

“Of course I am. Max has told me all about you. When I heard the name Bard, to-night, I wondered if you were Mauney.”

“I sure am,” he said, warming up, “and this is a great pleasure, indeed, I—”

“And I was positive it was you,” she interrupted, with a roguish glance at his face, “because Max told me you had an awful head of red hair.”