CHAPTER I.

ADJUSTMENTS.

The next two years passed very quickly for Mauney, with few perceptible changes. The war was over. Merlton, one day, had gone crazy with armistice celebration, only to settle down on the next to its usual life. The university was crowded now with returned soldiers. It was a familiar scene to behold the great square dotted with limping students still in uniform. The sight of them brought sharp emotions to Mauney—mingled sympathy for their sufferings and regret that he had been denied a share in their adventures in France. He knew that he, himself, had been peculiarly untouched by the war. Nevertheless, the stupendous event had made an impression upon him, the more severe by reason of his own non-participation in it. A sensitive depth in his nature was perpetually harrowed by thought of it. Having, by this time, followed the records of history from their dim beginnings up to the present, he was confronted, as was every one, by an impassable barrier, which refused to yield to any philosophic explanation. Perhaps he was too near the catastrophe, in time, to gain the needed perspective. But the facts were constantly before him. Something had slipped in the great, good purpose of God. In the substrata of life a tremendous fault had occurred, bearing its outward upheavals of death, suffering and disorder.

Three years at college had made a great difference in Mauney Bard. He had passed through the academic terms, like the unnoticed steps of a great staircase, without noticing that he was, in a sense, always climbing. He was climbing nearer to something—something perceived to be intangible, but worthy.

From his humble beginnings on Lantern Marsh farm, where his perspective was hedged by blind walls of pettiness on every side, he had emerged into a grateful breadth of vision, where, at his very feet, lay the treasures of accumulated knowledge and whence, too, the horizon was attractive with mystery.

He had become a man, at length, with a man’s viewpoint and a mature sense of a personal participation in the affairs of the world. Three years of history had brought him to a point of view which included himself. Every student cannot be so favored by the unseen mechanism which moulds personality. Many, including the brilliant Miss Lorna Freeman, failed nothing in gaining an accurate knowledge of history. She seemed in eagerness for learning to be like the dry, cracked earth, eager for the rain that never quite fills it; but with all her great capacity for information she lacked the quality that had made Mauney older and more serious. The war did not make any appreciable difference in Lorna. It was a phenomenon, similar to, if vaster than, other wars, which would, in due course, afford her fascinating study. But to Mauney it had already loomed up as a vital obstacle to his philosophy of optimism, for all things culminated in it. All good that had ever been, met in it a blasting contradiction. All hope of a satisfactory society met in it a destructive rebuff; all the quivering aspirations of his own developing mind found in it a dark abyss, frightful enough to quench them.

So it was that Mauney, at the end of his third year, lost immediate interest in his academic work and grappled with a problem of reality.

He grew serious and questioning. His auburn hair, which had darkened until its color was scarcely present, was parted carelessly above a face somewhat paled by thought, a face whose blue eyes were intense with sharp mental strife, and whose lips had changed from their boyish happiness to the determined line of serious manhood.

His problems had thus changed a good deal from the time when they concerned merely his personal liberty, for they now concerned rather the liberty of the human race. He had gradually emerged from selfish considerations. He had lost touch with his family. Old bonds no longer held him. The new thing—the cosmic consciousness—which he owed to the university training, took possession of his mind. Wonderful gift of the college! That a man, through its agency, should unconsciously loose himself from all that relates to personal passion and tune his being to the pitch of the general passion of mankind!

From Maxwell Lee, constantly bent over his laboratory desks, constantly delving into the secrets of disease, constantly at work, heroically striving against handicaps of poverty and ill-health, he absorbed a great truth of conduct, for he gradually came to understand that it was the vast desire for human betterment that inspired this frail, but active, research student. Max loomed bigger than ever in his esteem. Three or four years had ripened their friendship, tested it in many ways, and proven it to be solid. Neither of them cared to leave 73 Franklin Street, partly because Mrs. Manton and Fred Stalton and the others had become strange fixtures in their lives, but mainly because they meant more to each other than either quite realized.

And Freda MacDowell had joined the ranks. Shortly after dropping out of her arts course she had met Gertrude and adopted 73 Franklin as her boarding house. She had now served two years as secretary in the Department of History, and was no more favorably impressed by education than on the evening of her conversation with Mauney at Professor de Freville’s. Frequently she had a good deal to say on the subject, although Mauney always tried to avoid her. She had the big front room opposite Max’s on the first floor, and there was a tasteful alcove with a desk and chairs in the hallway, where Max and she always sat to talk.

Apparently she had at last found her ideal boarding house. Her taste, cultivated by a half-dozen seasons in Merlton, and moulded by a gradual elimination of features objectionable or stereotyped, had become as whimsical as a middle-aged Parisian’s taste in diet. Two years as an undergraduate of the university had sufficed to draw the ban upon women’s residences and the mild espionage of fellow students. Her third year in arts had taught her conclusively that living with a maternal aunt was laying oneself needlessly open to constant misinterpretation. There were things she wanted to do—such as show herself friendly with Max Lee. There were other things which she did—such as allow Nutbrown Hennigar to call upon her. Evidently, Mrs. Manton’s house furnished what she wanted—freedom, comfort, protection from idle scandal. At any rate Mauney drew as much from her usual conversations.

But he was too busy to be greatly concerned with Freda; and, moreover, he had long since decided that she belonged to Lee. Max occasionally denied this, and characterized their relationship as merely a good friendship, but Mauney heard between his words.

Moreover there was Lorna Freeman, whom he had watched develop into an attractive womanhood. They were still together daily. He still took dinner at the professor’s occasionally and followed dinner with long discussions in the smoky study upstairs. He liked the Freemans. He liked Lorna. He liked Merlton and his university life.

But at the end of three years, with only one more year to study, he began to take synoptic views of the general situation and to cast into the immediate future for a career.

During his fourth year the problem of a life-work forced itself upon him.

He told Professor Freeman his troubles as they smoked together. The historian seemed to appreciate the confidence.

“Well, Mauney,” he said seriously, “The logical thing for you to do is to find out what you are best fitted for, and take up that work. You will be graduating next spring. The world is before you. No one but yourself can decide the question.”

Hours when Mauney might have been cogitating on the subject, were usually spent in delightful loneliness in his room, writing down his thoughts on history in his ledger, which had now grown to be a considerable volume of literature. He took it out of its long privacy one evening to show to Lorna. He read her snatches of things he had written, consciously opening the somewhat sacred recesses of his being to her. When he asked her for an opinion she had little to say.

“Oh, it’s pretty stuff!” she admitted coolly—“a sort of effervescence from a student’s mind!”

She was right. He mentally applauded her judgment. Surely, after all, it was nothing else. All the nights he had spent on it! All the impassioned moments he had worked to express his personal ideas of history! Nothing but a sort of effervescence! Surely, she was right. Cold, frank, truthful Lorna! How his admiration was wrung from him by her bald statement! He had wanted her to like it tremendously and praise it and acclaim it as worthy writing. But now he felt like thanking her for categorizing it with accurate appraisal. How accurate she was! “Effervescence!” When he returned home he threw the ledger down on his desk.

“Damn this effervescence!” he cursed with ruffled feelings. “Damn my student’s mind! If this isn’t real then I’m not real.”

Of course, the situation in the class, with only two of them, always the same two, was provocative of a strain between them. He never felt that they had discovered the very thing that she had recommended in the stilted language of her first year—a _modus vivendi_.

She consistently defeated him at the examinations, although he was quite indifferent to the fact. He noticed a peculiar jealousy in her that came to the surface at odd moments, when their respective intelligences were compared by the challenge of academic demands. He knew that, often enough, he could have answered a tutor’s question first, but that he refrained in order to give her the advantage of priority.

She had become a beautiful woman, a blonde goddess of severely classical line and color. When he looked at her he favored her intelligence, and continued to accord her priority. But he felt that she was overshadowing and hindering him, and that a _modus vivendi_ could be discovered only by some spiritual change in their relationship.

One solution seemed to be a personal declaration of independence. She deserved, no doubt, to be regarded as an academic rival, and thus treated; for, if ever an opportunity came for her to defeat him by a clever word or argument she never held back. If now, he were to retaliate, forgetting her sex, and try earnestly to beat her at her own game of wit, he would be truer to himself, and would create a more natural relationship in the class.

But, on the other hand, a different solution cropped up. If, by any means, he could spiritually overshadow her, break down her being into dependence upon his own; if, in short, he could but touch her affections, he would thus create harmony in the class, as well as accomplish a desirable feat. He knew well enough that he had ached to touch her hidden heart. He had sat, for nearly four years, looking at her, admiring her body as well as her mind, but had never been able once to tell her in words, or in any other way, just how he felt about her.

This problem added itself to the several others that confronted him. He accused himself over and over of continued weakness. He must do something about Lorna Freeman. That was the great certitude before him. She could not be ignored. It was incumbent upon him either to dislike her or love her. Which would it be? She was like a bulky obstacle in his path, that could not be moved. His progress depended on shoving her aside or else winning her. Naturally he embraced the second method, as a trial.

He hired a car one autumn evening and took her driving out past Riverton into the country. The air was crisp and the west aglow with luminous green.

“You seem frightfully serious, Mauney,” she remarked.

“So I am,” he admitted. “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

She glanced from under her black hat and smiled a little impatiently.

“When one goes for a motor-drive one doesn’t usually like to be so oppressively serious, does one? Have I the right to enquire as to what is making you so much absorbed in your thoughts?”

He nodded as he turned toward her.

“Yes,” he said forcibly. “You’ve got a peach of a right to ask. I’m serious about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I’ve tried for four years to get something said, and you’ve always been so preoccupied with an overweening interest in the surrounding world, that I’ve never managed to say anything. Even now I haven’t got five cents’ worth of assurance. I don’t altogether blame myself, either. I’m not an especially timid or fearful creature. I usually say what I want to say and let the devil take the consequences. And that, Lorna, is what I’m going to do right now.”

She was surprised. Her blue eyes widened. Her perfect, if severe, lips opened to reply, but he was leaning toward her, ready to interrupt.

“Why have I always been so meekly worshipful?” he demanded. “Why have I always let you have your way? Is it just because you are a woman? If so—if you are a woman—why don’t you sometimes treat me as if you were?”

Her face was a picture of utter astonishment.

“Mauney Bard!” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you ask me one question at a time? You seem dreadfully upset about something, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, as he leaned closer to her. “I am. I’m upset over you.”

She was strikingly good-looking at the moment. Her customary classical paleness was gone. A warmth of color, provoked by some sudden emotion, had usurped its place. She was surprised by his words and her eyes frankly looked her confusion.

“Lorna,” he said, putting his arm about her shoulders. “I had to bring you here, away from everything. I—”

“Don’t!” she implored, drawing quickly back. “I—I can’t!”

Then she made a queer, gurgling sound in her throat, tried to speak, and ended by weeping with her face held between her hands.

As the car sped on Mauney sat regarding her in absolute mystification.

“Why on earth does the girl weep?” he meditated. “What have I done to her? Is my proffer of love an insult?”

It was a hoax of a drive. It became unbearable. After a long silence he ventured to change the subject entirely, and found her presently quite agreeable to talk about other matters. He was glad when he at last put her down at her home and said good-night. Then, returning to the car, he drove to the Medical Building, where the windows of Lee’s laboratory were brilliantly lighted. After paying the driver he stood for a few moments on the walk trying to collect his self-control. He wanted to see Max, but knew that unless he paused he would stamp into the laboratory like a madman. He owed Lee some deference on account of the latter’s important work. It was ten minutes before he opened the great front door of the building and ascended the iron staircase to the first floor. He rapped on the laboratory door.

“Who’s there?” came Lee’s voice, in an unnatural tone.

“Mauney.”

“All right.”

In a moment Max unlocked the door and stepped back. He had a bottle of whiskey in his hand with a corkscrew stuck into the cork. Without noticing Mauney’s surprised expression, he turned to walk to a table where he continued his occupation of trying to draw the cork. His lean body was clothed in his long, white, laboratory gown, and his black hair hung in confusion over his pale face. He evidently forgot that something in the present scene was bound to be dramatically new to Mauney. Without explanation he drawled, in his gentle voice:

“This whiskey, Mauney, is neither Olympian nectar nor fixed bayonets. I’ve frequently sipped better spirits, and I’ve occasionally tasted worse. Like you and me, my son, it was made before the war. Fortunately it lacks the throaty sting of recent distillation, but, on the other hand, it can hardly be said to possess the superb smoothness, the velvety, liqueur-like softness of real old spirits, such as I, and such as you, no doubt, have, at sundry times and in divers places, imbibed. I use the word ‘imbibed’ advisedly, and with nice selection from the swarm of verbs meaning to drink, such as sip, taste, sample, swallow, tipple, to say nothing of swig, and to leave out of consideration entirely such inelegant terms as snort, or even gargle.”

Mauney was leaning against the desk watching him curiously and smiling at his mood. He wondered especially why Max was drinking.

“Do you want any help?” he asked, seeing that Lee still struggled with the cork.

“No, I scorn your assistance,” he laughed. “There we are! Pop! It had a nice pop, hadn’t it? And here’s your glass. I suppose you’re drinking?”

“Why, Max, old fellow! I’ll drink with you, yes. I’m in a good mood for murder or anything, to-night.”

Lee held up a beaker full of whiskey.

“Murder—eh? If that’s how you feel put that glass back on the desk. Don’t touch it. You’re not in a fit mood for drinking, my son. In order to drink one should be bathed in delightful reminiscences; one should feel at peace with the spacious present and most hopeful for the future.”

“And yet,” Mauney said, looking into his friend’s dark eyes, “I don’t seem to think you’re in that delightful mood either. What’s wrong?”

Lee laughed rather unrestrainedly. After quaffing off the beaker of liquor he filled the receptacle with water from a tap, drank it, smacked his lips, and then, putting down the beaker on the desk, lit a cigarette.

“I’m not really drunk, Mauney,” he replied more soberly. “I’m taking this stuff for stimulation. My health is not the best, unfortunately. Keep it dark; but I was up to pay a visit to Dr. Adamson this afternoon. Well, he went over my chest, and I guess I know why they turned me down for the army. I’ve got T.B. all right, so he thinks. Don’t be alarmed—”

“But you shouldn’t be working,” interrupted Mauney, in great astonishment over the news.

“So Adamson tried to tell me. But it’s the fibrotic type—just a sort of shrivelling of one lung. Not a bit contagious, you know. Of course it weakens me, sure enough. And I do think it’s a damned great misfortune, my son. Here I have my work pretty near in hand”—he made a gesture toward the apparatus that littered the desks—“and another year’s work would probably give me the secret I’m after. I’m on the track, Mauney; I’m on the track.”

“Good.”

A tremendous pity for Lee possessed him, a pity that one man could never express to another. He thought of the quiet, gradual process of disease that had gone on in Max’s body, steadily sapping his strength. Why should fate have ordained this brilliant student to bear a disease that might have been visited more reasonably upon one who could never mean so much to the cause of science?

“Now, what I intend doing is to work on until I finish this bit of research work,” Max informed him. “If I discover the cause of pernicious anæmia I’ll be fairly happy, as you can imagine. If I don’t—well, I’ll have another whack at it after I rest up and get back in shape. I’m going to work right now. There’s a chair and some cigarettes, Mauney. Sit down and stay a while anyway.” He turned presently from his laboratory apparatus. “But you didn’t explain your murderous mood. What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing worth talking about,” Mauney replied, simply.

Whether it was worth talking about or not, the next few days seemed to prove that it was worth thinking about. He found himself in the same unsatisfactory relation to Lorna as ever. He called one evening and asked her if she would like to stroll with him on their back lawn.

“Oh yes,” she consented, “although it does sound childish, doesn’t it?”

It was far from childish to Mauney. He looked down upon her pale, exquisite face, as they sat on a bench in the faded twilight and knew that something had to be done about her. He was determined not to let another day pass without settling once and for all the relationship that was to exist between them. Here beside him on the bench was the one woman who had managed to cast a constant spell of attraction over him. For three years she had occupied a good deal of his thoughts. During this time he had become tolerably well acquainted with himself and longed now to become acquainted with the woman who had always held him so coolly at arm’s length. He was particularly curious to know what explanation existed for her conduct a few nights previously in the motor car. Why had she resisted his embrace?

“Lorna,” he said, at length, “I want to ask you a question. It may not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me.”

“Well, Mauney,” she said, with just a fleck of impatience in her voice. “I’ve been dreading this conversation. I know what you want to ask me and I’m not at all certain that I can explain. And yet I can’t very easily deny you the right to ask.”

“I don’t see how you could in fairness, Lorna. I merely want to know why you repelled me the other night, when I tried to kiss you. Tell me if there was any other motive than just plain lack of affection for me. Was that it?”

He was leaning toward her for her reply, and his arm which lay across the back of the seat, touched her shoulders lightly. She did not move from the caress.

“Look here, Mauney,” she said, in such a clear, unhampered tone that he almost started. “I think I can explain. I’ve always liked you a lot. You’ve always been a perfect gentleman to me. I’ve always admired your courtesy at all times. And I’ve always liked your ideas. I think I could have gone on for ever, dreaming life with you if—if—”

“If what, Lorna?”

“If you hadn’t spoiled—I mean, when you tried to take me in your arms, that was a totally unknown idea. Not so much that, perhaps, but it was beyond me entirely. I felt that it symbolized something big, yet something so vastly new and foreign to my mind that I was frightened.”

“Frightened?”

“That’s it, exactly,” she nodded. “I was frightened at having a new vista of life opened up suddenly, that way—unawares, taken off guard, if you can understand. I wasn’t ready for it. You see, my mind is, in many ways, inexperienced. I don’t know men at all. You’ve had more emotional experience than I have. I didn’t mean to be cruel. In fact, that’s why I cried, because I was afraid I had hurt your feelings.”

A street lamp on Crandall Street now blossomed into light and sent a long, glancing shaft against her face. Mauney quivered with attraction.

“Are you actually afraid of me, Lorna?” he asked.

She looked up into his eyes a moment very thoughtfully.

“No—I guess not,” she replied, with a noticeable hesitancy.

“Listen,” he said, leaning nearer her and grasping her hand. “I’ve been torn to bits over you for three years. I’ve tried to put you out of my mind, but couldn’t. What’s the use of going on the way we have been?” even as he spoke his arm pressed her shoulders close to him, while she looked up into his face, pale and apprehensive.

“Don’t you try to get away from me, either,” he said in a stern voice as she pushed with her hand against his bosom. “I won’t stand for that any longer. You’ve got to listen to me, Lorna.”

A dim passion akin to revenge possessed him. He pressed her close an instant and kissed her full upon the lips. Then she wilted, and dropped her head softly, with little sobs, against his shoulder.

“Lorna,” he said. “Will you be my wife?”

She did not reply, but remained sheltered within the circle of his arms.

“You do me a great honor,” she said at length, in a low voice. “But I will certainly have to consider this business very carefully. I’ll tell you soon.”

“How soon?”

“In about a month, I guess.”