Chapter XXIII

A Pretty Good Place

The winter whirled busily past. Myra declared that the sun was lucky in being able to attend to its own setting without assistance, for even Ruth had no time to watch it. At the delightful evening recitation of which Myra was appointed time-keeper, as there was no regular gong at that hour, her neighbors beckoned and nudged for five minutes before the end. This impatience was caused not by lack of enjoyment in the work, but by the consciousness of other tasks pressing for attention. When at last Myra scrupulous to the minute snapped the lid of her watch as a signal, the instructor taught the fidgety seniors a lesson in scholarly concentration by noticing or ignoring the click, according to the length of the sentence under consideration.

Friday and Saturday evenings were usually occupied by concerts, lectures, or plays, committees, clubs, or receptions. As Elinor had anticipated, Myra became so blasé that she declined to exert herself for refreshment short of striped ice cream. Lydia was continually going somewhere or coming from something. On the night of the Colonial Ball while slowly descending the staircase with the throng of guests, she heard clapping from the crowd that lingered below. When she perceived that the cheering was in acknowledgment of her acting in the last Hall Play, the surprise on her face softened to half-shy pleasure with a little conscious quiver of the lips and a flush that moved Elinor to joy. Elinor herself that evening had suffered the penalty of popularity; for every jolly old lady on the entertainment committee had insisted upon providing the senior president with an apple and a piece of pumpkin pie. She found comfort in the preception that Lydia too was capable of blushing.

More than once Ruth pleaded for “a nice domestic evening all by ourselves “behind the shelter of an engaged sign. Finally a March Monday provided favoring circumstances; and the four settled down to study in quiet. Myra began to dribble out reminiscences while she sharpened pencils.

“It’s about time for the honors to be announced. The faculty had a meeting this afternoon. The rumor is that our class contains many steady workers, but few brilliant ones. In our freshman year I did not even notice the honors till Lydia told us. When I was a sophomore I hung half-way down senior corridor and saw them crowding around the messenger in the parlor. She had thirteen small white notes. As each one was presented, the girls clustered around the chosen one while she read it. They shrieked and laughed and kissed her. All over the building that night — here an honor girl and there an honor girl — each with a glowing face and two arms about her neck. When I was a junior I stood at the very door behind the portière —”

“Myra, you didn’t!”

“Nobody looked at me — that is, not very hard,” she said soothingly, “it wasn’t cheeky. I do believe that Elinor is more afraid of being cheeky than of being wrong. I wanted to see how they did it, so that this time I might be prepared to stand within.”

“Are you also practising your bow of acceptance?”

“I wish I could. Wouldn’t it be a lark? But, no, alas, I am neither brilliant nor sparkling, though you may refuse to believe it I am merely radiant — a typical American. It’s living four years with a granddaughter, a genius, an influence in the community — the atmosphere, the aroma of culture —”

Here the springing step of the messenger girl — not to be mistaken — sounded nearer and nearer in elastic approach. Ruth glanced up almost apprehensively; Lydia deliberately laid down her book; Myra hugged herself; and Elinor went to the door.

“For Miss Allee,” and the girl had gone lightly, trippingly, a smile on her lips. Nobody was disappointed and nobody was surprised, not even Ruth herself, for she knew that she had continued to be worth a full scholarship year after year.

After the flurry of congratulation Elinor proposed that they hunt up the other honor girls at once.

“Even if as a class we do not approve of the honor system,” conceded Lydia, “and although we did ask that the announcements should be sent unobtrusively to the separate rooms, still it is not altogether unpleasant to know that our list is longer than any previous one.”

“Last spring,” bubbled Myra from her well of observation, “I heard a professor congratulate one of them and she replied with a wail of regret over the few names. I forget the professor’s exact rejoinder, though I am sure it was a rebuke because it struck me that way. I remember impressions rather than details. The value of the summary, you know, at the end of our special topics is the impression it leaves. They appear to condemn all sorts of comparisons in this place. We cannot compare even our marks in examinations. ‘Cause why? Nobody ever tells us what they are — except of course when we find flunk notes in the mail, and then we simply know what they aren’t. It’s a funny place.”

“It’s a pretty good place,” laughed Elinor contentedly, her hand caressing Ruth’s skirt, “I do hope the flowers will be in blossom for Founder’s Day. My brother is coming to the Reception.”

Myra also had a guest for the great day — a strutting little cadet from the military school in town. Lydia’s Apollo-like cousin condescended to show the light of his countenance upon the girl-haunted institution. Even erratic Ruth had a “man,” one of Miss Ewers’ fellow instructors from the western university. There was flutter of ribbons and laces beside severe broadcloth. There were lights and flowers and an orchestra of pallid musicians behind a screen of palms borrowed from the little greenhouse. There was dancing in the great dining-room and promenading through the decorated corridors. There were professors who held forth entertainingly — seldom in learned vein — over the supper tables. There were nervous youths who felt it incumbent upon themselves to deluge one partner after another with agonizing repartée which testified to intimate acquaintance with Greek and higher mathematics. There were nods and smiles and compliments and hurrying to and fro in search of lost partners. There was many a profound dialogue based upon the gracious query: “Is this your first visit to the college?” or, “How did you like the lecture? Ah, perhaps I should not ask embarrassing questions. He has the reputation of being the wittiest novelist in Boston. A pity he did not scintillate more visibly!” Or still again: “Do you see that girl in pale pink in the Glee Club? Ann Estes — awfully dear!” When it was all over, one senior hastened to write upon a friend’s block-pad, “Oh, happy Founder’s Day!” and the next morning she displayed a new ring adorning her third finger.

Our four girls were heart-whole yet after the last good-bye had floated out into the starry night. Wearily they climbed to their study and dropped upon convenient seats to talk it over.

“I’ve had the time of my life,” sighed Myra, but Elinor let it pass unchallenged for she had lost count of those happiest occasions. “I’ve chattered till I’m hoarse, and I am invited to four teas tomorrow.”

“One o’clock,” announced Lydia, “and not asleep yet. I am engaged to show the grounds to three different guests in the morning. The banjo-club plays at eleven; chocolate is to be served in the senior parlor at noon; there is a tallyho ride later ending with a dinner in town. Good-night, everybody.”

“Oimoi, eheu! I wish I had not touched that seventh glass of frappe. What does make me feel so wide awake? Elinor, you dear, I heard someone say, ‘How beautiful Miss Offitt looks with that silver band in her hair!’ Your brother is sweet. He was telling me about the Paris plans.”

“Yes,” nodded Elinor, “he’s good too. I’m the black sheep of the family. He is carrying out father’s ambition for him, but mother’s ambition for me —” she hesitated, “if only I had sisters to help me! One like Ruth could gratify mother’s intellectual ambition; one like Myra could shine in society; one like Lydia could take an interest in public spirited enterprises.”

“Miss Offitt is fishing for more praise,” murmured Myra, “it’s your turn to say it, Ruth.”

“Would you rather be called beautiful or wise or good?” asked Ruth obligingly.

“All of them,” replied Myra with blissful greediness.

“Do you know what I would choose out of all the qualities?” said Elinor as she rose and bent absently to gather her filmy skirts in one slender hand, “I’d choose womanliness.”

Ruth and Myra looked at her and then glanced at each other with a tender little half-smile of mutual comprehension. Myra heaved a mighty sigh. “If that isn’t just like the wastefulness of some persons!” she muttered, “doubtless if a fairy bestowed a wish upon Ruth she would squander it by choosing to be a genius. I also would venture to hitch my wagon to the star of my present ideal condition — health, wealth, beauty, and brains — the essentials of happiness. Oh, oh, oh! What a high and glorious consolation is self-complacency!”

“Mad — mad — mad as a March hare!” commented Elinor and glided hastily into her own room before they spied her deepening color.

The following day was exhausting to every young hostess. Elinor especially was over-tired when evening came. At nine o’clock, after the final lingering guest had torn himself away, she entered the study to find Myra rejoicing in preparations for a sustaining cup of tea to which half-a-dozen seniors had been invited that previous minute. Too listless to face the ordeal of smiling a welcome, Elinor escaped in search of restful solitude for the remaining half-hour before peace should begin to settle over the corridors. At the door of the Chapel gallery the muffled notes of the organ attracted her within to sink upon a seat in the tranquillizing darkness.

About a quarter of an hour later, Myra lifted her head from adjusting the flame under the glistening tea-kettle. “She’s coming at last. That’s her step. She’s angry about something. Just listen!”

The door swung impetuously open.

“Oh, good evening!” Elinor’s cheeks were blazing. On the threshold she halted with her head thrown back, her fingers twisting and untwisting before her. “Girls, I was sitting in the Chapel — in the dark. Two persons came in — juniors — I recognized their voices. The organ was playing. They saw me. They didn’t care. They talked — talked against the college — my mother’s college. They said it is narrow and provincial and namby-pamby. They said the lake is nothing but a pond. Our beautiful little lake! They said the new hall looks like a flimsy checkerboard and we are too subservient to insist upon our rights and organize Greek letter societies up to date and independent of the faculty.”

“That’s one of the advantages —” broke in Myra. Elinor did not notice her.

“They said that we never have grapefruit for breakfast and there aren’t any carpets in the corridors. Carpets! Do you hear? They said the girls are feminine. Listen! They said feminine with a sneer as if — as if it were contemptible not to be masculine. They did! They did! You can laugh.”

“Girls like that — here!” Nobody was laughing.

“Juniors who have lived here three years! They said the atmosphere is stifling, smothering, deadening. One of them is planning to leave next week and study in New York. The other is here on a scholarship, with all her expenses paid, or else she would go too. On a scholarship! She eats the college bread and — and backbites. She said that she came here because she had no money to go somewhere else, — anywhere else. She said that if she had been at liberty to do so, she would certainly have chosen the best. She said, ‘Oh, this college!’ — just that way, and then — and then — she snapped her fingers.”

Elinor’s eyes shone hard and bright as they swept the circle. “They saw me. They knew I could not help hearing. They knew this is my mother’s college — and mine. And yet they dared — on Founder’s Day itself they dared — they dared —” She caught her breath in a long quivering sob.

Myra’s arms were around her.

“It’s lucky for them that I wasn’t there,” she said.