Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young University. Will Irwin
person whose existence is doubted only by scoffers.
They tried a dance or two in the crowded rooms, they strolled out into the gardens, they ate ices under the roses in a secluded arbor. The place, the time, the air had their influence on Van Dyke. He was from Montana, where the magnolias do not shed their waxen petals at Christmas, and the gold-of-Ophir roses sternly refuse to leaf until the Fourth of July.
Perhaps he might have withstood all the seductive charms of the hour if he had not escorted Dolores home and essayed to bid her good-bye. There was a great clump of flaming poinsettia at the Payson gate. Dolores was dark, with a rich southern complexion; her dress was white. So she stood against the poinsettia. That is why there is more to this story.
Van Dyke meditated as he went into town. She was the finest girl he had ever met. It was a hard graft, this playing one day in a live town where one could meet charming people, and being forced to take the train next morning for some uninteresting country place where they would have to lounge around a cheap hotel until concert time. Why couldn't the manager get up a schedule that would give them a day or so longer in a place like Los Angeles? This making a college trip with the sole idea of money-getting was degrading. He, for one, was willing enough to pay his share of the extra expense.
On his way he stopped at a florist's. It was a habit he had acquired under similar circumstances. He was puzzled to know just what to send in a land where the highways and hedges run riot with flowers, but he finally selected some wonderful orchids of delicate lavender and mauve. Purposely, he put no card with them, feeling that she would guess the sender.
He got into his dress clothes in rather an ungracious humor. Pomona was the next place, a fruit town further south. Oh, it was too bad! Well, at least he would see her again at the concert that night. He was grateful for this much. Her seat was on an aisle, she told him; he would be able to speak to her during the intermission; more than this, she had said, in her best convent manner, that he might ride home with her papa and mamma afterwards.
Still, this was an unsatisfactory way of carrying on an affair of the sort, especially when it was the first really serious one he had ever had. Clean out of Van's mind had faded the memory of a Montana cow-girl, a San Francisco actress, a senior in the Lambda Mu sorority, a——but space forbids. He mussed three ties. Freshmen are petulant things.
Perkins, who led the Mandolin Club, joshed him at dinner.
"What's the matter, my boy; didn't you have a good time this afternoon?"
"Of course he didn't," answered a guitar man. "You must have noticed his bored expression all through; that is, when you saw him at all."
"That was merely the blasé look that comes with four months at the Youngest and Best," said "Cap." Smith. "The Freshman was happy on his little inside because he was so well got up. He really looked the part; now he's in ordinary clothes, like a common strolling player, and he feels cross."
"No," growled Van Dyke, "I've caught cold or something."
"Oh," said Phillips, the Glee Club leader. He took up his table fork and bit the end; holding it to his ear he gave the table a starting chord, and they hummed "Ma Onliest One," while Van grew red, and the rest of the dining-room stopped to listen.
Dolores Payson sat in an orchestra seat and smiled up at the immaculate Mr. Van Dyke, above the only bunch of orchids in the theatre. He came to chat with her during the interval between "La Czarina" and "Schneider's Band." She was doubly guarded by her father on one side and her mother on the other. It was a way they had. She introduced him demurely with an adorable little wave of her black fan. He wondered if, should he quit college right away, he could get a job which would enable him to support a wife. He looked at the placid, olive-skinned mother, not yet old enough to be very fat, and decided that he could; his glance wandered to the angular, sharp-featured American father, and he was sure he couldn't.
Van could not remember ever having seen such great, dark liquid eyes as now melted into his. It seemed hard not to behold them again for a whole week. Hard? It was impossible. It was dreadful to leave her for the little time while the mandolin club was on the stage. On his way up the aisle his freshman brain was seized and overmastered by a brilliant idea; he almost stopped to pat himself on the shoulder.
Going into one of the dressing rooms, he sank dejectedly on a chair and pressed his hand to his forehead. Perkins, gathering in his musicians for the next piece, found him there.
"Come along, Freshie."
The first mandolin rose slowly.
"What's the matter?" asked the leader.
"Oh, nothing," said the other, "I'll be all right."
After the piece he went back to the dressing-room.
"Encore!" cried Perkins, rushing in.
"I can't help it," said Van, in a contracted tone, "I can't go on."
"Why not?" demanded Perkins.
"I'm in awful pain, Ted," pleaded Van. "Something I've eaten, I guess. I can hardly stand up straight."
"Oh, rats!" answered Perkins sympathetically, and tore out again.
Van took his coat and mandolin and disappeared. Between numbers he came in and slipped down the aisle to the Paysons' seats.
"Will you excuse me, Miss Payson? I can't go home with you after the concert. I'm awfully sorry, but I feel pretty sick and I'm going back to the hotel now."
"Oh, what is it?" Dolores asked, and her mother leaned forward with polite interest.
Van smiled weakly.
"Nothing serious, probably," he said. "Don't worry, please. I won't say good-bye," he added, taking Dolores' hand, "because if I have to stay over to-morrow I shall try to see you in the morning."
"Oh, I hope you'll be better, and I shall look for you."
Then Mason came out to sing, and Van left with a hurried good-night. The streets were full of Christmas shoppers. At the first drug store he bought some Jamaica ginger; then he went to the hotel and slid into bed, leaving the lights on.
After the concert Perkins did not go to the café with the rest; he, too, hastened back to the hotel.
"I'll bet he's at the Payson ranch this minute," he thought, as he made for Van's room, but the sick musician was lying on his face, breathing heavily.
"Well, what's the matter, anyway?" said Perkins, his suspicions fading.
"I don't know," groaned Van. "It came on all of a sudden at the theatre. The pain is here on my right side. Gee whiz, it knocks me out!"
"Shan't I get a doctor?" asked the leader. "What do you think it is?"
"Of course," moaned the sufferer, "it may be appendicitis—I don't think that could hurt more—but it can hardly be anything like that. I've taken the ginger, and it will set me up, probably."
"You ought to have a doctor look at you, though. It's dangerous to put it off," urged Perkins.
"No," said Van. "I'll stick it out to-night, and if I'm not better to-morrow, why, you may get one. Never mind me, Ted. Where is the gang?"
"They're all down in the Grotto."
"Go on and join them; don't stay here, it isn't necessary. I'll be all right, I say, and I can ring if I'm not. Come in in the morning, won't you?"
"Sure. The train goes at ten-fifteen, you know. We can't get along without you very well."
"Oh, I'll be fit in the morning. So long, old man."
"Good-night," and Perkins shut the door.
The Freshman lay still awhile, then got up and, smiling broadly, turned out the lights and tumbled back to sleep.
Meanwhile Perkins joined the men at the restaurant.
"Van Dyke is sick," he said. "I've just been