Ann Arbor Tales. Karl Edwin Harriman
of a secret engagement, perhaps, to seek to learn from her what that relation might be—— It was too delicate, he concluded, altogether too delicate.
"I do hope," she said, "you won't let him get sick working so hard."
"Oh, you needn't worry," he replied, significantly, "I don't think there's any immediate danger."
After a moment she said, bluntly: "You haven't any real faith in him, even now, have you, Jim?"
He was a little startled by her question. Had she, he asked himself, been sitting there reading his mind as though it were a show bill, printed in large type? He felt, for the moment, decidedly uncomfortable.
"You haven't, have you?" she repeated.
"Why, yes," he replied, somewhat indefinitely. "Why yes I have, too."
She shook her yellow head and smiled. "I'm afraid not," she said quietly.
And that instant Crowley came nearer achieving a complete understanding of Houston's case than he was destined to again—until long after. He was glad to leave the little round room at the end of half an hour.
For months Jack and Florence had made plans for the Junior Hop of his third year, but the first of February came and with it a realization to Florence that her hopes were destined to be shattered. Jack explained to her, as best he could, that the three days' respite from work after the first-semester examinations could not be that for him.
"I'm up to my eyes, dear," he said—"besides I know you don't care much; you've been to a lot, and as for me I shouldn't care a snap to go over to the Gym. and dance all night. I'm going through the exams, great. I know, dear, I've worked hard, but I must work harder. You understand, don't you?"
Of course she understood. Hop? What was a Hop to her? Pouff! That for them! The same always; a great bore, usually, after one has been to three or four. That was what she said to him, but deep in her heart she was disappointed; not keenly perhaps, but disappointed, nevertheless.
Through the last semester she saw him less frequently, even, than she had during the earlier part of the year.
"I've decided to stay over for summer-school, dear," he said to her one afternoon in mid-June.
She was quite joyful at the prospect.
"We shall go on the river!" she cried. "We shall, shan't we?"
"Of course," he said, earnestly.
But not once did they go. From week to week the excursion was postponed, always by Houston, save once. Then Florence's mother was ill. He was quite prepared on that occasion and suffered some displeasure.
"Never mind, we'll go in the fall, when you come back," Florence said.
In order that he might work during the scant vacation permitted him he carried to his southern home, in August, a case of books.
"You'll write me, dear, often—awfully often, won't you?" he said to Florence the night before he left.
"Of course," she assured him.
And she kept her promise though his letters were infrequent and brief during the interval.
He met her in the little round room the first night he was back. He had carried away with him an impression of her in a soft, fluffy blue gown, but now it was autumn, and she was dressed differently. When she came into the room, his senses suffered a shock from which he did not immediately recover.
She seemed much older. He wondered if it might not be her costume. He could not recall ever before having seen her in gray. He caught himself, once or twice, regarding her curiously, somewhat critically, and marveled at the phenomenon.
She did not chide him for his neglect in not having written her oftener during the two months he had been away. He offered no excuses. It was as though, now, each had forgotten in the other's nearness. Leaving her, he felt that, on the whole, he had got through the evening rather miserably.
The weeks sped on fleet wings. He was deep in his work. He perceived that what, a year before, had appeared but a remote chance of winning the coveted scholarship had now resolved itself into a certain possibility; even more, he considered, with a sense of pride—a probability.
The campus saw little of him, the town scarcely a glimpse, save occasionally of a Saturday evening when he walked to the post-office for his mail. On such evenings he usually stopped at Florence's home on his way to his rooms. The conversation between them at these times was confined almost wholly to his work. All his efforts were concentrated upon the accomplishment of the task he had set before himself.
For the Christmas vacation he went home.
"Father's coming in June," he told Florence on his return. "Said he'd be here big as life and twice as natural—going to bring a cousin of mine—Susie Henderson—you've heard me speak of her."
"Oh...."
"What is it?" He was startled by her exclamation.
She laughed—"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said—"but I pricked myself with this pin"—and she flung upon the table the trinket with which she had been toying.
On his way to his rooms that night he reviewed, casually, his college course; he built air-castles for the days ahead. There would be a year in Athens—perhaps two. Should he and Florence marry before—or after? They had not planned definitely. Of a sudden the idea that they had not smote him forcefully. They had really been living only from day to day; it was wrong; quite wrong, he decided. A settlement should be made at once—at once. He was quite determined. In his room, bent over the books upon the table, he forgot forthwith the resolution he had made. The next day he recalled it—and the next.
Spring came. His winning was now a certainty. The U. of M. Daily accepted his success as assured and dismissed the matter at once with all the cocksureness of collegiate journalism. Now, the hard work done, he could loaf.
Loaf!
The prospect appalled him. Loaf? He had forgotten how! But Florence should teach him all over again, he mused, and smiled.
He went to his dressing-table and picked up her portrait given him two years before. Across the margin at the bottom he read:—"To Jack, from Florence."
After a moment he put the photograph down and searched among the others that littered the table. A little look of puzzlement came into his eyes.
He turned to the front window and gazed out across the maples, their leaves silvered by the moonlight. He stood there some moments watching the face of the night. Then he turned back to his books, doggedly.
"What's the use?" he muttered, sinking into the chair before his study table.
V
He realized fully the significance of the extreme to which his course had brought him. If he might only talk to Crowley; if he might only tell him everything, how like a cad he felt, what a cad he believed himself to be, he must sense a deep relief. But would Crowley understand; could he understand?
He smiled at the thought the question prompted. Poor old Crowley—Meister Dryasdust—he understand a situation so delicate—so exquisitely delicate? It was absurd. Houston laughed aloud; but the laughter died at once and was like ashes on his lips.
He had not deceived Florence; not wilfully; though perhaps in the end it was as though he had. But now the thought that he had not consoled him. Still she had his promise. He had hers as well, to be sure, and in his present state of mind he only wished that she might be as willing as he to forget—he could not think, forgive. At the conjecture his pride suffered a shock. Still, if it were only true—if there were even a remote possibility of truth in the circumstance he imagined—that she might have undergone a change; that she might have awakened; that she might have—drifted away. He was coldly analytical enough now, to turn back a year and hear himself, as he was then, being told by her that she had erred, had made a dreadful faux pas of the whole business.
A grim