TUTOR S ONE 
 
 W1LMAKTH LEWIS
 
 Tutors Lane 
 
 _,. , .- - *
 
 NEW BORZOI NOVELS 
 FALL, igaz 
 
 THE QUEST 
 
 Pio Baroja 
 THE ROOM 
 
 G. B. Stern 
 ONE OF OURS 
 
 Willa Gather 
 MARY LEE 
 
 Geoffrey Dennis 
 THE PROMISED ISLE 
 
 Lavrids Bruun 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Walter de la Mare 
 THE BRIGHT SHAWL 
 
 Joseph Hergesheimer 
 THE MOTH DECIDES 
 
 Edvjard Alden Jewell 
 INDIAN SUMMER 
 
 Emily Grant Hutchings
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. 
 
 Published, September, 19W 
 
 Bvt up and ftinltd In (Se \ oil-Balloti Co , Binokamton, .V. Y. 
 Paper nwpli d l>v W. F. Ether ini/ton A Co., -Vftc York, S. Y. 
 Bound 6* tfte H. Wolff Ettate, Ntu> York, N. Y. 
 
 MANUI-ACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 To 
 
 Helen and Wilson Follett 
 
 2130967
 
 LORD TOLLOLLER: ". . . . of birth and position I ve plenty; 
 I ve grammar and spelling for two, 
 And blood and behavior for twenty." 
 
 IOLANTHE.
 
 Tutors Lane
 
 A SYLLABUS 
 
 Having once, for a few months, had a literary 
 column in a newspaper, I have come to admire those 
 authors who place at the beginning of their books 
 a "word" in which the whole thing is given away. 
 The time that those words saved me in writing my 
 reviews time which otherwise would have been 
 lost in reading the books enabled me to write this 
 book; a consummation which may have, in its heart, 
 a significant kernel, and which certainly shows how 
 funny the world is, after all. 
 
 Now, as to this book and what it is all about, I 
 frankly am at a loss. That s the difficulty of being 
 too near it. Whether it is realism, naturalism, or 
 merely restrained romanticism, I simply do not 
 know. It is awkward not knowing, for in the battle 
 of the schools now raging I should like to take sides. 
 I should like either to charge with the romantics, or 
 defend with the realists. It must be good fun being 
 pushed and shoved around, with someone s elbow in 
 your eye and someone else s hatpin in your ear, and 
 everyone crying, in the words of a recent heroine, 
 "I want to be outraged." But, for the present at 
 least, I must be content, like little Oliver Twist, to 
 look hungrily on. 
 
 The story which trickles through the book starts 
 
 11
 
 12 Tutors Lane 
 
 out bravely enough. Of this much, at least, I can 
 be moderately sure. For a short time it looks as 
 though something might come of it; but nothing 
 really does. It is all so terribly obvious. There 
 are no obstacles such as one finds in real fiction; there 
 is no love spasm in Chapter XXV. There is no 
 Chapter XXV at all ! And so it must be perfectly 
 clear that those who insist upon having their love 
 spasms will be bored to death by Tutors Lane 
 and should on no account be allowed to look 
 at it. There is love, of course, in an academic com 
 munity; one frequently sees evidences of it; but it is 
 love under control, properly subordinated to the 
 all important business of uniting youth and learning 
 and to snatching time for an occasional rejuvenat 
 ing flutter in the sacred fount itself. 
 
 So the syllabus is little more than a nervous shake 
 of the hand and a timid statement of a few negative 
 "points" a disheartening, if not positively danger 
 ous, affair. That there are lurking beauties, how 
 ever, peeping shyly out like johnny-jump-ups and 
 wild raspberry blossoms, there appears to be some 
 evidence on the jacket. Meanwhile, the course is 
 open, the bell is ringing to class, and the instructor, 
 turning over the text to Chapter I, is prepared to 
 meet whatever scholars God, in his greater wisdom, 
 has been pleased to set before him.
 
 TOM REYNOLDS, Instructor in English in 
 Woodbridge College, walked along Tutors 
 Lane in the gathering dusk of a March 
 afternoon. Persons whose knowledge of collegiate 
 dons is limited to the poverty-stricken, butterfly- 
 chasing genus created by humorous scenario writers 
 would be surprised to learn that our hero for such 
 he is to be was young, sound of wind and limb, 
 and at the present moment comfortably clothed in a 
 coon-skin coat. The latter touch might be accounted 
 for by such persons on the basis of an eccentric city 
 cousin generously disposed to casting off his gar 
 ments when only half worn, but the other two points 
 must convince them of the faithlessness of the 
 whole account, and their acquaintance with the 
 young man will accordingly end with the first para 
 graph. 
 
 Woodbridge College, as a matter of fact, has 
 never been without a few young men of this type 
 in its Faculty. Situated in southern New England, 
 it has roots which extend well back into the Eight 
 eenth Century, and its traditions, keeping pace with 
 its growth, rival in dignity and picturesqueness those 
 of its larger neighbours. Whereas they have ex 
 panded from Colleges to Universities, Woodbridge 
 
 13
 
 14 Tutors Lane 
 
 has been content to restrict its enrolment to six 
 
 hundred; and instead of making entrance easier it 
 
 has, if anything, made it harder. Accordingly, the 
 
 College holds it head high, not unconscious that the 
 
 quality of its instruction and of its graduates is 
 
 unsurpassed. 
 
 The Founders of the College placed their first 
 building on the crest of a smallish plateau which 
 commands a view of the Blackmoor Valley. 
 Succeeding generations have scattered its buildings 
 haphazardly about, but, thanks to the generosity of 
 a Woodbridge son, the meadow land which slopes 
 away from the crest down to the Lebanon River, 
 sixty acres in all, was bought and given to the 
 College; and upon this land the future College 
 is to rise. There is a good deal of rather vague 
 talk about this new college of the quadrangle 
 which is to solve all dormitory and recitation prob 
 lems, and which is to shine with beauty. But at 
 present the meadow is sacred to athletics, and the 
 elaborate new boat house, completed last spring, 
 seems to make the quadrangle less of a probability 
 than ever. 
 
 Tutors Lane is the main artery of the place. 
 It passes through the college green and on down 
 the hill through a row of faculty houses until it 
 reaches the village of Woodbridge Center, or, as 
 it is usually called, Center. It is a famous street 
 famous for its elms, which supply, as it has not 
 infrequently been pointed out, the dignity of a nave; 
 famous for the doorways and windows of its colonial
 
 Tutors Lane 15 
 
 houses; and famous for the distinction and pro 
 priety of its inhabitants. 
 
 It is one of the Woodbridge traditions that these 
 houses are inviolate. Assistant Professors wives, 
 upon taking up residence in Tutors Lane, are tact 
 fully warned that it is not the thing to alter them. 
 There may be an occasional painting, yes; but inno 
 vations in the way of building are not to be thought 
 of. People who have to build are advised to do it 
 elsewhere; certain streets are provided for the pur 
 pose High Street, for example and though of 
 course they are not Tutors Lane, doubtless they are 
 livable enough. In fact, High Street is distinctly 
 coming into its own, thanks, of course, to the High 
 Street Cemetery. For a mortal existence in Tutors 
 Lane is followed by an immortal one in the High 
 Street Cemetery, and though perhaps those who 
 spend mortality in the Street can hardly expect to 
 enjoy immortality in the Cemetery, nevertheless, no 
 one can take from them the satisfaction of being 
 the neighbors of the oldest families who are doing 
 so. Property is steadily rising in High Street, 
 accordingly, and now Assistant Professors and their 
 wives do well indeed to settle there. 
 
 Tutors Lane is not particularly wide for such an 
 important thoroughfare. Two vehicles can pass 
 without difficulty, but it is well for them not to rush 
 by. If they are .in a hurry, they had better take 
 either Meadow Street, which skirts the athletic field, 
 or High Street, which is wide and oiled and designed 
 for heavy traffic. Tutors Lane is not oiled, and
 
 16 Tutors Lane 
 
 heaven forfend that it ever should be, for its foun 
 dations go far back into the past, farther perhaps 
 than any one dreams. No less a person than old 
 Mrs. Baxter is authority for the statement that it 
 follows the course of an old Roman road. It is 
 incredible, of course, and opens up a vista of pre- 
 Columbian discovery more astonishing than any 
 to be found in the Book of Mormon, but Mrs. Bax 
 ter was a noted controversialist in her day and, 
 true or false, she succeeded in handing down the 
 story to the present generation. 
 
 People who think of an ordinary row of city 
 houses have no conception of Faculty Row. For 
 one thing, the lots are of widely different sizes. 
 Some, like the one owned by the Misses Forbes, 
 daughters of the geologist, are modest affairs with 
 forty-foot fronts. Others, like Dean Norris s, 
 cover two acres. Those built before 1800 have 
 their birth-years painted carefully over their door 
 ways, and it is an unwritten law that younger houses 
 may not claim this privilege. Many are sheltered 
 by box hedges, and none but has its garden in which 
 flowers other than hollyhocks, mignonette, larkspur, 
 stock, and bachelor s buttons are considered slightly 
 nouveaux venus. 
 
 As to the occupants of these houses, volumes 
 many times the size of this one might be written. 
 Suffice it for the present, however, that they are 
 quite superior to the general indifference of the out 
 side world, and that, like the dwellers in Cranford, 
 though some may be poor, all are aristocratic.
 
 Tutors Lane 17 
 
 To Tom Reynolds, walking along Tutors Lane 
 in the dusk of a March afternoon, the scene was con 
 siderably different from the verdant one just 
 sketched. Instead of peeping out behind their holly 
 hocks and vines, the houses were still defensively 
 wrapped up against the ice which besieged their 
 walls. Storm doors could not yet be dispensed 
 with, and here and there some practical soul doubt 
 less connected with the Physics Department had 
 by means of a railing insured himself against the 
 painful mortification of an icy step. Walking is 
 never good in Tutors Lane during the winter. 
 Cement walks are not laid, and temporary boards 
 smack a little too much of a makeshift. Arctics are 
 the invariable rule, but even so the going is not easy, 
 and it is particularly bad at this time of year, for 
 now it is that arctics, which never seem able to last 
 through a winter, suddenly give out at the heel 
 and fill with mud and slush. 
 
 Tom walked on until he came to the Dean s 
 driveway, and then he turned into it. During his 
 college days he had spent a considerable amount of 
 time at the Dean s house, and now, in the first year 
 of his Instructorship, he was there more than ever. 
 His own home in Ephesus, New York, being at the 
 present time occupied by a stepmother for whom he 
 had no particular affection and a father whose 
 interests were in the drygoods rather than the 
 scholastic line, he scarcely thought of himself as hav 
 ing a home other than that made for him by the 
 Dean s wife. It was true that there was an older
 
 i8 Tutors Lane 
 
 sister whose husband was a lawyer in Omaha, but 
 she had never approved of his bringing up, and, since 
 she was convinced that he had been spoiled beyond 
 repair, their separation was merciful. At Christ 
 mas the family exchanged cheques, and Tom duti 
 fully sent what the Telegraph Company called a 
 "Yule Tide Message," tastefully decorated free of 
 charge. But there family ties ended. 
 
 They had really ended sixteen years ago when 
 the nine-year-old Tom had been led up to take a 
 terrified look at his mother s dead face and had then 
 been allowed to escape to the rear of the house for 
 a season of uncontrollable weeping. From that 
 time on until five years later when he came in con 
 tact with Mr. Hilton, Instructor in English at the 
 High School, he had led the life of a "queer" boy. 
 Devoted to reading and content, in default of other 
 youth who interested him, to stay by himself, he was 
 a hopeless enigma to his father, whose memories of 
 youth, strengthened by contemporary examination 
 of his "cash boys," were of a radically different 
 sort. But with the attainment of High School and 
 Mr. Hilton the world changed. For the first time 
 since his mother s death Tom met a congenial spirit. 
 Mr. Hilton was gay, he was humorous, he noticed 
 important things which other people were too stupid 
 to notice or to appreciate. He was forever having 
 amusing misadventures; and before long he took 
 Tom off with him for week-end walks, and they had 
 amusing misadventures together. No one else ex 
 isted for Tom, and anything he suggested became
 
 Tutors Lane 19 
 
 law. In this way Tom came to play baseball suffi 
 ciently well to be allowed in his senior year the 
 privilege of standing in the right field of the School 
 team. 
 
 Mr. Hilton was a Woodbridge man, and, after 
 earnest discussion with Mr. Reynolds, he obtained 
 permission for Tom to go to Woodbridge. The 
 financial problem was a simple one, for Tom had 
 awaiting him in trust a comfortable income from 
 his mother s estate, and having him away would be 
 cheaper for Mr. Reynolds. Beginning with Sopho 
 more year, therefore, the previously dull curriculum 
 took on a romantic hue, since by means of it Ephe- 
 sus could be left behind forever. Studying became a 
 "stunt," and he swept through examination after ex 
 amination as though they were novels or ball games, 
 until at length he found himself at Woodbridge. 
 
 Tom s college life after the first year had been as 
 pleasant as college life ever is. At the start, his 
 career was like that of most boys entering Wood- 
 bridge from a high school. His "funny" clothes and 
 mildly awkward manners indicated that, as yet, he 
 hardly spoke the same language as his more fortu 
 nate classmates who had been privately prepared for 
 their higher education. He had heard something, 
 of course, as everyone has, of the celebrated dem 
 ocratic tendency that obtains at Woodbridge. It 
 was disconcerting, therefore, to be eyed by these 
 young men as though he were a too strange bird 
 who had somehow wandered into the zoo proper in 
 stead of staying, where he belonged, in the aviary.
 
 2O Tutors Lane 
 
 He had been possessed, however, with the desire 
 to "make good," and so avoided the little group 
 of cynics that, in every class, leave their alma 
 mater with gall and bitterness in their hearts. 
 As it was, he came to admire the happy, well- 
 dressed majority. There was an easiness of man 
 ner about them that charmed him. They were 
 reserved and did not dull their palms with en 
 tertainment of each new-hatch d comrade, but when 
 they did accept one it appeared to be a thoroughgo 
 ing performance. They were the jeunesse doree; 
 but Tom frankly hoped that he might qualify for 
 something as fine. 
 
 Tom had, as a matter of fact, qualified, and in the 
 spring of his Junior year he had been awarded the 
 outward and visible sign of a successful Woodbridge 
 career an election to Star, one of the two Senior 
 Clubs. 
 
 This is not the place for a discussion of these two 
 Clubs. Furthermore, they who know anything at 
 all about Woodbridge know about them. They 
 know well enough, without any reminder here, 
 that an election to either is the first prize in the 
 college social life, and they know, futhermore, that 
 their influence extends over into graduate life, 
 coloring it pleasantly to the end of one s days. 
 The reticence which the members of the Clubs feel 
 in regard to them a reticence found highly amus 
 ing by outsiders extends to the Woodbridge com 
 munity, and there is, accordingly, a somewhat form 
 idable atmosphere about them which is vaguely felt
 
 Tutors Lane 21 
 
 by all. But here we must let the affair rest. They 
 are not to play any other, part in our story than to 
 shed their benign influence over the hero, and we 
 may dismiss them except for an occasional inevi 
 table reference, with a brief statement. When, in 
 his Sophomore year, he had made the baseball team, 
 it had been conceded that Tom s chances of ^coming 
 across" were good, and when, later, it was dis 
 covered that he read books not prescribed in the 
 college courses, he was "sure." The baseball, how 
 ever, had come first, for it is true at Woodbridge, as 
 well as in Ephesus, that baseball adds lustre to 
 letters. Why he had chosen Star rather than Grave 
 for the choice had been given him is a matter 
 so intimately connected with the outstanding char 
 acteristics of the two Clubs that an explanation 
 would promptly lead to the discussion above de 
 clined. Let it suffice, therefore, that he "went" Star 
 because of good and sufficient reasons, and we shall 
 have done with this delicate business. 
 
 Then the war had come; and now, after two years 
 of service and a year in a graduate school, Tom was 
 back, an infant member of the Faculty. 
 
 Tom loitered up the walk to the Dean s 
 house to make the pleasure of his arrival the greater. 
 The Norris house, a somewhat solemn brown-stone 
 structure built in the thirties, fascinated him. He 
 found it impossible to stay away for long; and now, 
 as he rang the bell, his pulse quickened with the 
 thought of the rooms about to be opened to him.
 
 II 
 
 TOM stepped into the hall and threw his hat, 
 muffler, and overcoat upon the hall bench. 
 "Lovely day, isn t it, Norah?" he said to the 
 maid who had let him in, receiving her "Yes, Mr. 
 Reynolds" with a smile and a nod, and passing 
 directly into the library. 
 
 "Why, hello, Tom," said a girl on the sofa fac 
 ing the fireplace. Before her was a tea wagon and 
 she was at present pouring a cup for a slightly stiff 
 person in knickerbockers. 
 
 Tom shook hands with his host, lately Dean of 
 Woodbridge and now, in the absence of the Presi 
 dent, acting in his place. He then turned to the 
 first gentleman, who, cup in hand, was making slow 
 backward progress to his seat. "How do you do?" 
 Tom said with a slight bow. 
 
 "How are you, Reynolds," the other replied, 
 hardly noticing him. 
 
 "Henry and father have just come back from 
 curling and they say it is perfectly rotten," con 
 tinued the girl on the sofa. "Let s see, Tom, you 
 take one lump, don t you?" 
 
 He declined on the grounds of just having hacl 
 tea and retiring to a table in the rear of the tea 
 group, idly picked up a copy of the London Times 
 
 22
 
 Tutors Lane 23 
 
 Literary Supplement that was lying on it. Henry, 
 who had apparently been interrupted, proceeded 
 with a description of the various characters that had 
 taken part in the curling. 
 
 Tom s interest in the Times was not very great, 
 but his interest in Henry Whitman s story was even 
 less, and he frankly allowed his gaze to wander 
 over the books that covered the walls of the room. 
 They were one of the things that fascinated him in 
 the house. They extended from the floor to the 
 ceiling and encircled the entire room, yielding only 
 to the wide, high fireplace and the five windows. A 
 small section encased in glass housed a few of the 
 Dean s first editions and presentation copies, but 
 Tom rather resented it, breaking as it did the har 
 mony of the whole and pulling the eye to it with 
 its reflecting panes. He had from the first made 
 the mental reservation that, were the house his, he 
 should take away that glass. 
 
 The dark blue velours sofa upon which Mary 
 Norris was sitting, facing the fire, he called "The 
 Bosom of the Norris Family," and when there were 
 no heavy people like Henry Whitman about, he 
 would occasionally throw himself upon it, carefully 
 pointing out each time the pretty significance of his 
 act. Behind the Bosom was a large and weighty 
 desk covered with a multitude of personal letters, 
 belonging for the most part to Mrs. Norris, a 
 cheque-book open and face down in mute obeisance 
 to the blotter, newspaper clippings, spectacle cases, 
 scissors, and ash trays. In a neighbouring corner
 
 24 Tutors Lane 
 
 stood a table with imperfectly stacked current maga 
 zines, a work basket filled with knitting, and a lamp 
 crowned by a broad shade of silk with threads hang 
 ing from it, which, when twirled, stood out and 
 looked like a miniature wheat field with the wind 
 running through it. The lamp on the table by 
 which Tom was sitting was an old-fashioned silver 
 affair but recently converted to electricity. Its shade 
 was high and dignified, and it had been discovered 
 that when lifted from its place it could be worn as a 
 turban. 
 
 The fireplace carried on its mantel a running 
 commentary upon the changing details of family in 
 terest. At present, flanking the little French clock 
 upon its centre was a variety of old glass, Eighteenth 
 Century rum and whiskey flasks recently collected 
 by Mrs. Norris. There were, additionally, a por 
 celain image of two farmers, dos a dos, one with 
 rosy cheeks and flashing eye labelled "water," and 
 the other, haggard and ill-favoured, labelled "gin"; 
 also a brace of saturnine china cats. Above the 
 mantel stretched an expanse of oak panelling which 
 supported the portrait of Mrs. Norris s great-great 
 grandfather in a heavy gilt frame. The old gentle 
 man, who looked amiably out from his starched 
 neckcloth, had been a delegate to the Continental 
 Congress and a jurist of distinction. Beside him on 
 a table were some papers, obviously of the first im 
 portance, for they were plastered with seals, a copy 
 of Coke on Lyttleton, and an inkpot with a quill 
 sticking out of it. His arm was lying lightly on the
 
 Tutors Lane 25 
 
 table, his cherubic face smiling back at its observer 
 wherever he stood; and Tom imagined that his next 
 move would be, after the manner of his great-great- 
 granddaughter, to rise with a sweep and tip over the 
 inkpot. 
 
 The colour in the room was chiefly contributed 
 by the deep red curtains which hung beside the 
 windows and which brought out and emphasized 
 each object of kindred colour in the room. In this 
 way were made conspicuous the turban-like shade, 
 a lacquered calendar rest upon the desk, a footstool, 
 and even the British Colonies on a globe hiding 
 unobtrusively in a corner. The heavy Persian rugs 
 echoed the note so generously that the books with 
 reddish bindings stood out from their fellows and 
 played their part in giving to the whole a richness 
 that made the room remarkable. 
 
 Tom gazed at the group before him. Henry 
 Whitman, Assistant Professor of Economics at 
 thirty, a member of Grave, was telling a story of 
 an Italian in Whitmanville who, when he curled, 
 used only the broadest Scotch. When Tom had 
 met Henry in his ingenuous days he threatened to 
 be overwhelmed by the calm indifference of Henry s 
 manner. The Whitman Air, inherited from a line 
 of distinguished forebears, all but swamped him. 
 It was as perfect and finished as some smooth old 
 bit of jade, and as hard; a "piece" to be carefully 
 handled, admirable only to the initiated. Tom had 
 not yet, in the course of his initiation, come to find 
 it admirable, although he quite appreciated its au-
 
 26 Tutors Lane 
 
 thenticity. Harry s father, of the same name, had 
 been one of the College s chief luminaries in the 
 preceding Administration, known wherever Political 
 Economy, as such, was known. His father before 
 him had produced the Whitman Woollen Mills, 
 which supported Whitmanville, and though they 
 were at present in the hands of an uncle and various 
 cousins, their beneficent influence was obviously felt 
 by Henry. Everything about him suggested com 
 fort and nourishment. There was in his eye a look 
 which implied intimacy with beagle-hunting in Der 
 byshire, and the way he used his hands positively 
 suggested candle light at dinner. The knicker 
 bockers that he wore gave out a delightful heath 
 ery smell, a smell which is at its best when mingled, 
 as at present, with the smell of superior pipe tobacco. 
 His stockings would naturally be objects of curiosity 
 to anyone familiar with the Whitman Mills, just as 
 the pearls around the neck of a famous jeweller s 
 wife would be, or the soap in the tub of a famous 
 soap-maker. They were, as a matter of fact, ex 
 cellent stockings of the heaviest, woolliest kind, and 
 Whitman had bought them a year and a half ago 
 in Scotland, whither he had gone after his wife s 
 death. He still wore a mourning band about his arm 
 in her honour, and a black knitted tie; and there 
 was every reason to believe that he would continue 
 to do so another year and a half. For the 
 Whitmans always had mourned hard. 
 
 The girl on the sofa was a thoroughly healthy 
 person of twenty-four. She played excellent female
 
 Tutors Lane 27 
 
 tennis, and her golf was better than that of half 
 of the male members at the club. Yet she had none 
 of the mannish mannerisms that so often accom 
 pany an "athletic" girl. At the present time she 
 was submitting herself to a rigorous course in 
 "housekeeping," majoring in cooking and minoring 
 in accounting, and she had taught Sunday School 
 ever since she had been graduated from Miss Ham 
 mond s School at Mill Rock some six years ago. 
 People instinctively liked her unless they were bored 
 by obvious wholesomeness. And although no one 
 ever thought of her as being particularly pretty 
 she was somewhat too dumpy to be thought that 
 people noticed her hair, which was a most fashion 
 able shade of red. Then, of course, in as much 
 as she had Mrs. Norris for a mother, one could 
 never be entirely sure that she might not burst forth 
 in some altogether unexpected and delightful manner. 
 Her impromptu bata.ille des fleurs, for example, was 
 still remembered in Woodbridge although it took 
 place nearly sixteen years ago. Somewhere her 
 attention had been caught by the picture of a cherub, 
 or possibly seraph, perched on a cloud and pouring 
 from a cornucopia great masses of flowers upon the 
 delighted earth. The idea seemed such a lovely one 
 that when, in the spring, her mother gave a card 
 party out on the terrace, she determined to give the 
 ladies a delightful surprise. For weeks before it 
 she despoiled the garden, keeping her plans miracu 
 lously secret, and storing her treasures away in a 
 waste-basket, in lieu of the cornucopia. And then,
 
 28 Tutors Lane 
 
 when the ladies were twittering away happily be 
 neath, she stepped out upon her porch clad only in 
 a Liberty scarf borrowed from her mother s ward 
 robe the young creature in the picture confined it 
 self to a ribony dress which floated charmingly 
 about it and discharged her flowers. She was pre 
 pared for astonishment in her audience, and her re 
 ception was all she could ask; but what she was not 
 prepared for was the insidious decay which had set 
 in among the blooms, and which robbed them en 
 tirely of their natural colour and fragrance, trans 
 forming them into a composition recognized by polite 
 people only upon their lawns. It had been Mary s 
 first encounter with the baffling thaumaturgy of 
 chemistry; and to the end of her days her confidence 
 in it was never wholly restored. 
 
 Henry Whitman at last finished his story and rose 
 to go. The Dean, who was a genial soul, and who, 
 with his generous embonpoint and his knickers, 
 looked at present a little like Mr. Pickwick, regarded 
 him affectionately. He had retired from the college 
 two years before, but upon the President s departure 
 for Europe on a six months leave, he had been called 
 from retirement to act in his place because of the 
 great respect the College had for his temperate 
 judgment, a quality at that time particularly useful 
 in college affairs, stirred as they were by the con 
 tentions of the advocates of a larger Woodbridge. 
 It was the Dean s duty to keep these malcontents, 
 these radicals some of whom were powerful in 
 their places. Quality not quantity had ever been the
 
 Tutors Lane 29 
 
 Woodbridge cry, and it should remain so as long as 
 he had any power. In other respects, however, 
 he was as gentle as one could well be. In the matter 
 of motoring, for example, he was so gentle that to 
 the untutored eye he might seem almost timid. He 
 had viewed the rise of the motor car with all the 
 misgivings of a lover of the Old Ways, long refus 
 ing to accompany his wife on her hectic flights, but 
 at last he had consented to buy an electric. For 
 three dreadful weeks he ran it in agony or appre 
 hension. It was not that he might run into people: 
 there was no danger there, for even if he had bumped 
 into some one, the damage would have been only 
 very trifling. No, the terrible thought was what 
 the reckless people might do who would crash into 
 him. So at the end of the three weeks he aban 
 doned the lever and, bringing Murdock in from the 
 stable, definitely transformed him into his chauffeur. 
 The picture that he presented was, he realized, some 
 what sedate, but at least he was no longer talcing 
 foolhardy chances, and he could now, furthermore, 
 see something as he went along. "When are you 
 expecting Nancy?" he asked Henry. 
 
 "Oh, I supposed Mary had told you. Why, she 
 is coming day after tomorrow. Henry Third is 
 very much excited. He has been making a collec 
 tion for her as a present. I didn t know anything 
 about it until the other day when Annie told me. 
 It seems that he has been very much impressed by a 
 postal card from his Aunt Nancy showing a Cali 
 fornia orange grove, and so he has been collecting
 
 30 Tutors Lane 
 
 orange pips ever since ! He now has over 
 ninety and he is afraid she will arrive before he can 
 get a hundred. It seems to be a rule of the collec 
 tion that his pips can only be taken from oranges 
 he s eaten, and as he only gets one a day at his 
 breakfast, there is no help for him." 
 
 "Oh, for heaven s sake, Henry, send him up here 
 and I ll let him eat out his hundred," said Mary. 
 
 "Fine person you are," laughed Whitman, "ruin 
 ing my son s good habits." 
 
 They had passed out into the hall when the bell 
 rang violently two or three times. 
 
 "That must be mamma," said Mary, and going to 
 the door, she opened it for a majestic lady who 
 swept into the room, talking volubly as she began 
 peeling off the shawls and capes in which she was 
 wrapped. 
 
 "Why, Henry, dear, what on earth are you doing 
 here? You never come to see us any more, and I am 
 so anxious, too, to ask you all about the stabilized 
 dollar and these new vitamines. Susan!" she called 
 suddenly in the general direction of the upper floors. 
 Then, addressing no one in particular, "I must find 
 out about the salted almonds that the Dean asked 
 for last night," and she started for the kitchen. 
 
 "I ordered them this morning, Gumgum, myself, 
 when I was ordering everything else. I had them 
 on my list." 
 
 "You did?" and Mrs. Norris burst into the most 
 contagious laughter. "Tom, I wish you d stop my
 
 Tutors Lane 31 
 
 daughter calling me that horrid name. It s disgust 
 ing. I m going to call her Snuffles. 
 
 "I really must go, Aunt Helen," said Whitman, 
 starting for the door. The "Aunt" was a heritage 
 of an earlier and more innocent day and not an 
 indication of blood relationship. "Uncle Julian" 
 had, however, been allowed to lapse, upon Henry s 
 accession to the Woodbridge Faculty. 
 
 "Oh dear," replied Mrs. Norris. "Well, I m 
 coming down to see Nancy as soon as she gets back, 
 and then you ve got to come up here for dinner. It 
 will be such a relief having her here for the party. 
 And now," she added, putting her arm through 
 Tom s, "I must have a little talk with Tom. I sus 
 pect he needs a pill, and I m going to give it to him. 
 Come here, Tommy, dear, and let me look at you," 
 and she pulled him back into the library.
 
 Ill 
 
 MRS. NORRIS was about to force Tom 
 down upon the Bosom when her eye was 
 caught by the cheque-book on the table. 
 "Oh, land," she exclaimed, "why didn t I give Henry 
 his cheque! I ve owed him for those German 
 Socialist books he got me for I don t know how 
 long, and here I ve forgotten to give it to him. I 
 must send Susan after him with it right away," and 
 going over to a bell by the fireplace, she pushed it 
 until Susan appeared. Then, looking at Tom, with 
 her sweetest smile she asked, in her quietest voice, 
 "Why don t you like Henry?" 
 
 "Why, I don t mind Henry." 
 
 "Oh, come now, Tommy." She moved over to 
 "her" chair under the yellow lamp and, picking up 
 the knitting immediately set the needles flying and 
 clicking over one another. "You know you can t 
 bear him. He is a little cut and dried that s the 
 trouble with him, I think but then, as far as I can 
 make out, you people in the classics and literatures 
 are just as bad." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Norris." 
 
 "You are too. You are perfectly dreadful. 
 Why, I can remember as well as anything, old Pro 
 fessor Packard standing up before that fireplace and 
 
 32
 
 Tutors Lane 33 
 
 saying, Helen, says he, no gentleman is worthy the 
 name who doesn t know his Horace. Stuff, says 
 I, that s utter nonsense. You might as well say 
 a gentlemen is not worthy of the name unless he 
 
 knows his French for "fiddle-dee-dee" like the 
 
 Red Queen, " and still knitting busily, she rocked 
 with laughter. 
 
 Tom dropped into a chair beside her, threw one 
 leg over the arm, and, pipe in hand, gazed at her 
 affectionately. She was about the age his own 
 mother would have been, he thought, in the imme 
 diate neighbourhood of sixty. But his own mother, 
 who he knew had become reconciled to the life of 
 Ephesus, could never have arrived at sixty with the 
 imperious disregard for convention that was so per 
 fectly Mrs. Norris s. Upon her face at present, as 
 she looked down at her knitting, was a smiling 
 benignity that would have recommended itself to the 
 Virgin at Chartres; and at the same time her hair 
 what modest growth there was left was uncurling 
 itself from behind and threatening to pull down the 
 whole structure after it. It was perfect, Tom told 
 himself, and were he a sculptor commissioned to 
 make her bust, he would do her just like that. 
 
 "Nancy, I sometimes think, is the worst person in 
 the world to look after Henry. It s bad for her 
 and bad for him. What he ought to do is to go out 
 and get another wife and leave Nancy alone to do 
 as she pleases. I have a good mind to take her 
 with me to Athens next winter myself. What with 
 Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee taking her to California
 
 34 Tutors Lane 
 
 this winter and my taking her to Athens next, 
 
 Henry will have to get married." 
 
 There had been rumours abroad lately that Henry 
 had about arrived at the same conclusion himself 
 and that Mary Norris was receiving serious consider 
 ation as a candidate, but there was nothing in Mrs. 
 Norris s manner that suggested a knowledge of it, 
 and Tom correctly concluded that it was just another 
 of those idle rumours that live their luxurious day 
 in Faculty Row. 
 
 "Oh, my no," said Tom, "that wouldn t do at all. 
 Why, another marriage would completely upset 
 Henry s System that he s always talking so much 
 about. It s almost certain she couldn t stand it, 
 you know, and then where would Henry be? Sup 
 pose, for example, that she forgot to have his senna 
 tea for him at night or didn t care about playing 
 cribbage for three-quarters of an hour after dinner? 
 Now Nancy, apparently, gives perfect satisfaction. 
 She adores little Henry and she manages the house 
 so well that there isn t a single thing to bother big 
 Henry. But they say " 
 
 "Stop it, Tommy. You ve been listening again 
 to that horrid old Mrs. Conover. Her husband 
 was a perfect old Scrooge, and now that she s rid 
 of him, poor dear, she feels that she s got to expand 
 
 and make up for lost time " Her voice, which 
 
 had become more and more drowsy, as if bored with 
 what it had to say, trailed off and died. Then, with 
 renewed interest, she exclaimed, "I wonder what 
 they are going to do about Poland?"
 
 Tutors Lane 35 
 
 Tom had learned that an answer to these startling 
 questions and comments of Mrs. Norris was not 
 required. There was no harm, however, in saying 
 the first thing that came into one s head, as in a 
 psychological test, and he accordingly now answered, 
 "Paderewski." 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Norris quietly. Then brighten 
 ing up: "How is your work going, Tommy?" 
 
 "Why, it s going pretty well." 
 
 "They get rather difficult about this time of year, 
 don t they?" 
 
 "They do! Oh my, I ve had an awful time with 
 them lately. I ve muffed Carlyle and Transcen p 
 dentalism completely." 
 
 "Oh, no! Why that s Emerson and all those 
 Concord people. Still, I suppose Louisa Alcott is 
 getting a little old-fashioned." 
 
 "You should have seen the set of papers I got 
 back today. There it was, all that I had given 
 them, in great heavy undigested lumps " 
 
 "Like footballs," suggested Mrs. Norris. 
 
 "Once I was funny with them," went on Tom, 
 "and I may say that I was properly punished. They 
 put it all down in their notebooks and then mixed it 
 up with everything they shouldn t have mixed it up 
 with and I shall never be funny again." 
 
 "I shall give you at least two grains " 
 
 "Then there are the young men who get off all the 
 stale old facts and expect an A. One of them came 
 to me yesterday, when I had given him a C, and 
 whined around my desk until I finally told him I did
 
 36 Tutors Lane 
 
 not consider his performance remarkable in a young 
 man of eighteen, however much so it might be in a 
 poll parrot of the same age." 
 
 "Now that was wrong. Were there other boys 
 around?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, you simply must not go do that kind of 
 thing. They ll hate it." 
 
 "I know it was wrong, but I am rather amused 
 by it. As a matter of fact, I can stand anything but 
 the ones who think they can fool me with a lot of em 
 broidery and gas. They re insulting " 
 
 "Why, Tommy, you were doing the same thing 
 yourself only three or four years ago. You mustn t 
 get so snufty so soon." 
 
 "Of course, at times when I ve had a good reci 
 tation I wouldn t trade places with anyone. It s a 
 kind of ecstasy. It s like all sorts of rushing, excit 
 ing things like a high tide, or a close race, or a 
 fire; really it is. Then you go to the other extreme 
 and you ask yourself what on earth is the use of so 
 futile a business, and what right has a young man 
 with anything to him whatever to waste his time 
 with it. Better go and make bird cages or hair nets 
 or or hot water bags, and make some money. 
 When I feel that way I sometimes go out along the 
 ridge, just at dusk, you know, or into the woods " 
 
 "You do? Why, I think that s awfully romantic 
 of you; like Chateaubriand, you know." Then, 
 dreamily, "He used to go out and lean on a pedestal 
 and let the moon shine down on him through the
 
 Tutors Lane 37 
 
 trees. I think Nancy is a little that way herself." 
 
 There was a pause, during which the young edu 
 cator s difficulties were brushed aside. 
 
 "Do you realize that I haven t seen Nancy since 
 leaving college?" 
 
 "Why, that s strange." 
 
 "No: you see she had left for the west before 
 college opened in the fall, and I hadn t been back be 
 tween then and the time I graduated. As a matter 
 of fact, the last time I saw her was in this house. 
 It was the night of our Senior Prom. I took Mary, 
 you know, and Teddy Roberts took Nancy, and 
 when it was over we came in here and had a cooky 
 contest in the kitchen. Nancy could put a whole one 
 of those gingersnaps you always have into her 
 mouth without breaking it." 
 
 "Oh dear. I m afraid she has the Billings 
 mouth." 
 
 "We then got to talking about growing mous 
 taches, and Nancy bet Teddy she could grow one 
 before he could." 
 
 "How disgusting! That s what comes of all this 
 emancipation. Marcus Aurelius has a lot to say 
 about it. I must look that up. Did she win?" 
 
 "As I remember it, she was in a fair way to, but 
 the war came along, and we left before it could be 
 settled." 
 
 Mrs. Norris stopped knitting and looked at Tom 
 with amused curiosity through her tortoise-shell 
 spectacles, which had slid rather farther down her 
 nose than usual. "I forget. Didn t you use to see
 
 38 Tutors Lane 
 
 a good deal of Nancy at one time?" she asked. 
 
 "Only just here," he replied. 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Norris, and went on with her 
 work. 
 
 At this point the Dean entered, dressed for dinner. 
 
 "Oh dear, I m not ready at all," cried Mrs. Nor 
 ris, jumping up; and her knitting, worsted, and bag 
 spilled out upon the floor. "Tommy, tell Norah to 
 put on a plate for you." 
 
 "I can t really, Mrs. Norris. This is Thursday 
 night, you see, and I m going around to the Club." 
 Then as his hostess disappeared up the stairs, he 
 hurried into his overcoat and, indulging in only a 
 small fraction of his usual recessional with the Dean, 
 he was gone. 
 
 Outside, walking down the long driveway that 
 led to Tutors Lane, Tom slowed his pace. Over 
 head, Betelgeuse was making the most of its recent 
 publicity, unobstructed by vagrant clouds. Tom 
 gazed up at it with a certain air of proprietorship. 
 He had known Betelgeuse years ago and personally 
 had always preferred its neighbour Rigel, which had 
 received no publicity at all. As a small boy some 
 one had given him a Handbook of the Stars, with 
 diagrams of the constellations on one page and 
 chatty notes about them opposite. He had lain on 
 his back out in the fields, with opera glasses to sweep 
 the heavens and a flashlight to sweep the diagrams 
 until he had reconciled the two. This had been in 
 the summer, and although his observations had ex 
 tended to the autumn stars, the winter constellations
 
 Tutors Lane 39 
 
 had suffered. Still, he knew the great ones and, 
 weather permitting, he would gaze upon them and 
 their neighbours with awe, the greater, perhaps, for 
 his unfamiliarity with their diagrams. 
 
 Tom occasionally gave parlour lessons in astron 
 omy, and he had given one to Nancy on the night of 
 his Senior Prom, the night of the cooky contest. 
 He had looked out and seen that the summer stars 
 were up, and had spoken of it, to the boredom of 
 Mary and Teddy Roberts. But Nancy wanted 
 Scorpio pointed out, and from Scorpio they natur 
 ally progressed to the others until Nancy sneezed 
 and the kitchen window had to be shut. Then, as 
 it was getting light anyway and the waffles were 
 ready, they stopped the lesson. Tom, however, 
 with the true teacher s instinct, had sent her a copy 
 of his Handbook af the Stars, and at his Training 
 Camp he had received a note of thanks. It was the 
 only note he had ever received from her, and Ee 
 found it remarkable. She had thanked him without 
 the barrage of gratitude usual among young ladies 
 on such occasions. There had been something mas 
 culine in the directness of it, and yet there was no 
 doubt that she had been pleased. In closing, she 
 looked forward to seeing him back at Woodbridge 
 when the war was over. There had been no fine 
 writing about his Going to the Flag. Tom had 
 been impressed by the amount left unsaid, and he had 
 saved the letter until, in moving about, it had been 
 lost. He was annoyed when he missed it, but on 
 second thought he wondered if it were not just as
 
 40 Tutors Lane 
 
 well. For, on later inspection, it might not have 
 
 proved so remarkable, after all. 
 
 Well, the war was now over, and he was back at 
 Woodbridge. It would be very pleasant indeed if 
 she had gone ahead as she gave promise of doing; 
 and why in the world shouldn t she? When he was 
 in college Nancy had been admittedly the first of 
 Woodbridge young ladies. To take her to a dance 
 was to have the ultimate in good times, there was no 
 need to worry about her getting "stuck," and in ad 
 dition to the thrill of taking a popular girl one could 
 enjoy all the advantages of a stag. One could flit 
 from flower to flower until surfeited with beauty and 
 then retire for a smoke or other innocent diversion 
 without the haunting fear that possibly Dick or Bill 
 was circling around and around in ever-deepening 
 gloom with one s elected for the night. Nancy had 
 permantly impressed herself upon the imagination of 
 discerning Woodbridge youth, and it was hardly ex 
 travagant that Tom should look forward to her re 
 turn. 
 
 Let it, therefore, without further evasion, be 
 stated at once that he did look forward to her re 
 turn.
 
 IV 
 
 NANCY WHITMAN arrived at Wood- 
 bridge Center as planned, and her brother 
 and nephew were at the station to meet 
 her, the latter with his collection of ninety-six 
 orange pips in a candy box. 
 
 In describing Juliet it will be remembered that the 
 author said nothing about her colour or dimensions, 
 but described her indirectly, and succeeding genera- 
 ations have had their attention called to the merit of 
 the performance. We know, for example, that she 
 taught the candles to burn bright, and, furthermore, 
 that she seemed to hang upon the cheek of night like 
 a rich jewel in an Ethiop s ear most probably a 
 pearl. So, in describing Nancy, perhaps it would be 
 effective to point out that the snow began thawing as 
 soon as she arrived, that the motor which carried her 
 home from the station purred along without the 
 "knock" that had been troubling it, and that Tutors 
 Lane was less bumpy as they passed over it. But 
 such a description, being dangerously near burlesque, 
 however refined and genteel, must not be thought of 
 for a moment in connection with a prominent resi 
 dent of Tutors Lane. It is something of a pity, 
 nevertheless, that it must be given up, for Nancy was 
 not particularly pretty, as young men nowadays 
 
 41
 
 42 Tutors Lane 
 
 measure beauty, and were it possible, the truth might 
 have been hidden. She was something too elfish 
 and then there was the Billings mouth already men 
 tioned. Gertrude Ellis, who spent much of her time 
 with her aunt in New York and who had a proper 
 care for her person, thought it a ridiculous pose for 
 Nancy not to have something done about her 
 freckles. It was such a simple matter nowadays to 
 have them removed that obviously only a poseuse 
 would tolerate them. Still, men were so unobserv- 
 ing about things that they didn t seem to mind them 
 at all, and Gertrude got nowhere when she once tried 
 to discuss Nancy with a senior. 
 
 "Oh, Nancy is so wonderful that she could look 
 like a leopard and people wouldn t care," he had 
 said. "It s funny about her, isn t it? She s not 
 good looking, and yet she s so nice everyone s crazy 
 about her. You have to hand it to a girl that s like 
 that." 
 
 Henry Third, or Harry, as everyone but his 
 father called him, had immediately given his collec 
 tion and been rewarded. He had on his best suit 
 for the occasion and the tie his aunt had sent him on 
 his seventh and latest birthday. He was a hand 
 some, sturdy boy, and his father expected a Phi Beta 
 Kappa key of him and an enthusiasm for Marx and 
 John Stuart Mill. His aunt s plans were vague, but 
 altogether different. At present she was inclined to 
 favour the family business, with the understanding 
 that when he was established at its head he should 
 give a beautiful chapel with a Magdalen tower to
 
 Tutors Lane 43 
 
 the College. His own goal was the Woodbridge 
 football team and, after that, a locomotive on the 
 run to New York. 
 
 They were met at the door by Annie, Harry s 
 nurse, and by Clarence, Harry s Airedale. Clar 
 ence, who immediately dominated the scene, render 
 ing Nancy s greeting to Annie vain and perfunctory, 
 was a three-year-old with a frivolity of manner that 
 ill became his senescent phiz. Upon its grizzled ex 
 panse there would pass in amazing succession the 
 whole range of canine passion, rage, love, urbanity, 
 shame, drollery, ennui, and, most frequent of all, 
 curiosity. At present all his energy was devoted 
 to expressing unmitigated pleasure, the dignity of 
 which exhibition was continually being marred by 
 sliding rugs. But it is almost certain that he didn t 
 care a rap for his lost dignity. His mistress was 
 back after an unconscionable absence, and there was 
 every reason to believe in the reappearance of the 
 superior brand of soup bones, a matter in which of 
 late there had been too much indifference. 
 
 Nancy luxuriated in her renewed proprietorship 
 of the old house, her home, and the home of her 
 family even before the British officers seized it for 
 their quarters in 1812. There was a hole to this 
 day in the white pine panelling above the fireplace in 
 the dining room, which, tradition held, had been 
 made by a British bullet discharged after a discus 
 sion of the family port. She had found something 
 depressing in the rococo civilization of Southern Cal 
 ifornia. There was an insufficient appreciation of
 
 /j/| Tutor s Lane 
 
 Mr. Square s Eternal Fitness of Things. The 
 spirit of Los Angeles, for example, was the same as 
 that of the picnic party which, lunching on Ruskin s 
 glacier, leaves its chicken bones and eggshells to 
 offend all subsequent picnickers. At Woodbridge 
 people did not make public messes of themselves. 
 If they picnicked on a glacier they did up their egg 
 shells in a neat package, which, in default of a handy 
 bottomless pit, they took home with them and put in 
 their garbage pails. That s the way nice people 
 behaved, and what on earth was there to be gained 
 by behaving otherwise? 
 
 So Nancy was glad to be home and see again the 
 family things she had grown up with and loved. 
 She was glad to see Henry, who appeared in his 
 turn glad to see her; but her feelings upon being 
 restored to her nephew were much deeper than 
 either. Harry mattered more to her than any one- 
 else in the world. Her mother, who had died five 
 years ago, when Nancy was twenty, had been par 
 ticularly devoted to him; and this would have been 
 sufficient reason in itself for commending him to her 
 tenderest care. 
 
 Such was the family that would have met the cas 
 ual eye of a stranger: a young professor in ex 
 tremely comfortably circumstances, with a brilliant 
 future and an enviable son, living in a fine old house 
 administered by a younger sister, the favourite 
 daughter of the town. Beneath the surface, how 
 ever, and unknown except to a few, was a conflict of
 
 Tutor s Lane 45 
 
 wills that only an exterior made up of strong family 
 pride and respect for the established order could 
 have withstood. 
 
 On the evening of the day on which Mrs. Robert 
 Lee-Satterlee the grandeur of whose name was 
 never reduced by the omission of a single syllable 
 asked Nancy to go to California, Nancy had talked 
 it over with Henry. 
 
 "It would be nice to go, for I haven t really been 
 away since Mother died. I confess I d like it, but 
 she s not coming back until March, and that seems a 
 long time to leave Harry and the house." 
 
 Henry had leisurely put his cigar into his mouth, 
 had puffed luxuriously, and had then continued to 
 gaze at his paper without saying anything. 
 
 Nancy hated this indifference, and she knew that 
 Henry knew that she hated it. It was like his 
 whistling. At times, when for some reason or other 
 he wished to be disagreeable, he would start quietly 
 whistling behind his paper, apparently for his sole 
 enjoyment. It was as if, in view of the coldness of 
 his audience, he were forced to express himself in a 
 humble and subdued manner, but express himself he 
 must. The tunes that he chose were The Rosary, 
 The Miserere, Tosti s Good-bye, Gounod s Ave 
 Maria. There would be an occasional lapse into 
 the jazz song of the moment, and quite frequently 
 a sacred number. The songs themselves exasper 
 ated her, but what was unbearable were the trills 
 and improvised fireworks. She would leave the
 
 46 Tutors Lane 
 
 room thoroughly angry, and would fancy that as 
 she ascended the stairs the tune swelled slightly and 
 acquired even more airs and graces. 
 
 So now, as he deliberately smoked his cigar with 
 out noticing her, her anger rose. He was so smug, 
 so self-sufficient she wanted to stick a pin into 
 him. 
 
 "It isn t, of course, as if the house were not in 
 capable hands," she went on, "for Katie and Julia 
 are perfectly responsible, and Annie couldn t be 
 better." Henry put down his paper, blew a cloud 
 of smoke, and, looking blandly at her, twisted his 
 mouth so that he might enjoy the luxury of biting 
 his cheek. 
 
 "Well?" burst out Nancy. "I don t see why you 
 need be so irritating about it?" 
 
 "Why, don t be foolish," he replied with an 
 amused smile; "do just what you want, of course." 
 To Nancy, the smile spoke a great deal more. 
 "How fatuous you are," it said, "with your devotion 
 to my son and to me. Let a lollypop in the way of a 
 trip to California come along, and away you go as If 
 you didn t have a responsibility in the world. 
 There s a firm nature for you." 
 
 She had fled to Mrs. Norris, as always in an emer 
 gency, and, receiving reassuring words, she had 
 gone, but not without tears and misgiving and not 
 without an unforgettable memory of Henry s be 
 haviour. 
 
 She had frankly discussed her Henry Problem 
 with Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee. "I can t seem to
 
 Tutors Lane 47 
 
 reach any middle ground with him," she had said. 
 "Either I feel terribly because things go so wrong, 
 so much worse than when Mother was alive, or else 
 I am furious with him. Then I am overwhelmed 
 with mortification and make up my mind that I wf.ll 
 get on with him, no matter what happens. And of 
 course he can be perfectly lovely when he wants to 
 be and then he will deliberately go and do some 
 horrid thing which makes me want to go away and 
 drive an auto stage, or something." 
 
 As a matter of fact Nancy would on these occa 
 sions, retire and invest herself in some such romantic, 
 emancipated, role. Possibly she would be a great 
 surgeon. Having gone through her preliminary 
 training with unprecedented speed, she had estab 
 lished herself as a famous specialist of the brain. 
 People who had gone wrong in their heads would be 
 brought to her by their desperate friends and rel 
 atives. If she only would help them out. She did 
 usually, although heaven knew that she was but one 
 little woman to so many brains, and as she worked 
 chiefly under God s guidance, anyway, she had to 
 conserve her strength. However, she operated 
 steadily from eight in the morning until eight at 
 night with only a light lunch in between possibly 
 only a water cracker. She saw herself in the opera 
 ting room with her rubber gloves and her knives. 
 There was a hazy cloud of white-robed nurses and 
 distinguished surgeons who, attracted from all over 
 the world, had come to see her miracles for them 
 selves. A form was on the table, with head shaved.
 
 48 Tutors Lane 
 
 She was to go into his cerebellum and take out a 
 tumor which had caused deafness, dumbness, and 
 blindness. She would probably have to make two 
 hundred stitches or more in sewing him up, but she 
 always had been good at needlework, and it gave 
 her no concern. She picked up her saw but to her 
 horror she found she couldn t bear to stick it in! 
 
 Or she was a famous lawyer, strongly reminiscent 
 of Portia, specializing in pleading for widows and 
 orphans. She had a secretary to handle her corre 
 spondence, who explained that as Miss Whitman was 
 able to work chiefly by the grace of God her health 
 was none too robust, and it was necessary for her to 
 put her trust in Him it really was not fair of them 
 to expect her to handle their cases. However, the 
 most outrageous ones she passed on to Nancy and it 
 was by them that Nancy made her great reputation. 
 Of course she took no fees, but as body and soul had 
 to be kept together and the secretary s salary paid, 
 she wrote syndicated articles for the papers, on re 
 ligious and ethical subjects. Naturally she was an 
 object of interest and curiosity and people thronged 
 the court room when she pleaded. They saw a 
 quiet woman, dressed in black, but when she began 
 speaking you could hear a pin drop. There was a 
 thrilling quality in her voice, much remarked by the 
 press, and big lawyers pitted against her had been 
 known to break down and weep, to the confusion of 
 their clients. The judge it was always the same 
 one had a big bushy beard, and, though of fierce 
 and impartial mien at the beginning of the proceed-
 
 Tutors Lane 49 
 
 ings, he had been known time and again, as her 
 address continued, to draw forth his large silk hand 
 kerchief and blubber into it. The gratitude of the 
 widows who extended in a long, black line, lead 
 ing their army of white-faced little boys, looking 
 strangely like Harry when he had the croup was 
 the one thing that she could not stand. She would 
 not see them when it was all over, but she couldn t 
 keep them from sending her flowers, and accordingly 
 her apartment was always a bower. 
 
 So mighty would these scenes be, so moving, and 
 so pathetic, that Nancy would emerge entirely at 
 peace with Henry and the world. They dwarfed 
 the cause of her anger ; they left her calm and serene, 
 a cousin to the Superwoman. 
 
 The first evening at home passed off very pleas 
 antly indeed. Henry was charmingly interested in 
 the details of her trip, and the usual cribbage session 
 was doubled. Harry s progress at school and 
 through the mumps an illness which had torn his 
 aunt were duly recounted and the maids given a 
 good bill of health. The state of Henry s classes 
 was described at some length. They were slightly 
 better than usual, it appeared, and his special course 
 in Labour Problems was going perfectly. It was 
 really making him famous, he told Nancy. 
 
 That night in her room, as she sat at her desk 
 writing her diary, she calmly told herself that the 
 present tranquillity should last. She solemnly re 
 solved to guard against every possible contingency
 
 50 Tutors Lane 
 
 that might lead to a "situation." She did not pur 
 pose to surrender her individuality; she would not 
 become a dummy. But there must be a middle 
 ground where she could blend service to herself with 
 service to her family. Life should be rich, but it 
 ought also to be tactful. Surely this was not an 
 impossible union. Very well, then, she would live 
 richly and tactfully. 
 
 Just exactly what she meant by living richly she 
 didn t quite know. It would doubtless be some 
 what clearer in the morning when she wasn t so 
 sleepy. Americanization work in Whitmanville. 
 That seemed to offer rich possibilities. There must 
 be room for endless Uplift in Whitmanville. And 
 what could be richer than Uplift? She would start 
 a school, she thought, as she turned off the light and 
 climbed into her four-poster. She would teach the 
 women how to take care of their babies and the men 
 how to take care of their women. But it must all be 
 done tactfully. She must be eternally vigilant upon 
 that score. Yet not so tactful as to become less rich. 
 Nor yet so rich as to become less tactful. . . . 
 Tact and riches riches and tacks tracts 
 striches .
 
 V 
 
 THE night following Nancy s return was the 
 night of the Norris party, the party which 
 is to Woodbridge what the Mardi Gras is 
 to New Orleans, the Carnival to Rome, and what 
 the Feast of the Ygquato Bloom was to the ancient 
 Aztecs. It is always held on the twenty-first of 
 March, Sunday of course excepted, and it is known 
 as the Vernal. Not to be seen at it is too bad. Not 
 to be invited unlike the lupercals before mentioned 
 it requires invitations is a blight mercifully spared 
 all but the most painfully outre. Of these the Coo- 
 gans, who live in Center and whose connubial infelic 
 ities are proverbial, are an example. Tradespeople 
 frequently bear witness to the marks of a man s 
 fingers on Mrs. Coogan s fair and by no means in 
 significant arm, and it is common property that she 
 drinks paregoric. It is quite clear, of course, that 
 such people can not expect to be invited. 
 
 The Vernal has always been "different." In the 
 old days Mrs. Norris set her face against dancing, 
 not upon any moral grounds, certainly, but because 
 of its alleged dullness. Why couldn t people enjoy 
 one another without flying into a perspiration? she 
 asked; but, unfortunately for her plans for the es 
 tablishment of an animated conversazione, the sub- 
 
 51
 
 52 Tutors Lane 
 
 stitutes she had advocated were felt to be even 
 duller. So, one by one, all her nice games were 
 abandoned and only the charade is left. This how 
 ever has gained in popularity, if anything, and 
 certainly it has gained paraphernalia. Mrs. 
 Norris s costume box has overflowed into a trunk, 
 and from the trunk has spread into a closet, and the 
 closet is now nearly filled. From this treasure the 
 two captains select their colleagues wardrobes, a 
 duty discharged in advance of the performance by 
 way of ensuring enough professionalism to prevent 
 the party s collapsing at the start. In other words, 
 Mrs. Norris, although luckless in the matter of "ad 
 verbs," memory contests, and backgammon tour 
 neys, has established charades. 
 
 It used to be a masquerade party, but because 
 of certain unhappy circumstances which have recently 
 befallen, it was decided this year to do without the 
 masks and "Fancy dress." For the last few years 
 people have been complaining a little of the neces 
 sity of getting something new each year. Mrs. 
 Bates, for example, has exhausted the possibilities 
 of her husband s summer bath robe. It served 
 excellently at first as a Roman toga, and the next 
 year it did well enough for Mephistopheles. By 
 cutting away the parts ravaged by moths it passed 
 as a pirate, but she despairs of any further altera 
 tion. Then, too, it would always be remembered 
 that a stranger at the last Vernal had in all serious 
 ness reproved old Professor Narbo, the Chemist, for 
 not taking off his funny old mask when he already
 
 Tutors Lane 53 
 
 had done so, a mishap none the less enjoyed because 
 the bringing of a similar charge to one s friends 
 has been an inevitable jest among the wags for gen 
 erations. Professor Narbo had been offended, and 
 great is the oftendedness of a Full Professor, par 
 ticularly when he is a Heidelberg Ph.D. and parts 
 his hair all the way down the back. The stranger 
 had been crushed; and, all in all, it was as mortify 
 ing an affair as one could well imagine, and one 
 which in itself would have been enough to do away 
 with the masks a long-discussed possibility had 
 not worse followed. Edgar Stebbins, Assistant 
 Professor of History, was unfortunately a little 
 too warmly devoted to the memory of the grape, or, 
 more specifically, of the corn. Being mildly mel 
 lowed by something more than the memory of it, 
 he found occasion to embrace a lady who was 
 dressed in his period, the Late Roman, and to whom 
 he was naturally drawn. The lady promptly 
 screamed and unmasked; and the situation was not 
 at all improved by its being discovered that she was 
 the wife of Professor Robbins of the Latin Depart 
 ment, with which gentleman Mr. Stebbins was not 
 on speaking terms. Mrs. Robbins, it seemed, had 
 employed the squeaky voice so familiar at masquer 
 ade parties and had thus rendered her disguise com 
 plete. Upon her testimony it was learned that Mr. 
 Stebbins s voice had been so roughened by drink 
 that his own mother wouldn t have recognized it. 
 Mr. Stebbins had withdrawn from the party and, at 
 the end of the academic year, from the college as
 
 54 Tutors Lane 
 
 well, and his name is now only an appalling memory. 
 
 In the morning Nancy hurried up to the Norrises 
 as soon as she could. She found Mary and her 
 mother in the drawing-room. Mary was playing 
 the piano while her mother sat in a distant chair, 
 amiably shredding codfish, a pleasure which she 
 would on no account yield to the kitchen. 
 
 As soon as the rush of sisterly greeting was 
 passed, all four for the cod could not be left be 
 hind repaired to the sofa in the library; and after 
 the gaps in their correspondence had been filled, 
 they came to the party. Mary was to be one of the 
 charade captains and Tom Reynolds the other. 
 Nancy, who was an inevitable member of the cha 
 rade, was to be on Tom s side. 
 
 "Tell me," she asked, "is he really as nice as you 
 people make out?" 
 
 "Oh yes," replied Mary, "he s one of us." 
 
 "He used to scare me. He never would dance 
 with me any more than he had to, and I always was 
 afraid he would get that terribly bored look I ve 
 seen him get. I think probably he s conceited." 
 
 "Oh dear, to hear you girls talk you d think that 
 a little honest boredom was the most dreadful thing 
 on earth. Why, your fathers used to get so bored 
 with us that " 
 
 "Now, Gumgum, you know that isn t sensible," 
 broke in Mary severely a regrettable habit which 
 seems increasingly prevalent among our modern 
 daughters "unless you people were ninnies." 
 
 "That was in Garfield s administration," replied
 
 Tutors Lane 55 
 
 Mrs. Norris absently, "or possibly a little before, in 
 Hayes s Rutherford B. Hayes. He did away with 
 the carpetbaggers and all those dreadful people in 
 the South." Then, more dreamily still, "His middle 
 name was Birchard." 
 
 "I know why you think he s conceited," Mary 
 went on, warming up to the never-ending pleasure 
 of analysis, "but it s because he s really diffident. 
 Lots of people I know who people think are snobby 
 are only just diffident." 
 
 "What on earth do you mean by saying that 
 Rutherford Hayes was diffident? He wasn t a bit. 
 He was a very great philanthropist." 
 
 "She s too awful today," exclaimed Mary, "with 
 that smelly old fish and Rutherford Garfield. Gra 
 cious, I d like to bury the old thing." 
 
 "You horrid, ungrateful child, when I m doing 
 this for your lunch. We re just old Its, we mothers. 
 I m going to start an Emancipation Club for 
 Mothers. The poor old things, they might just 
 as well crawl away into the bushes like rabbits." 
 
 There then followed a tender passage between 
 mother and daughter, which ended in Mary s blow 
 ing down her mother s neck. A convulsive scream 
 and a frantic clawing gesture in the direction of her 
 daughter was the immediate reaction, much to the 
 confusion of the codfish, which was only just saved 
 by Nancy from a premature end upon the hearth. 
 
 Following the rescue, the heroine, who had some 
 shopping to do, began making motions of departure. 
 "You must come as soon so you can after dinner
 
 56 Tutors Lane 
 
 to have Tom explain what you are to do. Gum- 
 igum thinks we ought to have a rehearsal, but Tom 
 has a five o clock, and I don t think it s necessary 
 anyway. He s really awfully funny and clever, 
 Nancy, and you must like him." 
 
 "I hate clever people. I have nothing to say to 
 them. I m a perfect gawk when they re around, 
 and I m afraid I won t be able to stand him." 
 
 As she walked on down to Center, however, it 
 occurred to her that he might come in useful with 
 the children of the parents in her Whitmanville 
 school. He could teach them basketball and of 
 course he could coach their baseball team. He 
 would also be useful in taking them off on hikes 
 and But she hadn t seen him in ever so long, 
 and he might not do at all. In fact, it was highly 
 probable that he wouldn t do, for boys are suspicious 
 of clever people, and he almost certainly wouldn t 
 think of doing it. Or possibly he might, out of 
 politeness, and then when he got bored with it he 
 would decide to be funny with the boys, and they 
 would get to hate him and tell their parents, who 
 would come to her with sullen looks and threatening 
 gestures and 
 
 When Nancy arrived in the evening, she found 
 Tom distributing costumes. He was heavier, she 
 noticed, and his forehead was higher. Some day 
 she might get a chance to tell him how she saved 
 Henry s hair simply by brushing it carefully. It 
 was ridiculous to put a lot of smelly greasy stuff on
 
 Tutors Lane 57 
 
 She had shaken hands with him and received her 
 costume which was an aigrette and a peacock- 
 feather fan. "The word is draper, explained 
 Tom, "and you are to be the Lady Angela. In the 
 first syllable you have lost your pet Persian and, 
 after explaining your loss to the little house-maid 
 who is dusting around, you call in Merriam the de 
 tective. I am Merriam the detective and I arrive 
 immediately after you are through calling me up on 
 the telephone. The little maid goes over to the win 
 dow and says, Goody, here comes Mr. Merriam the 
 detective in a dray, and then you go out to meet me, 
 and that s the first act. Then I come on alone in 
 the second act and investigate the room heavily, 
 looking for a clue, you see. I have a theory that 
 the little maid is the thief, and when you come in, 
 as you do when I have said Ha, it is a match box, 
 
 I explain to you that " 
 
 "Oh, dear, I haven t any idea what I m to do." 
 "Well, you just go in and wave your fan discon 
 solately, and I ll do the rest. It will be dreadful, 
 of course, but then, no one ever expects them to be 
 otherwise. Now I think the best way is for us 
 to run over it, and then little things will come to 
 you."
 
 VI 
 
 DOWNSTAIRS the Dean and Mrs. Norris 
 had begun receiving their guests, most of 
 the receiving being done by the Dean. 
 His wife, whose trail was like that of a runaway 
 astral body, was here, there, and everywhere, call 
 ing, ordering, laughing. 
 
 The Misses Forbes, invariably the first comers, 
 had taken possession of front-row seats. This year 
 Miss Edith had the Burnham lace an heirloom 
 whose glory could on no account be dimmed by a 
 tri-partite division and Miss Annie had the Burn- 
 ham pearls. They were a modest string, perhaps, 
 but they lived on after more spectacular ones became 
 gummy. As for Miss Jennie, the youngest, aged 
 sixty-five, she was something of a philosopher, be 
 ing the community s sole theosophist, and she re 
 garded her sisters pleasure in their baubles with 
 amusement. Nor could she be drawn into a dis 
 cussion of their ultimate disposition, a nice problem, 
 for other Burnhams and Forbeses were there none. 
 "Why not give them to the museum?" she had once 
 suggested, to the sorrow of her sisters, who hated to 
 see her cynical side. Worse than that, she was a 
 radical and had boldly come out for the open shop, 
 
 or the closed shop, whichever was the radical one, 
 
 58
 
 Tutors Lane 59 
 
 and she talked very wildly indeed of Unions and 
 Compensation Bills. 
 
 Miss Elfrida Balch had arrived, and likewise her 
 brother, the artist. Miss Balch was a lady of al 
 most crystalline refinement. She was tall and fair, 
 with a delicacy of complexion that stood in no need 
 of retailed bloom. She might have passed for the 
 daughter of a kindly old Saxon chieftain it was, 
 indeed, generally known that she sprang from the 
 seed of Saxon kings who, firm in the belief that no 
 young man was her equal in birth or behaviour, had 
 insisted upon her declining into a spinsterhood which 
 increased in refinement as it did in service. Sen 
 timental persons held that she came by that manner 
 from association with Art in her brother s studio. 
 Others, of a more sardonic turn, said that her man 
 ner was that of one who continually smelled a bad 
 smell, and that if she got it by looking at her 
 brother s pictures they didn t wonder. 
 
 Leofwin Balch was not a personable gentleman. 
 The early Saxon strain in him had taken the form of 
 obesity, a tendency not confined, if we may trust 
 the evidence of scholars, to descendants of Saxon 
 kings. To those who had little sympathy with 
 genius in its more alarming shapes, his fair chin 
 whisker seemed an absurdity. The more discrimi 
 nating, however, welcomed it. Anything might be 
 expected of a man with a chin whisker which some 
 one, with more imagination than restraint, had de 
 scribed as an "attenuated shredded wheat biscuit seen 
 through a glass darkly." Leofwin s work had of
 
 60 Tutors Lane 
 
 late years suffered on account of a rheumatism which 
 defied medicine. He had sacrificed his tonsils and 
 nine teeth upon the altar of Art with little or no re 
 lief, and it was now feared by those closest to him, 
 his sister and himself, that he would never again 
 approach the promise given in his "Willows." 
 "Willows" had received an honourable mention at 
 the Exhibition just which Exhibition, was a subject 
 of controversy among the uninitiated and had been 
 purchased by a rich baronet in Suffolk. The Balches 
 had seen it in his gallery, and it had become an open 
 secret that hanging in the same room were a Con 
 stable and a John Opie. 
 
 Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had arrived and was 
 already with a group of the great around her chair. 
 She was wearing the famous Lee-Satterlee dog 
 collar, and her hair had been carefully dressed for 
 the occasion. Such items alone would have borne 
 witness to the importance of the Vernal, had she not 
 in addition chosen to carry the Court fan. This fan, 
 which was known as the "Court fan" to distinguish 
 it from all other fans in the world, had been given 
 her by the Court ladies when she and her husband, 
 the late Ambassador, had departed upon the arrival 
 of the new Administration s appointee. Its sticks 
 were mother-of-pearl, encrusted with diamonds, and 
 on its silk was the cruel story of Pyramus and Thisbe 
 set forth in brilliant colours, but in what wondrous 
 manner no one quite knew. For it was true that Mrs. 
 Robert Lee-Satterlee had walked with kings, danced 
 with dukes, and played croquet with counts, and it
 
 Tutors Lane 61 
 
 was therefore inevitable that she should be regarded 
 as the Empress of Woodbridge. She would have 
 been considered so quite apart from the fact that she 
 had great possessions in addition to the Court fan 
 and the dog collar possessions which were com 
 monly supposed to be destined for the college, the 
 Lee-Satterlees having no issue. Accordingly, Mrs. 
 Robert Lee-Satterlee was allowed liberties unthink 
 able in another; but, be it said to her credit, she 
 never abused them. Since she, or at least her prop 
 erty, was to take such an active part in Woodbridge 
 affairs when she passed into the next world, it was 
 only reasonable that she should take an active part 
 while she was still in this; and it is safe to say that 
 no one knew more about college affairs than she. 
 Still, no one ever thought of calling her a nuisance. 
 When, occasionally, she did quietly suggest that pos 
 sibly such-and-such a course might be a wise one or 
 that such-and-such a man might be the one to appoint 
 to such-and-such a vacancy, it would be discovered 
 that, with singular insight, she had made a perfect 
 suggestion. Whereas, therefore, it might be said 
 that she was a despot, it was universally agreed that 
 she was a benevolent one and an enlightened one, 
 and many even went so far as to fear that her death 
 might actually prove a loss. 
 
 The library was filling fast. Mrs. Norris, cast 
 ing a rather wild eye into it occasionally, would per 
 haps signal out an individual for a mission that 
 somehow in the general run of things could not con 
 ceivably be completed. For example, her eye, on
 
 62 Tutors Lane 
 
 one of these expeditions, happened to alight on a 
 gentleman of the Physics Department, a gentleman 
 with a gold tooth and a loud laugh, who represented 
 a somewhat larger group of instructors than the best 
 Tutors Lane families cared to acknowledge. The 
 gentleman responded with an alacrity that did him 
 credit, nor did he quail before the steady gaze of 
 Mrs. Norris, which seemed to wonder if she hadn t 
 been a little unwise in placing such trust in so uninter 
 esting a vessel. She asked him, however, to see if 
 the musicians had found a good place to put their 
 hats and coats, and as there were several musicians, 
 some of whom had not arrived, he was not restored 
 to his nervous and too friendly mate until the cha 
 rades were over. 
 
 And now there was a suggestive flutter in the 
 Dean s study, behind whose large folding doors the 
 charades were to be acted. Gentlemen who were 
 standing urbanely about moved into corners, with 
 smiles calculated to impress all with their self-posses 
 sion in even the first houses. The doors rolled open 
 and a buzz of admiration greeted the distraite Lady 
 Angela, whose return from California had been 
 acknowledged by but few of the audience. She went 
 through her scene with the little maid, and when the 
 doors were bumped together, Mr. Grimes of the 
 Romance Languages, a noted success at anagrams, 
 acrostics, and charades, announced, "Dray." After 
 a few minutes the second act was done, in which it 
 appeared that Mr. Merriam the detective had fallen 
 madly in love with Lady Angela. In the midst of
 
 Tutors Lane 63 
 
 the scene the little maid was heard purring loudly 
 off-stage, a purring which was explained by both 
 lovers as the purring of the lost Persian. Mr. 
 Grimes guessed "Purr" loudly at the close, and the 
 final syllable, in which Mr. Merriam appeared dis 
 guised as a draper, was thus rendered stale and per 
 functory. Mary s charade eluded Mr. Grimes s wit 
 no more successfully, and the music was received 
 with even more enthusiasm than usual. 
 
 The Lady Angela, as a matter of fact, had been 
 considerably flustered by the ardour of Merriam the 
 detective s wooing. The rehearsal had not prepared 
 her for anything so realistic, and she was annoyecl. 
 Art was art, of course, but she was no Duse, and she 
 didn t care to be the object of such public passion. 
 The fact that she was obliged to reciprocate his sen 
 timents instead of slapping his face was also trying. 
 Well, there was no reason to conceal her displeasure 
 now; and when she found herself again in his arms 
 they were rather strong arms, incidentally, and he 
 did dance well she had little to say to him. 
 
 It was not, fortunately, necessary for her to do a 
 great deal of dancing, because of the visiting she 
 naturally owed to her elderly friends, and once when 
 Tom cut in she left him, excusing herself on the 
 ground of having to see the Dean and Mrs. Robert 
 Lee-Satterlee, his time-honoured bridge partner. 
 The Dean took his bridge seriously and with ex 
 treme deliberation. Henry Whitman, on the other 
 hand, who was one of his opponents, played with a 
 rapidity amounting at times to frenzy, and he was
 
 64 Tutors Lane 
 
 fidgeted by anyone of more sober pace. His part 
 ner, old Mrs. Conover, in a cap with violet insertion, 
 had some little difficulty in telling kings from jacks 
 and hearts from spades and was inclined, further 
 more, to be forgetful of the trump. Accordingly, 
 Nancy remarked beneath her brother s rather ter 
 rible calm all these symptoms of a whistling bee 
 when they were again at home. 
 
 The Dean was halfway through a hand and was 
 trying to choose a card from the dummy. He at 
 length carefully lifted the king of spades from it as 
 if it weighed a ton, and then, after looking at it 
 soberly, put it back and scowled at his own hand. 
 Henry, who had his card ready to throw down upon 
 the table, slid it back into his hand with the look 
 of resignation that has tranquillized our memories 
 of the Early Christian Martyrs. The Dean rested 
 his eye on the tempting king in the dummy and 
 pursed his lips. He would do it. Then he leaned 
 over and played it with the air of a man who lays all 
 in the lap of the gods. Mrs. Conover, who had 
 been shuffling her cards around in ill-suppressed ex 
 citement, popped out a trump with a cry of triumph 
 just as Henry s Ace of Spades covered the king. A 
 dreadful scene followed. The Dean was all gal 
 lantry, Mrs. Conover all self-reproach, Mrs. Robert 
 Lee-Satterlee all charm, and Henry all exasperation; 
 and when, later in the same hand, his mind torn with 
 the memory of his lost ace, he made a revoke and 
 was quietly brought to account by the Dean, Nancy 
 discreetly withdrew.
 
 Tutors Lane 65 
 
 Tom, who had seen her at the table with three 
 people whom she met constantly and upon whom she 
 hardly needed to make a call, felt decidedly snubbed. 
 Was she, after all, so much a Whitman that she felt 
 no need to obey the ordinary rules of decency? It 
 seemed too bad, for his impression of her earlier in 
 the evening had been decidedly different. 
 
 Tom had sometimes wondered about love at first 
 sight. What was it anyway? How did one feel? 
 Was it like a blow between the eyes, a ball Fn 
 the breast? Did one stagger and have to lie 
 down, with a pulse coursing up to one hundred and 
 five? What was it? When Tom first looked at 
 Nancy in the costume closet he wondered if he were 
 to be brought face to face with the answer. Cer 
 tainly, little hints by the Norrises and Old Mrs. Con- 
 over would have put the idea into his head, had it 
 not in the natural course of events found its way 
 there unaided. 
 
 And now Nancy had made it clear that she did not 
 care to have anything to do with him. It was, he 
 guessed, because of the too tender passage in the 
 charade. He pictured himself arguing with her. 
 "It is ridiculous to object to me because I played the 
 part well. Would you have had me a stick and 
 make the thing even more of a bore?" "No," 
 coldly, "but you didn t have to have that part in it." 
 "Well, it made it more interesting, and, besides, if 
 you think that I put it in just for an excuse to put my 
 arm around you, you re entirely mistaken and not 
 the girl I thought you." This last thrust, which, in
 
 66 Tutors Lane 
 
 less skilful hands might have become mere petu 
 lance, was delivered with a rolling deliberation that 
 would have wrung a Jezebel. Tom always did well 
 in these conversations, but unfortunately, the pres 
 ent situation was not solved so easily. Nancy, he 
 had found, was even more attractive than she had 
 been when he was in college. They would, of 
 course, see something of each other from time to 
 time, and it would be tiresome not to be friendly. 
 Besides, he guessed that she would be helpful in 
 discussing his yarious problems. Mrs. Norris was 
 splendid, of course, and he loved her dearly, but he 
 found himeslf occasionally wishing for a somewhat 
 younger listener and one not given over to quite so 
 many nonsequiturs. Nancy seemed excellent mate 
 rial, but if she were going to be superior Possibly 
 it was because of Ephesus and the Reynolds Dry 
 Goods Store. He turned away with a slightly 
 bilious feeling. If it should prove that she was 
 affected by that, then indeed would he be disap 
 pointed in her. 
 
 He crossed the hall into the drawing-room, where 
 a dozen or so couples were dancing in various stages 
 of aesthetic intoxication. The saxophone and the 
 violin were engaging in a pantomime calculated to 
 add gaiety to the waning enthusiasm of the party, 
 and he gazed at them in disgust. A young lady with 
 hair newly hennaed and face suggestive of an over 
 ripe pear ogled him over her partner s elbow as they 
 jazzed by. Let her dance on until she got so sick 
 of him she was ready to scream, was Tom s thought.
 
 Tutors Lane 67 
 
 In one corner, obviously having a poor time, was 
 Leofwin Balch. Tom sat down beside him. 
 
 "It s too hot in here, don t you think?" he asked. 
 
 "Much," replied Leofwin. "I think these par 
 ties get worse every year." These were soothing 
 words. "Particularly those damned charades," he 
 went on. "Now, my dear fellow, you know per 
 fectly well that yours was a miserable failure." 
 
 Tom found this a little trying. It was true that 
 no one could be more deprecating of his effort than 
 he, but, privately, he had a somewhat better opinion 
 of it. As charades went, he thought it decidedly 
 above the average; and the way he had examined the 
 room, after the manner of Mr. William Gillette, 
 and come upon the match box was proved amusing 
 by the laugh it had brought. 
 
 "Granted," he replied, with a shade of sarcasm, 
 "it was a miserable failure." 
 
 "Why, the way you made love to Miss Whitman 
 was disgusting." 
 
 Tom flushed. Had he really been as bad as that? 
 Had he really just missed being put out of the house 
 like that clown Stebbins? Were they all now, all 
 these people sitting around so innocently in groups, 
 were they all blasting his name as a cheap cad? 
 "What do you mean?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, you went at it like a puling babe. Why 
 didn t you put some fire into it kiss her feet or bite 
 her neck? Then you would have made us sit up 
 and take notice. You college people are a lot of 
 old women, anyway."
 
 68 Tutors Lane 
 
 Tom, with bounding relief, started to confess the 
 apparent inability of most college people to bite la 
 dies in the neck, when he observed a startling change 
 in his companion. From the passionate leprecaune 
 of the moment before he had become even as a little 
 child. His hand, which was resting elegantly 
 on the arm chair, stole up into his chin whisker, amid 
 which it wistfully strayed. There crept into 1 his 
 Saxon eyes that light of resigned suffering which 
 inspires such exquisite anguish in the friends of 
 Black Beauty and Beautiful Joe. In short, his 
 entire being proclaimed to all who would but look, 
 a great quiet man in love. Tom s eyes followed his 
 and rested upon Nancy! He rose in- disgust and, 
 walking away, suddenly came face to face with her. 
 Then, without thinking of his resolve to let her 
 severely alone, he reached out his hand and cut in. 
 
 What a fool he was ! Obviously she didn t want 
 to dance with him, and here he was forcing himself 
 upon her. It made him look so common, so push 
 ing, so like an Ephesus drygoods clerk. Some one 
 barged into him, surged into him, from the rear, 
 causing him to stumble. Sorry," he muttered . 
 They started on, just out of step. He tried to get 
 into step by speeding up, and their knees bumped 
 together. Would no one ever cut in? Then the 
 music stopped, and it appeared that the musicians 
 were going to rest for a few minutes. 
 
 "Let s sit down, shall we?" said Nancy. They 
 settled themselves upon two gilt chairs with spindly
 
 Tutors Lane 69 
 
 legs. "Do you like your work here?" she asked 
 pleasantly." 
 
 What a very dull question! An expletive ex 
 ploded inside Tom s head. "Oh, yes," he said. 
 Then after a heavy pause, "How are you getting 
 on with the stars?" 
 
 "Oh, I learned the diagrams in that nice little 
 book you sent me, but I m afraid I ve forgotten 
 most of them now. I feel rather superior about 
 Betelgeuse, though." 
 
 "So do I. We might start a Betelguese Club." 
 "What would we do at it?" 
 "Oh, read papers. With Betelguese s power 
 behind us we might do all sorts of things have 
 picnics and read tracts to the poor. When you 
 see only college people, after a while you crave 
 being illiterate, and I ve thought recently that I d 
 like to enlist in the Navy or move to Alaska, or 
 go over and work in the Mills. I d buy a black 
 shirt to work in and use a bandana when I 
 used anything and take the nice extra room my 
 laundress has in Whitmanville. She says her 
 clothesline goes out fifty feet, and they have a 
 phonograph. Don t you think that would be 
 more attractive than trying to teach a lot of 
 Freshmen Carlyle and Hawthorne?" 
 
 "Lots, and there would be ever so much more 
 money in it." 
 
 "It would be a kind of social service work, 
 wouldn t it? Woodbridge Professor Slaves in Mill
 
 70 Tutors Lane 
 
 to Earn Bread. That would go big, all over the 
 country." 
 
 "Do you know, I ve thought a little of doing some 
 social work, seriously. I don t know anything 
 about it, of course, but it has occurred to me that 
 if I could get a group of people together we might 
 have one of the Physiologist instructors give us 
 some lectures. You see, the first thing in social 
 work must be the health of the people, and I shoulcl 
 think a good grounding in the fundamentals would 
 be essential. As soon as we have their interest 
 in their personal welfare we can get them to play 
 ing basketball, brushing their teeth, putting screens 
 in their windows, and so on. Naturally I don t 
 know much about it, but it would seem as though 
 there were a great opportunity for somebody." 
 
 "Conditions in the town, on the west side, aren t 
 too good." 
 
 "Of course they re not. I have let my mind run 
 on at a great rate about it, but I don t see why, 
 if the right person got hold of it, the whole town 
 couldn t be improved, made into a model mill town, 
 you know with playgrounds, and creches, and " 
 Again other model features failed her. 
 
 "Well, why aren t you the proper person? I 
 should think you could do it if anyone could. Your 
 uncle would have to listen to you, and he probably 
 would be all for it." 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Rob is just as nice as he can be 
 but I couldn t do it all alone." 
 
 "Well, now of course we have got into this thing
 
 Tutors Lane 71 
 
 pretty quickly, but I assure you I should like nothing 
 better than to do something about it with you. 
 After all, what is education in the finest sense, but 
 the uplifting of the masses? You probably will 
 want to think it over a little more before going 
 ahead, but, really, I hope you will, and I hope you 
 will let me join you." 
 
 "There is no time like the present. Why dilly 
 dally? We both realize that this is a crying need. 
 Then why not do something about it? If you will 
 find out who is the best man for us, I ll provide the 
 rest." 
 
 At this point the musicians swung into Home 
 Sweet Home, and Mrs. Norris hurried up to the 
 embryonic workers. "The party is over now, my 
 dears, and please help by going and getting your 
 things. It s this awful standing around saying 
 good-bye that is so trying," and with an emphatic 
 push of her back comb she began hauling tables and 
 chairs back into their normal places. 
 
 Tom had only just time to assure Nancy that 
 he would do his part when Mrs. Norris called to 
 him again to help her with the dining-room rug; and 
 with a quick handshake and a pleasanter nod than 
 he would have thought could possibly have come 
 to him half an hour before, Nancy Whitman was 
 gone.
 
 VII 
 
 IN the morning Nancy s thoughts flew to the 
 proposed social work. What on earth had 
 she got herself into ! Swept away, as usual, 
 she had confided her plans for a life of service 
 to a man she barely knew, one hour after she had 
 decided to leave him alone! Well, there was 
 nothing to do now but make the best of it. Their 
 talk had, as a matter of fact, shown that she had 
 been a little silly about the charade. He had un 
 suspected depth. That had been made clear by 
 his conversation about education, and it was unlikely 
 that anyone who felt as strongly as he did could 
 be wayward in a charade. So it might turn out 
 all right, after all, and she had better set about 
 getting the workers. 
 
 Mary, to her surprise, was a disappointment. 
 It seemed that with her music, which she was study 
 ing seriously this year, with weekly trips to Boston 
 for a lesson, she had no time. Others of her friends 
 to whom she had naturally turned were unavailable 
 for one reason or another, and the affair began to 
 look discouraging. On the fourth day, however, 
 while calling upon the Misses Forbes, she got an 
 unsolicited recruit. Her mind being full of the 
 idea, she was talking about it before she knew it; 
 
 72
 
 Tutors Lane 73 
 
 and to her astonishment, and a little to her dismay, 
 Miss Jennie offered her services. "I cannot," she 
 said, "talk to the operatives about their bodies, 
 and, accordingly, it won t be necessary for me to 
 attend the physiological lectures, but I think I can 
 be of use later on. When we went to Miss North- 
 cote s School we learned to weave mats and paint 
 on china, and I can give instructions in them. In 
 their turn they will instruct me, for I shall learn 
 much about Housing Conditions and have an oppor 
 tunity to examine at first hand the various industrial 
 problems of the day. Who knows? when we are 
 through, I may prepare a paper for the Nation" 
 Her sisters indicated their disapproval by rocking 
 hopelessly. 
 
 Tom, too, had met with difficulties. Upon think 
 ing the matter over he had little doubt as to its out 
 come. Enough of his Ephesus life remained with 
 him to tell him that factory hands are not to be 
 reached by lectures from academic ladies and gentle 
 men. He blushed, too, for certain sentiments he 
 had expressed upon the essence of education, but 
 they might be credited to the delicate frenzy of the 
 dance and his unexpected reconciliation. It was, of 
 course, all Nancy. He could not imagine himself 
 proceeding upon such an affair with anyone else. 
 Still, he found it necessary to placate his conscience 
 for the time taken from the study of Beowulf which 
 he was then making for his PH.D. "All work and 
 no play makes Jack a dull boy" seemed, after a some 
 what desperate search, as sound a principle as any;
 
 74 Tutors Lane 
 
 and, furthermore, he would save time from his 
 exercise by running around the cemetery the clas 
 sic running course instead of playing squash at 
 the Country Club. So that problem was set 
 tled. 
 
 The young physiologist, however, upon whom he 
 had been counting had developed appendicitis, and 
 he didn t feel that he knew any of the other men in 
 the department well enough to take their time for 
 such a speculative cause. Then he met old Profes 
 sor Sprig, a Star man of 65, who had been a cele 
 brated physiologist in his time and who was now 
 an almost equally celebrated eccentric. Having 
 complained of the present status of the department 
 and explained his problem, Tom was invited by the 
 old gentleman to bring Nancy to his rooms. "You 
 know, I suppose, where I live?" he asked with a 
 crafty smile. 
 
 Tom did know where he lived. The old four- 
 story frame building in Whitmanville, the Diamond 
 Building, the highest in the town, had been made 
 famous by his residence. The top floor was said to 
 be his apartment and it was commonly supposed that 
 he kept chickens in it. There were some dreadful 
 stories about midnight dissections, but cooler heads 
 affirmed that if there were any chickens there at all, 
 they were there as the companions and not as the 
 helpless victims of a debauched old age. And now 
 the two social workers were invited into these mys 
 terious precincts ! The news might swell the ros-
 
 Tutors Lane 75 
 
 ter to disconcerting proportions. They should have 
 to proceed with caution. 
 
 "All we want, sir, is a most elementary discussion. 
 Just enough so we can give the men and women in 
 the Mills some simple facts about themselves. 
 Then, with that as a starter, we can build up more 
 intelligently." 
 
 "I shall be glad to give you whatever you want. 
 Shall we say Tuesday next? At eight o clock? 
 Don t dress, you know. Just come as you are. 
 This is business," and with another of his sly smiles 
 he moved on down the street. 
 
 When Tom called for Nancy on Tuesday night 
 he found her equipped with pad and pencils. 
 
 "Henry doesn t think too highly of this perform 
 ance, I may say," she said, smiling up at him, "but 
 we simply couldn t have let people know where we 
 are going. They would have swamped the whole 
 thing. I must say I am a little afraid." She 
 slipped her arm through his, and they hurried on 
 down Division Street, which connects Tutors Lane 
 with Whitmanville. "If he only has chickens, I 
 won t mind, but if he has bats I shall hate it. I con 
 fess I m a perfect fool about bats. They re loath 
 some. What they really are, are hairy rats with 
 wings like web feet, and they have the most loath 
 some mouths." 
 
 Tom was curiously excited. He felt buoyed up. 
 It was like water-wings, he told himself. And when 
 he tried afterwards to think of the things he ha3
 
 76 Tutors Lane 
 
 said, he could remember nothing except that he had 
 quoted Alice s perplexity about bats eating cats when 
 she was falling down the well, and that they had 
 both laughed immoderately. 
 
 The Diamond Building, on their arrival, pre 
 sented a somewhat portentous picture. A Five, 
 Ten, and Fifteen Cent store dimly showed forth 
 strings of penny postal cards and piles of dusty 
 candy in its macabre windows. The second floor 
 was throbbing with the rich life of a poolhall, and 
 as they passed the Christian Science rooms on the 
 third floor they carried with them the strains of 
 a therapeutic hymn. And then, at last, they were 
 before a door which bore over its bell the pencilled 
 legend, H. Sprig. 
 
 They were admitted by a flunkey named Herbert. 
 Herbert s period of usefulness in the laboratory 
 had terminated with that of the Professor, and the 
 latter had engaged him as a body servant, not only 
 because of his proved capacity and loyalty, but be 
 cause of the unusual shape of his head, upon which 
 the Professor found it restful to gaze. He was 
 black, was Herbert, and was at present clothed in 
 gorgeous blue livery with gold buttons. He bowed 
 the guests inside and led them through a narrow 
 hallway to a comfortable room of generous size, the 
 Professor s library. At one end was a long table, 
 and behind it was Mr. Sprig, clad in a morning coat. 
 Behind him on the walls were half a dozen diagrams 
 of Man the Master, designed to gratify students 
 whose thirst was for the anatomical. Before Mr.
 
 Tutors Lane 77 
 
 Sprig were a pitcher of iced water, a tumbler, and a 
 sheaf of notes. 
 
 Mr. Sprig rose as Nancy and Tom entered and 
 bowed pleasantly, at the same time waving them to 
 two chairs placed close together before his table. 
 When they had seated themselves he bowed again, 
 and, without more ado, began an address. He 
 spoke in a low, deep, if somewhat quavery voice, and 
 with an elegant ease of manner. It was his pur 
 pose, he explained, to give them an elementary 
 course in the primary systems of the body, together 
 with two supplementary lectures on hygiene, in order 
 that they might go out and instruct the poor in the 
 proper care of their bodies. Tonight he would 
 have only time for the respiratory and circulatory 
 systems, next time would come the digestive and ex 
 cretory tracts, and he hoped to finish in six lectures. 
 It was, of course, a broad subject and much water 
 had passed under the bridge since his day, but with 
 their generous help he hoped that the thing might 
 be done. 
 
 He talked for fifty minutes, that being a college 
 period, and at its close he bowed again. He then 
 came from behind the table and shook them warmly 
 by the hand. "You will forgive a foolish old man, I 
 know. You see I haven t given a lecture since I re 
 signed eight years ago, and I thought I d like to do 
 it up brown. And now, Herbert" for the elabor 
 ate old man had appeared at the close of the lecture 
 "please bring in the things." 
 
 The "things" were some little round cup cakes,
 
 78 Tutors Lane 
 
 three wine glasses, and a large bottle of sauterne. 
 
 "The summer we graduated," Mr. Sprig went 
 on, "my classmate Curtis and I went abroad. We 
 took a walking trip south of Bordeaux, and on that 
 walk we discovered this wine. I have kept in touch 
 with the people who make it ever since, and although 
 I shall never get any more, I shall have enough to 
 last me. You must try a glass, Miss Whitman. 
 I assure you it will improve all of your systems!" 
 
 When Nancy first looked at her watch it was 
 nearly eleven. 
 
 "You mustn t go, of course, until you have seen 
 the chickens," said Mr. Sprig. 
 
 The chickens ! Under the charm of the softly 
 lighted room, the old gentleman s quiet flow of half- 
 whimsical, half-serious reminiscence, they had been 
 carried back to the rosy days that were before their 
 birth. Now they dreaded lest their host should 
 show himself a little mad, after all. 
 
 He lit a bedside candle, and at his request they 
 followed him out upon a sun parlor. And there, 
 indeed, was a wire-enclosed runaway with a white 
 washed shelf at the end supporting four sleeping 
 forms. The candle moved nearer, and there they 
 were beyond any possible doubt, Plymouth Rocks. 
 
 To see them at night was a nice problem, he ex 
 plained. Being a little light-minded about sunshine, 
 it seemed that they were unable to discriminate be 
 tween heaven s high lamp and the electric one on the 
 porch, and would dutifully arise when either ap 
 peared. Once down from their perch, they would
 
 Tutors Lane 79 
 
 refuse to return until the sun was removed; and 
 when it chanced to be the one on the porch and was 
 switched off, they were unable to return because 
 their endowment of optic nerve was small and their 
 homing instinct, so strong in bees and eagles, 
 smaller. There was created, accordingly, an im 
 passe, but Mr. Sprig, who knew his hens, circum 
 vented it. He lit a bedside candle which merely 
 troubled his friends sleep. 
 
 "The one on the extreme left is Helen of Troy. 
 She is a stunning creature, as you can see. She 
 produced an egg for me only this morning. Next is 
 Malvolio. I confess I am partial to him. Then 
 comes Little Nell. She is extremely demure and in 
 clined to be sentimental. And last is Carol Kenni- 
 cott, who chatters so much I am afraid I shall shortly 
 have to pop her into a pie." He gazed at her 
 affectionately. "Well," he continued as he led the 
 way back into his library, "I have now shown you 
 my treasures. They, of course, seem a little crazy 
 to you, and I hope your lives will end so fully that 
 you won t have to fall back on them. But in case 
 either of you should find yourself old and foolish 
 and alone, I can recommend them as pleasant and 
 amiable companions. You will find them curiously 
 simple they are not offended if you don t call 
 upon them or write them letters, and then from 
 time to time they yield up to you the shining miracle 
 of an egg, for which they ask no recompense; and 
 when they come to lay down their lives they do 
 it with a gesture and make the day a feast."
 
 8o Tutors Lane 
 
 He was standing before the dying fire, surrounded 
 by its genial light, as his guests withdrew. Near 
 him, just touched by the firelight, were the crumbs 
 of their supper and the stately old bottle which had 
 given its bouquet to the room. Old Herbert, mov 
 ing out of the shadow noiselessly and pleasantly, 
 bowed them out, and as the vision faded one of the 
 guests, at least, pictured the four friends on the 
 sun porch readjusting themselves, after their fitTul 
 fever, to the gentle life of their home.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE following Thursday night Tom called at 
 the Whitmans to rehearse the lecture. 
 Nancy s cousin Bob had arranged to have 
 two rooms reserved for them during the Friday noon 
 hour at the Mills, and they had agreed that the 
 best way to prepare for the ordeal was to study 
 their notes and get their material in final shape and 
 then have a dress rehearsal on Thursday night. 
 "After a while," Nancy had said, "when we work 
 into the harness, we probably won t need to have 
 one, but I don t think we can be too careful of this 
 first lecture." This had been precisely Tom s opin 
 ion also. 
 
 Tom had never seen Henry so amiable. In fact 
 he seemed hard put to it to keep from unre 
 strained merriment, and Tom, who found the affair 
 more alarming as it progressed, would have pre 
 ferred avoiding him altogether. He knew that 
 Henry was calling him callow, a lightweight, charges 
 well-nigh proved by his present undertaking, and to 
 save himself from rout he had to remember that 
 Henry was a heavy Grave man and that his own 
 participation was only a question of common cour 
 tesy to a lady, anyway. Nancy had set her heart 
 upon the thing, and he would be a very indifferent 
 
 81
 
 82 Tutors Lane 
 
 friend to stand idly by and not lift a finger to help. 
 
 "I believe," said Henry, "that we are to sit in 
 the drawing-room. Nancy will stand in the far 
 end of the library." 
 
 "I see," replied Tom vaguely. 
 
 "She feels that having the conditions rather try 
 ing tonight will help her tomorrow. Accordingly, 
 she s going to speak first, and she wants me to ex 
 cuse her for not being here when you arrived. By 
 coming in formally and beginning her address with 
 out speaking to us, she hopes to get some of the 
 feeling of the way it will be tomorrow." And with 
 a somewhat hysterical noise he went to the stair 
 way. "All right, Nancy." 
 
 In a minute Nancy appeared on the stairs and, 
 walking stiffly across into the library, she climbed 
 upon a footstool at the far end. In front of her 
 was an old violin stand. Upon it she put her notes. 
 She then raised her face; and even at the distance it 
 appeared flushed. 
 
 "Fellow workers," she began. 
 
 At this point Henry broke into uncontrollable 
 laughter. "Excuse me, really, but it is too much. 
 Fellow workers oh, dear me. Oh, oh, I am 
 afraid I can t stand it. You must excuse me, really. 
 Oh, dear me," and rising weakly, handkerchief in 
 hand, he tottered from the room. 
 
 Nancy, the picture of resigned despair, gazed at 
 Tom. He felt slightly hysterical himself. 
 
 "What are we to do?" she asked helplesly. As 
 they were nearly fifty feet apart, the pitch of her
 
 Tutors Lane 83 
 
 voice was necessarily above that used in ordinary 
 conversation and gave to her words considerable 
 melodramatic force. A fresh shout of laughter 
 descending from the stairs made the situation none 
 the easier. 
 
 Nancy was, indeed, thoroughly upset. What was 
 to become of her independent life if this failed? 
 How else could she express herself? Was it to 
 collapse at the very start, before she could even 
 approach her dreams for the future? To have it 
 end ridiculously, to have her become a laughing 
 stock, would be too cruel. No, she would fight for 
 her liberty. 
 
 "Why, the thing to do is to go on," replied Tom. 
 Had those words been said at Marengo or Poitiers 
 or Persepolis, they might today be learned by school 
 children. They were of the stuff that wins lost 
 causes. They stem defeat as effectively as fresh 
 battalions. 
 
 "Fellow workers," Nancy began again, and this 
 time there was only respectful silence, "I have come 
 to you today to tell you a little something about the 
 machines which are forever your property, which 
 were given to you by your Maker and which it is 
 your sacred duty to keep in as good condition as 
 possible. I mean your own bodies." She paused, 
 and Tom nodded encouragement from the other 
 room. "It has become my pleasant duty to come 
 to you and tell you how you may keep these God- 
 given machines. You are to regard me, in other 
 words, as your friend and sister." The lecturer
 
 84 Tutors Lane 
 
 was here threatened by a dry, pippy, cough and the 
 whole course was imperilled. However, she drove 
 fiercely on. 
 
 "At the outset you should have a brief working 
 knowledge of such things as your heart and lungs, 
 your pancreas, liver, big and little intestines and 
 their juices; and I shall, accordingly, give you a 
 brief idea of the various systems, beginning today 
 with the circulatory and respiratory. Next time 
 I shall hope to cover the digestive and excretory 
 tracts, and I shall close with two talks on personal 
 hygiene." This ended the preliminary matter, and 
 the lecturer proceeded with the body of her talk in 
 a somewhat more mechanical style. The respira 
 tory system was dismissed in six minutes, although, 
 in some curious way, Mr. Sprig had strung the same 
 material out to half an hour. 
 
 Before beginning upon the circulatory system, 
 however, she sprang a surprise. "For your conven 
 ience," she explained, "I shall draw a diagram of 
 the heart and its valves, and with your assistance I 
 shall explain its action." After a little wrestling 
 with the diagram, which would curl, she managed 
 to pin it to the wall. She then proceeded, in red 
 crayon, to draw a fully equipped heart. She fin 
 ished with audible relief and, turning triumphantly 
 greeted Miss Balch and her brother Leofwin. 
 
 "Dear me, I am afraid we are intruding," said 
 Miss Balch, looking around with ingenuous charm. 
 
 Henry, having heard the bell which the social 
 workers had been too absorbed to hear, appeared at
 
 Tutors Lane 85 
 
 the door and relieved the situation temporarily. 
 Leofwin, however, whose eye was naturally caught 
 by the pictorial, was gazing at the circulatory sys 
 tem on the wall. "What on earth is that?" he 
 asked, with more curiosity than was perhaps excus 
 able. "It looks for all the world like some sort of 
 impressionistic valentine." 
 
 Nancy, for one reckless moment, was tempted to 
 say that it was, but temperate judgment prevailed. 
 After all, why need she be ashamed of what they 
 were doing? 
 
 "Tom and I are giving a course of lectures at the 
 Mill, in hygiene, and we are just rehearsing a little; 
 that s all. The valentine shows the heart action. 
 Those arm things are the valves, you see." 
 
 "But, really, you know, even a valve must have 
 some perspective." 
 
 "Well, of course, I m no artist. The cut in the 
 dictionary was very small, and when I enlarged it I 
 tried to get the right proportions, but I just had my 
 tape measure and " 
 
 "I shall help you. Elfrida will bear me out: I 
 have always been interested in the lower classes, 
 and I shall love to go with you and draw it when 
 the time comes." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn t let you do that." 
 
 "Why not? I admit I ve had no experience, but, 
 after all, in a work of this kind, it is the spirit that 
 counts, isn t it?" 
 
 Elfrida had engaged Tom and Henry at a point 
 as far distant as she could from her brother and
 
 86 Tutors Lane 
 
 Nancy, and she now asked Tom what he thought 
 of Somebody s latest novel and made him lose 
 track of their conversation. 
 
 "Are you really a realist?" asked Miss Balch. 
 
 "No, I don t think I am." 
 
 "Fancy," replied Miss Balch. "Then I think 
 you would like a thing I got out of the library the 
 other day by one of these new Russians. He has 
 some dreadful name. Well, it is about this man, a 
 peasant, who falls in love with this Bolshevist agent, 
 and she uses the man, you see, as a tool. Then 
 there is this other woman in it who " 
 
 Leofwin had adopted a very free-and-easy man 
 ner, it seemed to Tom. He was sitting with his 
 legs crossed, hands folded, one arm over the back 
 of his chair, half facing Nancy. He was being ex 
 tremely bland and at his ease. It was the sort of 
 thing one might do in a Russian drawing-room, per 
 haps, where the ladies doubtless didn t mind being 
 bitten in a fit of passion, but it was decidedly not 
 the way to behave in Woodbridge although it must 
 be confessed that an impartial observer might have 
 failed to distinguish any marked difference in the 
 way Tom himself was sitting, since he, too, had 
 crossed his legs, folded his hands, and was half fac 
 ing Nancy. It was clear that Nancy was painfully 
 trying to do the honours. "You must let me see 
 your pictures," Tom heard her say. 
 
 ". . .Really, Mr. Reynolds, I think you might 
 listen to me when I m trying so hard to entertain 
 you."
 
 Tutors Lane 87 
 
 "Why, I heard everything you said. All about 
 this new Russian." 
 
 "Sly boots!" said Miss Balch archly. 
 
 Tom wondered what the proper reply was. What 
 he wanted to say, in the same arch manner was "Puss 
 Wuss!" but instead he just grinned brightly and let 
 it be inferred that he was thinking of all sorts of 
 clever things. 
 
 "A penny for your thoughts, sir," cried Miss 
 Balch. 
 
 This was unbearable, especially since Henry was 
 apparently enjoying it so much. 
 
 "I hope you won t think me rude, but I was think 
 ing of the great pile of uncorrected test papers at 
 home on my desk, and I am afraid you will have to 
 excuse me." He rose. The whole room rose. 
 
 He started for the door, and Nancy hurried over 
 to him. "Isn t it dreadful?" she seemed to say. 
 Behind her, like Tartarin s camel, loomed Leofwin. 
 
 "We ll meet here at twelve," Nancy said, and 
 with an effort she managed to include the cavalier 
 and irrepressible artist, who, beaming and bowing, 
 showed in every corner of him his thorough approval 
 of the whole arrangement.
 
 IX 
 
 BY a coincidence, the two men arrived at ten 
 minutes to twelve. They found Nancy in 
 a rather pathetic state of excitement. She 
 had been running up and down stairs and from one 
 room to another and she met them with the elabor 
 ate calm of one about to give himself up to a capital 
 operation. 
 
 "We have a nice day for it, anyway," she said 
 bravely. Any agreeable condition, however remote 
 it might at first appear from the business at hand, 
 was welcome. "Tell me," she asked Tom, "do you 
 think I m dresesd suitably?" 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "Some social workers go down in the slums in the 
 worst old clothes they can find, but I ve heard that 
 the people down there like to see nice things, so I 
 compromised. This is just a gingham dress, you 
 see, but I m wearing my pearls." 
 
 "I should think that s just right. Didn t Henry, 
 the Labour expert, help you?" 
 
 "Oh, I didn t bother him. He s not interested, 
 you see." 
 
 Leofwin, who had been fidgeting around for an 
 opening, now burst forth. "I came early," he said, 
 "to find out if I can t do the lungs too; I ve been 
 
 88
 
 Tutors Lane 89 
 
 practising them along with the heart, you know, and 
 I think it might go well dashing them in somewhere. 
 What?" Leofwin s "what s" were noteworthy. 
 They were in a higher key than the rest of his 
 conversation, which was itself high, and he drew 
 them out to almost exquisite lengths. They were 
 nearly all that was left of his week-end with 
 the patron in Suffolk. 
 
 "Oh, dear me, no," replied Nancy with consider 
 able spirit. 
 
 "I think you will like my heart," he continued un 
 dismayed. "I ve been doing them all morning. I 
 dug up some priceless old Beaux Arts crayons. It 
 will be nice when we get to the brain. It s awfully 
 romantic, I find," and he gave Nancy a killing smile. 
 She gazed at him placidly and then turned to Tom. 
 "What time is it?" she asked. 
 
 "Nearly twelve." 
 
 At this point Edmund drove up, and with rer 
 newed palpitations the party proceeded to the Mill. 
 
 As they passed in through the gates Tom noticed 
 with sickening dread a huge sign in flaming letters, 
 "ARE YOU PHYSICALLY FIT? Mr. Rey 
 nolds of Woodbridge Will Address You " 
 
 They were met by Bob Whitman, a hearty young 
 man who had just been made an officer of the Com 
 pany. He stared at Leofwin in amused bewilder 
 ment. 
 
 "Mr. Balch is helping me with the diagrams," 
 explained Nancy. "And now where do we go?" 
 
 "Well, you d better just sit here for a minute or
 
 go Tutors Lane 
 
 two until they get settled with their lunches. I ll 
 take you to where you go; and what s more, Nancy, 
 I ll introduce you!" Nancy received the word "in 
 troduce" as a surgical case receives the initial in 
 jection of morphine. The first step had been 
 taken, and nothing could save her. "As for you, 
 Tom, your lecture room s over there, and I T 11 get 
 the foreman to introduce you." 
 
 "Don t think of it," said Tom quickly, "I ll just 
 introduce myself; get to be one of them, you know 
 what I mean. Just one of the boys." 
 
 "Well, Miss Whitman, let s you and I get to be 
 just one of the girls," tittered Leofwin. 
 
 "I think we might as well go in," said Nancy 
 without noticing Leofwin s jest, which appeared 
 singularly hollow. 
 
 "You re sure you don t want some one to start 
 you off, Tom?" asked Bob. 
 
 Tom was certain of it; and before entering his 
 room, he waited until Nancy s party had disappeared 
 around the corner. He then opened the door and, 
 going over to a man who was ruminating vacantly 
 upon a huge chunk of bread, sat down. "There s 
 going to be some sort of lecture here, today, isn t 
 there?" he asked. 
 
 "I dunno," replied the man. 
 
 "Yeah, there is," spoke up a hand nearby. "I 
 seen it on a sign this morning. Some guy from the 
 college." 
 
 "That s what I thought," said Tom. "I thought 
 I d just come in and see what he had to say. Can t
 
 Tutors Lane 91 
 
 stay very long, though," he added, looking at his 
 watch. Then after a pause, "Pretty nice place you 
 got here." 
 
 "Oh, it s good enough, I guess." 
 
 The room was a large one, filled with three or 
 four dozen tables bearing complicated-looking ma 
 chinery. There were twenty or thirty men sitting 
 around solemnly chewing their food. 
 
 "Pretty slow now, isn t it?" asked Tom. 
 
 "Yeah, they laid off about a hundred last week." 
 
 "This laying-off stuff would have gone bigger a 
 couple of years ago in the army wouldn t it?" 
 
 "I ll say it would." 
 
 "Have a cigarette?" said Tom. "What outfit 
 were you in?" 
 
 The prospect of free cigarettes and army talk, 
 which already in less than three years had taken on 
 a romantic glow, attracted the other men, who, as 
 they finished their lunches, came up and joined the 
 circle. Tom was holding forth in the centre; and 
 when Bob Whitman glanced in on his way Rome he 
 could see that Tom, by making his talk informal, 
 was getting it across in great style. 
 
 Once, during the conversation, Providence seemed 
 to offer an opportunity of bringing in his lecture in 
 fsuch a way that no one would guess he was giving 
 it. 
 
 His conscience bothered him a little, and he 
 plunged ahead. One of the men told how his 
 bunkie at Base Six in Bordeaux had died of heart 
 failure when under ether. In a somewhat parched
 
 92 Tutors Lane 
 
 voice Tom started to explain how this could come 
 about, but in no time he was talking gibberish. 
 "The aorta," he heard himself saying, "is the big 
 main artery which comes out of one of the ventri 
 cles," and then he noticed the dazed look on the 
 men s faces and, floundering hopelessly, managed 
 to laugh it off. Well, he had tried to talk to them, 
 anyway, and by consulting his watch he found that 
 half an hour had gone by. 
 
 After his third cigarette he had come plentifully 
 supplied he looked at his watch again. He could 
 go at last! It was ten minutes to one, and Nancy 
 had probably finished long ago. "Apparently this 
 guy isn t coming today. I ve got to run along. 
 Well, I ve enjoyed this talk a lot," and with an 
 inclusive smile and wave of the hand he went. 
 
 Nancy wasn t back in the car, and starting off in 
 the direction they had taken, he soon came to her 
 room. There must have been a hundred women in 
 it and it was Leofwin, not Nancy, who was talking 
 to them. 
 
 Tom opened the door quietly and sat down on a 
 stool in the rear. Nancy, pale and helpless, was 
 sitting on one side of a resplendent circulatory sys 
 tem drawn to illustrate the subtleties of the de 
 signer s art. 
 
 "You will observe, ladies," Leofwin was saying in 
 his purest Suffolk manner, "that shading is done 
 with the crayon well back, like this." He made a 
 few swift lines on the corner of the System and 
 looked up with his bright, inquisitive smile. "Now
 
 Tutors Lane 93 
 
 are there any questions?" There was a stony 
 silence, amid which the one o clock whistle blew. 
 
 The foreman, left in charge by Bob, rose. "I m 
 sorry, Miss Whitman, but I m afraid we ll have to 
 stop today." 
 
 The worker s friend and sister bowed to him and, 
 clutching her notes and her bag, with firmly set lips 
 and eyes fixed, marched to the door. Leofwin fol 
 lowed, bowing pleasantly right and left, to the in 
 tense gratification of his audience, and the trio re 
 tired. 
 
 "Jolly, wasn t it?" said Leofwin. "I m sorry, 
 though, we couldn t have had more time. I didn t 
 get to foreshortening at all. However, I think I 
 probably helped them a good deal. Sometime I d 
 like to tell them about etching, you know, and 
 aqua and mezzotints." 
 
 Nancy received her assistant s remarks in com 
 plete silence. She was even unable to do more than 
 nod a good-bye to him. But she shook Tom s hand 
 in parting, and, with an air that might augur the 
 worst, she asked him to come and see her on the next 
 afternoon. 
 
 Nancy was particularly charming, Tom thought 
 when he was again with her, and what was even 
 more to the point, he found that they were to be 
 alone. She got his tea ready without difficulty he 
 was flattered that she remembered his formula and 
 they settled back for a good talk and laugh. 
 
 "I wasn t civil to him, but I really don t care ! 
 Did you ever know a more dreadful person?"
 
 94 Tutors Lane 
 
 "Never. He s awful. But, tell me, how did it 
 go until he took charge?" 
 
 "Why, not so badly. But, oh, Tom I heard 
 about you!" 
 
 Tom flushed. "What did you hear?" 
 
 "Well, Bob was here last night and he said he saw 
 you through the window. He told us how you 
 got them all around you and how you might have 
 been talking about anything." She was wholly 
 admiring. 
 
 "Oh, I just talked to them," he said. "I never 
 could have gotten away with anything formal." 
 
 "Isn t it funny? I used to think that teaching 
 must be the easiest thing in the world. I used to 
 imagine myself lecturing to the whole college, but 
 I can appreciate now what you and Henry are 
 doing." 
 
 Tom was anxious to have the conversation move 
 upon firmer ground. He was also in the dark as to 
 what the next move in the campaign was to be. 
 
 Was it to be abandoned, or were they to try and 
 carry on? The latter possibility seemed too 
 fearful. How could he go into that room again? 
 But one must proceed cautiously. It would never 
 do, for example, to come out and treat the whole 
 thing as a distinctly juvenile performance, something 
 they had quite outgrown, until it was clear that they 
 had outgrown it. Again, now was not the time to 
 explain the real nature of his lecture. He could do 
 that when the whole thing had become an amusing
 
 Tutors Lane 95 
 
 memory. "What are we going to do about Mr. 
 Sprig?" asked Tom vaguely. 
 
 "You mean are we going to keep on with the lec 
 tures?" 
 
 "Well, yes." 
 
 "What do you think? Last night I was so sick 
 about the whole thing that I was ready to give it all 
 up, but now I wonder if it isn t our duty to give it 
 one more trial." Her words were disappointing, 
 but the dispirited tone in which she said them was 
 cheering, and Tom made so bold as to sing the lately 
 revived "Duty, duty must be done, the rule applies 
 to everyone, and painful though the duty be, to 
 shirk the task were fiddle-dee-dee . . ." ; a happy im 
 pulse, for when Henry arrived from his five o clock 
 he found Tom at the piano and Nancy sitting by 
 him, the one in the role of the Mikado of Japan and 
 the other as his daughter-in-law-elect. 
 
 When, however, on the following Tuesday they 
 again climbed down from the fourth floor of the 
 Whitman building, the light had indeed gone out of 
 the undertaking. Mr. Sprig s subject, the digestive 
 and excretory tracts, had not been a propitious one 
 for so critical a time. Leofwin, who had invited 
 himself along, had been captivated by the decorative 
 possibilities of the alimentary canal and had led 
 the discussion following the lecture with a vigour 
 and thoroughness trying for those unfamiliar with 
 an artist s training. "Don t you think it might be 
 fun to trace something all the way from the initial
 
 96 Tutors Lane 
 
 bite down?" he asked. "Let s take an olive, a 
 green olive. Back to Nature by A. Green Olive: 
 A Drama in Six Acts and any Number of Scenes. 
 
 Tom was looking intently at the diagrams on the 
 walls. At musical comedies and the movies, when 
 embarrassing situations arose, one was, in a meas 
 ure, prepared. The darkness, too, helped, and one 
 could stare straight ahead until the relief, which 
 was rarely long in coming, arrived. There was, 
 finally, the comfort of numbers. But now they were 
 only two the artist and the scientist being immune 
 to shame. It was, furthermore, extremely bright, 
 everybody was out in the open, and although the 
 amateurs had come prepared for a momentary brush 
 with a bowel or two, they had no reason to expect 
 a prolonged causerie upon even more intimate mat 
 ters. Tom was, accordingly, hot with embarrass 
 ment, and he had reason to believe that Nancy was 
 also. 
 
 As Leofwin rattled on, with frankness ever more 
 Elizabethan, Tom glanced at Nancy. She was ex 
 amining the point of her pencil with as elaborate an 
 interest as he had ever seen shown in any object. 
 It seemed an altogether remarkable affair; but then, 
 apparently, so was the eraser. They were com 
 plementary. A line could be made by the point, 
 a delicate, straight line; and then, reversing the pen 
 cil, the line could be taken out by the eraser. The 
 thing was complete. 
 
 Tom became angry. What right had that great 
 calf to subject Nancy to such an ordeal? He turned
 
 Tutors Lane 97 
 
 to her and said without lowering his voice, "This is 
 rather dull, don t you think? Let s go out and see 
 the hens." 
 
 They went out, but couldn t very well see the hens, 
 since they had no candle and were above deceiving 
 them with the porch light. Accordingly, they 
 stepped back into the little hallway that led to the 
 library. To go on into the library was to expose 
 themselves again to the mortification of the physio 
 logical vagaries of Leofwin. So they just stood in 
 the little hallway. And then, they laughed. 
 
 The relief of a thunderstorm on a stifling day is 
 proverbial, as is the relief of finding one s handker 
 chief just before one sneezes; but what are these 
 compared with the flooding joy that comes with re 
 lease from an embarrassing situation with a young 
 lady? The effect upon Tom was to make him ex 
 cited; more so, perhaps, than he had ever been. It 
 was the same swelling, throbbing excitement he had 
 felt when, waiting in his room on the afternoon of his 
 Election Day, he realized by the shouting of the 
 crowd below that his election was coming. 
 
 Nancy was really wonderful. From being curi 
 ous about her, he had been swept into the Problem 
 of Living with which he had found her somewhat 
 pathetically struggling. It had absorbed him in the 
 brief time that he had encountered it; and now that 
 her first attempt at a solution had ended in ridiculous 
 failure, she immediately rose above it in laughter! 
 
 And how happy was the cause of their laughter, 
 after all. An experience such as the one they had
 
 98 Tutors Lane 
 
 just come through must make or break a friendship. 
 Their relationship could not remain the same; and 
 with their laughter they had sealed the new bond. 
 
 They said little as they strolled home, alone, in 
 the clear night. It had in it the first suggestion of 
 spring; and neither, apparently, found need to hurry. 
 
 "Bob will have to straighten it out at the Mill," 
 said Nancy, "and I shall write Mr. Sprig. I think 
 we ought to send him something, don t you)?" 
 
 They had come to the Whitman gate. It was a 
 high wooden structure, connected at the top, and in 
 the spring it was covered with roses. The fanlight 
 in the old doorway shone down the brick walk and 
 touched Nancy s hair. 
 
 "Of course we must." 
 
 They shook hands and bade each other good night. 
 And then, as Nancy turned from him and went up 
 the lighted walk and into the house, Tom knew 
 without any particular surprise and quite without 
 a rising temperature, that he loved her.
 
 X 
 
 NANCY emerged from her social service work 
 with the feeling that she had added several 
 chapters to the store of her experience. 
 The sheep-like expression that covered the compos 
 ite face of her group had brought home to her the 
 ineffectiveness of her plan. One couldn t, it was 
 clear, go down among the masses, no matter how 
 thoughtfully dressed, with only an equipment of good 
 will, and hope to do them much good. Nor was 
 she, she now suspected, the person to attempt such 
 a career. She fancied she saw inherent weaknesses 
 in her character which would preclude a successful 
 performance. She had been frightened, rather 
 than inspired, by the women in that room, partic 
 ularly by the women of her own age. "What right 
 have you to come down here with your pearls and 
 your simple gingham dress," she felt they were 
 asking, " and get off a lot of this college stuff to us?" 
 What right indeed? She was convinced, in short, 
 that she had been embarked upon a hopeless piece of 
 snobbery, and, finding the whole business distasteful, 
 it had not been difficult to discover her unfitness. 
 
 The time had not been wasted, however. Not 
 only had she satisfied herself that a career of Uplift 
 
 was not for her, but she had made a friend into the 
 
 99
 
 10O Tutors Lane 
 
 bargain. Tom, she decided, had behaved beauti 
 fully through it; and in her humbled state of mind 
 the offence she had taken at his acting in the charade 
 became all the more odious. What a mean-minded 
 girl she could be, to be sure; yet how perfectly he 
 had risen above the situation. He had received 
 her rudeness with an instinctive fineness that gave 
 freshness to the Biblical admonition about the other 
 cheek. He had returned good for evil, and in sup 
 porting her through the ordeal of the Uplift Plan 
 he had proved himself a tower of strength. 
 
 Tom and she, a few days after the final lecture, 
 had gone together to the college book shop and 
 picked out their present for Professor Sprig. They 
 had dawdled over the shelves, pulling down a book 
 here and another there, meeting every few minutes 
 to show each other a possibility, and then putting it 
 back. The thing could, of course, have been done 
 much more quickly, but neither seemed in a hurry 
 to find the right one, for they both liked books, and 
 the shop was well-stocked, and the clerks did not 
 descend like buzzards upon them. They at length 
 selected a rag-paper, wide-margined copy of Calver- 
 ley s Verses and Fly Leaves and laughed at its in- 
 appropriateness for the physiologist. Still, they 
 were confident enough that Mr. Sprig knew his 
 Calverley quite as well as they, and that another 
 copy would not be a burden. It had been a delight 
 ful two hours, and Nancy, at dinner, began a detailed 
 account of it. 
 
 But Henry was not interested. "It seems to me
 
 Tutors Lane 101 
 
 that you are seeing a good deal of Tom Reynolds, 
 lately," was all that he said. 
 
 And why shouldn t she see a good deal of Tom 
 Reynolds? she asked herself. There was that in 
 Henry s tone which opened up the old-time anger. 
 Here he was, questioning her again, this time ques 
 tioning her friends. He was questioning Tom ! 
 
 Had Henry wished to further the young man s 
 chances with his sister to the best of his ability, he 
 could not have chosen a more effective method.. 
 Tom, who had been doing very well on his own ac 
 count, was now made doubly romantic through perse 
 cution. Nor do I think Nancy should be condemned 
 as over-sentimental for feeling so, for if the reader 
 who cannot conceivably be thought over-senti 
 mental examine his own experience, I dare say he 
 will find a parallel. In any event, Nancy was in a 
 fair way to discover a tender interest in Tom, if, 
 indeed, she had not already done so. 
 
 But in the meantime, she must be true to herself 
 and live richly. She had not yet determined what 
 her new work would be, nor should she determine 
 what it would be until she had considered the matter 
 more dispassionately than she had the last one. 
 Until the right thing was apparent, therefore, she 
 would devote herself with more assiduity to the 
 physical, mental, and spiritual progress of her 
 nephew. After all, what finer work could there be 
 than the rearing of a first-class American youth? 
 
 Henry had sent his son to Miss West s kinder 
 garten when he was scarcely four. Harry had not
 
 1O2 Tutors Lane 
 
 done well at the various cutting and pasting exer 
 cises, but he had been somewhat precocious at read 
 ing and was already advanced into the third reader. 
 His orthographic sense, however, had not yet un- 
 budded, and it was to the gentle fostering of this, 
 in particular, that Nancy now committed herself. 
 She also thought it high time that his musical edu 
 cation should commence, and the services of Miss 
 Marbury were invoked. Harry, unlike the general 
 run of his fellows, was wholly charmed with the 
 prospect of playing, and the old piano was assailed 
 with a diligence reminiscent of the youthful Handel. 
 So it happened that Harry was practising in mid- 
 afternoon on the day when Leofwin Balch called, 
 something over a week after the debacle of Nancy s 
 social service career. 
 
 Nancy, too, was at home and was much surprised 
 and annoyed when her late assistant appeared. Not 
 the least surprising feature of his call was his cos 
 tume. Usually clad with a conspicuous and artistic 
 carelessness, he was today arrayed like the lilies 
 of the field. He was wearing a morning coat, fault 
 lessly pressed, and in its buttonhole bloomed a gar 
 denia. He carried a stick with a gold band around 
 it, his spats were of a light and wonderful tan, and 
 in his hand, in place of the usual greenish-brown 
 veteran, he held a grey fedora of precisely the shape 
 and shade worn by His Royal Highness the Prince 
 of Wales, on the occasion of that happiest of events, 
 his recent visit to our country. 
 
 "I learned from your chauffeur that you were at
 
 Tutors Lane 103 
 
 home," said Leofwin, smiling graciously, "but I had 
 no way of knowing that you were alone." 
 
 He had actually been spying on her! "Why 
 didn t you call up one of the maids?" replied Nancy 
 with more asperity than was perhaps becoming in 
 a hostess. 
 
 "Delightful picture," laughed Leofwin, "but as 
 a matter of fact you see I don t know any of them, 
 what?" and he nodded pleasantly. 
 
 Harry, who had progressed to the D scale at his 
 second and latest lesson, was going over it with all 
 the ardour of first love, and contributed a tinkly- 
 winkly background which was vaguely disturbing. It 
 was not near enough, however, to be quite recog 
 nizable, and Leofwin carried on without comment, 
 supposing it to be a kind of funny clock, or some 
 thing. 
 
 "I called," he continued, "at this odd hour in the 
 hope that I might find out how you are after our 
 recent attempt to improve the lower classes." He 
 drew his chair up nearer to Nancy as he spoke, and 
 there was a tenderness in his tone that alarmed her, 
 particularly in the way he emphasized "our." 
 
 "I am quite well, thank you." 
 
 "Oh, but I am glad to hear it," he safd. 
 
 The fervour of his words was nonsensical, but his 
 intention, alas, was becoming clear. 
 
 "If you will forgive me," he continued, "I shall 
 begin at once upon the business at hand. We art 
 ists, you know, are sometimes accused of being un 
 businesslike. Goodness only knows, I am a mere
 
 104 Tutors Lane 
 
 child at stocks and bonds and par and all those 
 things, but the underlying essence of business I 
 rather fancy I have that is, quickness of percep 
 tion. Now I quickly perceive that we are likely to 
 be interrupted here at almost any minute." He 
 paused and looked about a little wildly. "I do wish 
 we might have a more secluded nook for our talk." 
 Nancy, however, who was now prepared for the 
 worst, did not offer more seclusion and her lover 
 continued. "I wish we had some grotto where I 
 ould lead you. I would have it on the Libyan 
 shore. Overhead would be the azure sky. Before 
 us, stealing up the golden beach, would be the Med 
 iterranean. What a colourful scene ! Soft breezes 
 would lull you to my mood, and on their spicy-laden 
 breath would come the notes of faery music." 
 
 While preparing for this call Leofwin had la 
 boured over that conceit with all the diligence at 
 his command; perhaps too diligently, for even he, 
 had he not been blinded by zeal, might have seen 
 that it was something too ornate to appeal to a 
 rather practical young lady of twenty-five. It was 
 much too ornate, that is certain; and it alone would 
 have made him absurd had not fate joined forces 
 against him and at precisely this point prompted 
 Harry, who was for once impatient with his prog 
 ress, to try to reproduce the larger music coursing 
 through his soul. This he did by striking out wildly 
 upon the keys in all directions; and at the same time 
 the faithful Clarence, sUimberingly waiting for his
 
 Tutors Lane 105 
 
 master s return to earthly matters, burst into full 
 cry. 
 
 "Good gracious, what is that?" cried Leofwin. 
 
 Nancy sped to the door of the music room, while 
 strange and crashing harmonies rang through the 
 house. "Stop, Harry. Stop that dreadful noise. 
 You mustn t do that. Some one is calling on me. 
 I think you had better go out and play, anyway." 
 
 "Oh, please, Auntie, please let me play the scales 
 some more. Just for fifteen minutes." 
 
 It would have taken a heart of flint to with 
 stand such pleading. Nancy left the musician and 
 went boldly back to her visitor. 
 
 Leofwin was plainly annoyed by the interruption. 
 He should now have to start all over again, and 
 starting was difficult. As Nancy reappeared, how 
 ever, the clouds rolled from his brow. 
 
 "Is everything quite all right?" he asked solici 
 tously. 
 
 "Quite all right, thank you." 
 
 "Well, in speaking just now of the Libyan grotto, 
 I think I probably suggested the theme of my visit 
 to you this afternoon. I confess, I am a passion 
 ate man. Things of the senses appeal to me more 
 than to most; it is, of course, the artist within me. 
 I am like a mountain torrent or the beetling crest of 
 an ocean comber rushing, full-bodied, down upon 
 upon the floor." He came to a full stop and 
 stared with pursed lips at the object of his love, 
 sitting unhappily before him. What the devil do
 
 io6 Tutors Lane 
 
 mountain torrents and ocean combers rush down 
 upon? Nothing as domestic, surely, as a floor. 
 The thing was unhappily met. 
 
 "Please, Mr. Balch," said Nancy, ris ing, "please 
 don t go any further. I really can t listen to you." 
 
 "Nancy," he cried, attempting to seize her hand. 
 "I must call you Nancy. I must call you more 
 than that. With you by my side there will be noth 
 ing I cannot do. I shall make your name ring down 
 the ages like Madame Recamier, or or, Mona 
 Lisa. I already have planned a piece for us. You 
 are to be Miranda, and I shall be Ferdinand. You 
 are just emerging from your bath, and I am peer 
 ing through the bushes at you " 
 
 The picture was such a dreadful one that Nancy 
 could endure the situation no longer. From being 
 anxious to let him down as easily as possible for he 
 was, after all, paying her a compliment she wished 
 the scene over at any cost. He was making 
 the most holy of moments a travesty. She felt 
 amazingly self-possessed. 
 
 "I appreciate the honour of your intention, Mr. 
 Balch" the language was that of Jane Austen, 
 whom she had just been reading "but I cannot 
 allow it to go on. In fact," she hastened to add, 
 for he showed signs of going on, "I shall have to 
 ask you to go." 
 
 The D scale, laboriously achieved, floated in from 
 the music room. Leofwin turned away and Nancy, 
 standing aside for him, was dismayed to note that
 
 Tutors Lane 107 
 
 his little eyes were filled with sorrow and disappoint 
 ment. 
 
 "It is true," he said, "that I have for some time 
 wanted you for myself, but of late another reason 
 has been urging me on. If it hadn t been for it, I 
 don t think I could have come to you. You see, it 
 is my sister. She has set her heart upon a trip 
 abroad; not an ordinary touristy trip, you know, but 
 a real one to Italy. We have now only enough 
 money for one to go I gladly resigned it to her 
 but she does not feel that she can leave me alone. 
 If only you could have but there, my dear, I ll not 
 go on." 
 
 Nancy was a little disconcerted by this sudden 
 turn. The situation had become almost impersonal. 
 "I m sorry," she said. She wished that she could 
 have thought of a better remark a better one came 
 in the night, when she was going over the whole 
 affair but he seemed grateful even for that. 
 
 "Thank you," he said. "But Elfrida will be so 
 disappointed. You simply can t imagine how this 
 will spoil all her plans. But perhaps you will let 
 me try again some time?" 
 
 Harry was following his right hand with his left, 
 an octave lower, with almost no success. 
 
 "No, I am afraid not," said Nancy as they stood 
 in the doorway. She softened her words, however, 
 by holding out her hand. 
 
 "Good-bye," he replied, gently taking it; and then, 
 following the Continental custom, he stooped and
 
 io8 Tutors Lane 
 
 kissed it, much to the amusement of two undergradu 
 ates who were at the time passing down Tutors 
 Lane.
 
 XI 
 
 ON the morning following the final lecture 
 Tom woke early, and his mind flew to the 
 miracle of the preceding night. He was 
 now ablaze with Nancy! It was a dazzling busi 
 ness, but when had it happenedj? It had not been 
 as though he had gazed too boldly into the sun and 
 had fallen down, blinded by the light of it. It had, 
 to date, been altogether painless. He had seen 
 Nancy in various situations, some of them pleasant, 
 some of them trying. He had liked the way she 
 had met them; and then it dawned upon him that her 
 behaviour was consistently good; and next he knew 
 that it would always be so. This was a stupendous 
 discovery, the more so since he was not aware of any 
 such consistency in his own character. Had he not 
 learned in elementary physics that unlike poles 
 attract one another? He could even now picture 
 a diagram in the book showing the hearty plus pole 
 in happy affinity with the retiring minus pole, a figure 
 which proved the thing beyond a doubt. Science, 
 when made to serve as handmaiden to the arts, has 
 its uses, after all, and Tom took comfort in its pres 
 ent service. 
 
 Still, Nancy wasn t "cut and dried"; it would be 
 a grave injustice to imagine her so. She was con- 
 
 109
 
 no Tutors Lane 
 
 sistent in an ever new and charming way; she never 
 obtruded her consistency. One would almost cer 
 tainly never be bored with her; and yet one could 
 depend upon her through thick and thin. He 
 thought of the way the crew on a ferry boat throw 
 their ropes over the great piles as they make fast 
 in the slip. Nancy was such a pile but what an 
 odious figure! He thought of her face as he had 
 first seen it on the night of the Vernal, when, slightly 
 flushed and smilingly expectant, she had peered into 
 the costume closet. A couplet floated out of Fresh 
 man English into his mind something about a coun 
 tenance which had in it sweet records and promises 
 as sweet. He jumped out of bed to verify it, and 
 found : 
 
 "A countenance in which did meet 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet." 
 
 He read on: 
 
 "A creature not too bright or good 
 For human nature s daily food, 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and 
 smiles." 
 
 There was one more verse, and the last two couplets 
 covered everything. 
 
 "A perfect Woman, nobly planned 
 To warm, to comfort, and command ; 
 And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
 With something of an angel-light."
 
 Tutors Lane in 
 
 He turned the book down, open at this point, and 
 resolved to memorize those lines. 
 
 His youth and playtime had now left him for 
 good. The time for half-hearted or three-quarters- 
 hearted attempts to forge ahead were over. He 
 had pledged his heart and shortly hoped to pledge 
 his hand in the service of the loveliest young lady in 
 the world, none less. At present he was only a young 
 instructor; of promise, perhaps, but still unproved. 
 The immediate goal in his academic career was an 
 Assistant Professorship; and although, even under 
 the most favourable circumstances, it would prob 
 ably be a matter of at least three years before he got 
 it, nevertheless he could at least make it plain that 
 he was indubitably on the way to it, and that (giddy 
 thought) he was even of the stuff that Full Profes 
 sors are made on! And no time should be lost be 
 fore this were shown. Dressing feverishly, he cor 
 rected some slightly overdue test papers; and when 
 he appeared at breakfast his landlady s three other 
 guests noted the spirit in his bearing and commented 
 upon it when he left. 
 
 There was to be a meeting of the Freshman Eng 
 lish Department in the afternoon, and Tom found 
 himself looking eagerly forward to it. He had no 
 idea of the business that was coming up, but he was 
 going to be extremely keen-eyed and watchful about 
 it, whatever it was. The little slump which he had 
 allowed to creep into his work recently was over. 
 He wondered if any of his colleagues had no 
 ticed it, and in particular he wondered if Professor
 
 112 Tutors Lane 
 
 Dawson, Head of the Department, had noticed it. 
 
 Professor Dawson was Tom s beau ideal of all 
 that a university instructor should be. Tom had 
 had him when in college, had taken everything that 
 he taught; and he looked back upon the hours spent 
 at his feet as among the best of his whole life. To 
 teach like that was to be doing something indeed; 
 and it was the picture of himself giving formal lec 
 tures in the Dawsonian manner that had finally led 
 him into teaching. That Tom should have imitated 
 as best he could the Dawsonian manner and method 
 was, therefore, inevitable, but it none the less ex 
 posed him to the smiles of the Department. A 
 member of it, a Professor Furbush, found occasion 
 to refer to the Johnsonian anecdote anent sprats 
 talking like whales; and, Tom hearing of it, there 
 was brought into being one of the enmities which 
 add zest to collegiate existence. Professor Daw- 
 son was a young man to be so celebrated, being only 
 some fifteen years older than Tom himself. He 
 was, of course, a Full Professor the only Full Pro 
 fessor in Freshman English. 
 
 Next in rank to him in the Department was Mr. 
 Brainerd, a gentleman who was nearly as much Pro 
 fessor Dawson s senior as Dawson was Tom s. Mr. 
 Brainerd was, however, only an Assistant Professor, 
 and it was now understood by all that he would 
 never be anything higher. Fifteen years ago when 
 he produced his chef-d oeuvre on Smollett his hopes 
 had run high. At that time his fate hung in the bal-
 
 Tutors Lane 113 
 
 ance. He could no longer be regarded as one of the 
 "younger men," and his status was to be determined 
 once and for all. The crowning glory of a Full 
 Professorship could only go to one who had made 
 some significant contribution to his subject. Would 
 Tobias Smollett be that? Into it had gone all that 
 Brainerd could give, and it had, after a brief and 
 generally indifferent appearance in the reviews, 
 dropped out of sight. Then it was recognized that 
 good old Burt Brainerd would have to putter 
 through life as best he could. Mr. Brainerd felt 
 no particular bitterness about it, certainly no bitter 
 ness towards the College. He had been disap 
 pointed in his publisher. He should have gone to 
 Beeson, Pancoast with it; instead of to Trull. Trull 
 hadn t pushed it at all : they merely announced it with 
 a string of books on very dull subjects. Then, too, 
 they had used a cursed small type. He had pro 
 tested against this and had been told that a larger 
 type would have made it much more expensive, would 
 probably have necessitated doing the work in two 
 volumes. They had had the calm assurance to talk 
 to him of expense when he had consented to waive 
 his royalties on the first five hundred copies! an ex 
 emption, by the way, which they had not yet suc 
 ceeded in working off. Well, that had been his main 
 chance, and he now watched the rise of younger 
 men with equanimity. And it must be confessed 
 that he got a certain amount of cold comfort from 
 the remembrance that on three several occasions
 
 114 Tutors Lane 
 
 good things had come to him from out of the west, 
 and that he need not have remained "assistant" had 
 he not elected to do so. 
 
 Were it not for his wife, he might have become 
 content. The library was a strong one, particularly 
 in his field, and what more delightful end for a 
 scholar than to browse at will in his period and write 
 essays for the literary magazines? But Mrs. Brain- 
 erd chafed. Not having been a woman of means 
 or of any particular position, she had been somewhat 
 self-conscious in mixing with the great ones of the 
 place. She had, at length, however, after a resi 
 dence of nearly twenty years, decided that to live so 
 was nothing; and she had boldly called upon Mrs. 
 Robert Lee-Satterlee. She had found the great 
 lady all charm and friendliness; but when, upon 
 leaving, she had expressed the hope that Mrs. 
 Robert Lee-Satterlee might be inclined to return her 
 call, Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee had replied, "Thank 
 you." "Is it Thank you, yes or Thank you, no ?" 
 the rash woman had persisted. To which Mrs. 
 Robert Lee-Satterlee had bowed, "Well, since you 
 insist, I m afraid it will have to be Thank you, no. " 
 Mr. Brainerd had felt the snub perhaps more than 
 his wife, although he was most convincing in reassur 
 ing her that upon trying again, say with some one of 
 the Whitman family, there would be small danger 
 of such a rebuff. Mrs. Brainerd, however, had not 
 tried again and had, with what stoicism she could 
 command, resigned herself to the path God had or 
 dered for her feet. So Mr- Brainerd s end at
 
 Tutors Lane 115 
 
 Woodbridge was not a brilliant one, but he did not 
 shrink or cry aloud, and it was generally recognized 
 that dear old Burt Brainerd was a good sport. 
 
 The other Assistant Professor in Freshman Eng 
 lish has already been mentioned Jerome Furbush. 
 He was a young man, a classmate of Henry Whit 
 man, and rather intimate in consequence. He was, 
 quite decidedly, a striking figure. Whereas the 
 average member of the Faculty might have been 
 taken for an ordinary business man in his working 
 clothes, Furbush was obviously a man of tempera 
 ment. Tall and lean, he had allowed his beard to 
 grow into something of patriarchal proportions, or, 
 more exactly, into one of those healthy spade-like 
 growths which the French know so well how to 
 develop. That it was a rich red only added to its 
 distinction, and to his. He was noted for being a 
 hard worker and a wit, but feeling about him was 
 sharply divided. One could not be neutral; either 
 one hailed him as a prophet and seer, or one hated 
 him as an abandoned cynic, a vicious and arbitrary 
 egoist whose presence in the community was a men 
 ace. There appeared to be evidence in support of 
 either view. It was true that the Dean s office was 
 frequently absorbed by problems of his making. He 
 had a weakness, to illustrate, for calling his students 
 liars and cheats upon, frequently, tenuous evidence; 
 and the discussions that ensued were never amiable. 
 On the other hand, a certain number of the most 
 promising men in the class were invariably drawn to 
 him and, taking up his battles, defended him against
 
 n6 Tutors Lane 
 
 all detractors. The Permanent Officers had to ad 
 mit that he got "results," but they shook their heads. 
 Jerome Furbush was notoriously a "case." 
 
 Phil Meyers, instructor, had been graduated from 
 a small western college and had taken his PH.D. at 
 a large eastern university. He was what is known 
 as a "monographist," a thesis-writer; and it had 
 become apparent to all that he was not long for the 
 JWoodbridge world. Word had repeatedly come 
 through the somewhat devious channels of informa 
 tion that he was "no good." His classes were doing 
 shockingly bad work and they were articulate in 
 their disapproval of him. The coming June would 
 close his first appointment, and it had been tactfully 
 broken to him that he need not expect another. 
 
 Such was the personnel of the meeting in Mr. 
 Dawson is office. 
 
 "I have called you together today, gentlemen," 
 said Mr. Dawson after the preliminary pleasantries, 
 "to consider the advisibility of changing our course 
 next year. It has been brought to my attention that 
 there has been some criticism of the course as it now 
 stands. Although," he continued, gazing at the 
 blotter before him, "I could have wished that this 
 criticism might have been made first to me, rather 
 than have reached me indirectly, I am grateful for 
 it at any time and welcome this opportunity for dis 
 cussing it." 
 
 The air had become electrified. Everyone under 
 stood that the criticism referred to had come from 
 only one source, Furbush, and that Dawson was ad-
 
 Tutors Lane 117 
 
 ministering to him a public rebuke. Dawson re 
 mained staring at his blotter when he finished, and 
 there was complete silence for several seconds. 
 "Well?" he asked, raising his eyes. "Don t hesti- 
 tate, gentlemen. Although the course is largely of 
 my making at present, there is no reason why it 
 should remain so, and I m sure no one will welcome 
 an improvement more than I." Another pause. 
 "Come, Jerry, won t you lead the discussion?" 
 
 Furbush, who seemed to be waiting to be thus ad 
 dressed, rather than to presume to take the floor 
 from his superior, Mr. Brainerd, smiled charmingly. 
 "I should frankly wish," he said, "that the discus 
 sion be opened by one of you gentlemen, for I feel 
 that my judgment in such a matter is possibly not 
 of much value. I confess that I am not in as warm 
 sympathy as any of you" by singling out Meyers 
 at this point he lent a quietly insulting tone 
 to his remarks "with the present course. Were 
 it left to me, I should do away with Wordsworth, 
 substituting, possibly, Swinburne. I have some 
 times wondered if we weren t underestimating the 
 potential strength of the Freshman s mind by feed 
 ing him on too much pap. By the same token I 
 am inclined to think that I should drop Carlyle 
 and Hawthorne for Matthew Arnold and, perhaps, 
 Cardinal Newman." (Furbush was a High 
 Churchman of a militant dye.) "What I should, 
 of course, do would be to divide the present first 
 term between Spenser and Milton, instead of giv 
 ing it all to Shakespeare." This last was said
 
 n8 Tutors Lane 
 
 directly to Dawson. It had been Mr. Dawson s 
 
 particular joy that he could give one whole term to 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Tom was sitting keen-eyed and alert, but it would 
 obviously be madness worse confounded to risk a 
 contribution to this discussion, which was for Titans 
 only. But he was thrilled by the duel before him, 
 even though the outcome was never in doubt, since 
 a show of hands would give a unanimous vote to 
 Dawson whatever the issue. Mr. Dawson, how 
 ever, declined the gage of battle altogether. He 
 apparently merely wished Furbush to make public 
 confession of the iniquity that was in him; and after 
 noting out loud the changes recommended, he 
 abruptly closed the meeting. 
 
 "Well, Jerry, we shall think over what you 
 have said, and a week from today we d better get 
 together again and act on it. At that time, too, 
 I wish you people would come prepared with your 
 questions for the final examination paper." He 
 looked around pleasantly at the little group. "I 
 guess that will be all today," he said. 
 
 Tom had been nothing but a spectator at that 
 meeting; but after the next he emerged radiant. 
 The discussion of the first one had taken only a 
 few minutes. It happened that Mr. Furbush was 
 not able to be present; and it was announced in 
 cidentally, that he had been transferred to Soph 
 omore English. Of his proposed changes nothing 
 had been said, although another change was 
 made. It appeared that Mr. Dawson had been
 
 Tutors Lane 119 
 
 teaching The Winter s Tale for the past six years 
 and that he wished the Department s permission to 
 drop it for Cymbeline, Mr. Dawson explained 
 that he was getting a little stale on The Winter s 
 Tale, and the change was hurriedly made. 
 
 What an object lesson was this for the keen-eyed 
 young instructor! On the one hand was the Scylla 
 of Mr. Brainerd and on the other was the Charybdis 
 of Mr. Furbush. Lucky was he who could sail 
 safely past the two; and he was a wise young in 
 structor who determined to follow in the Dawsonian 
 wake. 
 
 The final examination paper was then discussed; 
 and Tom, who had come fully prepared and was 
 extremely wide-awake, had contributed the "spot" 
 passage in Wordsworth in its entirety the couplet, 
 
 "A countenance in which did meet 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet," 
 
 was included and he had, furthermore, lent a most 
 constructive hand in the framing of the Carlyle- 
 transcendental question a performance which he 
 retailed to Mrs. Norris at the earliest moment, and 
 which made the Assistant Professorship and Nancy 
 seem definitely within his grasp.
 
 XII 
 
 MRS. Norris was pleased with Torres 
 account of his success in the writing of the 
 examination paper. Certain unsatisfac 
 tory rumours had come to her ears recently about his 
 work. Henry Whitman, for example, had stated 
 that Tom was loafing and that unless he picked up 
 and showed improvement he might not receive a 
 reappointment when his present term had expired. 
 It is curious how everyone knows everyone else s 
 business at Woodbridge. Each man has his grade 
 stamped clearly upon him, for all, with the possible 
 exception of the man himself, to see. A young man 
 can raise this grade; and Mrs. Norris who loved 
 Tom almost as though he were her own was 
 hopeful for him. 
 
 "All he needs, Julian," she said to the Dean when 
 she told him of Tom s triumph, "is a guiding hand. 
 I can t do it, because I m too old, but I know some 
 one who can." She was "straightening out" the 
 library at the time, and as she said this she gave a 
 chair a shove with her knee, which sent it flying into 
 the books on the wall. 
 
 "Mercy on us," cried the Dean, annoyed by this 
 display of vigour, "who is it?" 
 
 "Nancy." 
 
 120
 
 Tutors Lane 121 
 
 "Oh, pshaw, you re always trying to marry her 
 off. You re the worst match-maker I know." 
 
 Mrs. Norris laughed quietly. "You wait and 
 see," was all she said; but she had settled in her 
 mind upon a picnic. 
 
 Mary, when approached upon the subject, had not 
 been at all enthusiastic. "Why, it s much too early 
 for a picnic," she had objected. 
 
 "It is not at all. Everything is three weeks 
 early this year, and that makes it about the middle 
 of May. We ll have a lovely moon, too. It will 
 be grand." And she proceeded to invite the guests, 
 Nancy and Tom, and Furbush, for it was true that 
 he had been most attentive to Mary of late. Mrs. 
 Norris at first refused to go, but Mary insisted. 
 
 "You will have to watch the fire, Gumgum, while 
 we are off looking for sticks and things." And so 
 she had gone, after all. 
 
 Mrs. Norris s ideas of a picnic were large, the 
 heritage of a day that knew few tins and miraculous 
 powders that bloom into omelettes. She scorned 
 them and brought along a generous store of raw 
 steak and bacon and potatoes. A picnic without a 
 fire and roasting meat was too namby-pamby for 
 words; and though she would not now undertake to 
 cook the food herself, because of a certain eccentric 
 ity of the knee joints, and since her daughter, de 
 spite her domestic science, declined to do so, she had 
 brought along Julia the cook. Nothing but the big 
 limousine would do for such an undertaking, and, as 
 it was, Furbush had to nurse the steak in his lap.
 
 122 Tutors Lane 
 
 Mrs. Norris would have reached the picnicking 
 ground in a procession of buggies, but at that Mary 
 protested so vigorously that she was forced to re 
 sign. 
 
 The picnic place was a pretty, slightly inaccessible 
 rock overlooking a creek. Though actually not far 
 from Woodbridge, as the road was overgrown and 
 the turns sharp the motor had to proceed with a 
 deliberation which made the trip justifiably difficult. 
 The rock itself was about a hundred yards from the 
 road; and since there was scarcely any path through 
 the woods to it, there were made possible the pretty 
 callings and hallooings, fallings-down and pickings- 
 up, without which no picnic is quite perfect. Mrs. 
 Norris, as a matter of fact, did more than her share 
 of this. She had not gone more than thirty steps 
 into the wood before she was completely lost; and 
 by the time she had been safely brought to the rock 
 her hat was well over on one side, her hair stream 
 ing down, and the torn fringe of her petticoat drag 
 ging along behind in the dirt. Julia and Horace, 
 the chauffeur, however, had gone directly to the 
 rock without the preliminary vagaries vouchsafed 
 to their superiors, and by the time Mrs. Norris was 
 finally captured they had succeeded in getting the 
 supper well under way. 
 
 Upon her arrival Mrs. Norris announced her in 
 tention of roasting a potato. 
 
 "Gumgum, please sit down," begged her daugh 
 ter. "You are only upsetting everything," and she 
 laid an unfilial hand upon her mother s arm.
 
 Tutors Lane 123 
 
 "I am going to roast a potato," Mrs. Norris 
 cried, shaking herself free and seizing upon a pared 
 potato. "Tommy, get me a stick." 
 
 "Isn t she awful," laughed Mary. "Don t you 
 dare give her a stick, Tom." But Tom did dare, 
 and Mrs. Norris, with her smiling benignity, stood 
 waving the stick back and forth over the fire in time 
 with the andante movement of her favourite Brahms 
 sonata. 
 
 "Well, we might as well get ready to eat that old 
 stuff," said Nancy to Furbush. "Don t you dread 
 it?" 
 
 "I would not dread it, dear, so much, dreaded I 
 not mother more," he replied, to Mary s intense 
 gratification. But Tom, who heard the low-spoken 
 words, thought them decidedly forced and disliked 
 Furbush the more for them. 
 
 Furbush s presence was undoubtedly a drawback 
 to Tom s pleasure. How could he be natural with 
 a person whom he disliked as much as he did Fur- 
 bush and who he knew disliked himj? Besides, he 
 did not feel like being sprightly and picnicky with 
 Nancy beside him. Instead, he felt homesick, or at 
 least that is the way it seemed to him. Still, how 
 could it be genuine homesickness when the object 
 of his yearning was beside him? Nevertheless, 
 there had been in his thoughts recently the picture 
 of a certain small colonial house in Tutors Lane, a 
 house now for rent or for sale. Possibly, however, 
 the contrast of such a life the house would be fur 
 nished with highboys and gate-leg tables and oval,
 
 124 Tutors Lane 
 
 woven mats with his present one at Mrs. Ruddel s 
 furnished him with a genuine case of homesickness, 
 after all. How perfect would life be in such sur 
 roundings! He liked to think of breakfast: He 
 and Nancy, alone, except, of course, for the pretty, 
 efficient maid at their mahogany breakfast table. 
 Nancy, busy with the coffee things at one end and he 
 at the other no, at the side tucking away his 
 grapefruit and bacon and hot buttered muffins and 
 jam in the last few minutes before he dashed off up 
 the hill to his eight-thirty. Good heavens, what a 
 life that would be ! He saw Nancy with the morn 
 ing light on her hair and her pleasant, lively face 
 the nose with only the faintest possible trace of 
 powder bending over his cup; and then he realized 
 that he was gazing at her now in the same position, 
 only with the sunset light in her hair, and with a 
 white porcelain cup receiving the coffee out of a 
 thermos bottle, instead of a china cup from a swell 
 ing-silver pot. 
 
 "Careful Tommy, you are dribbling it all over 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, Nancy, I m so sorry. I ask you, isn t that 
 stupid. Please excuse me." 
 
 "A little lemon or a hot iron or soap and water 
 will fix it, probably," said Furbush. 
 
 Tom looked over at Furbush. He hated his 
 liquid tones, like honey dripping on a blue plush 
 sofa. "How the hell do you get that way?" he 
 wanted to ask then he rounded out the sentence 
 with certain phrases which had been current among
 
 Tutors Lane 125 
 
 our heroes along all war fronts from Kamchatka to 
 Trieste. Even a milder remark was happily 
 averted, for at this point the potato which Mrs. 
 Norris had been steadily roasting, burst into flame 
 and had to be plunged into the fire; a grateful acci 
 dent, for now she was willing to sit down on the 
 camp stool brought for her and to confine herself 
 to the slicing of the bread. 
 
 What passed until the meal was finished was of 
 slight significance. It was a decidedly detached 
 party, the two couples being brought together chiefly 
 through Mrs. Norris; and when Nancy and Tom 
 had finished a banana which they had divided in the 
 jolly picnic way, Tom stood up. "Do you realize," 
 he asked Nancy, "that this is a wishing carpet we ve 
 been sitting on? Let s take it down by the creek 
 and see where it will take us." 
 
 "Oh, dear," said Mrs. Norris, not at all dis 
 pleased. "And now where are you and Mary 
 going?" 
 
 "We re going to look for crocuses in the garden 
 of the Queen of the Fairies," replied Furbush. 
 "They ought to be up now." 
 
 "Well, take along this flashlight: it s getting aw 
 fully bosky-wosky in there." And then Mrs. 
 Norris was left alone with Julia, whom she enter 
 tained with an animated and brilliant account of Ti- 
 tania and Oberon. 
 
 "Where shall we go?" asked Tom when they 
 were seated on the magic motor rug. 
 
 "Let s go to Libya!" said Nancy promptly.
 
 126 Tutors Lane 
 
 "Libya ! Well, I suppose we might as well go 
 there as anywhere. You realize, of course, that 
 we won t go until I put my foot on the carpet" 
 his left foot was straggling over the eclge. 
 
 "Perhaps you d better keep it there for a few 
 minutes, then, until we are sure that we really want 
 to go. As a matter of fact, I think it is rather 
 nice right here in Woodb ridge," and she smiled up 
 at him. 
 
 Nancy had, of course, smiled upon a great many 
 young men without precipitating a proposal of 
 marriage, but then, the young men had probably not 
 woven her image into their future hopes and fears 
 as thoroughly as he had. Also the hour and the 
 place lent their potency to her smile. The soft 
 spring evening, happily extended by Daylight Sav 
 ing, the noisy little creek running by their feet, and 
 the staunch ally of all such projects, the great round 
 moon, all combined to weave a spell, just as Mrs. 
 Norris planned that they should. 
 
 Tom had come to the picnic prepared to speak 
 his mind, not doubting that an opportunity would 
 be given him. He had not memorized a speech, 
 but was ready to trust to the inspiration of the mo 
 ment. His cause was an honest one; he might ex 
 pect the gift of tongues, but the starting gun had 
 now been fired, the race was on, and he was not 
 granted the gift of tongues. A little preparation 
 might not have been amiss, after all. 
 
 "I agree with you about Woodbridge. In fact, 
 I think had rather go on living here than anywhere
 
 Tutors Lane 127 
 
 else in the world, provided one thing." He had 
 plunged in without the gift of tongues. 
 
 It was not so dark but that Tom could see the 
 colour come into her face. "Provided what, Tom?" 
 
 "Provided I can have you, Nancy. Provided 
 you can love me as I love you." He had come 
 nearer her, and although he had brought both feet 
 upon the magic carpet, they remained stationary. 
 "You mean more to me than anything I have ever 
 known. I used to wonder how I could ever think 
 more of anyone than I thought of Woodbridge and 
 the Star and the different boys in college, but that 
 was nothing compared to this." Nancy was trac 
 ing a series of geometrical patterns upon the magic 
 carpet with a bit of stick. "I wish I could do some 
 thing to show you how much I care now." Still 
 Nancy said nothing. "And, oh, Nancy, what you 
 could do for me ! With you to help me, I think 
 I could do anything. But I know I need you. 
 Nancy, will you marry me?" 
 
 Nancy was hardly prepared for this. She had, 
 since the social service fiasco, acknowledged to her 
 self that she had grown in that short space very 
 fond of Tom. She looked forward to seeing him, 
 and when he was gone she went over with pleasure 
 what he had said and how he had looked. She 
 liked his drollery and his strength, she admired his 
 poise and self-reliance; and she had the greatest re 
 spect for his teaching ability, of which she had re 
 ceived direct proof. Still, she was not at all sure 
 that she wished to marry him. After all, she had
 
 128 Tutors Lane 
 
 really known him only something over a month, and 
 it was not the Whitman way to hurry into anything 
 least of all into matrimony. 
 
 "You mustn t ask me that, Tom." 
 
 "Why not, Nancy?" 
 
 "Because I cannot accept; not now." 
 
 "You mean that perhaps you can later ( ? For of 
 course I shall never grow tired of asking you." 
 
 The moon had climbed a little and had turned a 
 silvery yellow. It flooded the rock and the people 
 moving about on it, but Nancy and Tom remained 
 in shadow. "Tell me, Nancy," he said, leaning 
 over and covering with his own the hand upon 
 which she was resting, "tell me that I may ask you 
 again, for, dear Nancy, I cannot lose you." She 
 did not draw her hand away immediately and when 
 she did so she did it gently. 
 
 "You re awfully good, Tom," she said and Tom s 
 heart swelled at the softness of her tone. Then 
 she climbed to her feet, and Tom picking up the 
 magic carpet, which had become soaked through 
 with the dampness of the creek bank they made 
 their way back to the rock. 
 
 And so ended their first love scene. That Tom s 
 behaviour will appear tepid, in these vigorous days, 
 is to be feared. His own contemporaries, of both 
 sexes, will almost certainly be the first to 
 point out that had they been in his place nothing 
 would have kept them from proceeding from the 
 tame seizure of Nancy s hand to some bolder action. 
 Tom, however, helping Nancy along over the rocks
 
 Tutors Lane 129 
 
 and sticks was happily oblivious of his unconvention- 
 ality. The beauteous evening did, in very truth, 
 seem calm and free to him, though the party on the 
 rock was making a little too much noise to have the 
 holy time quiet as a nun, breathless with adoration. 
 His mind turned to the scrap of Wordsworth he had 
 lately memorized, and though he was a trifle an 
 noyed to find that he couldn t, even now, perhaps 
 when he most wanted it, remember all, the phrase 
 "comfort and command" stayed with him and did 
 nicely for the whole.
 
 XIII 
 
 TOM telephoned to Mrs. Norris the next day 
 to make certain that he might see her. 
 He felt that she was an ally in the matter 
 of Nancy, and it was important to get her advice. 
 
 He found her knitting by the yellow lamp in the 
 library. "Well, Tommy dear," she said, looking 
 at him with a quizzical smile, "was the picnic a suc- 
 cess|?" 
 
 "Mrs. Norris, you are wonderful. When I think 
 how much I owe to your generation. After all, I 
 think a woman is loveliest at fifty." 
 
 "Oh, flatterer!" 
 
 "But you know you cannot get that fine savoir 
 *uivre before." 
 
 "Oh dear me, how much more savoir vivre I ll 
 have when I m eighty. What an old charmer I ll 
 be then ! Will you come to see me when I m eighty, 
 Tommy?" 
 
 "What a question!" 
 
 "Well, I hope you won t take me off on any old 
 wishing carpet and put me down in a damp, horrid 
 place and give me tonsilitis." 
 
 "Who has tonsilitis?" 
 
 "Nancy, of course, and you gave it to her, you 
 bad thing." 
 
 130
 
 Tutors Lane 131 
 
 Tonsilitis! He remembered now the damp rug 
 and also certain sniffles that had required, from time 
 to time on the homeward trip, the administration 
 of a diminutive handkerchief with a pretty "N" em 
 broidered, he knew, in the corner. So that is the 
 way he would look after her! 
 
 "What can I do about it?" It was true that Mrs. 
 Norris was taking it very calmly. 
 
 "Do? Why, you can t do anything but wait until 
 she gets over it. You might go and see her when 
 she begins to pick up." 
 
 "I caught cold myself." He had at least been 
 true to that extent. 
 
 "Are you doing anything for it? Remind me 
 when you go, and I ll give you some Squim. It s 
 something new, and it did wonders for Mary." 
 
 "Don t you think it might be nice for me to send 
 Nancy some?" asked Tom, laughing. Tonsilitis 
 was seldom fatal, after all; and what an excellent 
 excuse to visit her it would be when she was getting 
 better! 
 
 "Tommy, dear, haven t you something to tell 
 me?" 
 
 "No, not really." 
 "Not anything?" 
 
 "Well, hardly anything." He was sitting near 
 her, and now he leaned forward and whispered, "I 
 asked her to be my wife, and she refused." It was 
 not said, however, in the tone one would expect for 
 such an unhappy message. Mrs. Norris looked at 
 him curiously. "She said she couldn t answer me
 
 132 Tutors Lane 
 
 now, but as good as gave me permission to ask her 
 again and when a girl talks that way, isn t it as 
 good as settled?" 
 
 It did look promising, certainly. But then, there 
 was Henry. "What about Henry?" she asked. 
 "How does he feel?" 
 
 "What has he to do with it?" 
 
 "Oh my, he was a lot to do with it. He s more 
 than just a brother, you know. He s her father 
 and mother." 
 
 "And aunt, maiden aunt, as well." 
 
 Mrs. Norfis laughed. "Henry s to be reckoned 
 with, though, just like Marshal Ney or was it Cin- 
 cinnatus? I never can remember." 
 
 "But, Mrs. Norris, what am I to do?" 
 
 "Why, you must just be very nice and thoughtful 
 to Nancy and as decent as you can be to Henry, 
 and pray the Good Lord will help you." 
 
 "Will you pray for me, too?" Tom had played 
 too much baseball not to appreciate the value of 
 organized cheering. 
 
 "Yes, I ll pray for you." And then Tom jumped 
 up and planted a thoroughgoing kiss which was de 
 signed for the cheek, but which, upon her turning 
 quickly, was delivered, in a manner that even Leof- 
 win would have applauded upon her neck. 
 
 On the sixth day Nancy sat up for a while dur 
 ing Miss Albers hour and a half off. There was 
 an abutment at one end of her room which over 
 looked the Whitman garden and carried the eye on
 
 Tutors Lane 133 
 
 down the hill until it rested on the factory in Whit- 
 manville the factory which made the garden possi 
 ble for her. There was a letter in her lap from 
 Tom. It had come with his roses and it asked her 
 to go with him to the boat race. There was also 
 a book in her lap, but she made no effort to read it ; it 
 was so much easier just to gaze out of the window 
 and let her mind wander where it would. 
 
 Henry knocked and entered. "Well, this is very 
 nice. Do you really feel a lot better?" 
 
 "Ever so much, thank you. I think probably I ll 
 get up in a day or two." 
 
 "I suppose you ll want your tonsils out now, won t 
 you?" The question of a tonsilectomy had been 
 a moot one for years. Nancy had always been 
 anxious to have them out, having been told that it 
 was merely a case of "snip, snip, and a day on ice 
 cream." Henry, who regarded tonsilectomy skep 
 tically as a fad, and who knew, furthermore, that it 
 was a major operation for adults and that old Mrs. 
 Merton hadn t walked straight since she had had 
 hers out, was strongly opposed. This had, in fact, 
 been an exceedingly sore point with them, and the 
 amount of unhappiness engendered by it was consid 
 erably in excess of that which would have resulted 
 from an operation when it was first suggested. 
 
 "I ll have to wait, of course, until I get well over 
 this. It isn t like a rheumatism, you know." 
 Nancy had learned the jargon thoroughly. 
 
 Well, that subject was now disposed of, and 
 Henry, with the directness of a trained economist,
 
 134 Tutors Lane 
 
 abruptly went into the main object of his call. 
 There had been certain features about Nancy s de- 
 lirjum which had astonished and annoyed him, and 
 he had come with the express purpose of discussing 
 them should he find Nancy strong enough. He 
 now decided that she was strong enough. "Do you 
 realize that when your fever was high you talked at 
 a great rate?" he asked. 
 
 "I vaguely remember mumbling and grumbling." 
 
 Henry did not relish his task, but he felt it to be 
 his duty and Henry had never been one to shirk his 
 duty. "You talked a great deal about this Tom 
 Reynolds," he said. 
 
 "Yesj?" Nancy was aware that she coloured. 
 She was aware also of a sudden sinking sensation, 
 not dissimilar to the one that comes from a too rapid 
 drop in an elevator. So Henry had come to her at 
 the first possible moment to protest against "this 
 Tom Reynolds." "He has had a bad recitation," 
 she thought, "and now he is going to take it out on 
 me," and then she called her brother a hard and in 
 elegant name, as people will when angry with their 
 dearest relatives. Had Nancy been of a satirical 
 nature she might have made something of her 
 brother s adoption of Freudian methods; but she 
 was not, and she knew only direct-fire warfare. 
 
 "Nancy," Henry went on, leaning towards her, 
 "surely you are not in love with that man?" 
 
 Had Tom been a head hunter with tin cans in his 
 ears, Nancy would have loved him at that moment. 
 
 "Yes, I am," she said.
 
 Tutors Lane 135 
 
 Henry stared at her. It was clear she meant 
 what she said. Then he glanced at the letter and 
 the book that lay in her lap, as people will notice 
 small things at such times. He guessed in whose 
 handwriting the letter was, and the book was 
 Sonnets from the Portuguese ! She had even taken 
 to sentimental rubbish ! 
 
 "Oh Nancy, can t you see that he is not worthy of 
 you? Who are his people? Where is he from? 
 I wouldn t give that for his future here. He s lazy, 
 and he s filled you up on a lot of poetry. Nancy, 
 think well of it before it s too late." She was 
 gazing out the window, hardly hearing him. She 
 had confessed aloud, before Henry, that she loved 
 Tom. Henry was going on. "If you won t think 
 of yourself, perhaps you can think of Henry Third? 
 What is to become of him if you go?" 
 
 Nancy turned to look at him. She felt giddy 
 now, and she thought she was going to cry. It 
 would not do, however, to make a scene, when up to 
 this point she had acquitted herself so well. "You 
 mean that I should give up my life to look after 
 your son?" 
 
 "Please don t be melodramatic. We know one 
 another so well it isn t necessary. I am not asking 
 you to give up your life. I am asking you not to 
 throw it away, and in the meantime you have certain 
 definite obligations here. You are more than an 
 aunt to Henry. Life here with him will be 
 far better for you than being the wife of that uncer 
 tain boy."
 
 136 Tutors Lane 
 
 She allowed it to pass, but it gave the final flick 
 to her anger. "You are the kind of person, Henry, 
 who is so monumentally selfish that you think every 
 body who dares to cross you in any way is himself 
 monumentally selfish too. Now you come to me in 
 a protective role to save me from this Tom 
 Reynolds with a mass of ill-natured slander and 
 lies because if I go to him you will have to get a 
 new housekeeper." 
 
 "Nancy" 
 
 "Don t interrupt me, please. It would be the 
 same, no matter who came. You would find some 
 dreadful fault in anyone. You always have been 
 jealous of every man that ever came here and if you 
 had your way you would keep me here for life." 
 Nancy paused, but her brother did not offer to speak. 
 She had asked not to be interrupted, and he would be 
 quite sure that she was through before he spoke 
 again, but he could not conceal his anger. Nancy 
 noticed it, and her own anger increased. "I don t 
 think I d mind it so much, if you didn t pretend that 
 it was all for my good. That is nothing but rank 
 hypocrisy. Just what have you ever done to make 
 my life pleasant here? You are never interested in 
 what I m interested in, outside of Harry. This 
 lecture business you just laughed and sneered at. I 
 admit it was ridiculous, but you wouldn t lift your 
 finger to make it less so. I admit, also, that I 
 would appreciate a little attention once in a while, 
 but it would never occur to you to give me any pleas 
 ure unless you had to, to get some for yourself.
 
 Tutors Lane 137 
 
 When you really want to give me a good time you 
 sit down and talk to me about your miserable old 
 Labour class and what a wonderful lecture you gave 
 them. Well, Henry, that time is past, and I am 
 going to have my own life from now on." And the 
 tears which she had been fighting back were no 
 longer to be denied. 
 
 Henry was entirely put out, and he awkwardly got 
 up. Now was clearly not the time to renew the at 
 tack. Nothing that Nancy had said was of the 
 slightest significance, except her lack of interest in 
 his work. There, indeed, was a sorry confession of 
 inability to forget herself in the greatest interest of 
 her nearest relation. Poor wilful girl! Well, he 
 had done his duty. No one could charge him with 
 unbrotherliness. 
 
 Nancy had also got up. "Please go away," she 
 sobbed; and Henry, without further word, did so. 
 
 Nancy crawled back into bed and had her cry out. 
 What a brute he was and what a god was Tom! 
 What a miserable snob Henry was about family 
 and then for him to say that Tom had no future! 
 Had Tom been a member of his wretched old Grave, 
 he would have had a very different view of it. That 
 was the cause of nine-tenths of his dislike, anyway. 
 Tom was in the rival club and Henry never could 
 see any good in anyone connected with it. What a 
 miserable, juvenile business ! Had not Tom frankly 
 confessed his need of help? Henry had never in 
 any way indicated that she could be of service to 
 him, except to order his meals and keep him comfor-
 
 138 Tutors Lane 
 
 table. But Tom had thrown himself upon her. 
 
 He "needed" her that had been his word. With 
 
 her to help him he felt that he could do anything. 
 
 What a career for a girl! That would be living 
 
 indeed. 
 
 She thought of his unanswered letter and climbed 
 out of bed at once. "Dear Tom," she wrote, and 
 again the tears came into her eyes, "Thank you so 
 much for the lovely flowers. They are by my bed 
 and I can enjoy them all day long. It is awfully 
 nice of you to ask me to the Boat Race and I ac 
 cept with pleasure. I don t think there will be 
 any question about my being able to make it. In 
 two weeks I should be perfectly well again. 
 
 "It will be lovely to see you and I can Bo so at 
 any time now. 
 
 "As ever, 
 "NANCY." 
 
 The final draft of the letter was composed only 
 after three preliminary ones. Nancy found it ex 
 tremely difficult to get just the right tone. She 
 couldn t put too much warmth into it, and yet it 
 mustn t be too cold. So she sat at her desk, copy 
 ing and recopying, and only succeeded in finishing 
 it when Miss Albers returned. 
 
 "I ve done it at last," she announced proudly, 
 her cheeks aflame. Miss Albers, fortunately one 
 of the few surviving members of the Good Nurse 
 family, saw the situation immediately. 
 
 "Why, I see you have," she said. "Isn t that
 
 Tutors Lane 139 
 
 fine ! Now I think you are entitled to a nice nap." 
 And when Tom arrived, post-haste upon receipt 
 of Nancy s note, he was met at the front door with 
 the news of her relapse.
 
 XIV 
 
 WHEN Tom reached the Whitman house 
 on the day of the race, he found 
 it full. He had seen Nancy only once 
 since her illness; and as her room had then been 
 filled with people, his call was not remarkable. 
 He had not failed to notice, nevertheless, that the 
 colour came into her face as he entered the room; 
 and there had been other auspicious signs which 
 had had an exciting effect upon his pulse. This 
 call had been made only two days before the race, 
 and it was then clear that Nancy could not go 
 with him. A Philadelphia cousin had, however, an 
 nounced her arrival a particular friend of hers 
 being in the Woodbridge boat and would Tom 
 mind taking her? Uncle Bob Whitman had won 
 derful seats, being an Overseer, but he wasn t go 
 ing to be able to use them, and of course Tom 
 would be only too happy to take her. 
 
 Nancy, pale and lovely, was serving tea, but she 
 found time to thank him again for his goodness 
 about the Philadelphia cousin, and then she took 
 him over to be presented. On the way across the 
 room they passed Henry. Tom, who stared at 
 him, missed the tell-tale blush on Nancy s cheeks. 
 Instead, he only saw Henry shift his eyes calmly 
 
 140
 
 Tutors Lane 141 
 
 from Nancy to him and bow coldly. Tom bowed 
 as coldly in his turn, and then Nancy left him with 
 the Philadelphia cousin. 
 
 Lily Griffin, the Philadelphia cousin, gazed at 
 him steadily from under the floppy expanse of her 
 black hat. She was sitting on a low cane covered 
 bench before the fireplace, and her legs, which were 
 encased in light grey silk stockings and which term 
 inated in slippers of the same color, her legs, let it 
 be relentlessly repeated, were the most conspicuous 
 things in the room. Over her shoulders were the 
 thin strings of an undergarment that Tom thought 
 was generally concealed. Still, one couldn t be at 
 all sure about such things from one day to the next. 
 
 "Would you mind taking my cigarette?" she 
 asked, handing him the stub. 
 
 "So you know Platt Raeburn," he began ami* 
 ably when he had returned from his pretty task. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He s an awfully nice boy. I know him quite 
 well." Platt was in the Star; and Lily, who knew 
 a great deal about such things, immediately sus 
 pected that Tom was also. How else would a pro 
 fessor know a crew star "quite well"? Her inter 
 est in Tom rose. He had, as a matter of fact, at 
 tractive eyes; and that cerise-coloured knitted tie 
 with a pearl stickpin might indicate much. 
 
 "Platt is a nice boy, isn t he?" she continued with 
 a shade more enthusiasm. "We went on the most 
 wonderful party this Easter. He wasn t in training 
 then, you know, and I have never seen any one fun-
 
 142 Tutors Lane 
 
 nier than he was. We were at the Greysons in 
 Ardmore, and Platt thought he was insulted by the 
 butler when he took Platt s cigarette off a table 
 and threw it in the fire. It was burning the table, 
 but old Platt didn t know that, and he knocked the 
 man down." 
 
 "It must have been funny," said Tom, who had 
 heard the story before. 
 
 "Oh, it was a scream. I thought I d die laugh 
 ing. It was really awfully bad of him, though, 
 don t you think?" 
 
 "Oh, I don t know," said Tom boldly. "I don t 
 think it was so very bad. You ve got to expect 
 that sort of thing nowadays." 
 
 "Mercy, I didn t think you d say that. Aren t 
 you a professor here, or something?" 
 
 "Yes, something." 
 
 "Well, but I always thought " 
 
 "What?" with a smile. 
 
 "Oh, nothing. Say, just between you and I, don t 
 you think this is rather slow?" and she gave him 
 a look that showed he was making good. 
 
 The hospitality they were accepting was, of course, 
 his own Nancy s, and to be strictly honourable he 
 should have defended everything, but with certain 
 definite reservations in his mind he replied, 
 "Deadly." 
 
 "That dreadful old creature over there actually 
 eyed me when I smoked that last cig." The dread 
 ful old creature was Mrs. Conover, who found it 
 difficult to reconstruct herself to the present century.
 
 Tutors Lane 143 
 
 "I should think it would be awfully stupid living 
 here. Now, isn t it really?" 
 
 "No, it isn t half bad." 
 
 "Oh, I can see you re a highbrow, like all the 
 rest of them. Personally, I couldn t stand it. 
 I m too independent, I guess. What a sweet dog." 
 Clarence was before her, arrayed in the Wood- 
 bridge colours. "I love dogs. I ve the sweetest 
 little Boston bull bitch at home. She won a silver 
 flask for me last year." She was examining 
 Clarence with the eye of a practised dogwoman. 
 "Do you know anything about Airedales?" Tom 
 didn t. "I suspect his tail is wrong," she said. 
 "Now run along, sweetie," she called to Clarence; 
 "momma can t have a baby with wrong tail." 
 Clarence received this incredulously, but a complica 
 tion was averted by the arrival of Nancy. "We 
 were just criticizing your dog, my dear. Why don t 
 you have his tail fixed?" 
 
 "Why, what s the matter with it?" asked Nancy. 
 She hated the thought of anything having hap- 1 
 pened to Clarence. 
 
 "Why, it s too long. You should have two 
 inches at least cut off." The picture of Clarence 
 going around with his tail done up in a bandage 
 was a delightful one, and Nancy laughed. 
 
 Lily appealed to Tom. "Isn t she heartless?" 
 But before Tom could answer the slightly embar 
 rassing question, the cruel one announced that they 
 had better be on their way, as the race started at 
 five and it was then half-past four. So they hustled
 
 144 Tutors Lane 
 
 into the Whitman motor and drove to Center, where 
 
 the new observation train was already filling. 
 
 The race with Hartley was always one of the 
 great spring events, but the new observation train 
 made it more of an event than ever. People gloated 
 over it as though they had never seen a train be 
 fore, much to the amusement of Lily, whose at 
 tendance at New London had been frequent. 
 Many paused admiringly at the engine and, as they 
 passed on up the line of a dozen cars, loudly pro 
 claimed their admiration of the entire arrangement. 
 "They are just like prairie schooners," said one 
 young man, to Lily s huge delight, for she had never 
 before seen so much provincialism all at once. The 
 platform was thick with people rushing to find their 
 cars at the last minute. All was hurry and excite- 
 ment and colour and laughter. The orange of 
 Woodbridge and the olive of Hartley were every 
 where. Each person boldly displayed his colours, 
 whether with flowers or feathers, and it was clear 
 that earth had few greater pleasures than this. 
 Then the engine tooted and rang its bell, and with 
 a convulsive wrench they were off, amid the cheers 
 of everyone. 
 
 Tom and his Lily were seated between the Hartley 
 cheering section and the Woodbridge cheering 
 section, in the very choice seats which Mr. Whitman 
 naturally commanded and Tom, although he thought 
 boat racing a much overrated sport and resented 
 its being preferred to baseball, felt a distinct thrill 
 as they passed out upon the river bank and up to
 
 Tutors Lane 145 
 
 the starting point. Only the cold unseasonable 
 wind which swept down the course, riffling the water 
 and chilling every one to the bone, marred the day. 
 
 They arrived at the starting point, and the oc 
 cupants of the new cars wrapped what little they 
 had around them. Quite obviously, the race could 
 not be rowed until the wind died. There was noth 
 ing to do but just sit and wait. 
 
 The Hartley cheering section immediately climbed 
 down upon the bank, with the exception of one young 
 man who was left with his head lolling over the 
 side of the car next to Tom. Friendly remon 
 strance had been futile. He had refused to move 
 and had elected to slumber. "I think he s sweet," 
 said Lily, gazing over at him. "Tell me, do you 
 have much trouble getting liquor here?" 
 
 "No," said Tom. Already the spell of the day 
 was wearing off. 
 
 "I ve learned, to my sorrow that you can t be too 
 careful. Such a time as I had last month! I went 
 out to a luncheon party May Stephens you know 
 her? Well, just before luncheon I was astonished 
 to see cocktails appear. I didn t think May had 
 any stock, but there she was just the same, jiggling 
 the shaker up and down. Well, at the first sip I 
 thought something was funny, but there was nothing 
 to do about it; and then May gave me a dividend, 
 and although it nearly killed me, I managed to get 
 it down, and then when we were all through she 
 asked us how we liked it. Well, I told her I 
 thought it was a little funny, and then she announced
 
 146 Tutors Lane 
 
 what I knew all along; that she had made it herself. 
 I made it out of spirits of nitre, she said. Did 
 you boil off the ether? someone asked, and she said 
 she hadn t! Well, we hadn t got hardly started at 
 lunch when one of the girls passed right straight out 
 and then we all began feeling trembly and queer, 
 and then the next thing I knew I was at home in 
 bed, and I wasn t up and about for a week. Wasn t 
 that awful?" 
 
 Tom s enthusiasm was ebbing fast. What a pro 
 digious bore this race was going to be ! The wind 
 was blowing up his legs, and his light spring over 
 coat was far from ample. The seats were too 
 close together and were of a granite hardness; but 
 he and Lily were wedged into the back and could 
 not escape without treading upon the toes of half 
 of Woodbridge s notables. So he sat still and tried 
 to smile brightly at the conclusion of her story. 
 
 "Do you know?" Lily continued, "I think you 
 have a lovely smile." 
 
 "Goody," replied Tom, and smiled again, this 
 time rather archly. 
 
 Lily was examining him between half closed lids. 
 "And I think you have nice eyes, too particularly 
 the lashes. They are so long and silky." 
 
 "Well, it s a great secret, of course," replied 
 Tom, "and you mustn t tell even your mother" 
 Lily giggled "but I think you have the prettiest 
 way with you I have ever seen." 
 
 "Oh, dear me, you are funny. Now you must 
 keep me warm."
 
 Tutors Lane 147 
 
 The car, it has been pointed out, was full of 
 Woodbridge notables, and any warming of the 
 young lady would not have been looked upon with 
 favour. Nor would Tom have cared to warm her 
 had they been quite alone at the North Pole. What 
 an ordeal this was getting to be, and how lucky was 
 Nancy, comfortably seated before the fire ! How 
 good would that particular fire be, and what a soft 
 and fragrant place to ask a certain question! What 
 a contrast Nancy made to this miserable girl beside 
 him! Nancy at the time happened to be repairing 
 certain ravages that the tea had made upon her 
 nephew s best blue suit, but the scheme of Tom s 
 thoughts was not spoiled. 
 
 "Bad man, you re not showing me any kind of 
 a time." 
 
 Tom was exasperated. A group in front of them 
 had built a fire. "How would you like to go down 
 there?" he asked. "Can you climb down over the 
 side here?" 
 
 " Course I can." 
 
 Tom climbed over the railing, dropped to the 
 ground, and, turning his ankle, cried "Ouch!" 
 loudly enough to waken the young Hartley man 
 whose head was lolling over the adjacent rail 
 ing. The youth looked up and beheld the lovely 
 Lily poised, apparently preparing to fly into his 
 arms. He reared himself up. "Come, lovely 
 girl," he cried, "I love you." And then as she 
 swooped by, he made a grab at her and tore her 
 dress.
 
 148 Tutors Lane 
 
 "You bad boy," she cried, with little discretion, 
 "you tore my dress." 
 
 "You bad boy," repeated the young Hartley man, 
 "yuhtoradress, yuhtoradress." 
 
 Tom had managed to hurry her away, although 
 his ankle hurt him considerably, but not until all the 
 notables had seen the performance. What a morti 
 fying affair. No doubt many supposed that he was 
 the one who had torn the dress. 
 
 Fortunately, Lily met a friend at the fire, and 
 Tom was free for the time being. Would the wind 
 never die down? The flag on the coach s launch 
 was not quite so active. There was a rumour that 
 they would start at six-thirty. Only half an hour 
 more. Well, he could stand that. Lily seemed to 
 be having a time with her new young man, and he 
 limped over to a neighbouring fire where there were 
 fewer Lilies and more heat. There he met a class 
 mate of whom he was particularly fond; and before 
 he knew it the starter s launch had put out into the 
 river, and the parties around the fires were scamper 
 ing back aboard the train. With considerable diffi 
 culty he followed Lily up over the side, for his foot 
 was now swollen and painful. Finally, however, 
 they were seated again, buoyed up with the thought 
 of the race s being at last under way when the 
 starter s boat retired from the scene, and word 
 arrived that the race would not be rowed until seven. 
 
 Tom could not cover his disappointment. 
 
 "I don t think you are very polite!" said Lily.
 
 Tutors Lane 149 
 
 "Sorry," replied Tom, his ankle throbbing. 
 
 "In fact I think you re horrid." 
 
 "Good!" said Tom. Lily looked her rage and 
 half turned her back on him Well, that was some 
 thing to be thankful for, at any rate. 
 
 They sat there in ever-increasing gloom. Some 
 of the Lilies gamboled back to shiver over the fires, 
 but even they were beginning to droop. Tom s* 
 Lily would have joined them her new friend was 
 not a wet smack but Tom, with his throbbing 
 ankle, did not offer to go, and she was too proud to 
 suggest it. So they sat and waited. 
 
 The race was eventually rowed. At the starter s 
 gun the train gave another convulsive jerk, which 
 sent Tom s injured foot flying against the side of 
 the car, and the crowd fanned into life its jaded en 
 thusiasm. Out in the gathering dusk the two crews 
 inched their way along. It was not quite clear 
 which was which, the blades both showing black, 
 and though Lily was certain she had located Platt 
 and cheered lustily for his boat, subsequent evidence 
 indicated that he was in the other. The two cheer 
 ing sections woke to frenzy, and the notables car 
 was swept with confusion. Lily was beside herself 
 and kept jumping to her feet with an appealing cry 
 of "Oh Platt!" Tom looked over at the Hartley 
 car at one point and saw that his friend had appar 
 ently had fresh access to his source of refreshment, 
 for he was now blissfully asleep, cheek on the railing. 
 
 At the two-mile stake with a final mile to go
 
 150 Tutors Lane 
 
 the boats were even, but both sides were jubilant, 
 for from each section it clearly showed that the home 
 crew was ahead. Then the train shot behind a 
 heavily timbered point, and when the view of the 
 river was again free, the Woodbridge shell was half 
 a length behind and obviously beaten. A pang of 
 disappointment shot through Tom. Oh, well, it 
 was a fitting climax to the day. There they were, 
 slipping back and back. They were splashing badly, 
 and one of the Woodbridge men was obviously not 
 pulling his weight. Then the Hartley boat flashed 
 over the finish amid the tooting of countless auto 
 mobiles along the banks, a winner by a length and 
 a quarter. 
 
 The Hartley people had given way to a trans 
 port of joy, while their coxswain crawled along his 
 shell throwing water over the chests and faces of 
 his men. The two boats floated idly about, their 
 crews bowed foward, gasping in agony for strength. 
 To the men in the Hartley boat came the faint 
 sound of their grateful supporters. They had won 
 and what was an enlarged heart or, possibly, a 
 damaged kidney, to such glory? The half hyster 
 ical screams of their Lilies were sweet compensation. 
 As for the Woodbridge crew, well, they would have 
 to swallow their dose as best they could and wait 
 for next year. 
 
 The young Hartley man next to Tom woke up. 
 " S the race over?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, it s over," shouted Tom, for no one else 
 heard him.
 
 Tutors Lane 151 
 
 "Thank God," he shouted hoarsely, and went back 
 
 to sleep a sentiment which cheered Tom so much 
 
 that Lily, on the homeward trip, decided he wasn t 
 
 quite such a dumb-bunny, after all.
 
 XV 
 
 SCARCELY a day went by now without Tom s 
 tracing his steps to the Norris house. He 
 seldom bothered any more with the formal 
 ity of the door: going around to the terrace side, 
 he walked into the drawing-room unannounced. If 
 no one was at home, he sat down with a magazine 
 or book in the library or drummed at the piano. 
 Then, possibly, he would go before anyone arrived; 
 but the house which was so friendly to him and so 
 full of Nancy, was far dearer to him than her own, 
 for Henry s hostility was too marked to make his 
 visits there other than difficult. 
 
 So it was that he came unexpectedly upon Mrs. 
 Norris, Mary, and Nancy when he walked into the 
 library on the day following the race; and then he 
 regretted his free and easy entrance. For Mary 
 was in tears and was receiving the comfort of her 
 mother and friend. Tom backed hurriedly out, 
 muttering an inarticulate apology and cursing him 
 self for an awkward fool. Mary saw him, how 
 ever, and with a sob brushed past him in the hall and 
 went upstairs. Her mother who swept after her 
 like a large and stately galleon in her black silk 
 dress, was more troubled than he had ever seen her. 
 
 152
 
 Tutors Lane 153 
 
 Still, as she passed, she told him not to mind. And 
 then he was alone with Nancy. 
 
 "What on earth is the matter?" he asked. 
 Nancy, too, was thoroughly upset. 
 
 "Just look at that," she said, and pointed to an ar 
 ticle in a New York evening paper. "Woodbridge 
 Professor Drowns," ran the headlines. "Over 
 taken by Cramps After Eating Cherries and Milk." 
 It appeared that Professor Furbush had defied the 
 popular fear of the fatal combination and, in order 
 to make his defiance complete, had promptly gone 
 in swimming after eating it. The tragedy had oc 
 curred at the country house of relatives; and though 
 a number of people were present, they took his cries 
 for help as a joke until it was too late. The account 
 went on to explain that it was more sad even than 
 it might at first appear, for it was generally sup 
 posed that the dead man had been engaged to marry 
 Miss Mary Norris, daughter of the Acting Presi 
 dent of Woodbridge. 
 
 "Why, isn t that dreadful," said Tom. It is 
 always a little hard to know what should be said in 
 such circumstances. If the one who has just died 
 is close to us, we don t think about what to say at all, 
 but if it is only an acquaintance and we are merely 
 a little thrilled by his going, it is difficult; for de 
 cency requires a solemn look and a shocked word. 
 So Tom did what he could to be decent; and Nancy, 
 who was staring with half averted face out upon the 
 garden, made no reply. She, of course, knew all 
 the secrets of Mary s heart and must be sharing
 
 154 Tutors Lane 
 
 her sorrow. Accordingly, any words from him, 
 other than sympathetic ones for Mary s loss, would 
 be untimely. Perhaps, even, she would insist upon 
 remaining in sisterly spinsterhood! "It s awfully 
 tough, isn t it," Tom added. 
 
 "Yes," said Nancy, somewhat faintly, from the 
 curtains. Nancy seemed very much upset. Tom 
 knew that Furbush had been a frequent visitor at 
 her house, and probably she had grown fond of him. 
 He was not at all aware, however, that Furbush s 
 affair with Mary had progressed so far. He 
 could not picture Furbush marrying Mary or any 
 one else, for that matter and he doubted whether 
 Furbush would have married her. Still, it appeared 
 that Mary had cared for him, and now her little 
 romance was over. 
 
 "It s awfully hard on Mary, isn t it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Furbush was gone. Who would take his place? 
 His place, an Assistant Professorship there was 
 now a vacancy! A flood of excitement swept 
 through him. But how foolish to expect that it 
 would fall to him. He had taught but one year, 
 and he was only twenty-five. People still spoke of 
 Harry Spear s having been given his Assistant Pro 
 fessorship at the end of three years as a record- 
 breaking performance. He knew perfectly well, 
 furthermore, that he had not made a startling suc 
 cess of it; not the kind of success that makes a man 
 jump from a Captaincy to a Brigadiership. Still, he 
 thought he stood quite as well as the other young in-
 
 Tutors Lane 155 
 
 structors in the department; and his "outside con 
 nections" were considerably better. After all, a 
 man s career in college counted for something. And 
 so, although he knew that the thing was impossible 
 and that what they would do would be to go outside 
 for an older man, he luxuriated for a moment in the 
 picture of the Dean congratulating him on his suc 
 cess. An Assistant Professorship and Nancy ! The 
 two were linked in his mind as the sum-total of de 
 sire; and since he could think of Nancy without 
 thinking of the Assistant Professorship, but could 
 not think of the Professorship without thinking of 
 Nancy, it is to be supposseed that Nancy came first. 
 
 And there she was now, over by the window, pain 
 fully aware of the garden and fidgeting ever so little 
 with the curtain. Perhaps this might not be such a 
 bad time to repeat his question, after all. Had she 
 not of her own free will come to the Norris house, 
 at which she knew that he was almost a daily vis 
 itor? There was in that something to give him 
 heart. As if he hadn t enough evidence without it! 
 
 "You will admit, though, Nancy, that it was an 
 awfully stupid thing for him to eat the cherries and 
 milk, won t you? Everyone knows that it can t be 
 done." Tom moved over nearer to her, but she 
 did not answer him. Instead, she fixed her eyes 
 steadily on the bulging root of an elm in the garden. 
 She must concentrate everything on that to keep 
 from being an utter fool. But what an hour it had 
 been ! First the dreadful news about Furbush an3 
 that thing in the paper, and then Tom s unexpected
 
 156 Tutors Lane 
 
 entrance. How wonderful he looked as he came 
 into the room; he had been so self-possessed, and 
 she should have been such a ninny in his place! 
 
 Tom took a step nearer. "Nancy," he said very 
 tenderly. 
 
 The root was waving now; it would become in 
 distinct. How gentle he was, and how different 
 from Henry! "Nancy!" he repeated. Then the 
 root became altogether blurred and meaningless, 
 and she felt him take her in his arms and kiss her. 
 "Darling Nancy," he was saying; and, somehow, to 
 her great relief, she found an apparently adequate 
 reply. 
 
 It was decided that a long engagment was al 
 together unnecessary, a decision which was without 
 repeal, in view of the absence of parental super 
 vision. Why waste the perfectly good summer? 
 Why indeed? And so the wedding was set for a 
 few days after Commencement. 
 
 "That will give me just about enough time to get 
 ready," said Nancy, "and I really think you must 
 get a new cutaway." 
 
 Then at last Commencement was over. The 
 electricians bore away for another year the last of 
 the class numeral signs which had hung from their 
 respective Headquarters. The Headquarters them 
 selves had been swept and cleaned and restored to 
 their owners, and one by one the dwellers in Tutors 
 Lane prepared to board up their houses for the sum 
 mer and depart for the mountains or for the shore.
 
 Tutors Lane 157 
 
 The wedding alone kept most of them in Wood- 
 bridge. Few there were that had not some pleas 
 ant memory of Nancy, and the sacrifice of a day or 
 two of vacation was counted as little. Furbush s 
 dramatic end had held the centre of the Wood- 
 bridge stage, but it was now forced into the back 
 ground by the question: Was Tom good enough 
 for Nancy? It was generally agreed that he was 
 getting the best of it, but not many thought that 
 she was altogether throwing herself away upon him. 
 Nancy might have married anyone, it was pointed 
 out, and having had so much responsibility, she 
 could have graced the board of a much older man. 
 Instead, she had chosen a young instructor a pleas 
 ant enough boy, perhaps but still unproved. Well, 
 Nancy would make the most of him, there was no 
 question of that, and of course he was a great friend 
 of the Norrises and it was known that Mrs. Rob 
 ert Lee-Satterlee herself approved of the match. 
 So they would hope for the best, and Nancy was a 
 dear girl. 
 
 Tom was in perfect accord with the last senti 
 ment, and it will perhaps be charitable to draw a 
 veil over his behaviour at this time. Such names 
 as "Mrs. Mouse" and "Boofly Woofly" are all very 
 well when whispered teasingly into the delighted 
 ear of one s intended, but they hardly stand the 
 light of unromantic day. They have even been 
 known to set up opposing currents of emotion in 
 breasts not so nicely attuned, and to inspire such 
 expressions as "Fish 1" or even "Blat !" It may well
 
 158 Tutors Lane 
 
 be a considerate office, therefore, not to submit our 
 lovers to the graceless manners of the unsympathetic, 
 but to let them enjoy their artless passages un 
 molested. 
 
 One of these, alone, might be risked. Nancy 
 had confidingly told him that she had all the faith 
 in the world in his future, and he heard her grate 
 fully. "Why, the way you talked to those men at 
 the mill shows clearly enough what you can do," 
 she said. 
 
 Tom coloured slightly, but let the moment pass 
 without explanation. When he had first done so 
 it was with the mental reservation that he would 
 laughingly explain it some day, and he would, too, 
 but it wasn t yet just the right time. So he stooped 
 and kissed her affectionately; and then, as he was 
 hatless at the time, she was reminded of something 
 she had long wanted to tell him. 
 
 "If you don t look out, Tom, you will be perfectly 
 bald in five years." 
 
 "Well, I ve done everything I can, and " 
 
 "Now, all you have to do is to brush it five min 
 utes in the morning and five minutes at night." 
 
 "Ten minutes a day! I should be exhausted." 
 
 "Well, I shall do it for you, then." Whereupon 
 the scene acquired an excess of sentiment at once. 
 
 Certain more mundane passages may be ob 
 served, however, without any particular offence. 
 
 The passages that took place around the open 
 ing of the wedding presents were possibly as di 
 verting as any. Tom, whose mind s eye was ever
 
 Tutors Lane 159 
 
 upon the little colonial house in Tutors Lane, now 
 his property, was perhaps more concerned than 
 most grooms are in the furnishing of his nest. He 
 found himself greatly elated when he or his bride 
 would draw forth some shining prize of a silver 
 bowl or plate until they began getting too many of 
 them and correspondingly depressed when some 
 many-coloured glass lamp or strange dish would 
 appear. What on earth could they do with them? 
 Dear old Mrs. Conover, for example, sent a large 
 Bohemian glass jar of a peacock-eyes pattern. 
 It would have to be on view when she called, and 
 as they had no way of knowing when that would be, 
 it had to be on view all the time. 
 
 From Omaha came an ominous package which 
 made Tom shudder. Would his sister contrive to 
 mortify him? He could picture her pleasure in 
 doing so, and when the package was opened and out 
 came two china parrots, Tom thought the pleasure 
 was hers. A note which came with the birds ex 
 plained that they were very fashionable in Omaha 
 at the time and that all Omaha had them on its 
 dinner table. To Tom, his sister s gift and note 
 could hardly have been worse, but Nancy kissed him 
 and told him not to be stupid, that the parrots were 
 nice; and Tom was so flustered he couldn t tell 
 whether they were or not. At any rate, Nancy 
 wrote a charming, sisterly little note, and Tom was 
 more pleased with his future than ever. 
 
 The silver tea service which arrived early from 
 Mrs. Robert Lee-Satterlee was among the grand-
 
 160 Tutors Lane 
 
 est presents that Nancy received from outside the 
 family. She was particularly grateful for it, since 
 it enabled her to leave her mother s with Henry 
 and thus avoid a discussion which would have been 
 unendurable at the time. It was true that Henry s 
 wife had had a tea service herself and that it 
 was now his; but it was not so fine as the Whitman 
 one, and Henry would have regarded its removal 
 with a jaundiced eye. His wife s silver, however, 
 was quite a bit more handsome than the family sil 
 ver, and he relinquished the latter with a gesture 
 so graceful that any further donation of property to 
 the hymeneal happiness seemed almost fulsome. 
 Still he did make a further contribution a costly 
 set of John Stuart Mill. 
 
 A few days after she announced her engagement 
 Nancy was waited upon by the Misses Forbes. 
 Their mission was one of obvious importance, for 
 they seldom moved out of their warm little house, 
 excepting, of course, Miss Jennie, who was quite 
 indifferent to the outside and marched forth almost 
 without a thought. They wore, furthermore, a 
 serious demeanour even Miss Jennie, whose as 
 sumption of a cavalier manner didn t quite hide her 
 excitement. She was carrying a small parcel neatly 
 done up in white tissue paper; and when, after a 
 period of rocking, she launched upon the little 
 speech she had prepared, her liver-spotted old hands 
 opened and closed over it. "You must know, my 
 dear," she said, "that we are going to miss you
 
 Tutors Lane 161 
 
 very much. Of course, you are not really going 
 away" the little colonial house was in truth only 
 a quarter of a mile farther from their house than 
 Nancy s present one "yet it can t be quite the 
 same, and we want to mark your going with our 
 love and best wishes. So we have brought you the 
 Burnham lace for you to keep and hand down to 
 your children, and may God bless you, my dear, and 
 keep you." Then they all had a quiet turn at their 
 handkerchiefs, and the Burnham lace passed into 
 the House of Reynolds. 
 
 Leofwin also called and delivered his gift in 
 person. Tom was fortunately in the room at the 
 time, and the somewhat painful scene was not pro 
 tracted. It was the first meeting they had had since 
 Leofwin had offered his hand and been rejected, 
 and even Leofwin was constrained. Nancy won 
 dered if Elfrida were to have her trip to Italy, but 
 she could not put the question without appearing un- 
 maidenly since she knew so well the only condition 
 of the trip; and as Woodbridge had not many girls 
 that were eligible for Leofwin s love, the prospect 
 was indeed black. "Your happiness is all I ask," he 
 said in a low tone, and, despite the theatrical die)- 
 tion, even Tom was touched by his sincerity. "You 
 know, of course," he went on, "that I am not in a 
 position now to make an adequate expression of my 
 wishes" it was rather affecting even though no 
 body present quite knew what he meant "but I 
 have brought you the best I have. It is of small
 
 162 Tutors Lane 
 
 material value, but its sentimental value is great. I 
 did all my best work with it." Whereupon he 
 handed her a paint brush. 
 
 With considerable of a tOrdo, Mrs. Norris an 
 nounced the gift of a grandfather s clock. "There 
 is no use, Nancy dear, in dragging it around from 
 house to house, and I m having it sent to your new 
 one." Accordingly, when the expressman an 
 nounced its arrival everyone proceeded to the little 
 colonial house in Tutors Lane. Then difficulties 
 arose. To begin with, it was too tall for any room 
 in the house; and after a great deal of staggering 
 around with it, trying it first in this place and then 
 in that, a gorgeous wooden plume which stuck up 
 from its head had to be removed. Then it was 
 discovered that there were no works in it, Mrs. 
 Norris having bought only the case, supposing of 
 course that the thing was complete. When finally 
 the parts had all been assembled and adjusted 
 which was in the second year of Tom s and Nancy s 
 married life it was learned that the ways of the 
 clock were nearly as eccentric as those of its donor, 
 for when it went at all, the hands made the down 
 ward journey with so much rapidity that they were 
 exhausted at the bottom and in no condition for the 
 return trip. The end came one morning when the 
 clock, which was known as "Aunt Helen," was 
 discovered to have died at six-thirty; and, all 
 horological assistance having been summoned in 
 vain, it was suffered to stand in its corner, untouched 
 except by dust cloths, its hands forever pointing at
 
 Tutors Lane 163 
 
 six-thirty, an eloquent warning of the end of indo 
 lence. 
 
 Although perhaps Mrs. Norris s contribution to 
 the future life of our lovers was not distinguished 
 by that perfect satisfaction which we all strive to 
 furnish with our wedding gifts, her services at the 
 wedding itself were invaluable. Nancy naturally 
 turned to her for assistance with the thousand and 
 one preliminaries that the bride s mother usually 
 performs, and, moving in her own wondrous ways, 
 Mrs. Norris saw to everything. 
 
 The night before the wedding arrived, and she 
 gave a dinner for the bridal party. As, after con 
 siderable discussion, Nancy had consented to have 
 the reception at the Norris house, Mrs. Norris re 
 lieved the minds of her people in the kitchen by hav 
 ing a buffet supper and using paper napkins. 
 
 Nancy was grateful for this, for she was extremely 
 tired, and the simpler everything could be, the 
 better. So the supper was eaten all over the house 
 and out on the terrace, and when the last paper nap 
 kin had been crumpled up, and the entire party had 
 been brought together to drink the bride s health, 
 and her future husband s, and their mutual healths, 
 in the Dean s 1854 champagne, the party was 
 whisked off up to the college church for rehearsal. 
 
 Upon arriving there, Nancy being engaged mo 
 mentarily with Mary, who had heroically consented 
 to be her maid of honour, Tom stole away by him 
 self. Before the church the ridge sloped gently 
 away, giving an unobstructed view of the valley.
 
 164 Tutors Lane 
 
 The evening was a perfect one, and Tom enjoyed 
 one of those rare moments when one feels in com 
 plete accord with everything. All around him were 
 the sights and sounds of bucolic tranquillity; and 
 within, apart from the comfortable effects of the 
 Dean s wine and cigar, were such melting thoughts 
 as we may only guess at. Life was now just be- 
 ginning for him and how good it was! 
 
 The sun died in ever darkening carmine. Tom 
 flicked the ash from his cigar and held it up against 
 the light. It matched perfectly. A long zeppelin- 
 like cloud hung, apparently motionless, a little 
 higher up. Tom moved his cigar up to it and cocked 
 one eye. Again perfect harmony. But, even as he 
 looked, the cloud thinned out at one end and spoiled 
 it a little. Oh, well, it was perfect, anyway. 
 
 Behind him came the strains of the church organ 
 and the voices of the bridal party. They were call 
 ing him. He paused deliciously, drinking in the 
 last moments of his freedom. And then, throwing 
 away his cigar, he passed quickly up the hill and in 
 to the lighted church.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 REC O LD-URL 
 
 MAY 101971 
 
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