JARVIS OF
HARVARD
JARVIS OF HARVARD
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I J A R V I S OF?
(HARVARD?
I By S
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Reginald Wright Kauffman
With a frontispiece by
ROBERT EDWARDS
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J Boston: L. C. PAGE & J
| COMPANY, Publishers |
Copyright, 1901, by L. C. PAGE
f COMPANY (INCORPORATED)
ALL RIGHTS RK8KRVK0
TO
i9Sg l&ncle,
COLONEL SAMUEL WRIGHT.
" more than kin," the first, the best, the last,
Do you remember how we, hand in hand,
The man and child, wonld leave the troubled town
And tread the summer highways, gay and green,
With feet unwearied, while the butterflies,
All yellow, danced above the buttercups,
All yellow too ? How underneath the trees,
Tall, graceful, pungent pines, that whispered low
Strange, wistful secrets, like the trembling lips
Of old men at their prayers, we looked far out
From hilltops over rivers to far hills ?
And how you peopled all that fairyland
Of wood and sky for me ? Most tried, most true,
Nearest and dearest, in the whirl of life
On trifling friendships and on casual loves
1 see men waste their lives in little lusts.
Not so at least have we. Just this I pray :
That some time, not so long, as joyous ghosts,
After the weary web is woven quite,
We two may wander forth again, we two,
And hand in hand once more, the man and child,
Live those days over then forevermore.
R. W. K.
COLUMBIA, PA.,
January ist, 1901.
PREFACE.
ONE for whose literary judgment I have the great-
est respect has warned me, after reading the manu-
script of this story, that, in spite of the prevailing
notion in regard to the futility of a novel's preface,
some sort of foreword would be necessary for "Jar-
vis " in case I did not want him to be misunder-
stood. This, my friend was good enough to explain,
was not because I had not been sufficiently clear in
the tale itself, but because those few readers most
easily offended were to be met only by a more
dogmatic form of statement than is to be permitted
in the course of a legitimate narrative.
Acting, therefore, upon this advice, let me now say,
once and for all, that my purpose in writing this book
was simply to tell a story. In the course of that en-
deavour I have tried merely to show what should,
at any rate, be generally understood that American
college life, not only at Harvard but at all our larger
places of learning, is in no great respect different
from life outside of those institutions. It is governed
by the same laws and offers corresponding rewards
Vlll PREFACE.
and penalties, which are, with equal avidity, sought
after or avoided. In so far as we concern ourselves
with both its academic and social possibilities, Har-
vard life is not unlike that of any other great college
in that there, as in the outside world, the man who
succeeds is the man who sets before him some ideal
other than that of pleasure. The men who seek
enjoyment only are common to all colleges, and are,
from their very nature, conspicuous in all, but they
are not in the majority and they do not succeed.
If, then, this story is for any reason to be considered
as distinct from other college stories, it is simply be-
cause so few writers of this class of fiction have really
understood the actual Undergraduate, or, understand-
ing him, have set him truthfully upon paper. They
have, on the contrary, done a tremendous amount
of harm by treating him nearly always as merely an
irresponsible boy, whereas he is really neither the
child they consider him nor the man he considers
himself. He is, in a word, on the one hand, in the
most delicate state of transition, as susceptible as a
chemist's scale whereof a feather's weight may turn
the beam; and, on the other, a soul in which the
man and boy are terribly, if secretly, contending for
ultimate and enduring supremacy.
R. W. K.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAOB
I. THE BOY 1
II. THE SHIRT OF NESSUS 17
III. TRAUME 27
IV. THE ETERNAL MASCULINE 33
V. TOWER LYCEUM 49
VI. A GIRL IN A GARDEN 70
VII. A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY 86
VIII. EXPLANATIONS 99
IX. DESTINY'S POST FACTO 108
X. EXIT A BOY 124
XL THE WAY OF A MAID 140
XII. A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 152
XIII. MELODRAMA IN LITTLE 166
XIV. "AT CARDS FOR KISSES" 185
XV. A BROKEN REED 207
XVI. WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE ... 227
XVII. AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY 240
XVIII. THE PRICE OF DEFEAT ........ 262
XIX. RETROGRESSION 281
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PACK
XX. THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE 299
XXI. THE GOOD FAIRY 311
XXII. HALF GODS Go 326
XXIII. THE NEW DISPENSATION 343
XXIV. WHAT A DANCE MAY Do 358
XXV. GOKURAKF 373
XXVI. THE MAN 383
XXVII. MAN AND WOMAN 399
JARVIS OF HARVARD.
CHAPTER I.
THE BOY.
SANDERS THEATRE was crowded. The tradi-
tional sea of faces stretched from the front row
beneath the platform, where sat the chattering
groups lucky enough to have come down to col-
lege with an acquaintance already formed at one
of the large preparatory schools, far back to where
the most tardy and lonely Freshman from Kansas
was crushed against the wall of the rear aisle, strain-
ing neck and eye and ear. On the platform were
seating themselves those " Officers of Instruction and
Government " who had not been so fortunate as to
escape impression for this service of welcoming the
College newcomers.
To many of these the careless glances which they
cast over their deferential audience revealed nothing
new, and therefore, for them, nothing striking. The
upturned faces, so far as appearances went, were sub-
stantially the same faces that had been there the year
F HARVARD.
before and would be there in the years to come. And
yet each of those countenances was the more or less
imperfect index to a final character then in the mak-
ing; the inadequate concentration of the hopes of
some half dozen persons, approaching, often with
blushing awkwardness and unconfessed hesitation,
the psychological instant of finality.
Matters of such small instant did not, in any
case, trouble the faces themselves. On the con-
trary, they masked but poorly an impatience which
had to do with only the immediate future. Here at
last was " Bloody Monday," the terrible day in the
Freshman calendar, of which " old grads " had told
them with sinister winks and awful, cryptic sugges-
tions; the first Monday night of the College year,
when dire things were to happen between Massa-
chusetts and University, and every new lad who
roomed on the Yard must have a punch ready for
the raids of upper classmen. Of course, nobody had
prepared a punch. Nobody ever does. But, respect-
ful as all were, every one was anxious to get clear of
the waves of mild restraint that emanated from that
platform in Sanders, and to try conclusions with
whatever waited without.
Jarvis, seated in the centre of the pit, was not
exempt from this, but he was also oddly aware of
the spiritual significance of the scene about him.
He wondered if the fellow at his right, a lad almost
THE BOY. 3
as tall as himself, and not half so broad, shared his
sense of it, and if, after all, he cared.
For his own part, he was still much of the Laodi-
cean. He belonged as yet to neither one extreme nor
the other of the life about him. In fact, he had been
a trifle late in arriving at Cambridge, and, for that and
other reasons less pleasant, his initiatory experience
had been one of turmoil. Sitting in the midst of this
throng of lads, among whom, as yet unknown, were
his destined companions for the next years of his life,
he tried in vain to recall the greater part of the past
few days.
Beyond that first glimpse of the Yard, which
next to his last sight of it stands out the most
vivid impression in the life of a Harvard under-
graduate, little was clear to him. The trips from
adviser to instructor, from Freshman meeting to
office, with the huge orange course-card under his
arm ; the old buildings, with their quaint, staring,
little window-panes ; the hundreds of new faces, all
had produced on him only the effect of objects seen
in a fog, his mind unable to retain any individual
impression. The whole thing was such a series of
mental asterisks that it reminded him of nothing so
much as the abridged Second Book of the " Faerie
Queene" that his tutor had vainly endeavoured to
palm off on him the year before.
One or two men he knew, and no more. Across
4 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
the hall from him, close under the platform, sat
Bert Hardy in laughing conversation with some
friends from St. Paul's, and near by was Stannard
whose acquaintance he had made when registering
and trying to remember his religion and his mother's
maiden name. But apart from these two, he was
a stranger to almost every one of the six hundred
of his classmates in the theatre. For the first time
he felt a slight twinge of homesickness. Were it
not for one person, he could almost wish himself
back in Philadelphia and at home. Except for one
person .
Somebody had approached the front of the plat-
form and was speaking from the right of the reading-
desk. Jarvis never learned who this was, or indeed
whether it was the first speaker. But the house was
applauding, and he joined in the cheers.
The cause of this enthusiasm was a tall, spare man,
in a frock coat, who looked like the tenor of an opera
and spoke like the bass. It was at once clear that
this man had on his mind the knowledge of the pre-
destined class-battle, but it was equally clear that he
did not intend to mention it. Apparently believing
that the best way to secure his ends was to ignore
actual conditions, he merely talked of quiet and
peace in terms superbly general, and the applause
that constantly interrupted the expression of his
laudable sentiments rang none the less sincere be-
THE BOY. 5
cause his hearers had not the remotest intention of
following his implied advice.
The President was introduced. His quiet, com-
manding figure and generously brief words of honest
welcome were acknowledged with an increase of
appreciation, but, it must be confessed, in the mat-
ter at hand, had otherwise precisely the same degree
of effect.
Another and another spoke. The whole calendar
of College saints, including a few uncanonised seniors,
were, at one time or another, on the stage and every
one managed to overlook impending realities while
getting in some strong pleas for peace in the abstract.
But to overlook impending realities was no longer
an easy matter. As the talk flowed gently on, Jarvis
became aware of a certain subdued growling sound that
occasionally rose to a single shout beneath the high
windows and then died away again to a low murmur
of discontent, such as one gets from a conventional
stage mob.
Nor was Jarvis alone in noting this. It was soon
evident that there were in the hall others with ears
quite as good as his. Hardy, he saw, was leaning
far over to a companion two seats away from him
and was evidently speaking with considerable excite-
ment. His hands were performing a rapid series of
combative gestures and his eyes were afire with a
delight patently not inspired by the eloquent words
6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
of the unobserved person who was then addressing
his "friends of the Class of '03."
Indeed, nobody was particularly interested in that
address. The tide of impatience climbed higher and
higher. From the early scraping of shoes in the back
aisles, it had risen to the confused whisper in the pit,
and was now seemingly climbing to the stage itself.
Throughout the house boys were buttoning up their
coats, reaching for their hats, and laying fast hold of
the arms of their chairs, in apparent fear that the im-
pending explosion would hurl them through the walls
of Memorial. In the rear, one or two were already
making their way to the doors, and all the while the
noise from outside continued to grow in volume and
in portent.
Children have been known to prevent a panic in a
school, and a word from a small soubrette has quieted
a fire-affrighted theatre, but it would require the full
force of Napoleonic measures to restrain an excited
body of newly-made college men. Evidently the
authorities knew this, for, whether from experience or
instinct, academic instructors are not such fools as
those under them would have us believe. At any
rate, the man who was speaking in this case stopped
short with a reminder of the reception that was about
to be held by the Faculty in the other wing of the
building.
It was like the announcement of the concert that
THE BOY. /
follows the modern circus. " I will conclude," he
said, " by remarking, in conjunction with what I had
begun by saying this Yale accusation that in times
past we have had to send to England for a man to
teach us to row that we" -he was not of the
Faculty " need only reply that Yale had to send to
Harvard for her first three presidents to teach her
how to be a college."
The audience had completely missed the connec-
tion of these remarks with the body of the speech to
which they were intended to serve as a climax. But
the sentiment was one that would, of itself, have
secured applause, even had it not come as a message
of relief, and for that reason the whole Freshman class
was on its feet and open-mouthed.
But, before a hand fell or a voice from within was
raised, there came from the street a sudden deafening
cannonade of voices :
" Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah !
Nineteen-two ! "
The cheer was given in unison. It was the signal
that the big mob had become a little army; it was
the defiance of the Sophomores.
The effect was instantaneous. A wild cry, half
courtesy to the speaker, half answer to the still echo-
ing challenge, shook the interior of the theatre, and
the next moment the hundreds were crushing into
aisles and swarming over seats, in a wild endeavour to
8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
pass at once through doors that gave space for but
ten at a time.
Jarvis found himself carried along by the crowd
and struggling with the best. An hour before he
had regarded such exhibitions as too infantile ; now
he simply did not pause to reflect at all.
" Here, you ! " somebody cried, gripping him by
the coat-tail. " You 're a big one. Help get us
out first! Somebody's got to get things in order,
or they'll make a jelly of us*"
Jarvis cast a quick glance over his shoulder, and
saw that it was Hardy and his friends who had
thus assailed him.
" Oh, it 's you ! " cried Hardy. " Well, hurry up.
We don't want to rush out there like lobsters. There,
that way ! There you go! Down in front! 3-25
A-48 ! That 's the racket ! "
Dodging and scrambling, pushed from behind and
impeded before, Jarvis found himself somehow at last
down the steps and in the hallway. Hardy was still
at his back and only two of the other members of the
little band were missing.
For his own part, when he had gone to the theatre
it was with a vague desire to be present at the recep-
tion and meet there, in however formal a manner, the
men whose names were so familiar to his eye. But
at this time there was nothing undetermined about
his desires. He wanted to get out of those doors
THE BOY. 9
and leap into whatever tumult was raging on the
other side of them.
This seemed to be the ruling passion of the flushed
crowd about him. A few were making an arduous
way across the lobby, headed for the peaceful recep-
tion, but the great majority wanted to do battle, and
at once.
Hardy, however, would not have it so. It was just
the moment for the rise of a great leader and had
this short, robust youth with his almost feminine
face, fair hair, and blue eyes, been as versed in the
practical psychology of mobs as Danton himself,
he could not more successfully have met the
occasion.
"Oh, fellows, get together! Get together!" he
cried, dancing across the doorway with arms appeal-
ingly outspread ; " they 're organised out there, and
we won't have a smell at the cheese if we go at it a
few at a time and just anyhow. Listen a minute,
listen ! "
He got the silence he asked, or enough, at any
rate, to serve, and then, with a glance across the
street, to make sure of his data, he continued,
" They 're in the street, just the other side of the
car track. They 're in lines of about fifty. The curb 's
behind the front row, I think, an' the wire fence is
hack of about the fifth row. It 's not more than a
few feet high, you know, and the entrance by the
10 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Fogg Art Museum 's rather narrow. If we rush 'em
in order, we can trip them over the curb and then
squeeze them against the fence. Now, go out about
ten at a time and run right for the middle. Grab
every hat you can. Yell your class so 's not to have
your own men against you. Try to force your way
into the Yard. We want to get there and keep them
out till we 're tired of it, or drive them out when
they follow us, if we can. Look out for those steps
and for the wires in the Yard. Make for Holworthy.
That's at this end, you know. Now then, fellows,
nine long Rahs and Nineteen-three ! "
His hearers had been falling into rude ranks as he
spoke, and when, with hands and voice he led the
cheer, the place rang again with their response.
Then came the answer of the Sophomores across the
way, and the sallying party rushed out to battle.
To battle, and, as it seemed at first, to victory.
The advance columns, in one of which Jarvis breath-
lessly found himself, came down the steps at top
speed. By a miracle nobody fell, and, crossing the
street, they had gained a terrible momentum by the
instant they struck the first line of Sophomores,
drawn up with care, but expecting no organised
resistance.
The crash was terrific. According to tradition,
every one was using his arms, and wasting no energy
on his fists, so that the whole weight of each single
THE BOY. II
body was propelled against the opposing line. For
the twinkling of an eye the enemy wavered. Before
they could rally, the second and the third columns
had swept down and, the whole attack being con-
centrated upon one point, those who composed the
line that had directly faced it, were either pushed
aside, or thrown on their backs upon the curb.
Slowly, yet with tremendous force, the mass of Fresh-
men struggled toward the entrance through which
they hoped to gain the Yard.
But here they came to a standstill. The Sopho-
mores had been wise enough especially to protect
this point, and for a time it appeared that no headway
was to be made. Nor was that all. Jarvis caught sight
of a new danger and the arm of the excited Hardy at
one and the same instant.
" Look ! " he yelled, putting his mouth close to the
St. Paul's boy's ear. " Their long line 's closing
around us from the back ! "
For Hardy one glance was sufficient. There was
no time to lose.
" I know what to do ! " he shouted, in answer.
" Here, you, and you, and you ! "
He was clutching several of the Freshmen nearest
to hand and by a series of signs (where his voice
failed) was ordering them to follow him.
Probably because, even in that dim light, he was
recognised as the planner of the original attack, he
12 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
got some twenty to obey him, and between them they
managed to get clear of the crowd, and work their
way into the open street a few rods to the west.
" Now," he said, " there 's a gate here behind
Hoi worthy. We'll go through there and around
back of Fogg. Then we '11 catch 'em in the rear and
open up the way. Go quick till you get there. Stop
when I do. Then form a V, and at 'em hard and all
together from the rear. Yell your class when you
strike, but not a word before ! "
His plan was carried out to the letter. They re-
treated half way up the board walk to Sever, formed
in two lines, which met with Jarvis as the head, and
then, with arms tight about each other's shoulders,
came thundering down upon the Sophomores' rear.
Some had heard them coming and turned to resist.
They were brushed aside without pause, and only
weakened the strength of the wall the V was aimed to
strike.
" Heads down ! " cried Hardy. " Nineteen-three ! "
There was another horrible shock. Jarvis' head
struck some one in the stomach, and that stomach
seemed to vanish before him as the paper in the hoop
before the circus rider. Another and another con-
cussion followed, and all at once he found that the
man next ahead was calling " Nineteen-three ! " and,
turning about, he followed Hardy in the now open
way to the Yard.
THE BOY 13
Nevertheless, he was not a little dazed, and as to
what immediately followed he was never afterward
particularly clear.
They had formed again in front of Holworthy and
the Sophomores had shortly followed, sweeping
around from behind Thayer, whence they rushed en
masse upon the advancing Freshmen.
In a minute nearly all the few lights had been
extinguished and the swirling clouds of men were
hopelessly intermixed. The only way to identify
oneself was to cry the year of one's class and strike
blindly, but open handed, at any who cried otherwise.
Vain were the attempts of overzealous instructors
to quell the disturbance. They got no further than
the outskirts ; they were well jostled for their pains,
and generally ended by going the way of all peace-
makers. From the steps of Univerity, Seniors
cheered on the Sophomores, while the Juniors did
as much for the Freshmen. The tide of battle rolled
from Holworthy to Gray's and from Thayer to
Matthews'. Many an upper classman found the temp-
tation too much for him, and rushed into the fray.
Here and there little knots of Freshmen would break
out from the twisting mass and form again, but gen-
erally it was a battle of every man for himself.
Yet, up to a certain point, it was a good-natured
fight, and the method of war consisted for the most
part only of pushing an enemy over the low wires
14 JARVIS OF HARVARD
that everywhere intersect the turf and mark out the
paths. Soon, however, the arena became so deep
a slough that to be thrown into the mud was no
pleasant experience. Coats and hats were torn off,
and so the battle raged for two hours.
Most " Bloody Mondays " have ended only with
the harmless exhaustion of both sides, when each
marches off proclaiming itself the victor, and that,
no doubt, would have been the climax of this one,
had not a persuasive instructor, by some phenome-
non, caught the combined attention of the mob and
begun a sermon from the porch of Matthews just
in front of the last lamp-post to bear a light.
Every one had stopped, glad of a chance to rest,
but the instructor, to do him justice, did not say
much. He knew his audience better, perhaps, than
most instructors. They had had their fun, and no
serious harm had been done. But now they had
better go home. It was late and an affair of this
kind, prolonged to too great an extent, was almost
sure to result in some injury or other grave trouble.
The speaker paused. Perhaps he intended to stop
altogether. Jarvis never knew, for just then a Sopho-
more directly in front of him had evidently reached
that conclusion, and turned about with a wild whoop
and a flourish of arms that brought one hand in
sounding contact with the Freshman's cheek.
They were in the full light of the lamp and all
THE BOY. 15
those about had seen or heard enough to make it
incumbent upon Jarvis to reply. He looked at the
offender, a tall but slim lad with sandy hair and
brown eyes of battle. Then he recollected his own
broad shoulders, his six feet of height and his hun-
dred and eighty pounds. But the crowd had closed
in about them and the instructor, the ultimate sym-
bol of law and order, had wisely disappeared. Then
some one shouted :
" Give it to him, Naught-three ! "
And that settled matters.
The Sophomore looked as if he had never had a
coat and that of Jarvis was off in an instant.
The Freshman did not know how to box, but both
the principals knew how to fight. Jarvis led with
his right for his opponent's face. It was a hard
blow, and when the Sophomore dodged, Jarvis
pitched heavily forward. As he tottered his enemy
landed a strong left on his head, and that sent him
at once to the ground. Evidently his opponent had
used his fists before.
The two elements of the crowd were now crying
their favourites, but no one attempted to interfere and
a fairly precise ring had been preserved.
Mad with shame and anger, Jarvis sprang to his
feet and rushed headlong. But he had sufficient wit
not to clinch, and, though two of his blows went wild
and another was skilfully warded, the fourth landed
16 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
heavily on the Sophomore's ribs. The latter had
kept up a series of short "jabs" in the chest and
back, but neither was much the worse when both
paused for breath.
Then, in an instant, it was over. The Sophomore
advanced with his former caution and a wild flurry of
feints. In pure desperation, Jarvis drove full from
the shoulder. His fist rang against his enemy's jaw
and the Sophomore fell hard and lay quiet.
Of course Jarvis thought he was killed and of
course he was not. The classmates of each closed
about their champion to revive or congratulate, and
presently the vanquished emerged from among his
friends and walked up to Jarvis with outstretched
hand.
" I 'm licked," he said. " I had n't any business to
fight, for I thought I had you at the start and, any-
how, it 's rather absurd."
Jarvis admitted, with some embarrassment, that
it was.
" But it was all luck with me," he added
inconclusively.
" Perhaps," was the answer, " but it served. Only
really, you ought to take lessons. You 're awfully
clumsy with your fists."
CHAPTER II.
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS.
JARVIS started back to his room in a state of exul-
tation that was completely novel to him. He had
rarely before had the chance of testing his splendid
strength. In spite of a bookish tinge to his nature,
he was not above enjoying the lesser follies of boys
of his age, and purely physical weariness induced a
certain mental exhilaration. He had lost his hat
early in the scrimmage ; he had forgotten to recover
his coat when he finally managed to escape the
admiration of his supporters in his fistic encounter.
He had had his turn to sprawl in the mud, and he
was now returning to his quarters in a pelting rain.
But he recollected how man after man had gone down
before his enthusiastic onslaughts, and he was delight-
fully tired and buoyant.
Perhaps it was an effect of this that, upon opening
his door at Claverly, he could, for the first time, look
upon the place as home. The study to which he
entered bespoke a wild day's shopping, made with a
long purse and from that point of view which comes
to one only for the brief early years at college.
1 8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Judged by this standard, the place should have been
comfortable, not to say luxurious. It was crowded
with a lot of lumber that he regarded as artistic. The
heavy furniture almost overflowed the window-seats
into Mount Auburn Street. Morris chairs, a desk, a
tea table, all the accoutrements, necessary and other-
wise, that go to make the modern college man's
apartments, crowded the centre of the room. The
walls were lined with book shelves on which predom-
inated the handsome bindings of a literature not
generally in circulation with the Young Person a
sign whereby Jarvis hoped to display his liberality.
Oriental rugs covered the floor and Eastern arms and
fans, with one or two very fair reproductions of the
old masters and some flaring posters, served to fill up
the remaining space between floor and ceiling. A
profusion of plaster casts of more or less merit crowded
what corners were left. At one side of the big fire-
place, above the gleaming andirons, a death-mask of
Voltaire leered across at a crucifix, and beside a
green-mounted Madonna of the Chair, a ballet-dancer
done in water-colours, poised awkwardly on one foot.
The whole place abounded in glaring contrasts, due,
one felt, to a mental commotion, more distorted per-
haps than normal, on the part of the owner.
In just what direction that commotion tended was
shortly evident. Jarvis at once picked up' the letters
that had been delivered during his absence since five
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS. l
o'clock and, with nervous fingers, ran through them
until he found the one that he had trembled for. He
got it soon enough from among a score of bills and
postal-cards offering the services of tutors in a dozen
subjects, a square blue envelope, addressed in a
clear, firm hand, and exhaling, he almost fancied, just
a breath of the perfume he so associated with her.
But his hurry was over in a moment, and he leaned
wearily against the mantelpiece turning the letter
over and over in his hands.
The fire the only light in the room left the
sturdy outlines of his figure in darkness, but blazed
full upon the healthy, flushed face. It was a rather
handsome face at any rate one that forced a
second glance and showed to all the better advan-
tage now that the rich brown hair, usually so severely
brushed to one side, had matted low on the broad
forehead and asserted to the full its tendency to
curl. The eyes were bright, but so dark a brown
that one would almost have called them black had
not the straight brows and long lashes been deep
enough to give them their true value. The nose,
too, was strong, but the mouth was almost feminine
in its bow, and the curve of the chin was not with-
out its warning of weakness. The shadowy contour
of his body was that of physical perfection, but the
face was the face of a boy with the brow of a man,
all unconscious of the terrible odds against it.
2O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
He looked at the envelope again and again, but he
could not bring himself to open it and, instead, the
whole miserable course of events of which this letter
was significant dragged their weary length before his
mental vision.
He had been brought up at his own home by rich
parents, among a host of indulgent relatives. There
he had been trained by tutors up to the day last
spring on which he took his entrance examinations.
He had scarcely ever been separated from his parents,
and had thus failed to get the greatest benefit obtain-
able from a boarding-school the toughening of the
moral hide, the stability which, if it is not knowledge
of the world, is at least strength to bear that knowl-
edge. The requisite Greek and Latin for his exami-
nations he certainly had acquired ; tact and the
passive power of adapting himself to his surroundings
he inherited. At a very early age almost too early
for real promise he had shown literary tastes that
had developed themselves rather than been developed
into a certain talent. He wrote pretty verse with an
ease and grace that perhaps rightly surprised the fond
parents who were only too ready thus to be moved.
His work was naturally wholly imitative, because he
had no fund of experience or sensation to draw upon ;
but he imitated so cleverly that his relatives were
deluded into mistaking the adaptation for the original.
Yet, with all this, his soul was a blank page. Of
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS. 21
emotion, beyond the homely affections which go for
nothing in the development of the artistic temperament,
he knew nothing. Such domestic attachments are
merely the water-wash which the colourist puts upon
his paper that the tints of his sky or sea may be more
brilliant. Of the passionate sunsets and pale dawns
of life that were to come, Jarvis stood in complete
ignorance. Book-read beyond his age, too, he had
not, since early childhood, been spiritually close to
either his father or his mother. The former, a Phila-
delphia man of business and nothing more, had at
first admired and then come to stand rather in awe of
this mind for the existence of which he was respons
ible. Thoroughly good and almost foolishly indul-
gent, he was of a mental fibre hopelessly coarser than
that of the boy, and Dick felt the moral wall that
separated them none the less precisely although he
could not understand its material. The lad's mother,
on the other hand, though passionately devoted to
her son, was, like many other mothers with a gift for
devotion, even more passionately devoted to the
formalities of social life which her position enjoined ;
and it was only when, after some prolonged season
of gaieties, she realised that she had been neglect-
ing Dick, that she would become hysterically demon-
strative over him.
The boy generally hated his tutors because they
were the outward and visible sign of the force that
22 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
kept him from the haven of his hopes a boarding-
school. This one gift was never granted him and,
as with us all, the one gift denied became the only
desire of his heart. But, although she managed to
leave him with a regularity that was convincingly
consistent, his mother, with all the obstinate selfish-
ness of affection, firmly declared she could not have
him leave her until he went to College.
Mentally, however, the lad was very much alone,
and once alone had free access to the large library
of his maternal grandfather, which had rested un-
touched during the interregnum in the Jarvis house-
hold following the death of old Geoffrey Cooke
and lasting until the advent of Richard Jarvis, 2nd.
Dick made good, or rather free, use of the shelves
that were otherwise untouched except for the dusters
of conscientious housemaids, and read much that was
good for his taste and bad for his soul. Endowed
or cursed with a wonderfully vivid imagination, as
many another child has done, he lived within him-
self the stories that he read. At first he was
David skulking among the mountain caves of Adul-
lam ; Cicero hurling his denunciations in English
against Catiline or defending Archias ; King Henry
urging on his British yeomen at Harfleur; Montrose,
the Young Chevalier, or Napoleon. Then he became
by turns Rizzio, writing sonnets to the scarlet puppet
ofJohnKnox; the self-abasing Aboard; the aveng-
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS. 23
ing Rimini ; or else he was crying to the Alastor of
his solitude to make the world her Actium, him her
Antony.
When, rather late, he outgrew these child-dreams,
he came gradually but none the less surely, to realise
the emptiness of his life. He saw that the artist must
reproduce, and that if he had no impressions of his
own to present, he could only imitate those of his
masters. He told himself that a man might be a
fool for giving way to his passions, but that he
would certainly be a fool if he had no passions to
give way to. The greater the soul, he reasoned, the
greater the temptations. Why should he cheat his
heart and God-given strength of their fire? Youth
boiled in his veins, beat in his pulses, hammered
at his breast. He would imprison it no longer.
He would not starve his soul and grow old before
he had been young.
And then She came. The pure delight of her,
could he ever forget it? They had met at Bar
Harbor, she fresh from her schooling abroad. As
a child he had known her for his neighbour and
playmate. Now she was a woman and beautiful,
but he never thought of that. What he entirely
lost himself in was the charm of contact with a
nature that seemed the counterpart of his own. He
could not fail to perceive the social distinctions that
increasing years had created. Childhood, like love,
24 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
may know no caste ; but even in his present concfr
tion it was impossible to be blind to the fact that the
Braddocks, rich, amiable and intellectual though they
might be, were, by the rigid Philadelphia code, quite
outside his peculiar set. Yet even the strong bonds
of heredity and environment the stronger, perhaps,
because irrational could not restrain the ego in
o
him that had gone mad with its strength. In a
moment he had shaken off the trammels of his
former existence. He was an entity, an individu-
ality, a soul entering upon its battle with multitudi-
nous life.
Then, of a sudden, he had learned the graver
reason that divided them, the reason which, right
or wrong, obtains above all local definitions and
distinctions. And he had learned it only to learn,
at the same time, his own weakness. He was no
Odysseus to stop his ears against the siren's song.
His morbid imagination had pictured this cata-
strophe as the ruin of his whole life. He had come
to Cambridge in a dream. But there had followed
no word from her, and he began to have a vague
hope of rehabilitation. Yet, so strong was her power
over him, that he dreaded the sight of a letter from
her hand with an alarm of which he could not pre-
viously have thought himself capable. He longed
with all his boy's heart for some friend, some coun-
sellor, however fallible. With growing hope and
THE SHIRT OF NESSUS. 25
terror he looked for the letter every day. And
now it had come.
Again he turned it over in his hand. What was
he to do? How was he to reply? He was so alone !
If only there was any one to ask !
Almost . as if in answer to the wish, there was, a
sudden ring at his bell, and a moment later Hardy,
mud from top to toe, had divested himself of nearly
all the few clothes left him by the " rush," and flung
himself into one of the great armchairs at one side
of the fire.
" Give me some tobacco ! Was n't it splendid ?
They were easy, easy, easy ! " he cried all in a breath.
For the instant Jarvis felt like sending him away,
but he made a determined effort to adopt the other's
mood.
" It was splendid," he conceded. " Here 's some
tobacco. Shall I light the lamp?"
" No, this is ripping. Let things as they are. I
just could n't go to sleep for hours yet, so I stopped
in to talk."
There was a minute's silence. From the floor
below there came through the quiet night the sound
of a piano. Somebody was playing the " Traume "
of Wagner and the low strains, so subtle for the inter-
pretation of our highest and lowest selves, crept into
and filled the room. From the fire one particular
flame played a steady light upon Hardy. Jarvis
26 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
regarded him, puffing at his pipe, In the strong,
frank face there was much to invite. It struck Jarvis,
too, that this young fellow with his hardy school
training, his friends and his way, as it seemed,
already made, stood for everything that the more
lonely boy had missed.
" Hardy," he said at last.
" Yes ? "
" We used to know each other pretty well in
Philadelphia before you went away to school. That 's
why I 'm talking to you now. I 'm going to tell you
something about myself and ask your advice."
CHAPTER III.
TRAUME.
To the mind of the young Undergraduate there is
no horror quite so faithfully to be avoided as a scene.
Hardy, to whom Jarvis' tone had left small room for
speculation, no doubt felt to the full the unpleasant-
ness of the situation, but if so, he was, in changing his
mood, as much the gentleman as the other, and only
grunted an inarticulate assent as he inwardly thanked
his stars that the lamp was out.
Both fellows refilled their pipes and then Jarvis
began,
" I suppose it's a queer sort of thing on my part,"
he said. " I 've never done anything of the sort
before, but the matter has come to such a point that
I Ve just got to ask somebody's advice."
" I don't see how I 'm qualified," Hardy hopefully
suggested.
" You 're the only person I can talk to around here,
anyhow, and I must at least talk it over with some one.
It 's it 's about a woman."
" Then I know I 'm not qualified."
28 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Well, we '11 see. I shan't mention names, of
course."
Hesitatingly at the start, but gradually with
growing feeling and eloquence, he made clear his
situation.
" It was the very night before I came up here." he
went on. " I '11 never forget the picture. The dim,
red light of the piano lamp cast such strange shifting
shadows over her lithe figure as she played. The
whole room was shaded in a soft kind of rosy twilight,
except for the glaring white keyboard of the piano
and the girl and for me beside her. She seemed
to melt right into the whole quiet harmony of it.
Her movements were all so slow and graceful. She
put herself into the music even into the keys. One
minute she 'd be pulsing with the air and the next the
air would be quickened just as if by the life in her.
She has a way a lingering sort of touch that
gave a melancholy expression to it all.
"Well, you know how quick innocence is in its
perception of vice. I understood, from her own lips,
exactly what her mistake had been. But she seemed
to love me and so long as it was possible and that
was to be so short a time I could n't stay away. I
knew perfectly well what would result, but well,
there I was.
" I watched her, and watched her, and watched her.
The spell was so perfect, I hardly dared to speak. I
TRAUME. 29
may have thought I'd break the artistic charm, or
may be the subconscious devil that hides in us all
made me keep my mouth shut when stillness was
worse than words. I don't know. Anyhow, when
she stopped the music died away so languorously
that the pause was intoxicating. I remember one of
her hands was resting on the echoing keys. Her
whole body was motionless and yet so vibrant with
life that when, all at once, she laughed, I felt as if
some one had cursed in a church.
" I don't know what we talked about It all meant
a good deal more than the words. But it came out
that by some mistake she had thought I was n't to
leave until the next week, instead of the next day.
She put out her hand to me. It was like a gleam of
white lightning. I 'd never talked love to her. It was
the first time in my life I 'd ever even held a woman's
hand in that way and I remembered seeing people do
that sort of thing in Rittenhouse Square, so I dropped
it and asked her to sing.
" Everything might have been different if it had n't
been for that. She picked ,up the ' Traume ' ot
Wagner the very thing that fellow downstairs is
playing. Well, she'd arranged the music to some
foolish words I 'd written. Listen ! "
He held up a warning finger and again the low
sweet sound flooded the room. Hardy was looking
steadily at the fire, his face between his hands. He
30 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
did not move as the strange strains rose and fell like
the quiet waves along the shore of some pure island
Paradise or was it on some reef of Circe?
" Listen," repeated Jarvis, and the music seemed
to respond to his very words. " What does that say
to you ? People tell you that it expresses the high-
est and purest sort of love something so high and
splendid that it is above the best of us. They say it
is the only clear human conception ever achieved of
a love between man and woman that is like the love
of God. Is it? For they add that, sung with other
words, or with the very slightest and subtlest change
in the manner or even soul of the singer, it can mean
everything that is seductive to the most splendid
voluptuousness, as nothing else ever wrought by man
has ever meant it. Well, that's what it meant to
me."
He paused again and the music sank to a low wail-
ing echo, like the sob of a lost soul that was cringing
in some dark corner of that very room.
"She had a wonderful soft contralto voice," he
continued. " The minute she began to sing I saw
clearer than ever before just what the situation meant.
Race instinct I suppose it was knocked over all
my theories of right and wrong, but I was helpless.
I just looked into the grave of everything power-
less. Then I leaned over to turn the page and her
hair brushed my cheek.
TRAUME. 31
"Next day I came up here. The governor 'd
arranged for the rooms, but I lived in them at first as
if they were three rooms in a hotel. I did n't even
unpack my trunks. I simply could n't take in the
situation. No word came from her and then at last
I began to see that I might start fresh if she 'd only
let me alone. To-night," and he held up the blue
envelope, " this letter came."
There was another silence. Hardy took two long
pulls at his pipe.
" Well ? " he said at last.
" What shall I do ? " asked Jarvis. " If I open it,
I'm afraid You understand. The only question is
whether I Ve a right to throw it into the fire."
"And you left her as you found her."
" I think the sin was mine. With her it was com-
mitted so long before. I left her no worse, I should
say."
"Then don't be a fool. Read the letter, by all
means. Then write an answer, letting her know as
decently as you can, that the thing must end.
You've only one course to follow, the course of
a gentleman. I don't see why you thought you
needed anybody's advice."
"But how can I tell her?"
" I leave that to your instincts. You Ve got every-
thing to gain or lose and there are your parents to
remember."
32 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Then I '11 think it over."
" Oh, certainly ! And do just what you would
have done without me. At any rate, that's my
advice first and last. What time is it? Four?
Wonder the proctor did n't jump that musician. I 'm
going to bed."
He made for the door with a determination of
manner sufficient to convince an ignorant onlooker
that his couch had been moved just into Jarvis' hall.
Midway, however, he checked himself and, wheeling-
round, came back to the fire-place with outstretched
hand.
Jarvis met him in silence and, as the door banged
upon Hardy's full flight, threw himself into his chair
again.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE.
" PERHAPS, my beloved," said Martin Luther, as he
stood with his wife beside the dead body of his only
daughter, " perhaps it is better thus. The world is
a hard place for girls." Jarvis remembered the words.
The years, he reflected, have not altered the truth
of what the great reformer said. We sin and the
woman pays. We succeed and the glory is ours ;
we fall and the shame is hers. As poor Inez wrote
her recreant lover, we have the sword or the mart to
help us to forget, but woman, as Nansen told his wife,
must prove her courage by staying at home. It is
a hard world for girls.
Heretofore the great change to a new life had
served to check, in a measure, all of Jarvis' attempts
at ordered consideration of the recent past. As the
physical reaction from his unwonted exertions in
the Yard set in upon him, a profound pity for the
woman, an intense loathing of himself and a sickening
horror of hopelessness and despair swept down all
of Hardy's easily reared bulwarks, and crushed Jarvis
into his chair. The terrible sense of something lost
3
34 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and forever gone from him, of some ethereal and
eternal attribute carelessly thrown away, stunned
every other faculty save that for suffering. Incon-
trovertibly forced on him was, above all, the knowl-
edge that all his theories had been mistaken, wrong,
and bad ; that he was the victim of his own ill-doing,
as far beyond real pity as he was beyond true
hope.
And she ! Her face rose before him with all the
charm of the irrevocable, the dark hair, the flashing
eyes, the gleaming flesh. Again the slight flush oi
her cheek intensified the glance that she darted upon
him. Again he saw the long-lashed lids drooping
over eyes dark but limpid, like still woodland pools
in which rare beams of wandering sunlight linger,
Whatever she had been, he thought, Mary Braddock
loved him. And yet he found it useless to disguise
any longer the fact that for her he could discover in
his heart nothing but compassion. He told himself
that he must never have loved her, or else her sacri-
fice would surely endear her tenfold to him now.
He no longer attempted to reason about it. He had
in one night tried the game with happiness, and lost.
At last, however, though unconsciously, a new
course of thought began to shape itself in his sick brain.
Whatever his duty to this woman, it could hardly
be as severe as if he had not been but one of other
lovers. After all, he had left her as he found her.
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 35
He was the only loser, most likely the only sufferer,
while she the thought blazed into his mind it
was she who had robbed him.
He was not fair no man in Jarvis' condition can
be that and moreover he was cruel. He did try to
continue in his belief of her love of him, but, in view
of her past, the answer to such belief was now rather
obvious. She was not there to plead the frankness
of her confession, and, if she had been, it is likely that
he would have passed it by unnoticed.
Surely, there is also an eternal masculine ! Jarvis'
tumultuous despair had to find some vent, and the
man in him demanded that the woman should suffer.
Upon her the vials of his wrath were opened. Human
nature is capable of bearing only a limited amount of
self-condemnation, and all at once he found it easy
enough to see how she had been to blame. Why
had she led him on? He was sure she had. He
remembered a thousand now significant little words
and gestures that before had passed as only the
unpremeditated outbursts of an affectionate girl.
She knew him to be a mere boy. She had read
him aright, better than ever heretofore he had been
able to read himself. He was surprised that he
could have been so blind in regard to either. He
was angry with both, but he soon found that he
was much more angry with her.
By degrees the storm of his self-reproach began
36 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
to resolve itself into an overmastering antipathy for
the woman, who, but a few evenings before, he
had imagined was as indispensable to his life as
food and air. He was too unlettered in the world's
ways, too helpless as yet among its unknown cur-
rents. The universe that he had constructed from
his books had been, in one instant of passion,
proved wrong and completely overturned. A man
in that universe, he had been a defenceless child
in the reality. He had been so utterly ignorant.
But she knew! She knew! Oh, no, it was not
fair!
He endeavoured in vain to contend against this
sense; to fight off as unfeeling and unjust this in-
clination to condemn her unheard. But he was
too tired, too exhausted by the preceding mental
struggles to fight either long or hard, and, even
while he felt himself sinking to potentially lower
depths of self-hate, he gave* way and submitted.
Bear in mind that this boy he was little more
was home-bred, with pure instincts and originally
high ideals. He had been withheld from that contact
with his fellows which strengthens self-reliance, gives
a tone to manhood, and at the same time brushes
away the delicate down of ignorance that is the chief
charm of ingenuous youth. If a man in like straits
should think and feel as Jarvis then thought and felt,
he would be an unbearable prig, but Dick was still
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 37
short of maturity in all the qualities of thought that
years alone can bring, and he had been deceived and
entrapped, not deliberately, perhaps, but none the less
irretrievably, by a woman of clear-sighted worldliness.
He knew this and he could not feel otherwise.
In a few short hours his sentiments had undergone
a complete revolution. His whole being had suffered
a tremendous overthrow, and the mind, dazed as yet
from the shock of the struggle, was thus far unable to
adjust itself to the new intellectual focus. The anni-
hilation of the artificial self was, for the time at
least, absolute, and he could not, all at once, appre-
ciate the resurrection although assured of the
self inherited.
Nevertheless, he felt both bestial and abased.
After all, he was, then, like other men, only a very
slightly elevated animal; he who had felt himself
inspired by some divine message, uplifted by some
heavenly gift, some spark of the eternal fire ! Why,
he had even imagined he had something in common
with Dante and Milton and Shakespeare, some closer,
invisible communion that set him apart from the rest
of the world, he, slime from the vilest sewers of the
race ! It was just as well that he had returned where
he belonged. He could not conceive the point of
view, the psychological character that, until that
night, had been Richard Jarvis for so many years.
He wondered at him. He could see the results,
38 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
but was quite at a loss to enter into the train ot
thought that had brought him hither. He had, it
for that moment seemed, come into that room a
boy and suddenly found himself a man.
The head was thrown back upon the unyielding
cushions, the square chin, the soft mouth, the
frank eyes were still all those of a child, and if, in
connection with that figure to which they belonged,
they seemed unusually boyish, they were only the
more beautiful for that. When he was introspec-
tive as now, however, they were intent enough;
and, as the gray light of a dismal Cambridge
morning stole in at the windows, it laid cold fingers
on his forehead and drew ominous lines beneath the
eyes and about the mouth.
Slowly, at last, he stood up, and going to his bed-
room began to undress. The sun burst above the
treetops and tinged the roofs with gold. At once
the whole sordid street was so alive with joy that
a great self-pity rose again within the lad. He
could never love that sight, or be at one with the
purity of nature again.
Yet, if the battle had only begun, the initiatory
skirmish was ended. Little by little, during the next
week, the mist-figures about Jarvis began to resolve
themselves into ordinate shape and form to his
mental vision. By sheer force of constant succession,
the very repetition of incidents created a rational
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 39
series of impressions and, from this state, the step to a
generally clear intellectual atmosphere was as brief
and easy as it was imperceptible.
He found his lot cast among a new set of con-
ditions, himself confronted by a new combination of
circumstances, which, he was forced to confess, would
not have been, to his former attitude, by any means
uncongenial, and which, even now, were not unpleas-
ant. He took his meals at the place of a terrible
Irishwoman, whose dining-room was small and
crowded and poor, but expensive and popular, and,
although his allowance speedily ran short, he early
found it possible to borrow any amount at any mo-
ment and to pay only when the creditor himself
was in need of a loan.
Quite involuntarily, too, his body first, and then his
general temperament, were adapting themselves to
the new life. Not that he was by any means recon-
ciled or comforted. There was merely at work in
him that unnamed, incomprehensible quality which
not only aids, but in many cases, surely though
easily, forces a man to acquiescence and endurance,
if not indeed absolute forgetfulness. Simply by dint
of that subtle power he began, in a few short days, to
grow used to his changed lot, spiritual as well as
material.
He was surprised to find that he was making
friends, or at least binding to himself many close
4O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
acquaintances. On the floor above him roomed to-
gether Bert Hardy and Tom Mallard, both Pennsyl-
vanians ; the former an old playmate of whom, since
schooldays began, he had formerly seen but little.
This Freshman, by means of his Concord chums,
soon put Jarvis in touch with a great many men
whom otherwise he would most probably never have
met. Mallard was a " conditional " Junior who took
quarters with Hardy, at first against his will and
simply because a long-standing intimacy between
their families commanded it. He was a St. Mark's boy
and in the beginning had little love for this enforced
proximity; but, by the time the peculiar isolations
of certain phases of Harvard life had allowed Jarvis
to discover him, Mallard was fast becoming con-
ciliatory and even flattered by the opportunities for
patronage that the situation offered. With these two
men Jarvis was soon on terms of real intimacy.
For his part, Hardy was essentially a creature of
good fortune. Not that he did not deserve all the
fine things that came to him. He deserved them all
and more. Only, the good things that the best of
colleges has at its disposal are, like those of all life,
notoriously insufficient to go around, and Fate,
reflecting, perhaps, that there is solace in misery's
companionship, has a way of settling such matters
by bestowing the favours on but a select few of the
deserving. The present recipient had been born rich
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 41
and rather fair to look upon. He had the advantages
of birth and a preparatory training at a large and
influential school. Consequently, when he came
down to Harvard his academic career was more
or less a foregone conclusion. Other people had
to make theirs. If they were the right sort they
could do it, irrespective, no doubt, of money and
previous acquaintanceship. If they were anything
else, no amount of the last named conveniences would
save them. But Hardy combined all three. He was
not a cad and though he was ready and even anxious
to sow his share of the oats that are wild, he did not
care to turn that procedure into any sort of agrestic
festival. With his money he was generous, but not
ostentatious. And if he was a bit too lazy to go in for
athletics himself and inclined to search diligently for
courses described as " cinch," he was all the more
enthusiastic in his admiration for those who did real
work in either sphere of University life. It was this
happy faculty for brilliance that, in spite of the
factional combination of the Boston schools made
his election to a high Class office just as much a matter
of course for him as, for example, to the Polo Club,
and it was a healthy determination to do his best by
this office that brought him into Jarvis' room at
eleven o'clock one morning some days after their
conversation on the night of Bloody Monday.
Hardy had always found it hard to begin anything.
42 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Consequently, for a while the talk ran in the usual cur-
rent of the food at Mrs. Blank's, of the instructors,
and their courses. The one was " rotten," the others
were too full of " hot air," and the last were gener-
ally very " stiff." Then Jarvis innocently touched
upon football, and Hardy gave up his examination of
the books and pictures along the walls.
" Look here," he said, " why don't you turn out
for the Class team?"
Jarvis hurled a protesting pillow at his classmate's
head.
" Out you go ! " he cried. " Why, you know I
never played in my life."
" Well, a Class team is the way to begin."
" Then why don't you try it?"
" I have all I can do for the Class now. You ought
to do your share. You 're big and strong and just
built for it"
" But I have n't been bid."
" Neither was Billy Innez bid to the Friday Even-
ings, but I got him in."
" Omnipotent ! I 'd rather go there."
" Oh no ! you would n't. Besides, you '11 have to
give all your attention to the team."
Jarvis considered it.
" Of course, it 's not a sure thing? "
" Of course it 's not. You Ve got to earn it like
everything else here."
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. ^
" Well." He flipped a coin and, catching it in his
hand, glanced at the result of the experiment. " I '11
go-"
He did go and with considerable iclat. The rudi-
ments of the game came easily enough. There was
a good deal of hard work involved and a good deal of
self-denial, but to Jarvis' passion for novelty these
were rather pleasant than otherwise, and within the
week, the " Crimson " was reporting a " find " for the
Freshman eleven.
Nor was this all. Contrary to the common manner
of Freshmen, his studies also began, somewhat later,
to occupy a considerable portion of his time. Greek
and Latin he felt (on the strength of a B in his
entrance examinations) privileged to neglect. Mathe-
matics, because of an E, he deemed it useless to
cultivate. But to History, Government and especi-
ally to English, he devoted himself with something
of his old zest and a new kind of dogged method
that was altogether unusual in him. In English
" 28," which was a ludicrously slight review of our
literature in general, he was far too well read to be
at home, but in the daily and fortnightly themes
of " 22 " a course really intended for higher class-
men he found precisely the occupation that was
most indispensable to him in regaining his mental
equilibrium.
that he did regain it in all its juvenescence,
44 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
But the work was what he needed, and he profited
accordingly. His first theme was read aloud to the
class of a hundred and fifty men, and this little honor
spurred him on.
Though provided with what should have been
plenty of money, Jarvis had not yet proceeded in
mock desperation to try to buy forgetfulness one
of the most extravagant luxuries on the market
but he had become more deeply introspective than
ever before. Previous to his association with the
Class football squad he had sat up until morning
reading Swinburne with eyes too young, and smok-
ing cigarettes with lips too unaccustomed. The
result was the gratifying conclusion that all women
and most men were bad. He imagined that the
glamour was gone from all things ; that his illusions
were permanently broken. As a matter of fact, he
had merely succeeded in replacing his old poetical
ideals with others equally false and almost irreparably
hideous. Where he had formerly committed the
blunder of thinking all things beautiful and good, he
now made the mistake of acknowledging them all bad
and ugly. He had only substituted demonolatry for
pantheism. And in every direction there were times
when it appeared that his efforts were thwarted by a
complete despair. Passive as this state was, it only
required a fresh glimpse of the wrong side of life, a
chance word at the proper time, to change it from
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 45
kinetic to potential, and this chance was not long in
occurring.
He had at last managed to write the letter that
Hardy had suggested. It could not hurt her and,
for his own peace of mind, it was imperative that the
correspondence be broken off. He was kind, almost
loving, and quite ridiculous. At first he had thought
simply to let her notes go unanswered, but he was as
yet too much a gentleman for that course; so he
wrote in a way which, while it expressed nothing
definitely, was calculated to let her understand that,
much as they had been to each other, the foundation
upon which their friendship rested was, to his mind,
one of sand. It could not withstand the storms of
life. He added that he could never again care for
any other woman, and he really believed what he
said. Smarting under the assumption that she was
the author of his misery, he was, quite unwittingly,
playing the cad for the first time in his life. But he
was to expiate his fault to the full.
He had not long to wait for his reply.
Hardy came again to see him as, one night, he was
undressing all over his three rooms. There was a
little beating about the bush, questions about the foot-
ball and the College in general then, playing with
tongs, his back turned and speaking in that offhand
fashion whereby young men always hope to make
unpleasant things endurable,
46 JAR VIS OF HARVARD.
" Oh, by the way," asked Hardy, " did you write
that letter?"
" Yes, day before yesterday."
"Any answer? "
"Not yet. But I know how it'll be. She's a
woman of no illusions herself, and so well calcu-
lated to have a good deal of influence over a fellow
who kept all his untouched till she broke the charm.
And no one knows better than she that she has
broken it. Oh, she's been fully prepared for my
letter ! "
He was right. In age a year or two his elder, in
reading quite as old as he, and in sophistication a full
decade his senior, this woman had been taken by his
poetic and distinctive nature, but whilst playing with
him was still, in her own way, in love with him. Yet
she well knew that whatever hold she might have
upon him she could now exercise it only when actu-
ally in his presence. He was. moreover, out of sight,
and experience had taught her to regard such con-
quests as were in that state as being just as well out
of mind. And still, so complex is the nature of these
women, that she too perhaps meant something of
what she said when she replied.
The letter came next evening. Jarvis opened
it, it is true, not without emotion, but with feelings
of a sort entirely new. It was simple and to the
point :
THE ETERNAL MASCULINE. 47
"My dear, dear Dick," it ran. "I must own that I
was n't surprised at the contents of your last letter. I appre-
ciate your abilities and your talents and I love you too
dearly to be a stone about your neck. I shall watch your
life with the greatest tenderness and the keenest interest.
For the rest, I must, sooner or later, I hope, try to forget
the man while I admire the artist. Yet I know that you will
never find any one to love you as I have done. So, if you
ever need such help as a weak woman can give and every
man needs that some time my life, as you well know, is
ready at your service. Whoever shall love you hereafter, I
at least have had you first. MARY."
For a moment after he had read this, Jarvis sat
quite still beside his fire. He felt her words more
than either of them would have expected. It was all
falling out as he had wished and yet the foreseen result
had set him again strangely and dangerously at sea.
He was quick for the great change. He rose to his feet,
stifling all natural regret and wounded conceit. With
a loud scratch he struck a match and relit his pipe.
He was afraid she was laughing at him, after all as
indeed she partly was. He fancied, too, a note of
triumph, and something of a threat in the last lines,
and in this also he was probably not altogether
wrong.
" ' O Love ! O Lover ! Loose or hold me fast,
I had thee first, whoever have thee last,' "
48 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
he tried to laugh. " She might have been at least a
little more original ! "
And yet, even though he guessed that they were
both only playing at love, he could not altogether
excuse himself. To himself it was useless to say any
longer that he had been a mere boy. He had all at
once rightly or wrongly come to the conclusion
that, whatever he was in years, he had been, in all
essentials, a man.
" Well," he said aloud. " Damn the football ! I'm
ready for life. Let's begin to see what it is."
And he threw down his pipe and went out.
CHAPTER V.
TOWER LYCEUM.
JARVIS took the elevator and went up to Hardy's
room. He did not, somehow, want to talk with his
fellow-townsman, but he knew that his quarters were
the most likely at hand in which to find a number of
men.
The place was filled with expensively-framed prints,
highly-coloured examples of lithography, representing
card-playing by a wonderful variety of disreputable
players. There were photograph-racks crowded with
pictures of cheap actresses whose large signatures
were scrawled over the front, and marvellous poker-
hands were nailed upon the walls. These, manifestly,
were the peculiar jewels of Mallard. But there was
also a big business-like working table, a number of
Braun photographs, a little case of good books, and a
dense fragrant cloud of the best tobacco.
Mallard was not there. Even his mother could not
have made him spend more time than was necessary
with a Freshman, and although the Junior was one of
those men who, for no apparent reason, are missed by
the unseen but mighty current that is, after all, Har-
4
50 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
vard, he was entirely too loyal an upper classman to
spend his evenings with a newcomer.
Hardy, however, was lounging by the fire in his
shirtsleeves. A sister, innocent of Cambridge tra-
ditions, had notoriously sent him a crimson smoking-
jacket that, since its first incautious opening before a
jeering crowd, had been hidden away and, as Jarvis
entered, Stannard fair, handsome and boyish, but
pale and precocious, one of the butterflies of the
Freshman Class with a remarkable talent for drawing
checks and caricatures was engaged in the popular
pastime of hunting for it.
"Hello, Hardy. Hello Stannard," said Dick as he
dropped into a big wicker armchair. " Haven't you
found that thing yet?"
" No. Hardy won't tell where it is. I want it to
hang as a model in Herbie Foster's window."
"Well what else are you fellows going to do to-
night?"
" Oh, I don't know," replied Hardy. " Have a
pipe, won't you? "
" No, thanks; not now. I think I '11 go to town."
" That 's something like ! " cried Stannard. " This
lobster won't go anywhere."
Hardy laughed.
" I ought," he protested, " to go 'round to Sanborn's
for a game of pool with Morgan, but I 'm too lazy to
move."
TOWER LYCEUM. 5!
" Rotten trick," commented Stannard. Then, " Say,
jarvis, where are you going when you get there? "
Jarvis considered the somewhat indefinite form of it.
" Oh, any old place. Where ought a fellow to go ? "
" He ought to stay in Cambridge, I suppose.
Otherwise, where would be the use of town? How
about the Tower?"
"The what?"
" The Tower Lyceum. Have n't you been there
yet?"
Jarvis had not.
" All these days in Cambridge and not at the Tower !
I can't let you neglect your education in this way, I
really can't. What, one of us Faculty's darlings and
not yet at the Tower? Come on ! "
Jarvis readily acquiesced, and, bidding Hardy good
night, they hurried up Holyoke Street and boarded
one of the trolley-cars that are crowded from seven to
nine and empty again until twelve to five.
" Come up in front behind the motorrnan," was the
guide's direction. " We can smoke there."
As they passed through the car, Stannard nodded
to one or two of his friends of whom there already
seemed to be so many bound on a journey like his
own.
" You can't work that cigarette game on this car,"
cried one of these, as he saw Jarvis put his hand to his
breast-pocket for his case.
52 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Better come along, Major," laughed Stannard.
The " Major," a tall, slim fellow, with reddish hair
and big brown eyes, shook his head and went on try-
ing to read his book and talk to the fellow beside him
at the same time. When, however, the door had
closed on the retreating forms of Jarvis and his cice-
rone, and the momentary flash of their matches re-
ported the smoking really begun, he leaned forward
and touched the conductor on the arm.
There is a rule on the Boston street-car lines which
prohibits smoking among the passengers, but the
Cambridge conductors value their popularity with the
students too highly to risk it by enforcing, of their
own free will, a merely formal regulation.
" Conductor," said the Major, " I wish you 'd stop
those men smoking on the front platform there. The
smell makes me sick."
The representative of corporations was forced to do
his bidding when a passenger thus brought him face
to face with the rule. Jarvis threw away his cigarette,
but Stannard held his hidden in his hand and, on the
closing of the door, continued puffing undisturbed.
" That was the Major's work," he said, finally.
" Who is he? " asked Jarvis.
" The most remarkable man in College. Could do
anything if he did n't so badly want to do nothing.
You licked him on Bloody Monday, by the way."
" Is that the man? I have n't seen him about."
TOWER LYCEUM. 53
" Well, he is about, all right. He flunked out last
year and the year before, so he 's really a Freshman.
But he went under only because he was starving. He
shovelled snow and tutored and almost carried a hod.
Lived on milk at fifteen cents a day. Wrote lies for
a syndicate of newspapers. They even say he was a
waiter. But he's hit it at last. Went down to Milk
Street and invested a hundred he'd borrowed God
knows how. Now he's got more ready money and
more snap courses than any man in the joint."
While Stannard was speaking they had crossed the
tossing, black river with its coronet of lights, where,
away to their right crept Harvard Bridge, and were
clattering through the maze of back streets about
Henry Square. In front of the old Raleigh House
they leaped from the car, hurried through a dark
alley and emerged upon a narrow, crooked thorough-
fare, villanously cobbled and ablaze with lights from
fifty saloons and cheap lodging-houses.
Directly opposite was a dingy, semi-ecclesiastical
building, the chief features of which were a perilous
fire-escape and a sign made of red incandescent lights
forming the word " Tower." There was a long line
of purchasers before the box-office, marshalled by a
fat policeman who was doing his best to keep his feet
warm in the damp, autumnal night.
" You here again ? " he sang out as Stannard took his
place at the end of the line. " Third time this week."
54 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
The crowd grinned.
" Why 're you getting in line?" he asked.
" To get my ticket," replied Stannard rather shortly.
" Oh," said the guardian of the peace, quite unruf-
fled by the frigidity of his victim : " I thought you
generally got it in the morning before you went back
to Cambridge." Then he added to somebody in the
crowd, "Take that pipe out of your mouth."
As slowly, but also as certainly, as the mills of the
gods, the progress of the line gradually brought the
two Harvard men near the ticket-window. As Stan-
nard drew a bill from his pocket he felt a touch on
his arm, and turning saw the Major in the file behind
him. The red haired man was looking up for a
moment from the book that he still read.
" Get admission tickets," he said with perfect clear-
ness of tone and quite oblivious of the blue-coated au-
thority. "I '11 put you on how to fix it up upstairs."
Nearly falling over a frame that held the doubtful
photographs of the next week's players, they ran up
a short flight of steps and entered one of the Boston
<v continuous-performance " houses so unlike those of
any other city. The building, which had at one time
been indeed a church and afterwards a famous theatre in
the electrical days of Forrest, was small, but packed
from top to bottom. The cheap ornamentations, the
white and gilt pillars, were scratched and soiled ; the
low ceiling was black from the flaring lights. There
TOWER LYCEUM. 55
were two balconies supported by frail posts, a pit and
two tiers of boxes directly on the stage. Respecta-
bility was at its lowest ebb in the highest gallery, and
rose as it neared the floor, in opposition to natural laws,
yet in logical accord with the prices which ran from
ten cents " upstairs " to fifty cents in the stalls, with a
dollar for single box-seats. The pit was full of small
shop keepers and a few Harvard Freshmen ostenta-
tiously displaying their grey felt hats. Men about
town, other students, loafers, sailors, and in general
men and boys of the great unclassified, made up the
larger portion of the audience. Everybody gave
free vent to approval or disapproval, shrieked when
amused and howled abuse at the performers when
displeased, or rather when not amused. One or two
women were unenviably conspicuous in faded head-
gear and dirty dresses. They laughed quite nat-
urally and unaffectedly at the coarse jokes of the
comedians and their mirth attracted neither curi-
osity nor comment. The whole place reeked with
the smell of tobacco-chewing and overheated, un-
washed humanity.
The Major as one from old acquaintance and
familiar with the place, led the way for his party.
He was a type of one peculiar clique, a strange
mixture of slang and epigram, of ^cynicism both
affected and honest, with real ability that he could
not or would not apply ; and an authority on all
56 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
things in Cambridge and Boston, where he had
spent two years. He now tipped a fat negress who
showed them into an empty lower box.
Stannard placed a chair for Jarvis in the corner
farthest from the stage and sat down beside him. The
Major seated himself somewhat behind them and when
he saw that the act then " on " was acrobatic, opened
his book and began to read. Stannard glanced hastily
over the programme, while Jarvis, abashed by his
sudden publicity and disgusted with the sights and
smells, fixed his eyes on the performers and did
not dare to look around.
The bill presented the usual wonderful " features."
A " duo," direct from all the concert-halls of Europe,
appeared in costumes the worse for their continental
sojourn ; women encumbered by the weight of three
dresses worn one over the other for the sake of quick
change, sang dialect songs so rapidly that not one
word could be distinguished. For humour they de-
pended upon deformity and ribaldry, and for pathos
upon motherhood and death. One fat woman with a
low-cut gown and bold eyes sang " rag-time," ballads
and ambiguous songs at the box, and chaffed the men
between verses. Every one got encores in spite of
the reticence of the student portion of the audience,
because no one waited, but continued to reappear
until the repertoire and they themselves were
exhausted.
TOWER LYCEUM. 57
Jarvis grew steadily more and more embarrassed,
and yet, despite himself, more and more pleased.
The whole thing was so new for him. With the
reality he was, of course, disgusted, but with the no
less substantial ideal which he saw behind it all,
he was fast becoming enamoured. He assured his
revolted taste that here was the world; that this,
at last, was life.
Finally, too, there was, for a while at least, some
respite from the nervousness produced by that white
light that beats upon a box. Immediately a vulgar,
muscular woman in lavender tights had concluded
her gyrations upon a trapeze and bowed herself
off, damned by the scantiest of praise, the house
was darkened and rang with a storm of approving
cheers as the calcium flared upon a series of " liv-
ing pictures " the last survivors of that ilk
headed by a grotesque representation of MacMon-
nie's " Bacchante." By the time half-a-dozen such
pictures had been shown and the " olio " concluded,
Jarvis had ample opportunity to accustom himself
to, and to again endure his surroundings, so that
he settled back in his stiff chair to watch the re-
mainder of the exhibition with a certain degree of
pleasurable anticipation that did not fail to surprise
and, after the emotions of the early evening, to
please him.
For the burlesque there was a flourish of music
58 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
the Major described it as uniform noise the battered
grand piano was beaten with more than usual vigor ;
the single violin squeaked louder than before, and the
curtain rose again. The chorus advanced toward
the footlights and began a shrill, inarticulate cackle.
The girls were in tights, nearly all of them extrava-
gantly padded, and of the most inharmonious colours.
There was one, however, who caught Jarvis' atten-
tion, if not by the perfection of the figure that she
displayed, at least by the absence of artificial means
to that end. She was a rather pretty girl, with dark
hair and eyes, not over painted, and dressed in
colours that, by comparison, were the acme of har-
mony. As the women sang and began to make eyes
at the boxes, Jarvis moved, as always, by the pre-
vailing impulse of those about him, tried to attract
the notice of this least vulgar-seeming one.
If, at the first, there had been absolute certainty,
he would not, probably, have cared much one way or
the other. But the uncertainty of the thing, added
to the false glamour which, however palpable its pre-
tence, makes the stage, even in its lowest forms, so
seductive to many of us, served, in his desperately
nervous condition, to egg him on.
For some time he was not successful, but at last
their glances met and he smiled. Whether or no she
responded, he could not be sure, for her exit was just
then made. But he expected to be bored through
TOWER LYCEUM. 59
the remaining parts until the chorus should come on
once more.
He was not, however, so wearied by the dialogue of
the low comedians as he had thought, and rather
wished to be. The whole thing was still a revelation
to him. Brought up as he had been, his earliest
acquaintance with the theatre was upon that institu-
tion's highest plane and best behaviour, and he had,
until now, no idea how far a playhouse, as judged by
his prior standards, could descend toward vulgarity.
Yet, as much of the talk was funny enough, and at
the worst merely suggestive, he was surprised to find
himself amused by it.
But as there was absolutely no shadow of a plot,
the novelty soon wore off, and he began to chafe for
the miniature excitement of his flirtation. Stannard
and the Major, who had both seen the same thing
several times before, were engrossed in reading, the
one his programme, the other his book, when Dick,
chancing to look up at this moment, saw the girl
standing in the wings and gazing eagerly over at
him.
She wore trunks of a very mild and bearable shade
of pink that set off to decided advantage her small,
shapely legs, the more graceful by comparison with
the padded monstrosities of her less artistic sisters.
Her jacket was of white silk, edged with a fantastically
embroidered design in black, belted in at the back
60 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and hanging loosely over the hips. There was an
air of historical accuracy about it that pleased him.
For the coming scene, which was laid in a Turkish-
bath house, she had thrown over her a sheet that
draped itself with unintended grace about her head
and neatly arranged hair. Jarvis nodded and smiled.
The other men in the box guyed the singers in
loud undertones, and were paid back in their own
coin. One big woman in green sang straight at Dick.
In a coarse, animal way she was good-looking, a glar-
ing blonde. As the scene ended in a series of wild
kicks on the part of the chorus, this girl's slipper was
loosened and, whether by accident or intent, flew
toward the three Harvard men. Each sprang to his
feet, making wild clutches at the little red missile
which Jarvis suddenly found in his own hand amid
the uproarous jeers of the audience.
For a second he stood there, crimson and helpless,
while the house throbbed with derisive shouts.
" Throw it back ! Throw it back ! " urged his
companions, and in a desperation of embarrassment,
he hurled the slipper, with unintended force, to the
stage.
The dance had stopped, and the unfortunate loser
of the bit of footgear was standing alone, beckoning
excitedly for its return. She flung up her arms and
caught it with all the expertness of a professional ball-
player, and the curtain fell to maddening applause.
TOWER LYCEUM. 6 1
The three filed slowly out in the dense crowd amid
the waning strains of the much-abused piano and
violin ; the scratching of matches, the odor of cigar-
ette smoke and, as they neared the door, the puffs of
crisp night air, and the cries of the street urchins
selling song-sheets.
" Well, is it all right, Stannard?" asked the Major,
rather ignoring the presence of his less sophisticated
companion.
" Had it fixed Monday night," replied Stannard.
Then, with a wave of the hand toward Jarvis, he
added, " This man owned the stage."
"If I did," remarked the Philadelphian, "I'll sell
out at a bargain."
" I would n't be so quick about that," the Major
chimed in, apparently addressing the crowd on the
steps below him. " It was n't a peach-orchard to be
sure, but, well, there was that new one, for instance."
Jarvis had noticed his companions signalling to the
singers, but, abashed by his all too conspicuous posi-
tion, had himself, with the single exception, refrained
from deliberately attracting the attention of any one.
Now, however, he was ashamed to profess his shyness
before new acquaintances who appeared to be in no
wise troubled with scruples of that sort, and before
one of whom he had for the last week, moreover,
been posing as a rather hardened rout. The ele-
ment of doubt in the affair still pleased him, and he
62 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
was always most happy when playing a part. Not
that he was a liar. He only loved to pose, and the
recent stormy and quick current of events had brought
him every opportunity. His acting was without a
shadow of consciousness ; he had a perfect confidence
and belief in himself, and suffered to the last throe
every ill that his imagination imposed. But he was
startled to note awakening within his heart another
feeling so like that which had been stirred up by Mary
Braddock that it was impossible to mistake it for any
other sort, however sure he had been of its death and
burial; however certainly he had told himself that he
could never again so regard the woman who, he im-
agined, had created it, much less any one else. He
kept silence, therefore, allowing his companions to
draw the obvious conclusion.
" Well, nobody can get out for twenty minutes,"
said the Major, whose air of worldly experience was,
with perhaps a shade more reason, as true as that of
Jarvis. "Let 's go and get a drink."
By way of assent, Stannard remarked that it was
cold, and the three entered the bar-room nearest at
hand, Dick half-hoping, half-fearing that they would
miss their inamoratas of the chorus.
When they had come out of the crowded place
(it was hung with Tower programmes of other and
better days) and were standing again in the street,
rain was falling in a fine drizzle, almost a mist, such
TOWER LYCEUM. 63
a penetrating dispiriting rain as only a Boston east
wind can bring.
They were by no means alone in their vigil. Scat-
tered about at varying distances from the theatre
stood several men, mostly from " town," leaning
against lamp-posts or hovering in doorways, all trying
to look as if they had no particular business there.
The three grouped themselves in front of the saloon
and kept their eyes glued on the little stage-door that
opened close off the main entrance opposite.
The players came out by twos and threes, the men
first, buttoning up their coats and waiting for their
feminine fellow-workers. In about fifteen minutes
followed the women, in every one of whom Jarvis
recognised the one he was waiting for. The Major's
came early and he left the other two, turning down
Tower Street.
As Jarvis, looking after him, shivered in the wet,
far down the way there came the thunder of a bass-
drum followed soon by a chorus of hoarse voices and
the jangling of a tambourine. He turned and saw
approaching beneath two dripping flags a squalid
band of the Salvation Army. He stood on the curb
and watched them pass, pale and thin and lantern-
jawed, yet with a strange look of transcendental enthu-
siasm on their faces. The thought came to him
these survivors of the thirteenth century Flagellants
were already happier than he.
64 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" These are the stuff of which martyrs are made,"
he said oratorically to Stannard. But Stannard
puffed on his cigar and deigned no reply.
Jarvis was not at rest; he was not even satisfied.
He had first found that he did not love Mary Brad-
dock and now he had discovered that he could feel
as he had for her toward another woman who, appar-
ently, had nothing to recommend her save the purely
physical. It was his first experience with the change-
ability of affection, and it shocked him cruelly. He
could not know that it was the simple reawakening
of the immortal phoenix of desire.
It began to grow colder and the watchers moved
restlessly about, stamping their feet and puffing out
great clouds of steam. A policeman passed and
looked at them suspiciously. On his second trip
down the street he told them roughly to move on.
"We've enough ornaments here," he said.
It appeared as if the woman would never come
and Jarvis would have been only too glad to get
away. Nevertheless, he was for resenting the form if
not the matter of the order, when Stannard took him
by the arm and they moved a few paces.
"They none of them like us," he said, "and
they want nothing better than a chance to run
us in."
The pair had not long occupied their new lookout
when the stage-door opened and a woman appeared,
TOWER LYCEUM. 65
this time unmistakably she of the pink tights. She
looked about, hesitating a little, and then nodded to
one of the company who half lifted his hat and walked
away with her.
"Why didn't you go over?" asked Stannard.
" She was looking for you."
But it was too late to do anything except make
excuses, and at his friend's proposition they again
changed their post, this time crossing the street and
pausing just before the delectable door. As they did
so, it opened once more and a bevy of women came
out.
Jarvis recognized the woman whose slipper he had
caught. She looked at him and bowed.
At any other time his taste would have forbidden
the initiatory action which followed on his part, but
he was stung by Stannard's implied slight and re-
solved to prove it misdirected. He therefore bowed
in return and stepped up beside her.
" Oh, look at Maggie's mash ! " cried one of the
departing girls.
Jarvis blushed violently, but Maggie stretched out
her hand with the perfect frankness of an old ac-
quaintance,
" I did n't know whether to expect you or not,"
she said.
From the corner of his eye he saw Stannard walk-
ing in the opposite direction, waiting until he reached
5
65 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
a darker part of the street before addressing his
Aldonza Lorenzo of the evening.
" You might have known I 'd be here," he an-
swered Maggie.
"Well, when I came in after the last part, the
girls said I need n't expect to get you. They said
Lily Forrest had been talking to you from the
wings all evening."
" I never saw her before to-night," said Jarvis,
with perfect truth, reflecting at the same time that
the remark applied quite as well to the woman beside
him. "Where can we get something to drink?" he
added, in order to turn the conversation to a less
difficult channel.
" We girls generally go right across there on the
square," she replied.
Piloted by Maggie, they soon emerged upon a
more open thoroughfare, stopping before the side
entrance to a saloon which bore the sign " Omega."
On opening the little postern, they were ushered
up a flight of narrow stairs to a dark hallway off
which opened some dozen slight doors without tran-
soms. Maggie, who had evidently more than a pass-
ing acquaintance with the place, flung one of these
wide, gaily waving her hand to another girl similarly
engaged at the upper end of the passage.
Inside, the little room was innocent of all orna-
mentation. The walls were thin partitions of pine.
TOWER LYCEUM. 67
There was a single light burning over the uncovered
table in the centre, several folding chairs along the
wall and ;ome pegs on which to hang hat and coat.
A silent waiter had followed them in.
" What II you have? " asked Jarvis of Maggie.
He had an uncertain idea that actresses always
" had " champagne, but he need not have worried on
that score, for there was a very prompt reply of,
" Beer."
Actresses are, however, nearly always hungry, and
Maggie, with a readiness that showed she would have
ordered a more expensive drink had she wished it,
hastened to add,
" I 'd like something to eat, though. You can't
get anything to drink after twelve unless you order
stuff to eat, anyhow."
"What do you want?" asked Jarvis, relieved that,
notwithstanding his depleted finances, he felt able to
be generous.
" Let 's have some raw oysters and sandwiches.
That will do for as long as we stay." Then, " You
won't have to order anything more in that line after
twelve. That 's the way they get round the law, you
know."
Jarvis repeated the order and the waiter left them
alone together. The Freshman helped the woman off
with her hat and coat, removed his own, and they sat
down at opposite sides of the table.
68 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
"Oh, come over here by me, I won't bite," said
Maggie.
He obeyed just as the judicious knock of the
returning waiter sounded on the door.
Again left alone, he had ample opportunity to look
at the girl who represented a phase of life so com-
pletely novel to him. Stage women are very like a
sea-shell. They belong to their proper surroundings.
However poor and tawdry those surroundings may
be, they are infinitely better with than without them.
Maggie Du Mar, as her name appeared on the pro-
gramme, did not, by diverging from it, prove the
verity of the general rule. She was very different
from much that, on the stage, she had appeared to be.
She must have been made up even more than Jarvis
thought, for she was frightfully pale and the heavy,
tired eyes looked much smaller when relieved of their
borders of crayon du sourcil. He was pleased to find
that her figure was not extravagant, but her hands
were none too clean, and under one ear a streak of
rouge still remained.
His artistic sense would have been more to him at
such a time than any inherited moral tendencies, but
that . sense had been well-nigh dissipated in the
struggle that followed his last letter to Mary Brad-
dock. It might in time reassert itself, but as yet few
relics remained, and meanwhile its place had been
taken by a caricature of the code under which he
TOWER LYCEUM. 69
had been brought up, a base simulacrum that served
only to upbraid, and was too much weakened by the
early fight against its reality to offer calculable resist-
ance to all that was rising from the fire in his heart
What was he, after all, that he should longer struggle?
The heights were not for him.- He had fallen, and he
resolved to make the best of things as they were.
From the other room came the sound of laughter
followed by long periods of whispering. Bottles were
opened. He could hear the beer poured into the
glasses. He held his own glass in his hand and put
the other arm about the woman's waist.
" Well Maggie," he said, " Here 's luck," and, bend-
ing forward, kissed her.
CHAPTER VI.
A GIRL IN A GARDEN.
TIME is an abstract unreality that is never definitely
observed by the College Freshman, and Jarvis took
but little account of it. Indeed, his realization of
what he had done came some days later when he
woke one rare morning to find himself in a herdic
rattling up Massachusetts Avenue.
He looked out of the window. The sun was high
and the street alive. His watch had stopped, but it
must have been at any rate eleven o'clock. With the
first sense of caution he had recently experienced, he
recalled that though the proctors are awake only by
night, it would not look well to drive up to Claverly
at that hour. So he buttoned his ulster over his
dress-coat and, trying to look as if an opera hat
was his accustomed daylight headgear, dismissed his
driver and set out for his rooms afoot.
Half way he was accosted by a tremendous young
fellow who, wrapped in a huge gray raglan coat,
appeared to occupy the whole pavement.
Jarvis was not then conscious of any particular
fault, but he did not want to meet anybody and would
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 71
have gladly avoided this person. However, he had
not had his eyes sufficiently open and it was now too
late.
" Look here, you ! " cried Innes, the captain of the
Freshman eleven. " Where the devil have you been,
anyhow?"
Jarvis smiled wanly.
" Oh, of course," he said, " I 'm only wearing this
hat because I 'm running for the Dickey." Then, a
trifle sullenly, he added, " Been in town."
"You've ?" Innes seemed unable to conceive
such perfidy as was thus implicitly confessed. " What
do you mean ? " he bellowed.
" What I say. Look here, I don't see what right
you've got to drool to me. You 're not the Dean,
you know. I don't see why I Ve got to play football
if I don't choose."
He started to one side, but the dark-faced giant
easily blocked his path.
"Then it's true you've broken training?" he
gasped.
" I don't know who 's been telling tales," replied
Jarvis, " but I have n't tried to hide anything. I
have n't done anything to be ashamed of to you. I
was n't breaking training. I was just giving up foot-
ball. There 's a distinction. Now let me pass."
" Oh, I '11 let you pass, all right, and so will every-
body else, you ."
72 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
But Jarvis did not wait to hear the epithet. He
knew that if he did there would be a fight, and all he
now wanted was time to think it all over.
What he had said was perfectly true. He had not
meant any wrong, and yet he seemed to have com-
mitted the worst crime in the College decalogue.
Certainly the " Crimson " thought so, and as he next
day read its editorial on his anonymous case, he
burned with shame and anger. The men, too, avoided
him. They spoke to him, of course, at lectures or
meals, or in the Yard, but none dropped in to see
him, much less stopped to cry for him the cheerful
" Hay-y-y ! " from the street below.
He could have taken up with Stannard and that
" gang," but for the nonce he really loathed them as
much as he just then loathed, for instance, the cheap
cynicism of the Major, and so he began the life of
a hermit in the midst of a town full of possible
friends.
So strongly did this solitary habit, the frame of
mind of the social outcast, fasten upon him, that he
came to dread to go out by day and, cutting a
number of lectures, he often remained in his room
until nightfall when he would sneak off to town,
prowl about the deserted streets to the north of the
Yard, or wander into the odd thoroughfares of
Cambridgeport, sometimes even until Claverly was
locked for the night with no one to open a friendly
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 73
window for him. He bought a hundred bad cigars
from the negro who swears he smuggles them in as the
steward of a yacht, and these he determinedly made
the companions of his aimless vigils. Soldiers' Field
he did not dare to enter. Even the conscientious
Hardy had failed to look him up, and he was begin-
ning to feel what it was to be a " jay "- an outsider
or one of the many who were starving themselves
to get through College.
Not, however, that he was getting through. The
" Hour Exams " came upon him at his very worst
time and his performance was brilliant in no single
respect. With English, to be sure, he had no trouble,
nor with French, but in most of his other studies he
passed only by chance and the narrowest of margins,
while Government 'and Mathematics were horrid fail-
ures. The politely printed postal card, requesting
his early presence at the office, followed naturally.
The Recorder smiled blandly, but intimated in terms
of unmistakable clarity that he must, " brace up."
He did not want to brace up. He felt that the Col-
lege had wronged him and it never occurred to him
that, the College not being clairvoyant, it should fail
to understand his course, as long as he himself de-
clined to explain it.
At last, nevertheless, the change came from an
unexpected quarter. It arrived again in a letter, this
time one that Jarvis came across in going over his
74 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
mail one Saturday morning before a late breakfast at
the Holly-Tree.
Mallard, who, lonely as he himself was, did not be-
lieve in inter-class intimacies, had yet so far taken pity
on the Freshman as to drop in on him a moment before,
and Jarvis was wavering between gratitude and pride
when the missive's familiar crest caught his eye and
he dropped the envelope with a groan of disgust.
" What 's the trouble? " asked his visitor.
"Oh, it's from Mrs. Bartol. She's a kind of
cousin by marriage, whom I have n't seen for ten years
and now she 's at the Hapsburg and wants me to
come there and meet her daughter."
" Well, there are worse things in the world than
nice girls."
" Perhaps," Jarvis admitted. " Let us at any rate
hope so, as we all have to marry one some day
except the lucky few."
" Unless," continued Mallard, pursuing his train of
thought, " unless she has a soprano voice."
"Why so?"
" My dear chap, you can't imagine its capabilities
when raised in anger. My sister has one."
" Well, I hardly expect to marry my little fourth
cousin or any one else for that matter."
" Ah, Jarvis, fate is quite inscrutable. I advise
you to see in every respectable girl a potential wife.
It 's the only way to enjoy their company."
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 75
" That 's rather sweeping."
" Not at all. The limiting adjective circumscribes
a very small and select few. But tell me about your
little cousin."
" There is n't anything to tell."
"No?"
" I mean I don't know her ; that I haven't seen her
since she was five years old, and I don't think my
recollections of that time would interest you. Her
father was some sort of a connection of mine and was
killed in some miserable skirmish with two or three
half-starved Indians, somewhere in the west."
" You 're delightfully vague. Recently? "
" No, a few months before Peggy was born.
Luckily for her, her mother came into some money
shortly afterward, and they 've been living in Chicago
ever since."
" What are they doing in town? "
" Oh, Mrs. Bartol is always running about to the
dedication of statues of the General that 's her
husband and I suppose now they Ve been putting
one up in the Public Gardens, if they Ve any room
left there."
" And she takes her daughter along?"
" She did n't use to, but she probably thinks the
girl old enough for that at last. She stopped off to
see us every now and then, but, somehow or other, she
never brought the girl. Peggy was at Farmington."
76 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Farmington ? How long ago did she go there?"
" Oh, I don't know ! Two or three years ago.
Why do you want to know that? You're a regular
old woman. I never knew you were such a ladies'
man."
Mallard did not heed the paradox.
" I used to know a lot of girls there, that was all.
Almost ready ? "
Jarvis had announced his intention of trying to
appear again before the College public, and so gave a
last glance at the glass, and a lingering caress to his
tie.
He went to his one lecture that morning and then
started for the Saturday trip to town that was fast be-
coming a regular habit with him. He was perfectly
free for the rest of the day and did not have to pay
his respects to Mrs. Bartol until shortly before the
dinner hour.
Yet this obligation troubled him not a little. In
the short while he had been in Cambridge he had
fallen into all the easy and delightful half-savage ways
that some men at College so readily adopt, and he had
not made a single one of the calls that he owed to the
Boston friends of his family. But though he felt that
he could neglect them with a light heart, if not in-
deed with a clear conscience, here was a duty which
he must discharge. The invitation was direct, and he
knew his relative too well to hope that she could be
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 77
evaded by a pretence of his being out of town. She
would, of course, stop in Boston for some time and
sooner or later he would have to go. Yet he had
intended running up to Lynn that night on quite
another errand, and he did not want to change his
plans.
It was a splendid day in Indian summer. He got
off the car at the Public Gardens, and, in a violent
endeavour to find a way out of his dilemma, started to
stroll up and down the twisting paths. The place was
entirely metamorphosed by the uniform warmth of
the late season. A bird or two fluttered and called
in the branches of the gloriously coloured trees ; the
leaves, crimson and gold, tossed softly in the mildest
of breezes that caught the more sere ones as they
detached themselves from the boughs and, as if loath
to let them fall, bore them gently along the still green
sward, already dotted with their fellows. Here and
there some labourers were at work taking up the later
plants from the flower-beds, and the sound of their
clinking spades mingled in a happy note with the
laughter of the children at play beside the ponds and
the cries of the boys at a ball game in the Common
beyond. Nursemaids in dainty white caps and
aprons led their little charges by the hand, held them
by the skirts as they leaned over the water, or pushed
them by in coaches. A fat mother was endeavouring
to read her newspaper and keep an eye on three pro-
78 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
portionately stout youngsters who, in Massachusetts
fashion, were playing with a couple of negro lads.
Professional loafers, with coat-collars turned up and
hats pulled down, were trying to look respectable and
occupied, with the marks of the last night's wanderings
still patent upon them. The whole scene tended to
restore Jarvis' temper and revive his satisfaction with
things in general.
After all, matters might not be so unpleasant.
Unfortunate as he considered himself in the larger
affairs of life, in the minor ones something was always
sure to turn up in his favour.
He was walking now over the bridge that spans the
pond, when he noticed directly before him a girl
seated on a bench that had been dragged from the
shade of an elm into a stream of sunlight. She was
leaning easily back, with an unconscious grace, an
open book lying beside her, one small gloved hand
still marking the place and the other toying with the
rumpled tow head of a dirty, pretty child who stood
beside her. The sunlight washed over her close-fitting
suit of dark blue, turning to gold the wealth of unruly
chestnut hair. As Jarvis drew nearer she said some-
thing to the child, from whose reply she looked with
a frank, cheery laugh, displaying beneath her bowed
red lips, a flash of perfect teeth, and meeting Dick's
steady and admiring gaze. Instead of embarrassment,
the look that came into her deep blue eyes was rather
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 79
one of surprise, and at length gave place to a smile
that was almost a greeting.
It was Jarvis who was embarrassed. There was an
air of unmistakable refinement in her freedom, and he
was quite at a loss how to take it. But, before he
had decided anything he had passed by; and then
he began to ridicule himself for not stopping. What-
ever she meant, the girl had looked at him and
smiled. If she did not mean anything by that, she
had no business to do it. The sunshine, the work-
men, the children, and the trees had all become pro-
foundly uninteresting. He would go back and accost
this girl.
But he did not turn at once. Despite all his
reasoning that a lady would not have so looked and
smiled, he could not convince himself that the girl
was not a lady, and there was something about her
that made him quite afraid to take the only sure
means of resolving his doubt. If he were to go
back now she would probably not be there any way.
Then the thought of missing her put new resolution
into him. He turned on his heel and retraced his
steps.
She was not gone. On the contrary, as he ap-
proached, there was that in her face which half
persuaded him she was waiting for him.
He raised his hat. He decided that he would treat
her exactly as her manner warranted.
8O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" How do you do? " he said.
He could in no wise understand her expression.
At first he took it to be gratification, then it seemed
to change to surprise, and then suddenly to become a
reprimanding stare. It must have been that all along.
But, in the brief period of his experience with the
world, he had not been used to such receptions, and
he was resolved not to be so easily beaten now.
" Who fixed the bench so nicely for you? "
" My husband."
The reply was brief and the tone low and musical,
but it made Jarvis comprehend just how awkwardly
he had been standing and just how foolish his smile
was. It was the reprimanding stare after all ! He
wanted very much to hurt somebody, and he might
not have stopped even if that somebody had hap-
pened to be a woman. He felt an almost uncontrol-
lable desire to run away. He was sure the whole
Gardens must have heard those words. In a con-
dition of utter humiliation, he cast one disgusted look
at the child and turned aside.
At that instant he heard behind him a peal of
laughter, merry, frank, unrestrained, the same which
he had heard when he first saw her talking with the
boy. It was, perhaps, too distinct for such a place,
yet surely no man could find a fault in it. For a
moment Jarvis was too angry to turn about, but he
did not go away ; and with a feeling that he was be-
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 8 1
coming more and more ludicrous where he was, he
ventured to look back at her.
She was staring straight at him and laughing in his
face.
" But you need n't hurry away," she was saying.
" My husband won't be back for ever so long."
Before he knew whether to laugh or be angry, he
was seated beside her.
" If he won't be back for ever so long, it 's a queer
place for him to leave you," he said, determined, in
spite of himself, to be hard on somebody.
" He 's a queer man," she replied altogether undis-
turbed.
Jarvis was about to answer many things, but he
checked himself and only remarked,
" He must be."
" Why, do you think it 's such an awful place for a
woman to be alone in?"
He turned toward her for the first time and, finding
her looking up at him, with her face very close to his
own, glanced quickly away again. If she had said
" lady " he could very readily have found it in his
heart to keep his eyes upon hers.
" Oh, not so very. That is "
" But you said it was."
" Did I ? Well er have you been long in
Boston? Are you a stranger here?"
" By no means not a stranger."
6
82 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Well then, most of the women that sit around
here from day to day say they are."
It was quite lost upon her. He could well see that.
" I don't see what that 's got to do with it."
" Nothing," he replied. " I was only joking."
" Never joke with a woman."
"Why not?"
" Was this a Boston joke? "
" As a native you ought to know."
Then, to get out of a dangerous quandary and to
satisfy his rising curiosity, he added,
" That 's a nice child."
" Is n't it? Jimmy ! " she called.
The little fellow considering that he could walk,
he was so marvellously little left off trying to cast
pebbles into the water and waddled toward her,
smiling.
" Them do make awful big rings," he remarked,
sagely. Then, catching sight of her companion, he
cried with pointed finger,
"Who's 'at man?"
She was not at all ruffled.
" Ask him," she responded.
Before the child could frame a question which he
had not yet decided how to answer, Jarvis hastened
to lead him off.
" He 's not queer anyhow, he must take after his
mother,"
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 83
"His mother? Why what do you mean? Oh!
His mother ! His mother ! Oh, oh, oh ! "
And she went into peal after peal of laughter, so
unbridled as to make Jarvis look nervously about
him. No one noticed them, however. The fat
woman, having finished her paper, was leading away
her struggling progeny; the nursemaids had drifted
out of sight, and the sympathetic policeman had
conscientiously turned his back. Dick, therefore,
ventured to ask,
" Then he is n't yours? "
Her mirth stopped as it had begun, and she looked
up with big, serious eyes.
" Now, I am sure that was very wrong," she said.
"I must have shocked you dreadfully."
"What? How? " he asked, completely mystified.
"Why, by laughing so terribly."
" Nonsense," he gallantly assured her, though he
would not have had her do it again for a good deal
more than he just then had in his pocket. Yet he
was, for some unaccountable reason, so relieved to
find that the child did not belong to her, that he
could afford to forego the masculine revenge of a
severe correction. Nevertheless, he was consider-
ably confused and had botched the conversation
effectively.
At last, with a hurried glance at her watch, she
rose hastily from her seat.
84 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" It 's time for me to meet my husband," she said.
But she was blushing, and her blush was far too
becoming to allow her to escape just then.
He sprang up and stood before her.
" I thought you said he would n't be back for ever
so long," he pleaded.
"Isn't this ever so long?"
"That depends on the point of view. I shouldn't
call it very long."
" I think it is very long for an unaccompanied
woman to sit in a place that her husband would n't
leave her alone in if he was n't queer."
He looked at her. She was laughing again.
For a while he was without reply. Then he
escaped by a purely feminine artifice.
" But I thought that he was to meet you here," he
said.
" Dear me, no ! Queer as he is, he would n't meet
any one in a public park."
" Neither would I if you had n't as much as asked
me to called me back, I mean."
Had he only known it, he was more nettled by
her advantage in wit than by her implied reflection
upon his conduct.
" Call you ? Do you mean when I first laughed ?
But you 'd have come any way. I knew you 'd come
back the first time you passed. I was expecting
you."
A GIRL IN A GARDEN. 85
" Indeed ? It was quite by chance that I returned,
I assure you. As for the child "
" I really must go. Don't be very angry, or very
shocked, will you? I probably shan't ever see you
again, anyhow."
She offered her hand.
At once his whole mood changed. He pressed the
hand and it was so quickly withdrawn as to leave a
doubt whether it had not been snatched away.
" Oh, but I must see you again, I must, you know,"
he begged.
For an instant she hesitated, and then stooping to
kiss the child,
" There 's your mother coming now, dear. And
you well, the parlours of the Grendome at eight
to-night," she said.
" I knew you were n't a Bostonian ! " he cried.
But she was gone and though she was so ridicu-
lously young he noted with a sense of positive
relief the approach of the more elderly and authen-
tic mother of Jimmy.
CHAPTER VII.
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY.
JARVIS did not attempt to follow his new acquaint-
ance. Her novelty rather stunned him. He sank at
first on the bench she had just left, and when he be-
thought him to look up again, she was nowhere to be
seen.
" What a fool I was," he commented, with the un-
intended truth we allow none but ourselves to use
toward us. " Now I shall probably never set eyes on
her again."
As he started on his way up town this involuntary
opinion of himself was momentarily strengthened.
She was so utterly and charmingly unlike any other
girl whom he had ever known, that his reflections
were in a hopeless whirl, which allowed, nevertheless,
of considerable self-disgust. Why had he let her ge
without finding out a single thing about her? Why
had he not followed her? How completely he had
spoiled the whole adventure, and what an arrant ass
he had been all through the interview ! He had not
the keenness of mental vision to perceive that his
whole confusion was due to just that quality in her
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 8/
which made her most charming to him, but he knew
very well that he had been by no means at his best
with her and, for a very good reason, into which he
did not stop to inquire, he had wished to excel.
Of course she would not be at the place of meeting.
At least, it was ten to one that she would not. For
what was she, anyhow? If she were a lady, why had
she spoken to him? If she were not, why had she
chosen such a rendezvous as the Grendome? Yet he
could not doubt her personality. She was, she must
be, a school girl of some new and more interesting
species who was innocently amusing herself. Be-
sides, no one, not even the girl herself, would know if
he did go to meet her and found that she had been
playing a silly joke on him. Yes, she was worth it,
and he would go if he had to miss his dinner in the
attempt. He . At that moment he remembered
Mrs. Bartol's invitation.
A half hour before, it was absurd for any one but a
child to chafe himself over such a thing, but there
are few men in Jarvis' position who would not have
done so. He had started upon an existence of ex-
travagant pleasure and reckless disregard of College
duty. He had failed to call on the people who would
have secured him, for example, an invitation to the
" Friday Evenings," and he could not have enjoyed
that simple form of childish amusement if he had
been invited. He had not, in the short while of his
88 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
residence in Cambridge, spoken five words to any one
with the slightest pretensions to the name of lady.
He thought he would be bored by any such person ;
he knew he would be bored by Mrs. Bartol. Further-
more, he considered it very probable that the widow's
characteristics were hereditary.
Then, too, he had, during his recent hermit's life,
come to stand in unspeakable awe of getting into a
dress coat. He could not imagine what he would
have to say to a young girl fresh from boarding-
school. His cousin could hardly be such a refresh-
ing example as that he had just met, and yet he knew
that civility to this favourite relative of his father's,
was the one thing that the authorities at home would
insist upon. Besides, they need never hear of his
social shortcomings in other directions, but from the
character of Mrs. Bartol, as he had it by unwilling
hearsay, the most fatuous must deduce that news of
any silence on his part would reach Philadelphia all
too soon. If he were to stay away and pretend to be
absent from town she would be foolish enough to
send out and inquire about him, in which case the
discovery of the truth was too awful to contemplate.
If, on the other hand, he pleaded a previously made
engagement, she would renew the invitation at some
other and perhaps still less opportune time.
But if matters were uncomfortable before, they were
now positively bad. He would simply have to send
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 89
word that he was going elsewhere, for go elsewhere
he must. And the fear of being bored for an hour ot
two was so strong in him that the thought of how this
meant only a postponement of the agony made Jarvis
groan in the spirit. Yet the new fascination was
powerful with him, and he decided that even with the
slim chance there was of seeing the girl, it was worth
while to go to the Grendome that night.
He turned off Winter Street into Frank Key's, and
found Mallard seated there.
" Hello ! " he cried. " You here ? "
" No, I 'm not," replied the Junior, surprised with
his glass half way up to his lips, " but I Ve about as
much right here as you have. What are you looking
so dazed about?"
" Oh, it 's that damned call. I had arranged to
to run up to Lynn to see Maggie Du Mar she plays
there to-night and this thing knocks it all in the
head."
" Well, sit down and have a Scotch, and we '11 see
if we can fix it up."
Jarvis pushed aside the chain of crystals that hung
before the alcove, and accepted Mallard's proffer,
" Though I don't see what there is to be done," he
ruefully protested.
" Well, I do," returned the Junior, with that air of
omniscience common to all Juniors.
He was not at all sure that he did, but next to be-
go JARVIS OF HARVARD.
ing esteemed an authority on all matters pertaining
to his College, he wanted to be thought one upon
everything else. Moreover, he dearly loved to act a
farce, and on the instant he seemed to see his way
open to some such an end.
"Er how old's your cousin, Jarvis?" he asked,
as he touched the button.
" I don't know. I told you this morning I did n't
know anything about her."
" Hum what sort of a looking girl is she? "
"I do not know. What the devil do you want to
know for? I don't see how it's going to mend
matters if she 's a regular Athor for beauty. What
earthly difference can it make to you?"
"It may make a good deal of difference to you.
And to me, too, for that matter. I would n't like to
take dinner with her in your place if she were posi-
tively ugly, you know."
" You what? " cried Jarvis.
" Here 's the waiter," prompted Mallard calmly.
Dick gave his order " without lemon ' and
turned again on his friend.
" Now, tell me what you mean," he commanded.
"Do you propose to impersonate me?"
" Well, not knowing what sort of a looking girl she
is, it 's a bit dangerous, but I guess I '11 risk it as
a favour to you."
" You better wait a while," grumbled Jarvis. He
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 91
was in a bad temper ; too bad to try to conceal it.
Bat finally his face changed and he smiled. He was
thinking that he would not have wanted his part
played by a boor, but that Mallard, straight as an
arrow, slim and dark, a gentleman and by no means
the fool he tried to be, would make a very acceptable
understudy.
" No, I had n't better wait a while, either. If this
thing 's going to be put through, we must arrange
matters at once."
11 You '11 really do it, then? "
" Certainly I will. I '11 go and then tell 'em I leave
town to-morrow."
" Hold up. No you won't. She might write that
to the governor."
"Well, just leave it to me, will you? See here,
Jarvis, if I 'm to get you out of this hole, you must
treat me like your lawyer and give me your complete
confidence. I '11 guarantee to fix it somehow."
He always felt delightfully old when he talked to
Jarvis and the manner of his listener always con-
firmed the sensation.
" It would be rather unpleasant for you if you
were discovered."
" So would it be for you. But I shan't be."
" All right, then, what do you want to know?"
"That's right. That's business. Now, give us all
the details of the case. How long ago did you say
92 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
it was since your aunt or whatever she is has
seen you?"
" About ten years. But she 's only a distant cousin,
you know."
" Has she any photograph of you?"
" Not that I know of. Oh, I 'm sure not ! "
" There 's no danger on the ground of my appear-
ance, then? "
" Not the slightest."
" Well, I '11 help you out and take the risk of the
younger one being plain."
" I don't know whether to thank you or not. I 'd
half like to be in your place for the fun of the thing."
" Only if you were, there would n't be any fun.
Now, tell me your family history."
The communication of the necessary details ex-
tended over a considerable number of cigarettes and
a calculable portion of time.
" And now," concluded Mallard when all the pre-
liminaries had been fixed upon and Jarvis had sur-
rendered his card-case, " you '11 be wanting to get
out to Lynn. If you don't hurry, you won't reach
there before the afternoon performance begins."
Jarvis, as may well be imagined, had little desire to
comply with this proposal. The idea of the Lynn
trip had faded from his mind upon the first sight of
the girl in the garden. But he did not care to com-
municate his little adventure to the more experienced
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 93
Mallard and thus incur that philosopher's ridicule.
It was for this reason that, in the first instance, he
had substituted his original plan for that which had
actually superseded it, and he saw no cause for
changing his course of action now. He therefore said
that he was not in a hurry to catch the afternoon per-
formance. He was not going out to Cambridge that
day, but would take his time about getting down to
the terminal and then board the first train that offered.
But Mallard, on his part, was not particularly
pleased with all this. In his innermost soul he was
not quite sure that this innocent Freshman was not
preparing a very elaborate " sell " for him. The
details were peculiar, and Jarvis was evidently nervous.
He had hesitated and stuttered in his account and
once or twice directly contradicted himself, a fact
that his auditor decided it best to ignore. Mallard
had no mind to be made the butt of this neophyte's
wit and, even if his suspicions were not justified, it
would yet be as well to have the real cousin safely
out of town while the farce was in the acting. Yet
what a perfect victory, what a double triumph were
his could he by one blow frustrate Jarvis' sinister
plans and at the same time take advantage of them to
meet his cousin ! There was a coup d'etat, a story
worth the telling! If Jarvis intended to get him into
a compromising position and then sail down upon
him in the character of the rightful heir, how much
94 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
finer it would be to ship his rival out of the city and
turn the whole thing to his own advantage. It would
be the work of a true artist.
" I have n't anything to do just now," he said in
reply to Jarvis' tremulous exposition of his plans.
" I '11 wait around here with you and go along down
to the station."
Jarvis sighed resignedly. He saw at once that, for
the time being, there was nothing to do but submit
He had not an inkling of Mallard's suspicions, but he
knew that for the present it would be useless to try to
shake him off. If he were suddenly to remember an
engagement, this Old Man of the Sea would probably
offer to go and expect to be taken along. There was
nothing for it but to wait a chance.
No such chance came. Mallard stuck closer than
a brother. They lunched at the Haddon House and
the unfortunate found himself forced to go down to
the station, to buy his ticket and even to get on the
train which promptly started on its way, carrying him
out of the city.
Mallard watched until the last coach disappeared
from under the train-shed and then walked over to
the telegraph-office where he sent a message.
" It 's risky and he may escape yet," he commented.
"But if Maggie once gets her claws on him he 's safe
for a while anyway."
This is what he had written :
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 95
"BOSTON, SATURDAY.
" To Miss MAGGIE Du MAR, LYNN CONCERT HALL, LYNN, MASS.
" Am coming on the four forty-five train. Meet me.
"JARVIS."
The man who had been so summarily shipped
away, wroth both at himself and at the cause of his
departure, had yet not been so mentally upset as to
neglect to determine on a course of action. When
Jarvis saw the approach of the inevitable he had made
up his mind to get off the train at Chelsea and this he
accordingly did.
Some men would have made the best of a bad
matter, and amused themselves in the company of
Miss Du Mar for at least a part of the afternoon.
Perhaps, if they were very curious and very much
afraid of being laughed at, they would have submitted
altogether to the perverse fate that waves its iron
wand over things social. But Jarvis, although there
are few men who stood more in dread of ridicule, was
a person of one idea. It is true that the idea was
ever-changing in those days, but, tossed about as he
then was by the squalls and cross-currents of opposing
emotions, he was always insatiable in the pursuit of
whatever chanced to be uppermost in his mind. At
present the ruling passion was to be at the Grendome
at eight o'clock that night, and he resolved to put
everything else aside for the attainment of that end.
He did not dare to return to Cambridge, however, for
96 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
to be seen there by Mallard was to ruin everything.
He therefore concluded to stay in Chelsea as long as
he could bear the place.
That was not for long. At five o'clock he had
decided to return to Boston by the trolley-car and
wore out the long ride between fears for the result
of Mallard's impersonation and condemnations of
his own folly in regard to his tryst. There were a
thousand dangers surrounding the whole course.
Mallard might make a slip in his talk; his deception
might be discovered by some remembered feature or
missing family likeness. Because he had scored a
success in some amateur theatricals, the Junior imag-
ined that he could carry off with equal eclat anything
in the way of histrionic effect. Besides, he might be
asked to town again; the Bartols might come out
and happen upon him, and then ultimate detection
was only a question of time.
It was that anyhow. Mallard's whole plan might
be only an imposition. He might mean, for the sake
of some absurd idea of humour, to unmask Jarvis, or,
indeed, he might at that moment be comfortably
seated in his own room with no intention of going to
town, unfolding to a few choice spirits the glorious
ruse he had " worked " upon his friend.
But with a sudden resolution Jarvis banished all
such doubts from his mind. The worst of them could
not affect him until the morrow and by that time
A JUNIOR UNDERSTUDY. 97
almost anything might intervene. Meanwhile, he
was on a quest that, successful or otherwise, offered
excitement enough for one evening.
On reaching town he went to Bouy's; ordered a
room, and, after such limited toilet as the accommoda-
tions permitted, ate a solitary dinner and started for
the Grendome.
With what growing excitement, with what alterna-
tions of fear and hope, he drew near the place of
meeting, Jarvis although he experienced them many
a time before and after could yet not possibly have
told. He was one of those happy beings to whom
every fresh fancy is the final one and to whom every
recurring sensation is, beyond analysis, new.
He went directly to the nearest parlour and found
her sitting on a divan there in the shadow of a far-off
corner. She rose at once to meet him with out-
stretched hand.
" Not late ? " she said.
"How could I be?" he replied, trying to retain
the hand which this time disengaged itself but
slowly.
" No car broken down and the bridge not open?"
She seated herself again on the divan with a nod at
a chair that had been drawn near by.
Jarvis sat down beside her on the divan.
"I see you know us," he said. "But no the
bridge was not open. That 's a lie we keep for
7
98 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
affairs that bore us. And a wrecked car or any such
trifle would n't have stopped me to-night."
He tried again to take the hand that was lying
nearest him.
" There ! " she cried springing away. " That man
saw you ! "
Jarvis jumped to look round. She was laughing
at him again and the room was quite empty. He
turned about to her.
At that moment he heard a familiar voice saying,
" Yes, but the bridge was open. They always let
boats through just when one is in a hurry."
He looked up with a start. In the full light of the
door rose the tall form of Mallard in evening-dress
beside a little woman in a widow's cap.
" P e ggy>" sa id this person, " come here and meet
your cousin, Dick Jarvis."
CHAPTER VIII.
EXPLANATIONS.
THE situation was scarcely a pleasant one. Jarvis
was stricken dumb. Mrs. Bartol was smiling and
unconscious of the trouble that surrounded her.
But Peggy and Mallard kept their wits. The girl
walked straight forward to the Junior.
" I Ve heard so much about you," she said.
Mallard took the hand and bowed. Would he
attempt to keep up the farce?
" Not about me, I 'm afraid," he answered.
Jarvis drew a deep breath. This then was to be
another of the man's abominable jokes !
He need not have worried, however, for Mallard
imperturbably proceeded,
" The fact is, I 'm afraid there has been some mis-
take. My name is Mallard."
" Mallard ! " cried both the women at once, the
younger perhaps a shade too dramatically.
" Unfortunately, yes. I just now sent up my card
to an aunt of mine whom I had never seen before and
I thought I 'd found her. It seems I have n't. If
you are looking for Dick Jarvis, he is the man you
have just been asking the time of."
IOO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Jarvis winced, drew his watch clumsily from his
pocket and as clumsily replaced it as he came forward
to the now thoroughly bewildered Mrs. Bartol.
" Yes, I 'm Dick, Cousin Emily," he said. " The
boy has evidently got my card mixed with that of
Mr. Mallard, my friend here. That's all."
He tried to look as if it were a simple matter of
every day occurrence, but his success was hardly
brilliant.
" Tom," he went on, with an effort and not daring
to look in the face of his friend, " you 've often heard
me speak of my Cousin Emily."
" Only to-day. And of her daughter too."
" Yes, though I never saw her before this minute
at least, for shall I say years ? "
He shot an appealing glance at Peggy, who was
busily engaged in smoothing out an imaginary
wrinkle in her sleeve.
" I Ve had to go out of town on business," he
hurriedly continued, turning to his elder cousin,
" and just got back to Cambridge half an hour ago.
I found your note there and did n't want to keep
you waiting, so I came just as I was. You see," he
added with a poor attempt at pleasantry, " I knew it
was to be a purely family party, anyhow," and he
looked angrily at Mallard.
" Of course, of course," stammered the widow, who
had thus effectually been put in the wrong. " You
EXPLANATION'S,
see, I'm getting so dreadfully nearsighted. Peggy
will tell you all about that. Otherwise I should have
seen the mistake in a moment. Come over here to
the light. The very image of your poor mother."
(She always used the invidious adjective of people
who did not like her.) " Not a bit changed. You 're
not too old to kiss, I suppose ? "
There being but one answer to these propositions
from a distant relative, Jarvis permitted the caress,
while a glance from the tail of his eye satisfied him
that his audience was amused by the ceremony.
" And we won't keep the dinner, either," continued
Mrs. Bartol. " You '11 join us, of course, Mr. er
Mallard?"
" Oh, Mallard has an aunt to see," objected Jarvis,
who felt that somebody had injured him and that his
friend regarded him in no pleasant light.
A hall-boy was going through the room, and Mallard
turned to him. Then he replied,
" I find my relative has gone away and forsaken me
rather unexpectedly. Yes, Mrs. Bartol, I 'd be very
glad of such a recompense for an otherwise fruitless
trip to town."
" I thought, Dick, you said Mrs. Bartol was at an-
other hotel," he maliciously added as, a moment later,
they sat down to dinner.
" Oh," asked Peggy, gallantly coming to the rescue,
" he got the word we left for him there did n't you ? "
IQ2 : V J ARILS' OF HARVARD.
Jarvis' eyes were a message of gratitude, as he
replied.
" Dear me, yes. I found you had gone when I got
there."
" Well, you see, we decided to stay here for a few
days and mamma likes this place so well, and we
hadn't time to let you know beforehand. We
did n't think a messenger-boy would get you in time.
Mamma, you know, always does things of a sudden."
Much of Peggy's time was employed in explaining
her mother.
Jarvis began to see light and to breathe freer.
Things went off smoothly enough then, and, as
Mallard was so considerate as to devote, after dinner,
his whole attention to Mrs. Bartol, thereby heaping
coals of fire on the head of his friend, the confused
Freshman got a chance to talk to the younger of his
hostesses.
The Junior, however, could not have had a very
happy hour of it. Dick's father and her own
daughter were the only two persons who would not
have been bored by Mrs. Bartol. Their devotion was
regarded by their acquaintances as one of those
attachments called " beautiful," a tacit slur upon
the object, and left further undiscussed as subjects
beyond the possibilities of analysis. She would not,
perhaps, have been unendurable had not the iron of
Calvinistic environment entered too early in life into
EXPLANATIONS. IO3
her soul, but the surroundings of her childhood had
done their work with assiduous proficiency, and she
was now one of those terribly proper matrons who
lower their voices when they speak of navel oranges.
The humility which is the immodesty of the humble
was hers, and this, taken in conjunction with her
mourning, was a perpetual offence. We are much
more anxious to make our neighbours envy our happi-
ness than to enjoy it ourselves, and to make them
envy our distress is indeed a masterstroke of social
diplomacy. That stroke Peggy's mother had per-
fectly achieved. Her outward tokens of woe were in
inverse ratio to the gaiety of others, and her own en-
joyment of the occasion. Her grief for the late
General was of the cloth only; and, more noticeable
than all her other shortcomings was a purely phys-
ical one. She was afflicted with that fatal combination,
a too short upper lip and a keen sense of the ludi-
crous in others.
While Mallard was dealing with this formidable
armament, Dick was trying to push his investigations
in another quarter.
" Did you really expect me here to-night?" he
asked of Peggy.
"Why not? You got our first note, didn't you?
It was mailed last night. That was time enough to
get you here."
" Oh, come now ! You know what I mean."
IO4 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
"Do you?"
" I think I do, but the whole thing is so muddled
that I would n't be too certain of it."
" Well, I 'm still feeling pretty much the same way,
so you must make your what do you call it?
cross-examination? as easy as you can, please."
" Then just tell me this, did you know me all along?"
"Isn't that rude?"
" It may be conceited."
" Well,' then, I thought I did, but when mamma
came in with Mr. Mallard I told myself that
Mr. Richard Jarvis, of whom I Ve heard so much,
wouldn't accost a woman in a place where her
where she would n't be if
" Pshaw ! You must be easy on me too, you know.
How was it you knew me? "
" You '11 never believe me now."
"Yes I shall."
" Can you promise that ? "
" At all events, I have the will to believe."
" By your photograph, then."
" My photograph? "
"Um Uncle Richard sent us one that you had
taken just before you left Philadelphia."
"What, those hideous things? " He recalled them
with a thrill of horror.
" Do you want me to commit myself ? " she asked.
" Why, I thought I 'd burned them, every one ! "
EXPLANATIONS. IO5
" Then this was snatched from the burning. They
were n't very good, that 's a fact, and I did take a
very long chance ; but then I was almost sure it was
you and when you sat down, I saw the crest on your
ring."
" So you were making game of me all the while ? "
" You were making game of yourself, and you
deserved all the punishment you got."
" And a good deal more," said Jarvis with some
mental additions.
The strain ws.s still too great for him to remain
with her long, but it was by no means too great to
prohibit his return. On the contrary, his visits to the
Grendome grew more and more frequent and those
other trips to town more and more rare. Indeed, the
only real difficulty that grew out of the imbroglio was
that of explaining it all to Mallard, a bit of work
which as he did not want to give the real parti-
culars of the first meeting in the Public Gardens,
kept Jarvis busily employed for the next week.
Day by day during that week he saw more and
more of Peggy. The acquaintance prospered. They
came very easily to calling each other by their first
names and took daringly most of the more trying
initial steps. Though from an intellectual point of
view she was anything but a surprise, she had, at
times, a sharp tongue that delighted him. She was
certainly neither deep nor well read, but she was just
IO6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
as surely a wonderful puzzle. With no false ideas
of reserve or convention, with a perfect freedom
of expression and an utter disregard of the more
artificial proprieties, she revealed to him in all its
brilliance the enchanting open-air girlhood of the
Middle West. A product of the city, she had yet
about her the fragrance of the prairie, the pungency
of the mountain pine. Try as he would, he could
not understand her. The challenge she was con-
tinually setting to all his notions of a woman's proper
bearing in which he had grown up would at one
time strike him as a pose and again as real ignor-
ance, but at no time palled upon him. Indiscreet
as she undoubtedly was, he was never so low as to
suspect anything worse of her. But he did not once
assign her to her real cause. He could only admit
her complete fascination for him, and there he was
generally content to let his speculations rest, recog-
nising that in all things she presented an absolute
contrast to the woman he was trying to forget.
That forgetfulness he could not absolutely attain.
There were days, of course, when the elasticity of
his boyish nature and the new atmosphere that sur-
rounded him would remove Mary Braddock to the
shadowy background of his mental pictures. But he
was always conscious that she was there and her pres-
ence cast a menacing shadow over all his thoughts.
At other times the despair and pity of it all, the
EXPLANATIONS. IO?
sense of utter loss and hopelessness, would overcome
and master him, driving him from excess to excess
in the mad dissipations of remorse.
Simple policy and the desire of a conditional peace
with himself did for him what a dead hope could not
accomplish. He began to find the hours when he
was most at rest when his first blighting mistake
was most nearly forgotten and his subsequent crime
as an Undergraduate was farthest from his mind,
were those that he spent with Peggy Bartol. It was
then that he came closest to a better and truer view
of things. The contact with her fresh, keen pleasure
in existence, the breathing in of the pure air of that
healthy atmosphere in which she seemed to live,
changed him in spite of himself. Was it quite sure
that even now there was no hope ?
CHAPTER IX.
DESTINY'S POST FACTO.
His brief interview at the Office had made it clear
to Jarvis that if he meant to remain in College he
must pay renewed attention to his studies, and this
course of action rendered it impossible for him not
to come into contact, however formally, with the
fellows who, since his desertion from the Class team,
had not troubled to seek him out. He dreaded the
experience, but, once endured, he found it thanks
to the mercy that tempers even Undergraduate jus-
tice not so evil as he had feared.
The men grew, if not at once warmer, at least
perceptibly less cold. They did not, as Stannard
put it, " give him the marble heart." Jarvis, besides,
was really what is known as a good fellow. He was
even more mature than the majority of his acquaint-
ances that was the necessary consequence of his
solitary bringing-up but he was also frank, simple,
natural with them, and had the unconscious trick
of meeting most of his friends half way on their
chosen ground. Above all, he was not, with the
5nost of them, serious.
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. 109
Thus in time there came again the games of pool
at Sanborn's where his classmates congregated and
from the upper classmen, that occasional, "Well,
how 're you getting along?" that is always asked of
a Freshman whose people one cannot avoid knowing.
The climax, however, was reached when Hardy one
evening hurried down to borrow a collar.
" It was a hell of a thing for you to do," he re-
marked, when Jarvis had finally vouchsafed a proud
and partial explanation of his recent backslidings.
" But I dare say you 're sorry for it, even if you
won't say so, and since you really did n't understand
what it meant, I '11 try to to square you."
Jarvis had told him shortly not to bother, but he
did bother and, by the time the offender gave in his
rooms the inevitable tea to Mrs. Bartol and her
daughter, he was again persona grata with the most
of his acquaintances.
That tea had been, Jarvis persuaded himself, a
gathering enough mixed to give a stranger a fair
idea of the multitudinous quality of Harvard life.
There were men there who were trying for the
" Crimson " and the " Advocate " and men who were
trying for nothing at all ; men who belonged to all
of the few clubs possible for a Freshman, and others
who would never belong to any; two reconciled
members of the Class football team, and one who
would probably make the 'Varsity.
HO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
They talked of none of these things, however, and,
having exhausted the recent football victory over
Pennsylvania which Jarvis had suddenly felt his
studies would not allow him to witness and again
and again predicted another 17 to o game with Yale,
there was little left to say.
When it was all over and his relatives had been
with him to town to dine, the two younger persons
went to one of the series of concerts given by the
Symphony Orchestra in Sanders'. Mrs. Bartol was
to have accompanied them, but she had stopped at
the house of a Cambridge friend, and had there, at the
last moment, been fortunately attacked with one of
the nervous headaches that she considered her pecu-
liar prerogative. Arranging to have her carriage
meet them, she, therefore, remained behind, and char-
acteristically allowed the two other members of the
little theatre party to go on without her.
The programme had been long and a trifle weari-
some to Peggy, who had not that interest in music
which, quite apart from any technical knowledge,
attached itself in a purely general way to the artistic
side of Jarvis' nature. She would have been in-
clined to a revolt of frivolity had not the last two
selections proved of a more popular and appealing
character than their predecessors. Jarvis, for his part,
had, however, enjoyed it all with the keen satisfac-
tion of a true amateur that had been marred only
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. Ill
by the title of the last composition to be played.
This stared him in the face on first looking at
his programme and stood Jike a spectre at the
feast through the whole performance. It was the
"Traume" of Wagner.
That composition was for him ominous, even
terrifying. In the first instance, reminiscent of the
idealised days of the past summer, when he had
originally made its acquaintance, it had become so
inextricably interwoven with the catastrophe so lately
passed, as to be regarded as its very mainspring and
cause. Its weird character, that admits so perfectly
of two so antipathetic interpretations, had for him but
one. Every note was branded on his memory, every
chord pregnant with his doom. In that company in
which he came nearest to forgetting the disaster, he
could not have borne to listen to that disaster's herald
and in a nervous panic of fear he was vainly seeking
some pretext for flight when, at the last moment, the
programme for some occult reason, patent only to
the leaders of orchestras was changed, and for
the significant strains of Wagner was substituted
Schumann's " Traumerei."
The pure, gentle air was played as only two orches-
tras in America can play it. The composition may
not be music in the highest sense of the word there
are "critics" who go so far as to say so but it
never fails of its effect. To Jarvis, disassociated in
112 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
his mind though it was from all its maker's history,
the minor chords appealed so directly as to make,
for the first time since his misfortune, the tears spring
into his eyes. In a moment he felt supremely foolish,
but he had felt first, and continued to feel, almost
happy. Surely there was something still to be won ;
surely a man can purge himself in the end.
Even upon the less impressionable Peggy the effect
was not thrown away, and as they passed from the
theatre she was more serious and less trivial than he
had ever known her. He ordered the carriage to
drive around to Harvard Square and they strolled
slowly about the Yard.
It was a clear, cold night. Walking under the
silent trees along one of the many intersecting paths
of the almost deserted Quadrangle, they could see the
stars gleaming through the bare branches above
them. Peggy snuggled up in her opera cloak and
moved a trifle closer, holding tight to his arm.
" What a delightful place it is," she said, tritely
enough, " and what good times you must have here."
He reflected on the days just passed.
" Not always," he rejoined. " It gets rather stupid
some times."
"Why, the Yale men who were always hanging
about Farmington, never talked that way about their
college."
"They were more discreet, that's alL"
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. 11^
Then he added, with a motion toward the darkened
windows of Thayer,
" Lipmann, the new candidate for half-back, lives in
that corner room."
Peggy paused and raised herself on tiptoe to take
in what she could of the lion's den, and then, as they
slowly resumed their walk, turned to Jarvis with,
" Oh, Dick, why don't you go in for something of
that kind? You wouldn't find it a bore ever then."
Jarvis smiled. It was upon him to make a bitter
reference to his one venture in that direction, but
instead he only said, -
" It takes two, in fact, a whole dozen of coaches
to make that bargain."
" But you could do it."
Although at such times he regarded her as a very
little girl, he could not help being flattered.
" Do you think so ? " he asked.
" I 'm sure of it. You 're built for it, if ever any-
body was, and you're not doing anything here
now."
This was hardly complimentary. Besides, it was
undoubtedly, in a sense, true ; so that it was not
without a touch of pique that he replied with the
dreary commonplace that they did not consider foot-
ball everything at Harvard.
"Oh, no ! That 's the way you all talk. But they
consider it something outside, and I don't want to go
lI4 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
away and tell people, when they ask about my cousin
here, that he is n't doing anything at all."
" He 's just now in a way of getting an A in his
English, at any rate," replied that relative. He
was flattered again and his self-confidence restored.
Nevertheless, he felt constrained to add,
" The trouble with you is that you 're not yet
closely enough associated with this place to under-
stand it. Even I haven't been here long enough
to catch it thoroughly."
" It's not like Yale," she confessed.
" No, it 's not. Everything 's different."
" I 've noticed the men were. The typical man
here "
" There is no typical Harvard man. You hear a
good deal about him, but he 's a myth. The only
real type about Cambridge is the landlady and she is
simply inexpressible. No," he continued, " the differ-
ence is away deep down somewhere, but you, of
course, notice it mostly on the surface."
" Perhaps, but you somehow don't seem to be as
good friends here."
They had reached Gray's and now turned back
again.
" That is still on the surface," he corrected her.
" If I have to rescue from the police a classmate I
haven't met before and am not likely to meet again,
that does n't create a bond of sympathy strong enough
DESTINY'S POST FACTO II $
to make us comrades for life. He thanks me civilly,
and unless we 've got something in common some-
thing real, I mean there 's an end of it. That
would n't be so in some places, but it 's so here, and
why should n't it be? "
" Yet there are lots of men who go through here
and never know a soul."
" They are not many, and they generally are un-
sociable. You don't want to know a man and he
does n't want to know you. You have nothing that
you 're both interested in, and will never have till the
days of your deaths, so why should you lick-spittle
each other just because you happen to room across a
nine-foot hall and behind a locked door?"
" But how are you to know if he 's sociable or not? "
" That v s a thing that usually shows for itself. Even
such men as you talk of, will tell you that Harvard is
their ideal college and they '11 mean it, too. As
for meeting men, the best way is to borrow tobacco.
Seriously, though, we just don't believe in the theory
that you have to know every man in your Class well
enough to call him by an insulting nickname."
They laughed a little, but presently Peggy asked,
" Is n't that a symptom of Harvard mistrust or un-
belief?"
" Perhaps," he answered, " I don't know. Any-
how, Harvard unbelief is probably a finer belief than
most who mouth and drool about it are capable of."
II 6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
They had come back across the Yard again, and
now turned down toward Claverly, sending the car-
nage ahead. Almost at the steps was another cab
with Mrs. Bartol inside of it.
Peggy imperiously refused all of Jarvis' offers to
accompany them, but before she quite reached the
carnage door and the limited range of her mother's
auditory powers, she added to him,
" Now, don't forget what I said about the foot-
ball. It's quite for the honour of the family, you
see."
" And not at all for the honour of any particular
member of it?" he asked.
" For yourself," she said.
"And no one else?"
" Perhaps I don't know them all. But, oh yes,
I know mamma would like it ever so much."
" Well, it 's too late to begin this year, perhaps
too late for next."
" Oh, it's never too late to begin."
She sprang into the second carriage; there were
hasty inquiries after Mrs. Bartol's head; a hurried
good night, and the cab rattled away, leaving Jarvis
standing upon the curb.
He filled and lit his pipe, walking slowly back the
way they had come. Was it never too late? As lie-
paced back and forth through the Yard he saw in its
true light the life that he had been leading. Those care-
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. If?
less words of a laughing girl, had they not a deeper,
higher, meaning than she had thought to give them?
The solemn old buildings looked down at him
through the heavy shadows, here and there a lu-
minous window now breaking their black fronts. He
thought of the countless men they had sheltered and
watched in the long years they had stood there, these
austere Puritan warders of the place. How many
strong hearts and honest lives had gone out from
them, and made the world the better for their Har-
vard life ! How many, through disappointment and
defeat, had stood unnoted but true, because of the
lesson they had learned here ! They, too, unknow-
ing, had left their country better than they found it.
Success was possible, it was even finer, without the
reward his old dreams had pictured for, and made
an integral part of it. In the end, it was the effort
and not the reward that made the success. It was
well, it was only right, to set up altars in the market-
place for those great men who had won the reward as
well ; but was it not even better, was it not esthetic-
ally nobler, to remember also those other and name-
less ones, the stronger that they fought on after al)
hope of the victor's crown was quite gone ; men who,
falling unheeded and in legions like the drops of
summer rain, refreshed and purified the earth that
never offered recompense or praise?
And the other ones ? Was he to be one of those
Il8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
who changed the " Veritas " for "Libido?" He
knew that he was not learning the real lesson of Har-
vard ; that he had in this short while seen only the
reverse side of the College life ; that he had joined
himself to the smaller and meaner portion of it.
Mistaking vulgarity for Bohemianism, he had not
wanted to see any other side, to belong to any other
part. His artistic sense, distorted, deformed, had
been crazed as well, and now, in the crisp night air,
before these hideous old buildings, made beautiful by
night and memory, the thoughtless phrase of a pure
girl, had brought it back to sanity.
He turned about again toward his rooms. His
heart was light, his head clear, and his step firm. If
high purpose and hard work, if right for the love of
right, could purge a man from his sin, could free him
from himself, Jarvis would be purged and freed.
And yet, somewhere at the bottom of his soul, there
lurked a misgiving, a fear.
He did not want to be alone, but on the other
hand, not wishing to talk to either the sensual Mal-
lard or the cynical Major, he rang up Hardy and
called through the tube for him to come down and
have a smoke. Even latterly he had seen but little
of the Philadelphian, for Hardy, though by no means
a particularly good or unusually studious person, was
conspicuously lacking in that sort of courage which
dissipation seems to require. He was, however.
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. 1 19
always glad to talk extravagantly on morals and
religion, so that fifteen minutes found both the lads
comfortably ensconced before Jarvis' study fire, pipe
in mouth and glass in hand, the death-mask of Vol-
taire leering sardonically at them in the flickering
light cast by the crackling logs.
"That's good stuff," said Hardy, tentatively, hold-
ing up his glass between his eyes and the grate.
" Where did you get it? "
" My father sent it up. It 's some he has imported."
" It 's away over anything you can get in town.
And, speaking of town, have you seen Maggie
Du Mar lately?"
" No, I have n't been running that kind of thing for
a while."
"What's the trouble? Getting scared for your
Mid-Year's before Christmas?"
" No, I don't care about it, that 's all."
" Mallard's afraid of his. He 's a regular model of
propriety now. '
" Does n't he go into town at all, except the
times he's been in with me?"
" Yes, but only once in a while. You none of you
can quit for good, if that 's what you mean."
"What's that?" asked Jarvis, looking quickly and
intently into the pink face of his interlocutor.
It was exactly what he had wanted to talk about ;
exactly what he felt he must ask somebody if only to
I2O JAR VIS OF HARVARD.
relieve his strained nerves. He would not have dared
to open the subject, but he was all attention as Hardy
continued,
" I mean a fellow often gets well started up hill and
stops short of the top, but once he begins to fall he
rarely brings up short of the bottom."
" I don't believe it," replied Jarvis brusquely. " I
think a man can stop himself and be just as good as
anybody who never started down."
" In rare cases, perhaps yes. But as a rule the
attraction of gravitation does all that is necessary for
the rolling stone."
" You think the world apt to unite in kicking it on
down? Well, I had always believed a poor devil
might become an angel if he chose."
" Hardly. You see, he can't persistently choose.
The world has n't much pity. It has too many other
things to think about and prefers to think of the
dirty ones."
"Hasn't it any sympathy, then?" asked Jarvis,
smiling again.
As he spoke, the door opened without a pre-
monitory knock and the Major came in.
" Sympathy, my poor chap," he exclaimed, divest-
ing himself of his overcoat and drawing a chair
toward the hearth, " The world 's full of it, and
it 's worth about ten cents on the dollar ! "
Jarvis was not pleased with the interruption. He
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. 121
had sought some sort of confirmation of his new
hopes, and now the Major had intruded with an air
that left neither of the others at ease.
But the newcomer was quite unmoved by his
reception and, lighting a cigarette, proceeded to
carry on the conversation in his own behalf.
" You might think," he went on, " that they 'd at
least owe us a genuine pity in return for the awful
example we make of ourselves, but those who bene-
fit by us in this mortal life do not, unfortunately,
receive our sacrifices at our own valuation."
" That 's just what I 'm telling him," said Hardy,
thawing a little. " It 's no use. The only thing to do
is to live our own lives as we can't help living
them. There 's a destiny that misshapes our ends,
smooth-polish them how we will."
" But I Ve no faith in Kismet," Jarvis objected.
" A man can have some very good things in him, of
course, and still go wrong and still fight his way
back."
" If that's his fate," the Major interpolated.
" It never is," Hardy put in.
" There 's a law in fate as in everything else."
" No, whether it 's fate or not," persisted Jarvis,
with the irrational stubbornness of the penitent,
" ability is pretty sure to make its mark in the
end."
"It's good fortune and not worth or ability that
122 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
wins the admiration of the crowd," said Hardy,
catching something of the Major's spirit and endeav-
ouring to shine by his light.
" And the crowd," said the Major, with his final
air, " is the only close corporation that really pays
for what it wants."
" Of course," Jarvis tried to define, "it all depends
on what you mean by going wrong. I used to have
the idea that the artist couldn't go wrong; that his
soul should be a kind of prism, reflecting and disinte-
grating every passion and phase of life."
" And it 's the right one and very well put. In the
end, what's the difference? Junius says that he
never knew a rogue that was not unhappy. But the
rule must be a poor one, for it does n't work both
ways."
" But," insisted Jarvis, in a voice that trembled,
despite his internal condemnation of its foolish timid-
ity, " how can a man offer himself to a pure woman,
unless, of course, he's done his penance as I said?
Such a marriage must be a failure in the end, what-
ever you think of the rights of a woman to expect as
much as she gives."
" Oh, she '11 believe in you and, if she believes,
what's the difference? Belief is at best only giving
an unsupported theory the benefit of the doubt."
Hardy knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose
to go.
DESTINY'S POST FACTO. 123
" The failure of marriage, Dick," he said sententi-
ously, " is of course a tragedy, but it 's a vulgar one,
look at it how you will. Meanwhile, avoid it by
taking Punch 's advice, or by keeping well in mind
Thomas of Malmesbury : ' There 's no action of man
in this life which is not the beginning of so long a
chain of consequences as no human providence is
high enough to give a prospect of the end.' My
namesake uses it somewhere. Good night and don't
try to run away from yourself. You can't do it and
you 're interesting only as you are."
CHAPTER X.
EXIT A BOY.
PEGGY left Boston shortly after the concert and
Jarvis was a trifle depressed. He did not, however,
know why he should be so until the Yale game and
then he attributed his low spirits to that fiasco.
For that game did not result in a Harvard victory <
In fact, it was much more like a Harvard defeat.
The veteran players in crimson were held hard by
the men of New Haven, and the contest resulted in
a tie, with all the honours to the Blue.
And most of the money, as well. Jarvis, at any
rate, had wagered that Harva'rd would win, and had
lost the greater part of his allowance. He was re-
flecting that evening that the remainder of the term
would have to be passed under conditions of econ-
omy that offered only the now indifferent charm of
novelty for write home for money he would not
and was trying to comfort himself with the thought
that there was at least one man in the University
whom the game had left in a fix even worse than his
own, when the small individual he had in mind
rushed out upon him from Foster's with a wild roar
of delight.
EXIT A BOY. 125
" Come on ! Come on ! " cried Stannard, flinging
his arms about Jarvis' astonished shoulders. " Come
on in town and help me celebrate ! "
" If you don't mind," growled the victim of this
attack, " I should like to know first what the devil
there is to celebrate."
" That's just it ! That's the splendid new part
of my plan. Anybody could celebrate a victory.
Everybody would. And it would be tame and old.
But I always knew I was a genius and it has just oc-
curred to me that I should change matters and cele-
brate what amounts to a defeat."
" Well, you can if you can," Jarvis, somewhat
obscurely, replied, " but I have n't got the price.
And I thought you hadn't either."
" That 's where my genius shows itself again."
" You don't mean you hedged ? " The thought
disgusted him.
"No," replied Stannard with a similar inflection,
" What do you think I am? "
" I long ago gave it up. But then you must have
gone down between the halves and bet that Yale
would n't score."
" Wrong again ; I 'm going to do it without the
price."
"How?"
" Oh, don't be so damned practical ! We '11 find
out when we get to town. I Ve got fifty cents in my
pocket and you must have a dollar anyhow."
126 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
"And you propose to celebrate on a dolla
fifty?"
" I told you I was going to celebrate on nothing b\
all. Come on. You '11 see. The lovely thing about
Boston is that the unexpected is always waiting
just around the corner."
" Well, I won't hang up the agent for any more
theatre tickets."
"Who asked you, grouchy? That's not celebrab
ing. No, J had made up my mind what I was going
to do when we licked Yale this year again had it
all planned out and do you suppose I 'm going to
let such a little thing as a Yale victory stand in my
way?"
Jarvis supposed not. He reflected that the plan,
springing from such a source, offered the quality ot
surprise. Stannard was known everywhere in Boston
everywhere he should be known, because he was
a Boston boy, and everywhere he should not have
been because he was so inevitably Stannard. So,
catching fire at last from the fellow's enthusiasm,
Jarvis made a wild dive for the nearest car.
It was the last night of his boyhood. He had
thought before that he had one morning waked up
a man, but he was still, at the psychological moment,
able to cast the snake-skin of maturity and return
again for an hour to the old fresh point of view.
Now, however, it was for the last time. He little
EXIT A BOY. 127
dreamed it and yet he must somehow have felt it, for
he had never been so happily complete in it before.
They did " everything," as Stannard ever afterward
delightedly put it. They were not in town thirty
minutes before they had gathered about them a dozen
men from College, most of them strangers, but all of
them soon afire from the irresistible two. They
shouted in the hotel corridors, made speeches on the
Common, caught an unfortunate student of the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, and made him sing
" Fair Harvard " from the steps of one of the build-
ings of Boston University. But they were always so
good-natured about it that nobody, not even the
Technology student, seemed very much to mind.
In front of a Washington Street theatre they took the
horses from a carriage and signs from passing cars.
Then Stannard's genius shot suddenly to its apogee.
They had torn the pole of one car from the wire
overhead and just as the laughing crowd on the side-
walks was growing denser, augmented by the people
from the theatre, someone shouted,
" Here 're the cops ! "
" Grab a hat and club ! " shouted Stannard, " and
we' 11 run the next car ! "
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before
car and policemen arrived together. Men sprang
upon the fender and the platforms. Then, as the
crowd opened and the car dashed ahead, they clutched
128 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
wildly at the policemen, who were breaking through,
and secured their coveted trophies.
Before they had gone another block, conductor
and motorman had both been bundled off. Jarvis
leaped into the place of the latter and Stannard
joyously assumed the former's position. The pas-
sengers, some half dozen in number, had begun by
laughing and ended by threatening or fainting accord-
ing to sex.
As they tore down the street, " Ladies and gentle-
men," shouted Stannard above the pandemonium,
" Pray do not be alarmed. There is no danger.
We represent the corporation of Harvard University.
This company owes us a small sum of money for the
privilege of carrying students into and out of town,
and as we have had a great deal of trouble in collect-
ing our little bill as in fact, they seemed disinclined
to pay us at all we were forced to secure a judg-
ment on one of their cars. There is only one thing
that will cause you the slightest annoyance ; I regret
that we cannot stop to put off or take on passengers.
We must not slack up until we reach our journey's end.
I don't know just where that will be, but never mind
- my motorman is both clear-headed and skilful."
His motorman was not so sure of that. Jarvis
knew that Stannard had enough fellows at his back
to enforce his will on their living freight, but he had
no sooner put his hand to the controller than he per-
EXIT A BOY. 129
ceived that a regiment could not manage their speed.
However, he did not particularly care. It would,
after all, be time enough to care when they struck
something. He could at least ring the gong and
there was no car for a few blocks ahead. So as he
seemed to have swung into full pace and was appar-
ently unable to slow up, whichever way he turned
that annoying handle, he jammed it back again to
its farthest notch and, as he afterwards expressed it,
" let her go."
She went. They dashed on at a terrifying pace.
He would just catch glimpses of the throng on the
sidewalks trying to stop or turning to stare at his
runaway charge. There was an unending line.
People were dashing madly across the track in front
of the fender. Now and then a lone policeman would
stand directly ahead and wave his impotent arms, but
only to dodge nimbly aside at the critical instant.
And all the time Jarvis was gleefully conscious of the
joyous Stannard, somewhere at his back in the car,
clinging to the straps, and, as he sang the tenor part
to " King Charles," marking time by ringing up
suppositious fares.
Suddenly, directly ahead, there dashed into view a
dark line of men. In an instant he realised what it
meant.
" Cops ahead ! " he yelled and hammered wildly at
the gong. Then, " Get out of the way ! " he shrieked,
9
130 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
bending far forward over the front of the car, but
aware that his voice was drowned in the roar of the
charge. " I can't stop the damned thing ! "
The police they are a canny lot must have
grasped the meaning without the words, for they
sprang aside and as the car dashed through their
ranks they made wild clutches at its bars.
Several men were bowled over. Jarvis saw them
rolling into the gutters. But one made the step and
before the Freshman could reflect on the meaning of
such a thing, he had tossed this one off. Evidently,
however, the fellow was not much hurt, for no more
was ever heard of him.
But now there was a blaze of light just a block in
advance. The preceding cars must have been stopped
What was to be done? There must be a brake some-
where. He searched for it wildly. If something wa?
not done and done at once the end was certain.
Jarvis quickly resolved on one thing. He would
stand there until the crash came and take the conse-
quences, even if he could not avert those awaiting the
other occupants of the car.
But could he not avert them? He swung one
lever after the other and thus somehow he never
knew how, but somehow they came to a terrible
stop within an inch, as it seemed, of the car immedi-
ately ahead.
The shock threw everyone about the floor. Jarvis
EXIT A BOY. 131
was tossed almost to the back platform and, before
any of them could recover, a dozen officers, sprung
from nowhere, were sitting on everybody's chests.
In the melee, however, some of the more fortunate
criminals managed to escape. But the two ringleaders
were marched off, safely enough, to a patrol wagon
that stood only too ready. It was painfully evident
that a battle for liberty was out of the question.
Jarvis was more or less ashamed, but to Stannard
there had been early vouchsafed a cheerful blindness
to such merry forms of disgrace, and before they had
reached the station house he had cemented a laugh-
ing friendship with all of his captors by declarations
that he and Jarvis were merely passengers on the
ill-fated car, by highly-coloured narratives of the
escapade, and by the willingness with which he finally
wore away the tedium of the drive through singing
that classic song that begins with the definite state-
ment that
" Harvard was Harvard."
" My name," he replied, fifteen minutes later in
reply to the House Sergeant's question, " is William
Shakespeare, as you will see by the initials on my
clothes. Ben's, however, is Ben Jonson, though you
won't find him so labelled. His laundry people got
down an R in place of a B. We plead ' not guilty.'
What's the bail?"
" The magistrate's asleep long ago."
132 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Then for heaven's sake, wake him up. We live
in Roxbury, and must get home in time to go to the
high school by nine o'clock."
The sergeant was a little man, whose severe mouth
was owing only to an equally severe loss of teeth.
" You can send out and see if you can get enough
bail," he grinned. " It won't be very much for you,
I calculate. But you 'd better have it before you
wake the old man."
The inference was obvious, and was acted upon
with the result that by daylight the money had been
secured from Cambridge, and the precious pair were
again in their own beds.
Perhaps because the incident did not look any too
well for the traction company or the police, or else
as is less likely because Stannard's lie had been
really accepted, the forfeited bail did not bring about
any unpleasant complications and, as the affair was
carefully kept out of the papers, few people were ever
any the wiser for it.
Jarvis was not one of these. His realisation of the
peril in which he had thoughtlessly placed a number
of lives, was, although late, sharp enough, and his
store of knowledge seemed considerably increased by
the narrowness of his own escape. This added a
touch of seriousness to his work, and made his life
during the month following the Yale game colourless
perhaps, but decidedly more to be approved.
EXIT A BOY. 133
So far as his studies were concerned, the only thing
that now particularly worried him was the growing
feeling that it was perhaps too late to catch up. Yet
he worked hard, and at Christmas time signed off at
the Office for a week only. Then it seemed he had
scarcely returned before the terrible Mid-Year's were
upon him. He looked at the " Crimson's " bewilder-
ing schedule in something very like amazement.
There would be no difficulty about English and he
had worked hard enough, he thought, to master suffi-
cient History to get him through that course. But
the others?
" Oh, it will come out all right," Hardy assured
him that morning at Mrs. Blank's, " You Ve still got
lots of time to bone, and there is n't any time like the
night before an examination."
" French is all right, and I 'm not scared of His-
tory," Stannard announced from across the table.
" You 're taking that, are n't you, Hardy ? I got a book
of printed notes on it at the first of the year, and if I
can only find it or get another copy it 's still around
my room somewhere, I guess it '11 be a cinch."
" Well, I hope I can get past it," said Jarvis. " But
i could never remember dates and mathematics, I
know it 's no use trying to do anything."
Hardy's comforting assurances went for little.
They knew him, for his part, to be one of those who
worked none too hard until the eve of an examina-
134 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
tion, and then studied themselves to the very verge
of the grave, and such men, they reflected, always got
through almost as well as the grinds.
In this they were right. Hardy did get through,
and with something that was very like distinction.
The series of seminars and coaches which he called
to his aid, worked wonders, and within a few days
after the conclusion of the time of trial, he was off to
his home with all the old colour in his cheeks.
Not so the other two. Every evening at dinner
they had made comparisons of the progress. There
was just one difference in these reports : Stannard
was always sure that he had " passed somehow " and
Jarvis was equally certain that he had not passed at
all.
" They seem to try so hard to ask you everything
you 'd expect them not to," he complained. " You
start out thinking you can bluff at the questions you
don't know, and then you end by feeling like handing
in a blank book."
"I often do," said Stannard. "And, say, is this
right? I translated ' toro ' ' bull ' in a line about
' Primus ut viridante toro consederat herbae.'
It was Latin A. I wish I 'd passed the advanced stuff
before I ever left Groton."
Finally they attempted an impromptu seminar in
Stannard's room, but that abode of pleasure contained
everything that made living enjoyable and study im-
EXIT A BOY. 135
possible. A move was made to Jarvis' quarters, but
there it was discovered that the Philadelphia!! had no
notes, and that Stannard's were illegible.
" You see, I thought that was the beauty of 'em,"
their author explained. " I fixed them so with con-
siderable labour. Then, if I had to show them at a
consultation, the instructor coulcN&'t tell whether they
were good or bad. It worked, too," he added, in
proud defence.
"Well," said Jarvis, ever ready to accept his fate,
" it begins to look as if the game were up, anyhow."
He felt a lump in his throat, and wanted dreadfully
to have Stannard get out of the room.
" Oh, I 'm not fixed yet ! " cried that young person.
" Are n't you ? I 'd like to know how you intend
to manage it. It means probation anyhow, and such
hard work to stay here that we '11 be just like that
man Mallard."
" Probation 's not so bad. My brother told me all
about it when he was in College. Rot! Anyway,
Mallard thinks he 's all right. He thinks he '11 have
another chance at the end of this year and make the
first eight of the O. K., and be initiated at the dinner,
and all that."
They laughed a little, nervously, and Stannard
looked out of the window and tried to whistle the
Institute March. Then he got up with a little sigh
and made a rush for the hall door.
136 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" My adviser 's such a stinker," he muttered as he
bade good bye.
The agony was long, but it had to come to an end
at last, and Jarvis was not the only unastounded one
at its denouement. To " call at the Office between the
hours of," etc. that was, of course, the form of the
conclusion. There was a small army of unfortunates
to keep him company and these greeted him with for-
lorn little smiles as he entered the bare ante-room in
front of the wire-screened counter.
The final interview, he had to admit, was as pleasant
as it was possible to make it. He had failed in a
great many things and he had not, all through the
past term, shown that consistency in study and con-
duct that would er indicate that, in short, was
evidence of good faith in the matter of his University
connection. There had been occasions when his
seat was empty at nine o'clocks and other lectures.
Oh, yes, that had been at the start. Of late he had
shown a better disposition, but he had been a trifle
dilatory about showing it. Did he not think so him-
self ? Well, then, in consideration of that later stand,
it was not intended to deal too harshly with him. So
many did not, at the start, fully appreciate the
Faculty's attitude. That being the case, then, it had
been decided to to place him upon probation.
Every possible aid would be offered him toward
rehabilitation, and, in the mean time, if he really
EXIT A BOY. 137
wanted to be re-established, it would be well for him
to go at once and have a talk with his adviser.
Too proud to wheedle or protest, Jarvis walked
away, feeling pretty much as if his College career
was about at an end. He did not mind that so
much for himself as for his parents, and it was only
the thought of them that took him to his adviser's
for the first time since the single visit in September.
Mr. Barker was in. He was a rather young man,
with a keen, clean-shaven face, and spectacles. He
had a pleasant room and was smoking a cigarette.
" I don't suppose you remember me," said Jarvis,
mentioning his name, "but I 'm one of your charges,
I believe, and at the Office they seem to think I 'd
better have a talk with you. I Ve been put on
probation."
Mr. Barker smiled. He did not, to Jarvis' surprise,
seem to think this so very awful a catastrophe. No
doubt he had been warned of it; certainly he had
had to deal with numberless such cases.
He remembered Jarvis perfectly, he said. It was
hard luck that he should have begun so poorly, but
the present state of affairs meant only a certain degree
of grinding.
" But that 's just what I Ve been doing for the last
two months," Jarvis at last protested.
"Rather blindly, I'm afraid," said Mr. Barker,
smiling.
138 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" You judge by the results? "
" Not entirely."
It was more than Jarvis could bear.
" Then you 're just like the others ! " he broke out.
" They all seem to have known all along what was
coming and they would n't warn me."
Mr. Barker drew a weary hand across his pale face.
" I think there was a former interview at the
Office?" he suggested.
" But," said Jarvis, " they gave scarcely any hint of
this." He really thought so as he spoke. " Was it
fair, do you think?" he went on, "At any other
college I Ve ever heard of they 'd have openly
cautioned a man."
The adviser grew grave enough.
" Very possibly," he assented. " I don't know
much about other colleges, but I do know a little
about this one, and I know that is not our way. Here
you are given the chance for the best things in life.
If you 're the sort that does n't want to take that
chance, you 're the sort the College does n't want,
that 's all. Don't you see for yourself that it is better
so? Had you been told, you might have, managed to
pass, but you would not have gained what you gain to-
day. You have been treated as a man. You knew
the rewards and penalties, and you are not a child.
What will be the result? You will understand, as you
could never otherwise have understood, what you came
EXIT A BOY. 139
here for, and you will go to work with renewed energy
and with definite, systemized endeavour. I shall help
you all I can. We will all do that. But we want most
of all to have you help yourself."
He had gained his point before he was half through.
To the plans that were then unfolded they meant, as
he had said, simply hard work and no cutting, Jarvis
listened with growing enthusiasm, and when at last
he rose to bid good bye, he shook hands a trifle
unsteadily.
" It will turn out all right, I am sure," said the
adviser.
" I don't care how it turns out," said Jarvis. " I '11
do my best. The way of this place is the right way,
and I would n't have any other at any other place, if
I had to leave College to-morrow."
CHAPTER XI.
THE WAY OF A MAID.
JARVIS, of course, did not have to leave College.
On the contrary, he did very well indeed. In student
parlance, there is " nothing doing" through February
and March. The weather is atrocious ; the absence,
in Cambridge, of respectable sidewalks becomes
dangerously evident, and those Undergraduates who
are not ill or rowing, have little left but their
studies. Thus it was that, during most of this period,
the bell of Harvard Hall became Jarvis' time-piece
and lectures his recreation. Two or three of his
fortnightly themes were published in the " Advocate,"
and he was one day overjoyed to receive a politely
printed slip requesting the privilege of the use of
some of his verse for that forbidden ground to
Freshmen, the " Monthly."
Stannard had remained in College by an astounding
series of lucky strokes and was already on the staff of
the " Lampoon," a place earned for him by his clever
pencil. Hardy and the Major were not perceptibly
changed, but Mallard had astonished all his friends
by losing himself in the twenty-five eight-oared boats
THE WAY OF A MAID. 141
and numberless four and "pair oareds " that were
beginning to practise tiresome starts and to make
endless trips from the abattoir to the basin.
Toward the end of the term, however, study did
not occupy all of Jarvis' time. With his conditions
at last worked off and his courses all well in hand, he
even regained his lost athletic prestige by winning,
again under the giant Innez, a place on his Class base-
ball nine, where, in a mild way, he distinguished
himself not a little.
Then came the languorous spring, never quite so
splendid a thing anywhere else, when the Yard is
fresh with the bright green of the turf and the streets
are sweet with the tender new leaves and the scent
of distant blossoms ; the spring when strong youths'
voices are singing in unison under the elms anything
from grand old Latin hymns to " Lizette " and " Mrs.
Craigin's Daughter ; " the time of club dinners and
"Pop" concerts in town and Strawberry Nights,
and Finals. All springs are glorious there and each
more glorious than the last. One is even gently
interested in the Class races on the Charles "the
back yard of your best girl's home," as Stannard
always called it.
Jarvis enjoyed it to the full, with a strong, healthy
heart and a clear right-seeing head. He had never been
in better trim in all his life, and thus, when the glo-
ries of Class Day, with its tree ceremonies and
142 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" spreads," this time driven indoors by a not un-
friendly rain, had passed before his admiring eyes
and he had seen the Commencement exercises in
Sanders he went home for his vacation, even from
the awful 'Varsity boat-race, with something about
as close to a realisation of Harvard as a man can
come to before he leaves the place forever.
" Not that you can put Harvard in words," he
assured his none too impressionable mother. " You
can't. But if the absurd people who are always say-
ing we 're blase and bored and cynical could see us
in May and June, there would be an end of such stuff.
Why, we even put up with the only people who try
verbally to express the place Memorial Day orators,
or else baccalaureate preachers who haven't ever
been, you know, and could n't anyway."
During the summer he took the best of care of
himself. After his brief baseball experience, there
had been made to him a clear intimation that his
football shortcomings would be overlooked and that a
man who had proved so promising would have an
opportunity early in the fall of trying for the 'Varsity
eleven. Accordingly, he spent most of his vacation
in the White Mountains, without a sight of his still
dreaded Nemesis, and when, at the very end, he
learned th.at his cousin Peggy had gone to finish a
rather late season at the country house of an uncle
in southern Pennsylvania, he readily accepted an
THE WAY OF A MAID. 143
invitation to put in a few days there on his own
account.
Thus it happened that one glorious crimson after-
noon found him driving with that young lady among
the hills of Lancaster county. Far out below them
from the bald summit of Katalech stretched a sea of
green and gold, of orange and yellow, of red leaves
and sere, rolling off upon all sides in shimmering
waves of emerald and ruby to the far away purple
line of the Tuscaroras. Here and there the ocean of
tossing leaves was broken by a small, square island
of bare, dun-coloured earth, from which rose a few
stacks of ungarnered corn, and again there were the
white walls of a tobacco-shed dancing in the sunlight,
or a red-brick farmhouse, with little windows casting
back the last rays of the sun that was setting, in a
glory of red and gold, over Winter Hill. Overhead
long, slow trains of field-crows were winging their
melancholy flight homeward. Among the trees
directly below them there shone the naked trunk of
a birch, like some arrested dryad, and above the
myriad needles of a lone pine were whispering to
each other as do the lips of one stricken with palsy.
That was what Jarvis tried to tell Peggy as they
drew up the old horse and looked out upon the scene.
Peggy laughed.
" It is pretty," she said.
The past few days, Jarvis was forced to own, had
144 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
been rather dull. When, therefore, they started out
on this particular afternoon for a drive to Katalech,
he welcomed the chance for something new and he
was not disappointed. They had had a hard time get- .
ting here ; but now, after going off on several false
scents and rounding up in barnyards, to the con-
sternation of a hundred hens, or before farmhouse
doors, to the wide-eyed terror of the natives, here
they were at last, and Peggy at once wanted to start
back again.
" Let 's go back by way of Lancaster," she sug-
gested. " We can stop at Penn's for supper, and get
home by nine o'clock. It's so much nicer a road."
" Is it?" said Jarvis, loath to hurry on. " With all
my heart then, only where is the road? "
" Oh, I don't know exactly, but I 'm sure it's much
nicer. It must be nicer than going the way we came.
We can ask the way, you know."
He did know. He had already asked the way fifty
times, and he was tired of asking, especially as he did
not speak Pennsylvania Dutch. Peggy's suggestions,
however, were generally final.
Of course they lost the way. He knew they would
do that. They had not gone three miles before the
fact became perfectly evident. What was worse,
those three miles had taken them into the Martic
Hills, where there is not a house in every five miles.
At the first, some very disreputable-looking char-
THE WAY OF A MAID. 145
coal-burners directed them to the right. Six miles
down the right they met a woodcutter.
" I '11 ask him," ventured Jarvis.
" Oh, what 's the use of asking so often ? " said
Peggy ; " They just laugh at you."
But Dick was not to be moved this time, and ad-
dressed the pedestrian.
The woodcutter sent them back to the charcoal-
burners. Thence they were directed straight ahead.
They had been misunderstood before.
The way lay up and down steep hills that, at the
distance of a hundred yards, looked simply perpen-
dicular. The forest, dense with underbrush, grew
straight up to the rugged road, and the tall silent
trees stretched their bare, black arms directly over-
head. There was a mysterious, solemn air about the
place that made the girl draw well back in the seat,
and the horse was tired, and could go but slowly.
At this rate it was ten o'clock by the time they
got out of the hills, and Jarvis recalled to Peggy, who
had become unaccountably silent, that the natives
went to bed at nine.
" I 'd like to know whose fault that is," was her only
comment.
Her tone indicated that the fault was his.
The next hour he spent in stopping at every cross-
roads, " shinning " sign-posts, and, by the short lived
light of many matches, trying to read the directions
10
146 JARVJS OF HARVARD.
given there. It was quite archaeological ; he cut his
shoes on the stones of the wayside gullies ; twice he
fell over the larger ones. And then the effort was
useless. A sign read " Two miles to Rotherville."
He said that was not the way they wanted to go.
Peggy said it was. He gave in, and three miles
further on got out of the cart and read " Two miles
to Rotherville."
Even then they almost missed the place, which
consisted of a half dozen houses, strung along the
gloomy road.
He got out again, and attacked a side door, while
they both hallooed with all the strength of their
united voices. At last, a window opened, and they
were directed in a strong German accent to go back
the way they had come.
The next time they hesitated over a sign-post, he
asked Peggy which way they should go.
But Peggy was beyond the reach of sarcasm.
" Oh, go where you please," she said. " I '11 not
advise you again. You know it all, of course."
He used his last match to look at his watch.
"What time is it?" she asked, manifesting but a
languid interest.
" Half-past eleven," he replied.
She awoke at once.
" Mamma '11 think this a nice thing ! I hope you 're
glad now you brought me out and lost me."
THE WAY OF A MAID. 147
Now, Jarvis' love for Mrs. Bartol had not developed
with acquaintance, so he pointed out that it was
Peggy herself, and not he who had proposed this way
home.
" I did n't either," she said. " I wanted to go back
by way of Lancaster ; not by all the back lanes in the
county."
As she spoke, they came to the top of a hill. The
young crescent of the moon had set long ago and the
stars were the only light in the dark blue sky above, or
on the silent fields and creeping fences at either side.
But straight ahead there now shone an unmistakable
glow the lights of Lancaster.
As they entered a side street,
" Do you want to go to Penn's? " asked Jarvis.
The next morning he encountered Peggy outside
the smoking-room. In spite of her threats, she had
made it all right with mamma. She really flirted
outrageously with her mother.
" Why were you so sulky last night?" he asked.
" I was n't a bit sulky," she said. " I was feeling
perfectly jolly."
" But you did n't talk."
" Yes, I did. Well, it was too cold to talk."
" I thought it quite warm," he replied. " But if
you were cold, you should n't have abused me. It
was n't any fault of mine."
" Yes, it was," said Peggy, and ran upstairs.
148 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
He stood for a bit looking after her, and rolling a
cigarette. Then he turned back into the smoking-
room, and took up the morning paper. But he could
not read ; the girl was still too fascinating a mystery
to him.
What did she mean? Was this simply the real in-
discretion of a merry, unsophisticated girl? Or was
she an ordinary flirt, an insincere coquette? There
were few things he loathed more. He had known
one woman of some social standing that should have
placed her above reproach, yet whom he had found
almost beneath it. That woman had poisoned his
opinions of the rest, but he could feel, even for her
class, something that was far nearer akin to respect
than for those of this other. A man like Mallard,
for instance, could enjoy a flirtation with the best or
the worst of them, whatever the best or the worst
might be; but Jarvis was no longer one of those
happy, big boys, joyously taking life as they find it.
He had lost his boyhood, and life was bitterly, terribly,
almost fatally real to him. Everything was extreme,
and he could not bear those who tried to take a
tedious middle course. He must have one thing or
the other.
Yet of his two premises one must be true, for of
his cousin's absolute purity he never doubted. In-
deed, his mind never took even this analytical turn
while Peggy was with him. While they were in the
THE WAY OF A MAID. 149
air, her scintillations no more permitted of analysis
than does the tail of a rocket. He did not take them
as they were, perhaps, but he involuntarily admired
them and therefore concluded that they were super-
latively good. It was only when they ceased to cut
the darkness of his horizon that he attempted to
doubt the verity of his surmises concerning them, and
then he had only the burnt stick by which to judge.
The incident of the drive proved typical of the next
two days of the week. He walked and drove with
Peggy. He played golf and tennis with her. He
even tried to appear interested in her uncle's unusually
dull dissertations upon politics ; tried still harder to
be civil to her mother. Mrs. Bartol fluttered about
through the routine incidents of her daily life, endeav-
ouring to bring within the short circle of her sight
and hearing as many objects as she embraced in the
broad circumference of her smile. She had an idea
that she ought to talk literature to a College man, as
she called Jarvis, and, as her knowledge on this sub-
ject was, among her friends, notoriously small, and
her confidence inversely large, the task of civility
was not always quite endurable, even for a guest.
She was one of those persons who base their claims
to be considered unusual upon a detailed knowledge
of Dickens at his worst, and a marginal commentary
of " How true ! "
Jarvis was at a loss to account from hearsay or
I5O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
observation for any hereditary element in the character
of the daughter. Where did she get herself? What
a pity the father was not alive ! She had, indeed,
neither a knowledge of, nor a love for, good books,
but, then, she did not pretend to any, and she differed
from her mother physically and intellectually in every
way possible. On the other hand, her father, accord-
ing to all that Jarvis could elicit during the lucid
intervals of the uncle, had been quite worthy of his
spouse. So it was some freak of atavism, probably.
The visitor began vaguely to wonder whether, what-
ever this girl might be, she was not too profound for
him. He was still too conceited not to resent any-
thing that he found too deep. Besides, any idea of
profundity appeared so incompatible with this cheery,
light-hearted girl, whose every word seemed to come
simply because it happened to be the first that
occurred to her. Yet he could in no other way
account for her. For the time at least he would give
it up.
Meanwhile, he did not waver in the determination
for a change of amusement when he found the
milder ones, despite the distinct aid of Peggy's
presence, something of a bore. He would find them
sufficient in due time and he was resolved to have his
try at regeneration.
Things were not, however, to remain stupid for
long. As he had made up his mind, for obvious
THE WAY OF A MAID. 151
reasons, not to stop over in Philadelphia, he had fixed
on Sunday for his departure for Cambridge. It was
late Friday afternoon that Peggy entered the library
with the announcement that she had just got word
from a friend of the previous summer who was to
pass close by their place that evening and would stop
off with her for a day.
CHAPTER XII.
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER.
JARVIS came down to dinner somewhat early that
evening. Peggy was just going out through the hall
on her way to the cart that was waiting at the door.
As he paused on the steps and looked down at her,
she seemed somehow more than ever a thing of
nature, a part of the great life out of doors.
" Sorry I have n't room for you here," she said.
"Why, where are you going?" asked her cousin,
for the moment forgetful of the friend who was to
arrive that day.
" To meet my guest, of course. Oh, I '11 be back
in good time for dinner on this occasion. You
need n't be jealous."
He often afterward wondered what it was that at
this moment made him curious in regard to a mat-
ter which had, in the first instance, so utterly failed
to affect him.
" You have n't told me your friend's name yet," he
said.
" You have n't asked before. This is the first time
you Ve shown even a passing regard in the affair."
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 153
"Well, who is it?"
" Miss Mary Braddock."
He could not help but start Then he fancied
some trick of his imagination.
" Who?" he repeated.
" Mary Braddock."
As if powerless to take it in, he stood looking
blankly at her.
Peggy, however, put her own construction upon
his action.
" Why, do you know her? "
"No that is, yes, I do," he stammered.
In his absolute stupor he yet happily realised, as
if by actual inspiration, that his memory of past
events must be guided by Mary's own.
"What does that mean? "-asked the untroubled
Peggy, who, in perfect ignorance of the torture she
was inflicting, seemed bound to pursue the original
course of her inquiry.
By a superhuman effort Jarvis managed to pull
himself somewhat together.
" It means yes and no. It may be my Mary Brad-
dock, or it may not." Perhaps, after all, it was not.
" Oh, there can be only one. I met mine but
never mind. Tell me first who is yours."
Jarvis was still able to produce a smile.
" Never you mind," he replied. " If you won't tell
me first, you must wait till you come back. It will
154 JARV1S OF HARVARD.
do very well then and you will not be on time for
either train or dinner, if you don't start at once."
He watched anxiously to see the effect of his
words. He felt that he must get away and be alone
for a while if he were to control himself in the pres-
ence of the woman who had entrapped him. Luck-
ily, Peggy took him at his word, and with a saucy
courtesy turned away.
When the door had closed behind her, he stood
still for a moment and then, turning back up the
stairs, sought the comparative seclusion of his own
room.
What did it mean? What was he to do? He
could not, of course, help hoping that there was some
mistake about the name, but at the bottom of his
heart he knew well enough that there had been no
mistake. It was indeed she. In a curious occult
way he had come to regard his cousin as the inno-
cent pythia to some terrible, outspoken oracle of
fate. She had told him he would succeed at his foot-
ball and he had not the slightest doubt of his success.
Even had he been of a weaker physique, he would
not have doubted. And now she was right again.
She must be right. There could be but one Mary
Braddock.
How then had she got here? Had she learned of
his presence and was she at last beginning to dog his
steps? Was she come, it did not, at that crisis,
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 155
seem absurd to think so, to denounce him as un-
worthy of the company in which she found him?
His morbid imagination reviewed the final chapters
of every sensational novel he had ever read. He
pictured to himself the villain Jarvis in a hundred
attitudes of exposed abasement, until the inordinate
fears of a melodramatic denouement took such a hold
upon him that he was tempted to flee the house.
He had thrown himself on the fantastic coverlet of
his bed and thrust his head among the punctilious
pillow-slips with a force that made the little brass
framework tremble from end to end, and the springs
>eap beneath him in but slowly lessening reaction.
In a short time, however, the habit of conformance
with propriety began to assert itself, and the miser-
able dread that his host should find him late for
dinner together with the vanity that prompted
him to conceal all signs of distress soon brought
him to his feet. He took a drink of brandy from
the flask in his suit-case, changed his crumpled linen
and again started downstairs.
Control himself as he might in other particulars, he
descended slowly and with a tread rather faltering.
As he reached the step from which, twenty min-
utes before, he had talked to Peggy, another woman
crossed the hall and paused exactly where his cousin
had stood when he last spoke to her. She had
brushed by the servant and come in ahead of her
156 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
young hostess, walking over the difficult polished
floor with a graceful, swaying, almost silent tread,
that Jarvis mentally likened to that of a splendid,
stealthy tigress. It was Mary Braddock.
She was indeed so graceful that you would have
overlooked her unusual height; so perfectly, as one
would say, in hand, that you would not have called
the great sweeping curves of her figure in any wise
elaborate. The broad white forehead, the wealth of
black hair, the arched eyebrows and the curling
lashes that seemed to weigh heavily upon the slow
lids, all unable to hide the great dark eyes where
lurked yet revealed itself so much of knowledge
these, with the delicate, firm outlines of the nose and
chin, the moist red mouth that was ever waiting as it
afraid to give utterance to the crimson thoughts
behind it how well Jarvis knew them all and
how fatally!
Again, for an instant, he felt like running away,
but Peggy's laugh, as she tripped over beside her
companion, reassured his failing courage and piqued
his pride. He came down the remaining steps
quickly and, to all appearances, really happy and
at ease.
" Here 's Dick now," said Peggy in tones that spoke
of former and recent mention of the name.
The light fell full on his broad but graceful figure
as Mary turned slowly toward him. One hand, which
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 157
a half-inch of cuff made to appear quite small, rested
lightly on the bannister. His head was thrown back
on a neck the thickness of which a high collar
sufficiently concealed. Evening dress became him
and, as he was too intent upon appearing simply un-
concerned to give one thought to his looks beyond
the point where they ceased to portray his thoughts,
he was really altogether handsome.
The new arrival was quick to solve every difficulty.
With perfect tact she came forward and greeted him
as of old.
"Yes, here he is and not very much changed in a
year, either. I 'm awfully glad to see you again,
Dick."
Jarvis noticed that she seemed even more radiantly
beautiful than when he had last seen her, and yet he
could not look straight in the eyes that sought his
own with so perfect a good-fellowship.
" You 're not half so glad as I am," he said.
" Miss Braddock 's been telling me all about you,"
his cousin interpolated. " I did n't know I was bring-
ing two such good friends together."
" Nor I," assented Jarvis, " Where on earth do you
come from, Mary? "
" Not from the next world, at any rate. Merely
Pittsburgh."
She spoke slowly, almost were it not for the
words themselves languorously. Her voice was
158 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
deep and low and there was even a trace of foreign
accent, the relic of her long schooling in France.
Jarvis hastened to answer.
" Pittsburgh? " he repeated. " Surely that's near
enough to the other side of the Styx."
" Oh, it 's some distance from these Elysian fields."
" Exactly," said Jarvis, regaining again the maturer
pose that he had a year ago always unconsciously
taken in her presence. " How well you say what I
can only try to and miss."
The dinner went off well enough. Mary was cer-
tainly at her ease ; the unsuspecting Peggy as light-
hearted as ever. The old gentleman, rotund and
purple, talked politics from under his grizzled mus-
tache and Mrs. Bartol smiled forth platitudes and
quotations from Dickens. Even Jarvis found his
sensational fears vanishing and his manner becoming
quite as commonplace as that of his table-companions.
When the women had left the room he even managed
not to stay long behind them, but went out while the
uncle drowsed over a cigar, and returned to the
library where he expected to find the others.
There was nobody in the room but Mary.
" For a moment, at least," she explained with a
little pout, " they Ve run away and left me all alone."
" Well, never mind. You need n't worry. I '11
hardly suppose they '11 allow you very long at my
mercy," he replied, uncomfortably.
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 159
" On the contrary. I am worrying for fear they
will return sooner than I want them."
" No, you 're not worrying. You 're merely flat-
tering."
" It 's easier. But seriously, I do want a chat with
you. Is it too cold to go outside somewhere where
we shan't be interrupted ? "
Jarvis' nervousness began to reappear in full force.
There was, however, scarcely a choice of answers.
" Cold? Not at all," he replied as best he might.
" It 's positively balmy, but you 'd better run up-
stairs and get a wrap of some kind. Then I '11 show
you the way."
" ' When I send for thee,
Then come thou.'"
laughed Mary. "You remind me of my nursery
days. There 's no need of leaving you. There 's a
cloak out here in the hall that will do well enough.
I noticed it as I came in."
Jarvis had wanted a moment in which to collect his
courage for the storm that, ridiculous and melo-
dramatic as he knew such a convulsion of the ele-
ments would be, he could none the less help fearing.
But as he was to have no respite, he submitted with
the best grace possible.
As they passed through the hallway, Mary picked
up the wrap of which she had spoken. It was one of
those useless, beautiful pieces of gauze which women
I6O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
pretend to believe protects them from any inclemency
on the part of the weather. And it belonged to
Peggy. Jarvis remembered wrapping it about her
the night of the concert in Cambridge.
"That thing's of no use," he said, with a sudden
harshness in his voice.
" Oh, it will do perfectly well," replied his com-
panion easily. " It 's quite balmy outside anyhow,
you know."
" But it does n't belong to you," he objected, and
then, fearing for himself the result of such an indis-
cretion, he hastened to add, "Does it?"
" Really, you 're very rude this evening. Are n't
you well? Or do they teach such things at Harvard?
I hardly think we are likely to elope in these clothes
or at this stage of our acquaintance."
" I only wanted you to take proper care of yourself,"
he clumsily explained.
Mary Braddock laughed softly.
" How touchingly interested in me you are ! " she
said. " I 'm not in the least disturbed because you
have neither hat nor coat. Come."
And she stepped on to the porch and thence to
the wooded drive-way that led through the sloping
lawns.
The moon hung ominously low over the bare tree-
tops and shed a pale, uncanny light upon them.
There was a smell of frosted grass already in the air,
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. l6l
despite the early season, and the gravel of the newly-
made road crunched as they walked over it among
the weird shadows that to Jarvis' distorted fancy
seemed to stretch out skinny, crooked arms, as if to
draw him back into the surrounding darkness. From
circumstances diametrically opposed, both, as they
strolled mysteriously through the checks of moon-
light and shade, were for some time silent.
It was a clear, cool night, but it was not the air that
made Jarvis shiver. Except from the corner of his
eye he dared not a look at the woman beside him.
Once his swinging hand brushed the soft cloak that
hung from her shoulders and he drew back, remem-
bering again that walk with Peggy through the old
Yard. Somehow, it all seemed so long ago.
He was beset by a terrible, overmastering fear. All
the foolish dread of the early evening had now
recoiled upon him with a double force. He felt
utterly helpless, altogether powerless to resist. He
was either quite subservient to the will of this woman,
or else he was the puppet of a fate still more relentless
and irresistible.
For the moment he was, besides, profoundly em-
barrassed. Peggy might be expected to reappear at
any time. Yet he was uncertain whether he wanted
her to do so or not. Her coming would rescue him, for
the time at least, from a situation sufficiently anoma-
lous and even tragic enough in its possibilities, but it
ii
162 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
must likewise discover him in the midst of an inter-
view at the best peculiar, at the worst clandestine.
He was guilty and he expected suspicion. Divided
between extreme fear and palpitating suspense, he
walked like a sheep to the shambles.
On her side, Mary Braddock was tossed about by
emotions equally conflicting, though absolutely differ-
ent. Exactly why she had brought him here she
would have found it hard indeed to tell. She was
neither a vicious nor a revengeful woman. Above
all things else, she was first passionate, then selfish,
and then good-natured. But when either the first or
the second of these attributes they are too common
to be called faults was uppermost, everything else
in her was swept down before it. To-night she found
the first two combined in the possession of her soul.
At other times perfectly humane, at such moments
she could be calculatingly cruel. In most moods
easy and malleable, she was now as hard as flint.
After the first shock, she had, in letting Dick Jarvis
drift away from her, neither distress on her own
account nor remorse upon his. The scene of her
life in which he had played so prominent a part was
to her mind, so far as she herself was concerned, as
insignificant as it had been brief. Their paths had
diverged and it was not very likely that, should they
again draw near, there would be much in common
left between them. So, after a weak and sporadic
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 163
attempt at correspondence, inspired almost from the
first, by the dread of a too jarring conclusion, she had
thought she would be very willing to let this lover
pass shortly out from her existence and sooner or
later from her memory.
It was not so. She had acted her part so well, or
so ill, that she lost sight of the paradox and, to some
slight degree, lived her r61e. It was a fatal mistake.
Most of us are apt to confound our pride with our
hearts, and hers suffered like Dick's when the inevi-
table ending came. It was, then, with a feeling that
she honestly mistook for a better, that she wrote the
final note meant to set the period. When chagrin,
like most other things, proved only temporary, she
had, toward him, as divorced from her, nothing but
good-will. She wanted to see him prosper. She
regarded him as a boy, but she was keen-sighted
enough to observe in him possibilities that she was
eager to admire and anxious to see realised. She
wanted him to succeed.
This fresh meeting had been to her as great a
surprise as it had been to him. Pride had at last
healed itself with the balm of fresh conquests. Life
was still too young to regret those past. He had
been out of her sight and she had neither the desire
nor the ability to keep him in her mind, but although
in these matters of minor import she was sufficiently
mistress of herself not to display her feelings, yet to
1 64 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
meet him again so suddenly and in such circumstances
was a genuine shock to her.
The first glance at him was enough. As she saw
him standing on the stairs, she felt she could not lose
him yet. In an instant she had reviewed the field of
battle and, like a good general, estimated the forces
at her command and the host that would be arrayed
against her. Not one word or action, however slight,
had, during the continuance of the dinner, escaped
her observation. She saw much clearer than any of
the other actors, just which way the play was going.
She observed in Jarvis the growth of an affection of
which as yet he was himself unconscious, and she
noted in Peggy, who could conceal nothing, an admir-
ation for her cousin that bordered very closely upon
something more defined. Mary liked the girl and
could not have wished that any ill should befall her.
The step was a short one to the conclusion that
an attachment for Jarvis would, for a variety of
reasons, prove in the last degree disastrous. In the
first place, he was ridiculously young. He had much
to see and learn before he could possibly understand
himself, and as for his understanding Peggy, Mary
could easily see that was impossible. But more than
all this, he was not, by reason of his history, the man
to make a husband for her. Such a woman could
only take as much in exchange for herself as she gave.
On his part, too, Jarvis had everything to lose and
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 165
nothing to gain by an early marriage. What talent
he possessed needed every moment of University
training that could possibly be given it. To permit,
when one was able to prevent, even the threat of a
break in so necessary a course of preparation was, for
any of his friends, a crime capital. She knew that,
however he might imagine his ideals shattered and
his knowledge of the world enlarged, he must ever
essentially remain a dreamer of dreams, and that so
long as he was this, she, as a woman of the world,
would always possess a charm for him and exercise,
at least while tangibly present, a ruling influence
upon his character.
Last, and most important of all, she believed him
bound to her by the chain of first sin as she knew her-
self to be bound to another. Her passionate selfish-
ness declared her unable, even if not unwilling, to
weaken one link of his shackles. She was not so
blind as to mistake that selfishness of her motives, yet
she honestly thought that the fulfilment of her argu-
ments would lead not only to the accomplishment of
her own desires, but to his eternal welfare as well.
Fartlm than this she did not attempt to go.
CHAPTER XIII.
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE.
IT is difficult to break such a silence as they had
kept in their walk from the house. Neither was in a
hurry to open the conversation which obviously
impended. Jarvis was frankly afraid and Mary was
not quite certain what, when once it was started, she
really wanted to say. As is usual in such cases, the
fates, by taking the matter entirely into their own
hands, kindly relieved her of all responsibility.
" Your cousin is a very charming girl and a very
pretty one," she said irrelevantly.
" Yes?" replied Jarvis with an interrogative smile.
Somehow he scented an air of embarrassment about
his companion that went far toward relieving his own
sense of alarm.
" I met her at Bar Harbor," Mary pursued. " She
left just before you came last summer."
" I think I 'd heard that she 'd been up there early
in the summer, but, strange enough, I have never
heard you speak of her before."
"Really? We got along famously, I assure you."
" And quite enjoyed yourselves, I suppose."
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 167
" To be sure."
Jarvis was quick to follow up the advantage that he
thought he had gained. Perhaps, after all, here was
the opportunity for freedom.
" No, not to be sure," he said. " When we were in
Philadelphia, you had quite another tale to tell me.
You said you could scarcely endure it there before I
came."
Quite unconsciously his voice had dropped into a
minor key of gentle reproach. In an instant she had
taken him up, believing, living every word.
" Oh, Dick," she said, laying one throbbing white
hand upon his arm, " Won't you ever understand that
we must play this game to the finish? Don't you see
how it is?"
He looked down at her for a moment in the strange
half-light. She was quivering with emotion, but he
could not see that. He had to contract his brows
and frown intently to distinguish even her outlines,
but what he did manage to see set his fears, for the
moment, at rest.
He caught her white wrist. It was not the caress
of a lover, not a detention, but an attack.
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly and be-
tween his teeth, after the manner of the villain in the
melodrama, whom he felt that he oddly resembled.
" What do you want of me? "
But she was not afraid of him. She had at no
1 68 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
time been that. At the worst she had been only
uncertain.
"Mean?" she said, disregarding his second ques-
tion. " Why, simply what I say. Whatever I have
suffered, you know that I was in earnest when I wrote
you that I 'd never be a stone about your neck."
" I 'm not so sure that you would n't be just that.
I 'm not so sure that you could help yourself, even if
you wanted to, and I hardly believe that you want to."
" I certainly imagined that you had some little
proof of my trust in you."
There was a pause in which, as it struck home, he
blushed deeply. Although she could not see the
blood it had drawn, she knew that the shot had told
and she hastened to proceed,
" I think I meet all the requirements when I say
that I am as ready now to suffer on for your sake as
I have been all along."
This time she had missed sadly. He flung down
her hand in disgust.
" Suffer, suffer ! You talk as if you were the only
one to suffer ! "
" One finds it hard to discover exactly what you
had to lose," she had been about to add, "by the
arrangement," but he took her up before she could
finish.
" To lose? " he cried, speaking rapidly and regard-
lessly, and yet lapsing unconsciously into the stronger
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 169
speech that her presence seemed always to inspire.
" What I had to lose ? My belief in man, my trust
in woman, my faith in God that's all I lost. I sold
my inheritance in all Nature ; I sold you my brain
and my possibilities. I opened the white page of my
soul to you, and what did you write on it? You
know the word. You could write but the one. I
came to you a mere boy and you sent me back to the
mother that bore me. Do you think I can ever kiss
her lips again after that? And then you talk
about suffering ! You grant an amnesty to me \ Did
/ ever rob you of anything? Did / ever smutch your
soul? Never! And you know it. You actually
had the audacity to tell me so yourself."
" I am surely rewarded for my frankness."
She was standing erect before him, her hands
clenched at her sides, her low even tones contrasting
strangely with the intense swift utterance of his
speech.
In an instant he was stricken sullen and silent;
abashed, angry with her for exciting him to brutality.
Then he broke out in a dogged mutter,
" If I have lost the gentlemanly sense, it is you
whom I have to thank for my misfortune."
" Do they teach this also at Harvard ? "
He was blind with shame. That the words were
identical with those which Peggy had once used
served only to augment his anger and self-contempt
1 70 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
As a matter of fact, to force him to insult her, however
unintentionally she might do so, was for her, the most
profitable move possible. He saw only that he had
been insufferably rude, inexcusably brutal. The
desire for atonement of whatever sort was at once
paramount. His every other sentiment and thought
vanished before a wild anxiety for penance and repar-
ation. She was, after all, a woman, surpassingly
beautiful and unfortunate, and, there was no denying
it, they were slaves in the same galley.
The moon had swung higher in the heavens and
cleared the tree-tops in its ascent. A cloud which had
covered it for some minutes before broke free, as if
from an embrace, and a strange new light, a wonder-
ful white radiance, poured over the figure of Mary
Braddock as Dick looked at her. Divinely tall she
seemed to him then and he could see at last the ill-
suppressed emotion which shook her from head to
foot, the dilating nostrils, the haughty mouth, the
angry eyes.
Nor did he seem less of a revelation to her. She
noted well the handsome face intensified in its beauty
by the passion of the moment, the broad white fore-
head on which the brown hair had hung one damp curl,
the creation of the mist, and for one instant there
swelled in her heart a strange interweaving of pity
for him and for herself that brought oddly to her
ears the strains of the renunciation-song in " La
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. I/I
Traviata." The next he had taken her in his arms
and she knew the futility of longer struggling vyith
herself.
" You are mine, Dick," she said.
It was a bad discord. He withdrew himself almost
violently.
"No!" he cried.
" Yes. What's the use of denying it? What's
the use of struggling against it? You are mine."
" Absurd ! No, no ! I am my own and no one's
else. Eternally my own."
The storm had burst at last. The curtain had gone
up upon the melodrama.
" Oh," she complained, " why do you make it
necessary to explain it to you? Don't you see how
it is?"
He tried to laugh it off and failed.
" Through a glass darkly," he said.
But she was threateningly calm.
" Then you must see it face to face as I do. It
is n't pretty, but it 's fearfully true."
" To be commonplace, that is usual with truths."
" It is the case with this one, at any rate. You
know how fragile everything is ; how futile promises
are. Marriage is, after all, only ' an oath, and oaths
must have their day.' But the one tie on earth
that wherever a man is and whatever he be still
holds him fast, binds you to me,"
1/2 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" You are right, it has n't a pleasant face. You
mean ?"
" The only bond in this miserable life that won't,
that can't be broken, the chain of first sin."
She was giving to his most exaggerated fancies a
local habitation and a name, but he bore up with the
courage of a martyr.
" Really," he said, " I fail to see why the first holds
stronger than the second. And does the second hold
stronger than the third? Do we travel in an intel-
lectual perspective toward a moral vanishing-point?
Don't you remember the chap they asked about in
the Bible the fellow with the seven wives? "
" You ask why more to me than to all the others?
Oh, it 's far too hideous for laughter ! It 's so awfully
simple and satisfactory. The others were the conse-
quences ; I am the cause. Good God, don't you
think I 'm held fast to somebody? Or do you think
I was always bad ? "
Instinctively he had shrunk from the impetuosity of
her assault and he was now leaning against a tree as
if for support What he tried to say was,
" For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."
But she had been right again. It was true; it was
too hideous for laughter ; and what came to his lips
was only,
" Go on."
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 173
" Oh, I can't go on. It will, though. I can't free
you any more than you can free yourself. You are a
Frankenstein. You have created your monster, and
you can't get away from it. You must just go on
living with it till it kills you. That 's what we 're all
doing."
He was convinced, and yet he would not surrender
without a fight- On a sudden, one hope presented
itself. It was the thought of Peggy. Had she not
said it was never too late ?
Had Mary not been carried away by an unquestion-
ing belief in her own eloquence and in every word she
said, she would surely have pitied him in noting the
way in which the haggard young face of the big
broken fellow lighted up at the first faint gleam of
what she thought an impossible hope.
" Is that all? " he asked, hoarsely.
"Isn't it enough? I'm your real mother. I
brought you into the real world, the world in which
you must live, from which you can't escape till the
day of your death. If you can then."
" How preposterous ! You are denying the whole
doctrine of repentance ! "
" Not at all. You can repent as much as you like ;
but if you conceal your sin it will rankle in your
heart and master you in the end. It 's the inevitable
law of being."
"I can't imagine what you are driving at"
174 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Simply this : Your sin must find you out. You
must pay the penalty. The penalty of this particular
sin is unhappiness to the end. It will either drive
you to excesses that will end your life miserably, or
if you endeavour to forget it and to be respectable,
it will force you to concealment and hypocrisy and
secret shame and self-contempt."
" Then you do away don't you? with the pos-
sibility of searing the conscience and the probability
of purging it? "
" Oh, there may be those who can sear it I
doubt it, but there may be. Yet, at all events, you are
not one of them, nor am I."
" And of purging it?"
" You might do that. But I don't think you can.
If you succeed you will still have to pay the penalty
of unhappiness and misery, for you can't forget. You
could not live happily with a pure woman and still
remember, even if she forgave you. And she
would n't. They only sometimes think they do. In
the end they turn. They must feel themselves
superior in their virtue, and her very goodness would
be a continual reminder of your evil, and she would
always suspect you. In such circumstances you
could not forget."
" Oh, if you please, we '11 talk of such circumstances
afterwards, if we must talk of them at all."
" Then what do you think? "
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 1/5
" I think this : That a man can wash himself clean.
Why, I 'm only one of a million like me ! It 's all
absurd, I tell you ! Surely, a man who has a pure
love in his heart can never wholly decline upon mere
lust."
" And you are wrong. ' Mere ' is a dangerous
word to apply to so formidable, so treacherous a foe.
You should n't so contemptuously limit the strongest
of passions one that has seized the generic name
for all of them. Once enthroned in the heart as it
has been in yours, it can never be ousted. Oh, I 'm
not talking generalities ! I 'm speaking from obser-
vation and terrible personal experience."
" Perhaps, but I can't believe we were given strong
desires and weak resistance for damnation only.
There must be a plan. There must be some secret,
some great use for it all. If it is n't to strengthen us
in the end by our conquest of it, what is it for? "
" You were not given weak resistance. Your whole
premise is wrong. Your resistance was not weak but
you did n't use it, you did n't want to use it, you
weakened it yourself."
" I was given illusions, distorted conceptions of
life."
" No, you gave them to yourself. You carefully
collected them. You went hunting for them."
" As an irresponsible child yes."
" Well, whether you make your bed yourself or
1/6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
some one else makes it for you, you must lie on it all
the same. It 's no more unjust that you should suffer
for what you did as a child than for what was done
by your parents and your parents' parents years
before you were even born."
" It 's a dangerous philosophy."
"What is ever more dangerous than the truth?
Neither by chance, nor will, nor weakness, are we al-
together what we are. Why, birth binds us to a
relentless past, an impenetrable past, and at the same
time hides it from our sight. Life ties us for good or
bad to those who are to come. Even death does n't
break our fetter. We 're each only a link in an end-
less chain that forever makes toward the ideal, and,
forever returning upon itself, falls short."
" Whoever created good, created evil too. You
can hardly suppose it ordained if not necessary to the
continuance of life."
" You are too general. It 's the specific case I 'm
talking about. You must always be the slave of your
desires, because you have been forging them too long
to be able to break away from them now. Besides,
what sin is more fatal than unassuaged desire? It 's a
slow disease that will kill you if you let it go on, and
yet one for which you will know the cure is always
waiting just outside your very door. Do you imagine
you can forego that? "
" I know by sad experience that the cure is not in
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 177
the indulgence. That way lies the mad pursuit of
the unattainable. It 's like trying to catch a beauti-
ful flame and only getting burnt fingers for your
trouble."
" But, however high your purpose, you personally
are physically, intellectually, morally, incapable of
succeeding in it. You are an epicure, or at least a
poet, not an ascetic."
" Well, if I fail it 's worth the trying for, any-
way."
"Why, you 'd kill yourself."
" If I drop, it will be with my eyes fixed on the
goal."
" Much good would that do you. Pshaw ! You
imagine you are an abstract philosopher ; you 're
only a drowning man catching at straws."
" No. I am sure of one thing, anyhow. Whoever
has known truth and goodness and beauty shan't be
tempted by anything less."
" Do you really mean to say that good can come
out of evil ? That evil was ordained for nothing else ?
Do you mean to say that lust to call things by
their names makes saints and not voluptuaries?
Remember, there was only one Saint Augustine."
" I don't believe it. I think there were and are
lots of them. Roses grow from graves."
" Really? But we are not discussing ' Natural Law
in the Spiritual World.' I think you '11 find that love
12
1/8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
can't come in where lust is no, nor where it has
been."
" And yet you say that you love me."
" Except, I mean always, a devotion for a com-
mon sufferer. Otherwise lust is the vandal pas-
sion. It leaves only desolation behind it. There
is no room for anything else while it is with you,
and nothing remains for another where it has
trod."
" I 'm afraid you fail to alter my conviction that a
man can make himself. Stubborn persistence, sheer,
blank determination, will accomplish anything."
" So you think that sin has the power to open up
all the beauty of your soul? "
" I think that sin abandoned can wake all that 's
good in a man; can rouse him from sloth and dul-
ness to strength and a clearer perception of things ;
can translate him into a new sphere where, under the
stress of action, the essential self will show. Why
it 's preposterous, it 's monstrous, this teaching of
yours ! You preach the vilest kind of fatalism. If a
man is strong enough to renounce the things that are
evil, and cleave to the things that are good, he is all
the better for having passed through the furnace, all
the finer, higher, nobler."
" If he is strong enough. But who is? Very few.
You are n't. My poor boy, I know you so much
better than you know yourself! You are n't unusual
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 1/9
You are only beating at your prison-door as every
other madman does at first. Your reasoning is only
raving. You are confounding the effects of sin with
those of repentance."
" Well, I repent."
" You think you do, but you have n't been really
tempted yet. You pursued evil once, and now that
you have found it a snare this time, you imagine
you '11 never be dazzled by it again."
" It was n't evil, but good that I that all of us
seek that first time. We are poor, blind boys and
girls groping for a larger life. The kisses we give
each other are n't given to the real lips, but to some
pure ideal, some lofty image. Perhaps no man can
ever find that higher thing, but he ought surely to
leave the shams when they 're discovered, and try to
get nearer to his hope by the best means at his dis-
posal. I thought it was a new Star of Bethlehem that
I was following. Must I be punished because it
proved a jack-o'-lantern from the Slough of De-
spond?"
" But sin does n't take any one unaware, if that 's
what you really mean. It is precisely because it 's
gradual that the descent to hell is so easy."
" Whoever made my soul meant that soul which so
yearns for Him to be led blindfold through the
excess of love, - the pursuit of the ideal, not to
hell, but to heaven. That is where my faith, such
l8o JARVIS OF HARVARD.
as it is, takes its stand. We are to see the supreme
beauty of good by proving the extreme ugliness of
vice."
" My dear, that 's all very well to say, but it 's too
good for this world. You would n't marry any but
a pure woman bad men never will but if you go
about preaching such heresy to her and its worse
than my fatalism you will be striking at the very
fundamental principles on which her purity depends.
Moral pioneers never have an easy time of it. Against
them are drawn up the priests and priestesses es-
pecially the priestesses of home and custom, every
one to whom tradition is synonymous with wisdom.
The loyal, the faithful, the hypocritical and the
hypercritical, the good, the brave, the gentle, the
easy-going, the pure, all these will prove more cruel
to you than the wildest Dahomeyans."
"Then I must die for tasting a little honey? You
mean to say, I suppose, that there is no compassion
under heaven or in it."
"None absolutely none. If we pitied we would
only draw down suspicion on ourselves. Men think
that those only who are in the same boat can really
feel for each other, and so our secrets would all be
laid bare if we dared to show any sympathy."
" Well, we can never agree. What 's the use of
arguing about it? We are only like the Scholiasts
Erasmus objected to for squabbling about whether
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. l8l
sin is a privation in the soul or a spot upon it. You
can't convince me."
" Time will."
" Until it does I '11 continue to try to make myself
worthy of a pure woman's love."
It was a base thing for him to say, but she did not
heed it.
" You are like a horse plunging into a fire. Let
me prophesy. I tell you solemnly that this woman,
whenever she crosses your path, will, sooner or later,
cast you down deeper than you ever were before.
Oh, there are depths and depths ! Your sin, I say,
must find you out. And whoever she be, and
however dearly she loves you, the mark of the beast
is upon you and the blindest affection must see it.
And upon that day either because you have fool-
ishly confessed, or because you have returned again
to your sin she will turn you out of her heart and
send you back to me. ' Your own iniquities shall
take you, you shall be holden by the cords of your
sins.' "
Jarvis could not but be a little awed. She spoke
in an even and subdued voice, in a tone of sad coun-
sel, but to him her words seemed to come with all
the thunder of an irrevocable sentence. She was
still standing in the full moonlight and looked, in her
white drapery, like the relentless occult priestess of
some forgotten heathen god. Far off in the vil-
1 82 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
lage a bell was tolling solemnly, its strokes rolling
through the woods and echoing among the hills,
heavy with doom.
" Mary," he asked in a low voice, " do you honestly
think it 's no use? "
" A union between virtue and vice? I think it is
no use. The only men fit to marry are those who
have just married discretion and have from the be-
ginning set limits to their desires."
" Then, what do you want me to do? "
" I want you to submit to the law of life ; to play
the game fair and to the finish, even if it 's a losing
one. You have only one hope your talent. You
ought to be unutterably thankful that you have that.
It 's more than most of us have. You can lose your-
self perhaps, in the cultivation of that. You cer-
tainly cannot in anything else. You have years
before you. You 're only a boy. Give all your voli-
tion, time, fortune, body, brain, heart, to that. If
you imagine yourself in love it will mean the break-
ing up of your College course and lose you that last
hope.
" I 'm not thinking about myself," she continued,
" You will come back to me in time, because you
can't help yourself. You see, I am, as always, per-
fectly frank with you. I want you to live; to see
life in its every phase ; to study it as well as your
books; to suffer; to fight; to make your soul an
MELODRAMA IN LITTLE. 183
inn a mere resting place, but nothing more for
all the light and shade of life, and all it comprehends,
every pain, every joy, every passion. To make
yourself, since you cannot be an angel, at least an
artist. The end belongs to Fate."
"Those were the very arguments that brought me
v/here I am now."
" I dare say. And now your own only chance is
:o follow them out to a consistent finish."
" I am done with them for good and all."
" Then I am sorry for you."
" I shall leave here to-morrow morning to-night
if there is a train."
" Ah, you are afraid of me ! "
" Perhaps."
" But I do not intend to stay."
" Nevertheless, I am going."
" Then I shall say auf Wiedersehen!
"No good bye."
"Auf Wiedersehen"
Again she put out her hand kindly. She had
been convinced by her own words. He bent over
her fingers and kissed them.
" I think you were in earnest," he said, "and I owe
you many more apologies than I can make."
" I was in earnest. But how will you explain this
flight to Mrs. Bartol? And to Peggy? "
It was the first time she had used the diminutive
1 84 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
by which he knew his cousin and the words jarred
upon him.
" Oh, don't let's discuss her," he said.
Mary caught him by the shoulders and wheeled
him about, looking close into his face. There was
a moment of silence. Then she said, shaking her
head and smiling at her own seriousness,
" Oh, Dick, Dick, the woman has come already ! "
"What are you driving at now?" he asked, half
angry, wholly amazed.
She thought there was fear in his tone. Jealousy,
never far from the heart of the best of women, surged
up into her eyes and blinded her. His imagined
timidity served only to enrage her.
" Until we meet," she said. " Meanwhile, you love
your cousin."
He returned her stare blankly. Then it was in-
deed as if scales had fallen from his eyes.
" Yes," he replied.
CHAPTER XIV.
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES."
THE predominating sense in Jarvis' mind was one
pf amazement. From the time when, with his lately
voluble companion, he returned in silence to the
house, until he had finally made a clumsy escape
from beneath its roof and was again well on his way
to Cambridge, he was chiefly occupied with a strenu-
ous effort to accommodate his thoughts to the new
acquaintance he had made so unexpectedly the
evening before.
Verily, we know ourselves least of all in this un-
knowable universe ! Jarvis had been much given to
the bad habit of introspection and painful self-analysis
common to young fellows of his temperament and
environment. He had studied his own soul with a
remarkable zest that proved the taste of gall not
wholly unpleasant to him. He had come to the
rather obvious conclusion that he was a very bad
man indeed and now he had suddenly discovered
that he had all along been again working on a mis-
taken hypothesis.
There was no doubt about it. Young as they both
were, he was in love with his pretty and seemingly
1 86 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
insufficient and shallow cousin. He was so much in
love with her that, for the moment at all events, he
would not admit that she was insufficient or shallow.
He found it enough that she was, in his eyes, beauti-
ful. Forgetting the new conclusion that one's self is
the thing most effectually concealed from one, he at
once hastened to the plausible fallacy that, as he had
not understood his own character, it was preposterous
for him to have attempted a judgment of hers. He
was so perversely illogical that there could be no
suspicion of the sincerity of his passion.
The hope which had flamed up within him at his
new discovery was pathetic in its intensity. There
was no heed now of the woman he had so lately
feared ; no thought at all of her who had laid open
his soul for him. She was almost forgotten. At last
there was a chance to awaken from the horrible night-
mare of the past months, to shake off the false
theories, the degenerate views, and to breathe the
pure air of the actual, the earth where men lived and
worked and fought and died ; where effort succeeded
to lethargy and labour took the place of despair. At
last there was something for which to hope and work
and wait.
It was undoubtedly a rather selfish view to take of
so delicate a passion. He was regarding it for his
own advantages only. But until lately he had been
living in a world where evil was an intangible, in-
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 187
visible tyrant, that could not be assailed or propiti-
ated. He had looked from that planet up to the
light of a better, but with no purpose, no definite
reward for an endeavour to attain it. Now he was so
supplied with incentives that he thought himself well
upon his aerial journey. Besides, he was by no
means less unselfish than most persons of his age.
In that early moment of young, joyous hope, when
the dawn of a first pure love showed him a mirac-
ulous self which he had never dreamed of before,
there was no more doubt or conflict in his heart.
Certainly all possibility of failure seemed precluded
by the strength of the new desire. He had spoken of
it to Mary, but since her keen perception had seen
his inmost self and her too ready tongue had pointed
out to him the exact workings of his heart toward
Peggy, he had no thought of anything but achieve-
ment. The ancient struggle of the love of art against
the love of woman was not yet for him. The perfect
confidence of ultimate success seized upon him and
shared its rule with a wild desire to begin this new
life and work at once. There was little or no regret
at leaving his cousin behind him. The train could
not travel fast enough toward the scene of his coming
regeneration.
He weaved a hundred fond plans and laid down as
many careful systems for that metempsychosis, secure
in the armour of a new righteousness. He had drawn
1 88 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
a ground-floor corner room in Holworthy. How he
would work and slave there ! How bravely he would
face the old temptations ! He would renew his body
by a serious undertaking in athletics, and then, with a
fresh lease of life, he would take up all the still loose
threads of his studies.
The prescribed forensics would be dull work, but
" English B " would prove plain sailing. And his
electives would be of the best. He was returning
with a fresh start and unhandicapped. He had
wrestled successfully with his Lysias and De Amicitia
last spring ; had overcome the turgid German Com-
position; read and "passed" in the endless consti-
tutions of " Government I ; " and, most formidable of
all, had laid that condition in mathematics which,
from a disembodied ghost, had grown to so living and
real a terror for him. He had read all the prescribed
extracts in history that he had begun by merely
skimming over in order to get through his " Confer-
ences," and all this without any other incentive than
the desire to remain in College. How simple it
would therefore be now to take up his work where
he had laid it down last June !
Nor did his ambition cease there. He would write
regularly for the " Advocate ; " even the " Monthly "
should not forbid him. He would finish his course
with honours and, with a name already made in the
small College world, he would set to work and pro-
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 189
duce a book that should command the plaudits of the
larger world outside. Other men had done it and he
felt that the spirit once his had only been strength-
ened by the suffering that it had undergone. Then,
when the air was echoing with his name, he would lay
that name and all its honours at her feet, unworthy
still, but redeemed and glorified, the dross burnt
away, but the metal pure and strong.
Mallard would chaff, the Major would be cynical,
even the taciturn Hardy would be mildly amazed.
That would be difficult, but he could bear it, in a
measure he had even already borne it, and he could
thrash the three together if they tried his patience too
far. Maggie Du Mar and the rest of her stamp in
Boston should they ever cross his path again would
curse or cajole him. That would be easy. He loathed
the thought of them. So intense was the sense of
emancipation that he no longer thought to abhor
himself. He was perfectly sure.
His awakening was something of a shock that night
as he walked into the Major's room in Hollis, whither
a note from Hardy had directed him. A burst of
light and a cloud of tobacco smoke were the first
things to greet him. And then, out of this, emerged
the familiar figures of his old friends.
The place was in its usual state of disorder, though
its owner conditioned, of course, had returned in
plenty of time to have set it to rights. Books and
JARVIS OF HARVARD.
papers and unwashed dishes were so scattered about
that for a moment Jarvis feared treading upon some
of them. Stannard, retained at College by the usual
miracle that he himself would have proved the least
able to explain, was engaged at a charing dish, and
Hardy was trying to recline with some semblance of
grace in one of the impossible, cramped old window-
seats. The Major was drawing a cork, and two or
three other men were occupied with similar matters
of a culinary nature.
" Hello, " said the Major, coming forward, cork-
screw in hand, " Glad to see you, old man. Come
in."
" And shut the door," added Hardy, as the others
joined in welcome.
Stannard left his chafing dish long enough to shake
hands.
"You're just in time," he said. "Major, where 's
another plate? You know everybody here, Dick,
don't you? Here 're Lippincott and Morgan. Sit
down anywhere. There, knock those books off that
armchair. And oh, yes ! I beg your pardon,
but what did you say your name was? "
He had lifted the curtain over the entrance to the
next room from whence came a low answer of,
" Anything you choose to make it."
"Worth," said the Major laconically, and drew a
cork.
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." IQI
"To be sure, Worth. Now, you know everybody,
anyhow. I '11 have this rabbit ready in a minute, if
you have n't spoilt it. " It 's like my chance for the
Institute takes long in getting through last ten,
you know. Everybody tired blackballing the other
fellows' friends, so people no one ever heard of are let
in just to break the deadlock."
Everybody was smoking a pipe except Hardy, who
puffed dubiously at an Egyptian cigarette, and the
Major, who had compromised on a cigar. Jarvis,
however, refused all offers of tobacco. If the wrench
was to come, he thought it might as well come now.
" Why, what on earth 's the matter with you ? "
drawled Hardy, and when he had refused the liquor
too, " You must have struck the Salvation Army in
Philadelphia."
" Or read the General Booth interview in this even-
ing's 'Transcript,'" suggested Morgan, who, with
Lippincott, was a fair representative of a certain suc-
cessful class, and was, by the way, born promising at
the oar.
" The General has a column of it to-day," he went
on. " He usurps a place before the public about once
a month now."
" There really ought to be a society formed for tak-
ing the Bible out of the hands of the laboring-classes,"
said the Major. " Here, mix me a ' Mamie Taylor,'
Morgan."
IQ2 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Is it in danger of becoming so dreadfully vulgar?"
asked Hardy.
"What? The Bible, or Morgan's glass? " queried
Jarvis, laughing, and glad to turn the conversation
from himself.
" Both," replied the Major. " The next thing we
know they '11 be publishing an expurgated edition for
the use of the Young Person."
" An expurgated edition of Morgan's glass," said
Lippincott, " would be a good thing for young Mor-
gan, but an expurgated edition of young Morgan
would n't leave enough of him to be of much benefit
to anybody."
" Don't be ephemeral, Willie. Some day somebody
will stick a pin in you, or blow too hard against that
bubble known as William Lippincott and there '11 be
a damned sight less left of it."
"Well, don't annihilate each other just yet," said
Stannard, coming cautiously forward through the de-
bris with a couple of smoking plates. " If you must
be resolved into your original elements, let this do it.
It's a bit stringy, but pretty fair, don't you think?"
" Corking ! " said one. " Bully ! " said another.
" Rank," declared the Major, promptly making
prodigious headway into his share. " Here, Mr.
Worth ! Wake up and come out ; the ' parrage ' is
ready, and it '11 be ' cauld ' if you stop for another
nightmare."
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 193
" This is enough of a one, anyhow," added Morgan.
" Well, he does n't want it cold, at all events.
" * Some like it hot, some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot '
I really forget how many days old."
The curtain was drawn back and a tall, thin man
appeared beneath it, shaking long, black locks of
hair from his sallow face, and rubbing a pair of bright,
dark eyes.
"Come here, Worth," called the Major. "You
take things mighty easy for a man who is having
only one night's glimpse of Harvard. This is Mr.
Jarvis, the latest arrival. You don't have anything
exactly corresponding to this in Germany, so wake
up and study it." Then he added to Dick, with
the waive of an exhibitor toward the stranger,
" Latest importation. Genuine Heidelberg. Lippm-
cott's guest."
" I disown him ! " cried the accredited host.
Worth, however, smiled and nodded rather com-
placently, took his share of toast and cheese and, to
prove the correctness of the Major's statements as to
his university, drank whiskey instead of beer.
"And you positively won't have anything, Dick?"
asked Hardy.
" No, thank you, I don't think I shall."
" Then I have it. It 's not the Salvation Army.
It 's worse. It *s a woman."
'3
194 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" I thought they had the opposite effect," said
Mallard. " They surely used to."
" Oh, but I mean a serious case."
" Did you ever know Dick to be facetious? Has
she a soprano voice, Dickie?"
" You 're both wrong," said Jarvis, quietly; "it's
only the football."
"Oh, come off! Don't give us a lie patent like
that," cried Hardy.
" Fact."
" How do you like the Harvard idea of honour,
Mr. Worth? " asked Morgan.
Worth smiled again.
" It is one of the things that Sterne could not have
said were managed better in France," he replied.
" In Paris a reporter says of a deputy, * he is a jug-
gler with the truth.' There are letters, friends, scare-
heads, a doctor, and a duel."
" Some times a man even gets hurt," interrupted
Hardy.
" John Bull uses his fists, and that 's vulgar,"
continued Worth, imperturbably. " Tony stabs the
the offender in the back "
" And Hans marks his face, eh ? " asked the Major.
" At Yale," said Lippincott, " one either calls his
friend names behind his back, or does his fighting
over a telephone."
"But here at Harvard," Worth concluded, "you
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 195
are too far advanced for any of those methods. A
simply says, ' You 're a liar ' ; B replies, ' You 're an-
other, ' and there 's an end of it."
" Ah, Jarvis," said the Major. " This is not, as
it seemed, a deus ex machina, but a diabolus ex
infra''
" Anyhow," said Hardy, " I stand by my original
proposition. It 's a woman and it 's serious."
Worth's sneer had not been without its effect on
farvis, and he found himself a bit ruffled by the last
remark of Hardy, who, he had begun to hope, was
effectually silenced.
" Really," he submitted, " I don't see that it's any
Df your business."
" There ! " cried Hardy, waving the stump of his
cigarette. " The prosecution rests ! "
" Well, the accusation is n't so very awful," said
;he Major.
" Why," rejoined Stannard, " who ever heard of
a Sophomore marrying unless it was a chorus-girl ? "
" Marrying? Oh, I thought you said it was seri-
ous."
"What do you mean?" growled Jarvis.
" Nothing," replied Stannard. " Don't you know
the Major well enough to be sure by this time that
he never by any chance means anything?"
" Thank you," grinned the Major, " but our youth-
ful Concordian 's partly convinced me. Dick is
196 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
entirely too righteously indignant to be altogether
innocent."
He really did mean nothing. Not one of the party
imagined that there was any trespass upon Jarvis'
privacy, but the latter was now thoroughly out of
temper. He even lost his awe for the silently patron-
ising German student.
" You 're awfully funny for a while, Major," he
commented, " but your jokes lack originality some
times."
" And so does your criticism, as somebody else of
equal brilliance said somewhere or other. Stan-
nard 's always telling me the same thing."
" Then there 's indeed no grace in oft-repeated
prayers."
" Oh, break it off, both of you ! " cried Morgan.
"It's not very entertaining to the rest of us."
" And the first thing you know you '11 be disproving
all Mr. Worth's theories about our mode of settling
our difficulties," chimed in Lippincott. " Let 's play
cards."
" Were there ever seven men together at this time
of night without one of them and only one want-
ting to play cards? " cried Stannard.
" And another wanting to go home," added Hardy.
"Why don't you finish your quotations? That's
where I want to go."
" No, you don't. You '11 stay right here. I 'm
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 197
your room-mate this year. I '11 rout you out when I
get home anyhow if you don't."
" Perhaps Mr. Worth does n't play poker," sug-
gested Morgan. " And it is a queer way of quieting
rancorous tongues."
" Of course he does," said the Major, all at his ease
despite Jarvis ' ill-concealed bad-humour. " Who ever
heard of a foreigner, and especially a Dutchman, not
playing the American game? If you had said gaigel
now."
"Oh, it'll be Dick, 'the Methody,' that doesn't
play," said Hardy.
" I thought you were going home," said Jarvis.
" Did Mr. Runover never catch you playing in the
Lower School?"
" I '11 try to play," said Worth.
" So '11 I ! " cried Dick, and seizing Stannard's
newly filled stein, he drained it to the bottom. But
he did not hear the jeering applause that greeted his
last action. After all, one last night of it was n't
going to do any hurt.
He had been utterly out of tune. The whole
scene was discordant to him. He had been a fool to
come here in his present frame of mind. Then
Stannard's sneers at marriage for a fellow of his age
had hurt the pride which Jarvis' years dignify by the
name of self-esteem, and he had been foolish enough
to show it and angry at himself and at all about him
198 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
because he had done so. Whoever heard of a Soph-
omore marrying? The little cad! The merest con-
nection, however remote, of Peggy's personality with
such a scene enraged him. He would show these
puppies how to win the battle of life, when they were
going with the wounded to the rear. Then he saw
that he could n't, of course, marry until he was out
of College. The idea was not new to him since the
evening before, but the environment, the setting,
hardly tended toward hopefulness. He felt that he
had been slow to realise what three years meant.
Never mind. He was strong in his love and he must
conquer. If he did not have the joy of the prize he
would have the happiness of dying in the fight for it.
But still, if in the mean time . He was very far
away and
He took the drink. There would be no mean time
then. Anyhow, he needed the night to sleep on it
and one more hour of this kind of thing would not
hurt him, would, in fact, serve to let him down
easily.
Stannard cleared the table and piled the dishes on
the hearth. The chairs were dragged up and the
men threw themselves into them.
" Come on, Hardy," said the Major.
" I told you I was going home," said the reluctant
one. " The only compromise I '11 make is to stay to
look on."
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 199
" Believing that poker is a good game to win at and
euchre a good one at which to lose? " asked Morgan.
" As still somebody else said," Lippincott hurriedly
interposed. " Won't you really play, Hardy? "
" No, I hardly ever do, thank you."
"Oh, come on!" expostulated Stannard. "You
were just now kicking at Dick. What are you afraid
of ? It 's an easy game. Ten calls twenty, three of
a kind a jack-pot, no robber decks and your scarf-pin
for the limit."
" My dear boy," cried the Major. " Don't be un-
sociable."
Jarvis was silent.
" I 'm not unsociable," protested Hardy, " and of
course you know, Stannard, that it 's not because I 'm
afraid of losing anything. I just don't want to play
to-night, that 's all. I prefer to look on."
" Oh, come on ! "
" I don't want to."
" Let him alone," said Morgan. "If he won't, he
won't. That 's his stubborn kind."
Jarvis reflected that he admired that stubborn kind
and he became still more angry because of the obvi-
ous conclusion. However, he thought, he was in for
it now.
The room was by this time so filled with smoke
that the higher placed gas-jets had become of little
use and had therefore been extinguished. The gay
2OO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
draperies and light pictures of the place were com-
pletely lost to view and only the board and the faces
of the players around it were to be seen. Indeed,
their heads seemed to float in the air quite independ-
ent of their bodies and shifted about the margin of
the disk of light like evil cherubim.
Morgan was half stupefied and trying hard to con-
centrate himself on the game ; Lippincott was giving
more attention to concealing the condition of his
fellow-classman than to his cards; the Major was
keeping up a continual fire of epigrams upon the uni-
verse in general, and Stannard was succeeding in
showing his thorough acquaintance with the game
only by the equanimity with which he met his con-
stant losses. Hardy hovered around the outside of
the circle for a while, like an over-cautious moth about
the proverbial candle, but he soon found that the
best game to play is the poorest to look at, and re-
tired to the narrow old window-seat. Worth sat
silent, opposite Jarvis with only a small purchase of
chips before him. Every one was smoking and most,
by the side of their chairs, had bottles from which
they drank direct. The German was the only ex-
ception. He said he never drank when he played.
" That 's a bad sign," said the Major. " I '11 have
to put more tea in my pipe. I always smoke tea
when I do mathematics, or poker does me. It clears
my head."
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 2OI
Jarvis went into the first hand with three kings and
won. As he swept in the bits of ivory a sudden
superstition took possession of him. Lippincott had
been just behind him with three queens, and none of
the other three who came in held better than a pair
of aces. Luck was surely with any one who could
win like that. With its usual logic the fantastic side
of his nature declared that if he won in this game
despite what the proverb says about the lucky at
cards he would be victorious in that greater one
upon which he had so set his heart.
The idea of an omen, always fascinating to him,
gained in this case a complete control of his play.
He grew hot and excited; discarded wildly and
smiled in exultation or could have wept with cha-
grin as he won or lost. When the play hung in the
balance, his heart seemed to stop beating, and he
could hardly breathe. By a strange complex action
he threw into those bits of pasteboard all the hope
and fear, the energy and labour, that he had ready for
the fight which his distorted imagination had made
this game to represent.
For a while the luck rose and fell variably. The
cards demonstrated no disposition toward any parti-
cular " run." One time they would be high, the next
low, and every one about the table had his turn at
the winnings. Gradually, however, Jarvis and Worth
began to forge steadily ahead. Morgan lost a pot to
202 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
the latter on a low straight, and bought more chips.
The other men's little ivory pillars had lowered to the
relative size of grave-stones, and the winners' began to
rise proportionally. Then the losers stayed out while
Jarvis raised his opponent on three queens. Worth
held three aces.
" You must have been learning at Holyoke," said
Mallard, as he dealt for the next hand.
" How's that?" asked Worth.
" That crowd over there play from eight at night
till eight in the morning regularly."
The game went steadily on. The other men were
far behind. Neither Worth nor Jarvis had drawn on
the bank more than once. Lippincott looked at his
watch while Dick thumped a devil's tattoo on the
board before him.
" What 's the time ? " asked somebody.
" Six o'clock. We '11 have two rounds of Jack pots
and then quit. Does that suit? "
Nobody objected except Morgan, and he was
quickly silenced by Lippincott.
The cards were " running " at last. Nobody seemed
to hold anything except Worth and Jarvis. Dick was
nearly mad with excitement. There were only two
pots left and Worth was far " to the good." Morgan
stayed in with the winners for five dollars and laid
down two pairs. Jarvis displayed an ace high
straight. Worth deliberately laid down a flush.
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES." 2O3
Jarvis could no longer hide his excitement. He
had turned from hot to cold. A clammy sweat actu-
ally broke out upon him. His fingers were so numb
that he could not handle his cards but dropped them
continually. His eyes blazed like a man's in the
delirium tremens. The other men chaffed him inces-
santly, but he did not appear to hear it, only laughing
in a high-pitched voice that rang false and cracked.
Worth maintained a calm, uninterested expression
that maddened his scarcely less lucky adversary. He
kept his chips piled in regular, neat little columns in
front of him, while Jarvis' lay in a disordered heap
and were continually rolling unheeded to the floor.
The deal went round four times. Then Stannard
" opened." Lippincott and the Major dropped out
in turn. Dick was ready to scream with fear lest
Worth should follow their example. Instead the
German drew one card. That was almost as bad.
Morgan took three and Mallard gave himself the
same number. Jarvis held a pair of deuces. He
threw the five cards on the floor and asked hoarsely
and in a voice that trembled pitiably, for a fresh
hand. He got four sixes. No sound was to be
heard save the clicking of the chips.
Stannard bet a dollar. The words were not out of
his mouth when Dick raised to the limit. Worth was
the only one to stay in and he raised to the limit
again.
204 JAR VIS OF HARVARD.
" I won't see you," said Dick. "Let's put in the
whole pile and finish it up."
The onlookers laughed.
" You 're too anxious," said Stannard.
" Damn you shut up ! " cried Dick.
Worth calmly and slowly moved his little columns
to the centre of the table. He seemed to take great
care lest he should spill one. Dick pushed his store
into them with a force that sent them spinning all
about the room.
u Four sixes ! " he fairly yelled.
" That 's good," said Worth, quietly, and laid down
his cards.
Jarvis had risen from his seat and was leaning
excitedly over the board. When he knew that he
had won, he sank back into his chair with a gasp of
relief.
The unlucky players laughed.
" I never saw you so wild for a few dollars, Dick,"
said Mallard. "That country trip must have cost
you a pile."
" Oh, I don't care for the stuff," said Jarvis. " I
was only interested for the game's sake. We '11 have
a little supper at the Barker House to-morrow
evening."
He had won ! He had won ! He had won ! No
other thought could find a place in the happy tumult
of his mind. The foul air of the room, the close
"AT CARDS FOR KISSES.'* 205
atmosphere, reeking with stale tobacco, heated men,
cheese, and the remains of liquor, and thickened by the
excited breath of the players, was to him the most
intoxicating oxygen. He did not hear them wake the
protesting Hardy, who stood stretching his cramped
limbs. The victory was promised, the end secure.
When the Major proposed an " eye-opener," he rilled
his glass to the brim and his hand so shook with
nervous joy that the red-brown liquor spilled down
his fancy waistcoat.
Some one had pushed up the blinds and the light of
the early autumn dawn was creeping through the
smoke and playing strange tricks with the lamp-light
on the pale faces of the standing boys. But Jarvis
was sitting alone, laughing to himself.
" Here 's to hell with ' began the inarticulate
Morgan, grabbing the table to prevent his swaying to
and fro.
" No," interrupted Hardy, laughing, " here 's to the
Sophomore's wedding ! "
" Gentlemen," said Worth, calmly, " let me, as I
leave to-day and shall be unable to accept Mr. Jarvis'
invitation let me propose the toast."
He was standing across from Jarvis half hidden in
the peculiar light, his white face and diamond eyes
gleaming strangely, almost weirdly. Dick rose and
held his glass ready.
" Mr. Worth has n't spoken two words to-night,"
206 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
he said. " It 's surely his turn." He, too, was white,
but radiantly joyful and smiling a happy, foolish
smile.
Worth's voice was low, even, and musical.
" Gentlemen," he began. " I am bidding farewell
to Harvard. I have enjoyed much my stay here and
I thank you for contributing to my pleasure. It is
morning. The sun is rising and the world awakening
to a fresh lease of conscious existence. This, then,
is my appropriate toast: To all of you who have
been so kind to me, Life. May it be bright as
woman's eyes and ' brief, as woman's love.' "
Jarvis' glass fell crashing to the floor.
CHAPTER XV.
A BROKEN REED.
DISTRAUGHT with the excitement of play and con-
fused by the clash of omens, Jarvis went to bed that
morning to awake long after noon with a mind strangely
at rest. We believe, all of us, very much what we
want to believe, and Dick, forcing his reason to scout
the idea of anything occult in Worth's mal-apropos
toast, allowed his fancy to set the first value on the
superstition he had held regarding the outcome of
the game. His last taste of dissipation was over ; he
had not found it sweet, and he was quite ready to
begin the work that he had laid down for himself.
It was, therefore, with a perhaps mistaken, but none
the less sincere, energy that he set upon carrying
out his plans. Unconsciously the strongest college
student must become the creature of the academic
atmosphere. He is utterly cut off from the outside
world and college successes or disasters are soon the
symbols for actual victory and defeat, and then the
only real victories or defeats that there are.
Finding that, with some serious work, he would be
more than able to master his studies, he began to
208 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
look forward to the football. Here his way was for .
the first few days easy enough. The promising work
of his short experience the year before had, in the
lapse of time, completely overshadowed his sudden
desertion, and he was a welcome candidate.
Harvard, however, was late in beginning this work.
As early as the third of September Yale's squad had
been announced. On the fifth, nine of Pennsylvania's
players had reported for practice ; by the seventh all
that team were on hand, and a few days later its
candidates had begun training. The graduate coaches
were pouring into New Haven, but not until the
seventh was anything done at Cambridge.
On that day Jarvis was one of the band of forty
players who, led by Haley, the little captain, came out
from the Locker Building on Soldiers' Field. There
was a regiment of enthusiasts on hand to cheer them
and this added not a little to the spirit of the initial
practice.
For twenty-five minutes the whole company of
candidates was hurried through the preliminary
manoeuvres. Starts and falling on a ball tossed among
or toward them were practised either alone or in
pairs, and failures were denounced by the coaches in
no easy terms. Catching and punting were tried for
twenty minutes more, and then the practice was
brought to an end with a run around the field and a
spurt to the Lockers.
A BROKEN REED. 2OQ
Six men of the last year's team were there two
ends, two half-backs, the quarter, and the full-back.
But a good deal of dismay was produced when Tom
McCuen, the Scotch trainer, in sweater and cap,
authoritatively announced that " Billie " Dire, the full-
back of the '99 team, would not play that season.
There were rumours, too, to the effect that Beetnurt,
the centre, was unable to arrange a little difficulty
with the Office, and that Stendhal, the rushing half,
would not return to College.
Serious, however, as was this apparent drain on the
the back-field, the days that immediately followed
developed a fair amount of new material, so that it
soon became evident that the chief weakness would,
after all, be on the line between the ends. However,
Kohl, the former guard, might still " come out " and
Lorenz, the old tackle, would surely play.
Jarvis was set down as a candidate for right end
and thus had at first little chance for a place, since
that position was considered secure in the hands of
the man who had held it during the previous season.
Yet he liked the work and found it, for the time,
comparatively pleasant. He enjoyed being set to
dive at the swinging " dummy" which, as less
dangerous, has now almost entirely replaced the old
tackling " a live man" and in all the rest of the
elementary " limbering up " he found only the best
of exercise. Indeed, he " limbered up " to such an
14
2IO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
extent that he soon reduced his weight to a hundred
and sixty pounds.
In a few days a graduate who had been famous in
Jarvis' place in years gone by, was put in direct con-
trol of Dick's preparation. That afternoon he was
given especial attention while the other five men who
were " trying for the position " were " bunched "
under another coach. Then the squads were again
formed and a couple of hours were spent in forming
into impromptu interference while one odd man was
detailed to " break this up."
Dick plunged into the advancing crowd with con-
siderable zeal and when he failed did so only through
a lack of experience. But coaches have a common
faith in the benefits of abuse and he was well berated
for his shortcomings.
" We '11 probably have our first line-up to-morrow,"
his instructor concluded, " and unless you brace by
that time you might as well stay in your room."
The remark was not of the sort that inspire confi-
dence, but Jarvis was not the person easily to be
shaken in his desperate determination. He had got
at least some recognition, and he had mastered the
fact that it is better to be sworn at than not to be
noticed at all.
They did not " line-up " next day, but there were
more attacks upon interference, and Jarvis went into
the scrimmage with a mind made up to do his best.
A BROKEN REED. 2H
Once upon the field he tried as hard for what he now
knew must be a second place as he would, in other
circumstances, have tried for a first. He put away a
deeply rooted distaste for what he had chosen to con-
sider was forcing himself where he was not wanted ;
he felt that he could be useful to others, and he had,
individually, too much to lose to be deterred by any-
thing less substantial than a broken leg.
The College was being scoured for men, and
personal appeals had succeeded the former printed
requests. The result was an outpouring of fellows,
many of whom Jarvis had never seen before, and
whose very names were continually forgotten by the
men who directed them.
Every day, until recitations had well commenced,
there was a light morning practice with dumb-bells,
from ten-thirty to eleven-fifty, ending with a run of
almost two miles, up and back along the park system
on Charles River. Then in the afternoon came the
regular work : Five minutes at ten yard starts ; prac-
tice at passing and falling on the ball, kicking, " line-
ups for snap-backs," general "breaking through"
and tackling again the heavy " dummy" that, swung
from a beam, wriggled and rushed with terrible force.
Altogether, they were never more than two hours at
this exercise, but while it lasted it was sufficiently
violent.
At last the famous coaches of other years began to
212 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
appear: Dabille, Dr. Ruisseaux, Carters, Edmunds,
Willis the centre, and Campbell Ford. Then there
were regular " line-ups " of the third and first and
second and fourth rate men five minute games, in
which Dick, playing with all his heart and soul, shone
even better than he knew.
Yet he now felt that even for a secondary place he
would have had no chance in the world had it not
been for his unusually fine physique, his absolute
devotion to the study of detail and tactics, and the
blind disregard for personal safety that forced him
upon the notice of the athletic Olympians. These
things did for him what steady practice and familiar
acquaintance with the game failed to do for the ordi-
nary man. Every afternoon would see him going
through the regulation drilling among a hundred
other indistinguishables in dirty moleskins and crim-
son jerseys. At first even the opening run about
the field not to speak of the morning trot gave
him an ugly stitch in the side and his stomach was
continually crying out for many of the things that he
knew he ought to deny it. It was no longer a light
task to refuse. The whole man was already in revolt,
but, weak as the flesh was, the spirit remained un-
broken, and he masterfully persevered. Most of the
men on the squad were far advanced in experience
and practical knowledge. Nearly all wore on their
dirty sweaters something to indicate an honourable
A BROKEN REED. 213
apprenticeship on school or class eleven, but Dick was
given an even chance with the best and asked nothing
more.
For some time the work was carried on with but
little change, regardless of wind or weather. There
were days when the breeze roared across the big field
and the skeleton-like rows of empty seats, so that the
candidates who were waiting their turn along the side-
lines shivered in their blankets, and those engaged in
the actual practice were either in a bath of sweat or,
at the next moment, chilled to the very bone. The
new gridiron was so well turfed and drained as to be
considered the finest in the country, but the best field
would have to suffer at times and there were after-
noons when a cold, cutting rain would be pelting in
the faces of the players and covering the grounds
with mud. The carefully muffled line of languid on-
lookers would have utterly melted away and only the
stolid, inexorable forms of the coaches, swathed in
mackintoshes and greatcoats, with here and there an
umbrella, or dressed themselves as for the game,
remained to bind these splashed, short-breathing,
dishevelled savages to the world of liberal culture
from which they had so recently emerged. When he
looked back upon it, the whole thing was to Jarvis a
wild chaos of continual action. With all the waiting
at the side, there yet seemed to be no standing still.
Everything was so quick that there was little time, in
214 JAR VIS OF HARVARD.
the inexperienced mind, for thought. Long as the
afternoon appeared, each man was kept pretty con-
stantly employed. There was no considerable cessa-
tion of labour from the time the players jumped into
their ill-smelling clothes and half-laced jackets until
the final exhilarating shower-bath and alcohol " rub-
down " closed the day's work and made it all seem
well worth while.
Dick was continually moved from one little group
to another, now flinging himself upon the ground to
secure the bit of pigskin, now diving head first into
the heels of a fleeing player, or springing with an
equal force to clutch him as he advanced ; plunging
at the heavy " dummy " outside the fence, kicking in
all manner of attitudes and circumstances ; catching
the ball as it was punted to him or running with it as
it was " passed," to be called back before he had gone
ten yards; or, lastly, tossing madly about in the
seething whirlpool of men in the mimic games in the
centre of the field.
That was the hardest work. It was there that ac-
tual playing counted for most and safe comparison
could be made. Resolved to show well, Dick was
apt to spring, no matter how slight the excuse, into
every melee. The ball would slip from stiffened
fingers or wet hands; he would fall heavily to the
frozen ground or bury his head in the ooze. His
nails were torn, his shins bruised, his eyes blackened
A BROKEN REED. 215
and his nose bleeding most of the time. At first he
had been continually sore from head to foot. But he
made the men of the 'Varsity angry and that was a
good sign. And if he was well sworn at by the
coaches, this only made their meagre praise the
better worth the winning.
All this while his ethical position was undergoing
a subtle change. The body was again conquering
the mind. Many men who go in for the experience
of football have no mind to be overcome, but such as
have are very likely to suffer temporary subjugation,
so that Jarvis was by no means an anomaly. Beyond
getting through his " Conferences," he had done little
more than enough at his studies since he fell into the
r ull current of the game. As the body had won when
<t first cried for dissipation, so now it was victorious
when it demanded pampering of an athletic de-
scription. Flushed with health and strength, strong
and renewed, that which, in his original plans, had
been a mere means to an end, came, unobserved, to
usurp almost the place of that end itself. The intel-
lectual side of his life was, at least, relegated to the
dim futurity. Once on a victorious 'Varsity eleven,
there could be for him, in Peggy's eyes, no higher
honour left to win. Throbbing with a new happiness
that of muscular strength, he felt that all other
power was only that of a quahaug. He was carried
away by the purely physical. But the sin was venial.
2l6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Every muscle, awakened from a long sleep, brought
suddenly from a dreary quietude of inactivity, cried
out to be used, to be developed, to be battled with,
strained, tugged at, beaten, and to conquer in the end.
He listened.
The old players who intended to try again this
season had now all appeared on the field, and though
Kohl, who had developed an injury from the year
before, and a few other valuable men, were now de-
finitely counted out of it, there was still material and
to spare. Four regular teams had been chosen and
Jarvis had alternated between the second and the third.
Finally the day before the first game arrived and after
a thorough drill, offensive and defensive, he was told
that he might possibly be tried against Wesleyan.
He did get into the game in the second half when
Harvard played a practically fresh eleven. He fought
as if his whole life's fate hung on the manner in which
he acquitted himself. Although he had found the
puzzle a thousand times more difficult, he had studied
the intricate signals with more energy and enthusiasm
than he had ever put into his Greek or even his
English. He had taken in and committed to memory
every hint that made for the better fulfilment of his
duties. He was perhaps the only successful football
player who read instead of wrote articles or books
about the game. The result was that day pronounced
promising in a game otherwise none too encouraging.
A BROKEN REED. 21 7
While the rest of the team played raggedly and showed
a lack of uniform work both in interference and on
the line, he followed the ball closely, broke up the
opposing interference every time it was launched
against him, and made one sure though somewhat
theatrical tackle of Wesleyan's plucky captain, Dobbs.
But he lost his head as soon as he got a hard knock,
and was rather inclined to play a game that was both
" wild " and, in the technical sense, vicious.
The final score had been twenty-four to nothing as
against only twenty in '99, but the coaches were, as
usual, dissatisfied and began to use drastic methods.
Already above a score of candidates had been dropped
and now the remainder were definitely divided under
four general heads : members of the last year's 'Var-
sity team and substitutes ; players who had previously
been on 'Varsity squads together with members of the
former Freshman team, who had experience in similar
training, and lastly the raw candidates, mostly College
newcomers. That Thursday Jarvis was placed in the
third eleven which lined up against the first for a fif-
teen minute half. After a few gains, he was called
back of the line, given the ball on a double pass,
hurdled his crouching opponents and was pushed
over for a touchdown.
That was the first disaster to the 'Varsity. Next
day Stendhal, who had returned to his old place at
half, had received an injury known to players as
2l8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" caved-in " chest, and Howell, the right end, getting
a bad twist of the ankle, Jarvis was tried in his place
against Williams.
Here again his fairly good work distinguished him
above the veterans who had not yet " caught their
pace." For against Bowdoin, on the fifth of Octo-
ber, they could make only two touchdowns and were
weak in the line. They were unable to budge Lay,
Boudell, and Phillips, the sturdy Maine centre trio,
but they played with a new " snap " and perseverance
that kept their goal out of danger from start to finish.
That day, as he was going up from the field after
the hard-fought contest, he met Stannard for the first
time since the poker bout in Hollis. The Boston boy
had appeared to avoid him and he was in no hurry to
force his presence. When, however, they found
themselves walking side by side, neither was quite
childish enough to keep up the fancied estrangement.
" I hear big things of you, Dick," said Stannard.
" They tell me you 're the coming end for next year
if you don't even make it this."
" Oh, that 's only some of Morgan's gab," replied
the other, with a transparent attempt at modesty. " I
like the thing and get along tolerably well, because I
do like it."
" But I heard a better authority than Morgan say
it."
"Who was that?"
A BROKEN REED. 219
" Worthington," replied Stannard, naming a former
famous player. " He was down on the side-lines
beside me to-day and he said just that. He said
they should have played you all through the Wes-
ley an game."
" Well, that 's flattering."
" Better say it 's true." Had he not been in a pro-
pitiatory mood, Stannard would have added, and
rightly, " You know you think so," but as it was he
simply went on: "It's the Institute this year and
the Pudding the next. Your work's surprising all
of us."
" You did n't think I could do it? "
" I did n't think you 'd care to."
"Too tough?"
" Not tough enough."
" Say too weak if you like."
" No, only you 're a little too spiritual, I always
thought."
"I 'm afraid you 're still flattering. But do you
think only those a trifle nearer brutes than we can
care for this game ? You are surely not so old fash-
ioned as all that."
" No, hardly. I like the game as it is because I
look on, but I should think you fellows who play
would want a change in some of the rules, if you 're
not well, as you put it, a trifle nearer brutes."
" Not one rule should be altered. Why it 's the
220 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
physical brutality of the game that absorbs the men-
tal brutality of the players and some of the specta-
tors too."
" How do you mean?"
" Well, you know the class of fellows who play is
all right and often the best stuff in College. But if
they were n't at this, you know what many would be
at for one reason or another. So I say, better
a broken leg or two than a dozen broken hearts."
" By Jove, the Major was right! You are getting
sentimental."
Then, not liking the look that came into Jarvis*
face, Stannard proceeded to say what he had been
wanting to give vent to ever since the talk began.
" Look here, Dick," he continued, " I want to apolo-
gise to you for that trouble I made in the Major's
place that night."
The reference was indefinite, but it served. Dick
felt that Stannard owed him all and more than he
said, yet it always made him feel uncomfortable to
have any one put himself conspicuously in the wrong,
so he tried to make matters straight in the least
clumsy way possible. But once started, Stannard
appeared determined to grovel as deeply as words
would allow.
" I 'm glad you take it so nicely," he said, con-
tritely, " for of course your marriage is your own
business, you know."
A BROKEN REED. 221
Both tone and words were altogether too ingenuous
to be passed without a smile, but Jarvis managed to
supplement this silent comment with a spoken one
calculated to lay the troublesome spectre.
"You must have been very drunk that night,
Stannard. The marriage question was your own
propounding entirely. I said nothing at all about
it."
" Was it ? Well, I was wrong anyhow. I 've been
thinking the thing over a good deal lately. It's
a good thing for a chap to keep In touch with decent
girls."
" Friends again, eh ? "
It was the Major who had come up behind them.
There was a difficult pause. Then Stannard tried
to remove the tension.
"Quit your hot-air! We were never anything
else. Why, you 're just in time to join in a discussion
of the very subject you fancied we fell out about."
"No? And what's that?"
"Women."
Jarvis could have choked him.
" I 'd rather talk of them than to them any day.
What practical branch of the question were you
wrestling with ? "
" I think it was the age of consent for males, was n't
it, Dick?"
" Really, I don't remember/*
222 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" In other words, the marriageable age for college
men," pursued the beaming Stannard.
" Properly speaking, there is n't any/' said the
Major. " When one becomes a college man he has
passed it, and If he lived a hundred into his second
childhood he would n't reach it again. As for the
age of consent, they kick because the laws don't
adequately defend women, whereas they don't defend
men at all. I 'm a fair specimen, I imagine, and I
did n't know my mind any better at twenty-one than
I did at twenty and eleven twelfths and at that
time 1 was n't any better acquainted with it than I was
at five. I am going into a propaganda for the exten-
sion of those laws to men. To tell the truth, the
thing works backward. When he consents, a man
shows he is verging on senility, and therefore unfit."
The Major paused for an applause that took only
the form of a nervous laugh from Stannard.
" But some of us have to marry."
"Yes, I shall look after that in my scheme. I
shall substitute marriage for capital punishment and
get the votes of the opponents of hanging. Only the
most healthy criminals shall be selected. The more
lucky ones shall go to prison till they die. But the
others must marry. The true end of punishment will
thus be attained; the race will be perpetuated and
objectionable pride ot family will be abolished.
There 's where we catch the Socialistic-Labour party
A BROKEN REE0. 223
We will combat heredity ,with the noblest environ-
ment. The only danger will be the gradual extinction
of crime."
" ' A Modest Proposal/ " said Jarvis.
"Think of the society reporters," cried Stannard
" A charming wedding took place "
" Was solemnised."
" Yes in the main corridor of the penitentiary at
high noon yesterday, when, with one of the prettiest
and swellest ceremonies of the season, Patsey Branni-
gan, alias 'The Whacker,' was married to "
"It was a notable function," put in the Major,
" But you may talk as you will "
" Since you came up," said Jarvis, " nobody 's had
a chance to do so. As a matter of fact, I was under
the impression that Stannard and I had been discus-
sing football."
"And the game has made you rude. Why will
you insist on interrupting my carefully prepared
impromptu?"
" It seems to me that I am not the only offender
along that line."
" Very well, as you will. Only don't be so touchy.
It 's only a give-away. And if you must marry sooner
or later, remember this, that one doesn't marry a
woman, but a companion. Verbum sap."
Jarvis left them with that phrase in his ears. He
sat up later than he should have done, pondering it.
224 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
He was used to the Major's ravings, but he was im-
pressed with the idea that his companion had builded
better than he knew in his farewell mock-warning.
Sweet, pure and beautiful, as his young passion had
divined her to be, even it could not exclude all doubt
of his cousin's fitness as Dick Jarvis' wife. He sat at
his window in the darkened room, turning the doubt
over in his mind until from the street outside came
the heavy footfalls of a party of belated revelers
returning to town fresh from a boisterous trip on
" Cap's " night-car. Their hoarse voices rose through
the still night air in the reckless notes of a rollicking
popular song,
"There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."
As the sound died away other voices that must
have come from Linden Street, sounded faintly across
the town in the endless burden of the historic Institute
March and Dick turned into bed. The idea was pre-
posterous. He was not going to risk his new-found
happiness for any such trivial doubts.
He held to his determination and put every mis-
giving aside. He passed his " hour exams " fairly
well and went about his athletic work with all his
original zest, firm in the resolve to let nothing militate
against this success, and his somewhat boyish enthu-
siasm was upheld by the even wilder element supplied
from that of the Undergraduate body.
Meanwhile Harvard's team as a whole, although
A BROKEN REED. 225
surprisingly fast, had to admit weakness that looked
ill beside the manner in which Pennsylvania was
overwhelming its every opponent with tremendous
scores. In the soul-trying match with Amherst,
Jarvis was particularly at his worst. Early in the
game he had again been substituted for Howell,
whose ankle had once more given out, and on a kick-
off he smashed into Karp, Amherst's big guard, with
the result that the latter's collar-bone was broken.
Except in a fight in town, Dick had never seriously
hurt a man before, and the incident made him so
nervous that, in the pouring rain, he allowed Vorse,
the Amherst tackle, to dash by him, secure the ball
on a " fluke," and all but score.
The quality of the team varied from day to day,
but the general tendency gradually made in the right
direction. Thus, though the first day after the
Amherst game, the 'Varsity failed to score against
the scrub, on the next there was a decided improve-
ment in team-work, and on that succeeding Jarvis
watched them from the side-lines as they rolled, up
twenty-four points against Columbia's nothing. An-
other week of hard, fast work and of vigorous coach-
ing followed. Then came the game with Bates and
there began the really serious labour for the later half
of the season. Some new plays were tried, one of
them a species of " guards-back," and then, after a
brief signal practice on the nineteenth, the 'Varsity
15
226 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
team and an equal number of substitutes, of whom
Jarvis was one, took a Fall River train for New York
to play against West Point, their first game away
from home.
That contest was a victory to the tune of twenty-
nine to nothing, a victory of weight, speed, and brain
against grit and determination. The cadets played a
plucky game throughout both halves. At the start
they gained thirty yards in punting and were then
driven down the field by rushes through centre and
tackle for a Harvard touchdown. Then the West
Pointers held their opponents well and a series of
Crimson injuries again got Jarvis into the game just
in time to get the ball on a fumble, so that Haley
could kick a goal from field. The second half was an
easy one for the winners and not much work was
required to aid their vastly superior weight, but
Harvard's line had shown not a little weakness, and
the Pennsylvania game was now close at hand.
CHAPTER XVI.
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE.
ALTHOUGH still, strictly speaking, a substitute,
Jarvis was nevertheless now a virtual member of the
'Varsity eleven, and in all the squad there was no one
so confident of the team's success. Both Yale and
Pennsylvania had been playing remarkable games and
scoring heavily against all their rivals, but Dick had
unlimited faith in Harvard's speed against the weight
of these two teams, and contested that the latter one
had not yet met a first-class eleven, while, though the
former had made thirty-eight points against Wesleyan
on the preceding Saturday, " there was nothing in
comparative scores anyhow."
The Harvard coaches were not so sanguine. When,
on the twenty-second, the 'Varsity failed to score
against the scrub, they even either splendidly pre-
tended or really felt a keen despair, and from that
moment the work became a species of galley-labour.
There were " blackboard " or " theory " lectures every
evening. At the training-tables, many of these
coaches ate the same food that was served to the men.
Willis, who had been to Philadelphia to watch a
228 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Pennsylvania game, returned with a method of de
fence calculated to stop the " guards-back " formation
and at this the first eleven, massing and dropping in
the centre, was drilled ceaselessly. The result was
encouraging. In the secret practice before the game
with the Indians, the team showed its speed increased
to a marvellous extent.
The next day, in a mere signal practice, Jarvis
wrenched his arm, and was thus allowed no chance
of playing against the Carlisle team. But the oppor-
tunity of again watching a contest from the side-lines
was a needed one, and even he granted that, good as
was the general form of his eleven, the scoring of
their rivals made it clear that there must be still
further improvement before a victory over Pennsyl-
vania would be at all a certainty.
Meanwhile, it looked for a few days as if there
might be no chance to try conclusions with the Red
and Blue. One of the men on that team had already
represented his college in athletics for four academic
years, and Harvard opinion was, therefore, inclined
to consider him ineligible for this season's game,
while Pennsylvania was as firm in interpreting the
rule in question as speaking of calendar years.
There was some doubt, too, in the Crimson mind
about one of the other Philadelphians, who, Harvard
claimed, was a special student. The Undergraduates
of both colleges grew decidedly excited, and for a
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 22Q
time the controversy was, among them, a warm one.
But in the end the Cambridge committee made it
clear that no formal protest had been made, and that,
as the game was scheduled, and Pennsylvania had a
clear right to interpret its own rules as it saw fit, there
could be no shirking of the game on the part of Har-
vard.
So it was that, in the pink of condition and certain
of victory, the Pennsylvania men arrived at Auburn-
dale on the first of November. Not one player
doubted his team's ultimate success. Half Phila-
delphia had cheered the eleven as they left Broad
Street Station, and then wagered, giving big odds
upon their victorious return. No rival had thus far
been able to withstand their slow but fatal attack.
They had beaten Columbia thirty to nothing, and
Chicago had lost to them by a score of forty to noth-
ing. Every man was fit to play the game of his life ;
the team was the best its college had put forward in
years; the "guards-back" was invincible, and the
memory of Harvard's recent series of victories over
the Red and Blue would assuredly be wiped out by a
tremendous triumph for Pennsylvania.
On the other hand, it was clear that the Crimson
eleven was not at its best. Harvard's great game
was, of course, with Yale and it was not desirable
that the men should reach perfection before that
battle. In the last few days, moreover, there had
23O JARVIS OF HARVARD.
been some very ragged playing, and one or two of
the best men were in bad shape.
Shortly before the date of the Pennsylvania contest,
there was introduced, however, a curious device, a
mechanical or " wooden " coach, which worked won-
ders in the instruction of offensive strategy. The
apparatus resembled a small battering-ram. It was a
heavy wood framework mounted on wheels, and pre-
senting a padded board at the front, running parallel
to the ground, about three feet above the turf. The
'Varsity linesmen were placed opposite this, and at
the firing of a revolver lunged ahead against the
padded board. If one man were slow, or a fraction
of a second behind his neighbours, the machine would
swing around in his direction. That was all that was
done that day. The next there followed a light open
practice and then the team was practically ready for
Pennsylvania.
On the day of the game all Massachusetts and
most of Philadelphia appeared to have poured itself
into Soldiers' Field. Pennsylvania had secured a large
block of seats, and from that point clattered forth
the long yell of the Quakers and rolled their strong
chorus,
" Hurrah, hurrah, Pennsylvania !
Hurrah for the Red and the Blue ! "
Hardy was among the Harvard supporters as the
guide of Dick's father and mother, who had been pre-
vailed upon to be present. He pointed out to them
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 231
the persons of note in the College world around them,
and explained as best he could, how the position of
Jarvis as a substitute was none the less one of honour.
He made clear the tragedy of John the Orangeman,
as that official drew his magic circle about the grid-
iron, and he was deep in an explanation of how this
was " perfect football weather" when the teams began
to line up. From that moment he forgot everything
but the game.
Ware, the Pennsylvania captain and especial tower
of strength, had called the toss and was instructing
and placing his men. There was a moment's silence
and then the ball rose into the air and spun down the
field.
Sill caught it on Harvard's twenty-five yard line
and in an instant was making one of his famous
plunges forward. But his interference had formed
slowly and a half dozen Pennsylvania players were
upon him before he had gone five yards. The Red
and Blue crowd shouted to a man, as Harvard did but
little better on the next two plays, but with the third
a silence fell upon them, for a crimson suited warrior
had gone between left tackle and end for twenty-five
yards.
The battle was on in earnest and the stands were
going wild. In midfield Harvard was held ; Pennsyl-
vania got the ball on a fumble and so immediately
formed to bring the " guards-back " into play.
232 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Now was the time of test. Could the elaborately
planned Crimson defence withstand that attack? Not
at first, for Ware had dived ahead for ten yards. But
the next time McTague failed to budge the Harvard
line and there followed a disastrous fumble that forced
Pennsylvania to punt.
It was one of those instants in a game when the
crowd forgets to cheer and the only sound in the great
arena is the delicate and incessant clicking of the
telegraph instruments that are controlling the minia-
ture score-boards at the newspaper offices of far-away
cities. Haley caught the kick, but was downed in his
tracks and was forced to return it on the next play.
So, back again in midfield, the " guards-back "
formation came into repeated use.
Once more the favourite play of the Philadelphians
failed to gain. The ball was fumbled and lost, and
straightway Harvard began a series of lightning-like
attacks upon the Pennsylvania ends that was termi-
nated only by the failure of an attempt at a goal from
field.
And soon the trick was repeated. One Crimson
back burst through the tackles, another smashed into
the centre and a third slipped by the end.
" Touchdown ! Touchdown ! " yelled the Harvard
stands.
The runner Hardy saw that it was Gaswin had
passed all the opposing rush-line and zig-zagged in
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 233
splendid style until he was finally caught thirty-five
yards from the Pennsylvania posts.
Another series of rapid plays here three yards
and there five and then the Red and Blue end was
put out of the way, a waiting half-back " boxed " and
Gaswin had scored for Harvard with the giant Ware
clinging helplessly about his waist.
The whole crowd on the Crimson stand was on its
feet. Hats and flags were tossing over the sea of
heads. A wild howl of triumph crashed and thun-
dered over the field. Then followed the strong
(i Three Harvards and three times three ! " The
cheering was so long and so loud that the players,
after the goal had been kicked, had to raise their
hands in appeal for silence that the signals might
be heard.
It was still early, there had been only twelve
minutes of play, yet that touchdown was the begin-
ning of the end. Pennsylvania fought hard and
bravely. One or two of her younger players were
bewildered, but the team as a whole was superb. In
vain. Never had band of men been more hopeful.
How terribly the enthusiasts were disappointed is
matter of history even yet too fresh in the Pennsyl-
vania mind to need a record here. With what mad
screams, with how violent heartburnings did they
watch that unavailing struggle ! Through the long
hour of the game, even, it seemed, through the hid-
234 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
eous wait between the halves, the Red and Blue fought
as it had never fought before. And yet with every
incentive, with the best team and chance of a gener-
ation, after flaunting more boastfully than ever,
though fighting against younger and lighter men, it
could do nothing. With all her splendidly developed
aggressive play, Pennsylvania could only once reach
her opponent's goal-line and the tide of struggling
men that ebbed and flowed across the field brought
but one score to the Philadelphia team.
That was in the second half. After a blocked kick
and more end-running in the first, Harvard had* made
seventeen points. Then Pennsylvania " braced "
splendidly and, taking quick advantage of the sur-
prise thus excited in the Crimson ranks, got ten yards
for an offside play, doggedly forced its way down
to Harvard's eight yard line and, with something of
the old grit that had won it so many successes on
similar fields, sent its big captain, who had all along
been working wonders, around the Crimson right end
for Pennsylvania's only touchdown.
Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis at that moment had the pleasure
of seeing their son called on to the field and, had they
understood the game, would have been more than
satisfied with his playing. But that was left for the
coaches. Harvard was taking no chances. The
game was won and the directors of the team were
already looking forward to the Yale contest. So the
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 235
Crimson punted whenever there was the slightest
excuse and, so far as a fond parent was concerned,
Dick was merely one of a little army.
Thus the game ended. Pennsylvania had recovered
itself and, grimy and sweat-stained, had resisted at-
tack with all the heroic grandeur of soldiers of the
forlorn hope, as firm as the Swiss Guards that day
that Madame Campan wrote of them that they
" etaient rangees comme de veritables murailles."
The Harvard charge hurled itself against that barrier
only to fall back as helpless as the waves from a
granite rock.
Theoretically there should thus have been a few
drops of consolation in the Pennsylvania cup of bitter-
ness. Actually there was not one. To the outsider
the reason was hard to discover, but to the Phila-
delphia men it was sufficiently evident. Their team
had, indeed, battled strongly and well. But it had
been proclaimed the best eleven the college had ever
sent out and to it had confidently been intrusted the
honour of redeeming the Red and Blue from the
shame of former defeats. Hope does not generally
spring eternal in the breast of a defeated football
player, and as the crestfallen band stood panting in
the athletic-house, regardless of the turmoil without,
there was nothing left to lighten their desolation.
And Harvard? As the whistle had blown the
black hundreds of her Undergraduates had poured in-
236 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
to the field and hoisted their champions upon their
shoulders. Dick, from his uncomfortable eyrie, held
fast from struggling by the arms of Lippincott and
Mallard, heard the College band strike up " Glory,
Glory to the Crimson" and saw it start to march
around the field. In an instant the five thousand men
were marching behind the music in lines of twenty-
five. Their arms over each other's shoulders, they
followed the instruments, singing with one voice, the
odd lines two-stepping forward to the right, the even
ones to the left. Men hitherto utter strangers, the
pedantic law-students, the inconnu from the Medical
School, Sophomore and Freshman, " grind " and
clubman, went swaying to and fro. As Jarvis looked
he felt the stimulus of that greater spirit which could
move so many and so different men to such pitch of
common enthusiasm, and he read its true meaning
beneath this superficial expression. The Major
dashed wildly by him on the arm of a man from
Foxcroft. He waved his hand and shouted " Blest be
the tie that binds ! "
What a night followed ! Until two o'clock in the
morning half the student-body of Harvard made
hideous the Boston darkness. A regiment of extra
policemen had been detailed to keep watch on the
revellers and the revellers gave them enough to do.
On Washington and Boylston Streets, rapid transit
was an impossibility and the cars crawled with the
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 237
utmost difficulty through the crowds. Money had
been easily won and was being more easily spent.
At the theatres the performances were interrupted by
yells and the willing actors were called upon again
and again to sing some favourite song, while afterwards,
last and most delightful of all, there were the delicious
old fights with uniformed authority.
None of this, of course, was for Jarvis. At the
moment, that young gentleman went to bed well satis-
fied with his work, but in a few days he suffered a
reaction and for the first time felt a fear of failure in
his attempt to hold his position on the squad. This
was, indeed, the best thing that could have happened
to him, for, on the second eleven, he now played with
a mad desperation, a blind rage, guided by a wild
coolness of despair, that secured his triumph. The
other men were playing for distinction ; Dick was
fighting for his life.
The mood served well and won him, who did not
play, a notice that compared him favourably with the
regular man who, on the Saturday following, allowed
Brown to score. At the end of that match, when the
squad of muddy, steaming men had trotted into the
little house just outside of the field, the head coach
called the first eleven to one side and proceeded to
give them some severe opinions. Dick, fearing that
his chance was forever gone, was sitting on the floor
in a corner and heard only as if in a dream the coaches
238 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
calling the names of the substitutes who were shortly
to begin work for the Yale game.
Suddenly a familiar sound smote his ear. Involun-
tarily he looked up. It was his own name that he
had heard. In another instant the misty figure of
" The Boss," was before him and a voice that had
echoed in his dreams until it seemed capable of ex-
pressing only rebuke, was saying to him now,
" I guess we '11 want you for sub-right-end against
Yale."
Such hard labour was never before seen at Cam-
bridge. A few days of relaxation had been advised
and then began, behind closed doors and with a strict
press censorship, the terrible strain of a preparation
to which the whole season had been, it seemed to
Jarvis, but as a prelude. It was, however, only an
increase of the former work, with the introduction of
some tricks and the practising of starts by a pistol,
but there was a decided " sump " noted by the
coaches ; their men had beyond a doubt grown stale
in body and in spirit were steadily losing in flesh
and fire and terror began to gnaw their hearts.
Not so Jarvis. He was serenely confident now,
both that he would have a chance to play at New
Haven and that the team that had so worsted Penn-
sylvania would never be vanquished at all. It was
true that all the while Yale had been playing hard
games. On the seventeenth of October she had more
WHEN KINGS GO FORTH TO BATTLE. 239
than doubled Harvard's score against Bowdoin; on
the twentieth she had run up thirty-eight points
against Wesleyan ; on the tenth of November she had
beaten the Indians thirty-five to nothing and finally,
a week later, had vanquished Princeton's gallant
little band of mere boys by twenty-nine to five. Then
a crowd of cheering Undergraduates had seen the
Harvard team off for Meriden, there to spend the last
few days in hard practice on the dry turf of League
Park. Thus it was that at last Dick, in the dining-
room of the Lynnthrope Hotel, found himself joining
in the chorus of " I fit for Gen'r'l Grant " on the very
last night before the Yale game.
/{ M^
/ ^ W
7
CHAPTER XVII.
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY.
EXCITEMENT over a coming football game had
rarely before reached such a height as on the eve of
that year's contest with Yale. In the recent seasons
two tie games and one defeat had done much to lower
the prestige of the New Haven college over Harvard
and the brilliant work of the latter eleven for this year
had so proven to the satisfaction of the Cambridge
enthusiasts the superiority of their representatives
that the anxiety to be " in at the death " had reached
a pitch wholly incomprehensible to the Philistine.
For many years of old the Crimson had been driven
to annual slaughter ; for another period there had been
an athletic divorcement, when animosity found vent
even in the wording of printed letter-heads, and then
had followed the one victory sandwiched between the
two tie games.
The tickets were now sold by lot and the old
method which involved standing on line for twenty-
four hours had been done away with. But the " rush "
was none the less for that. Two days before the
Saturday of the game a Harvard army of eight thou-.
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 241
sand began to move upon New Haven. They came
from San Francisco, from St. Augustine, from Europe
even, for that one afternoon. Special trains crowded
one another all the way from New York to Boston
and Harvard clubs with a set of Pullmans to them-
selves were moved bodily to the side-tracks in the
New Haven yards.
In outsiders the splendid record of both teams, the
extremes of play and system to be employed, and the
fact that the game was to decide beyond shadow of
doubt the championship of the season, awakened an
excitement almost equal to that of the student-bodies.
Yale was a five to four favourite on the New York
Stock Exchange, but takers were legion and, every
good ticket and many counterfeits having been dis-
posed of, the New Haven management had been for
days busy putting up hundreds of extra seats and
wondering how twenty-seven thousand people were to
be accommodated on a field meant for twenty-two
thousand. Such a fight for tickets was unprecedented
even in the old Springfield days, and many a specu-
lator got fifty dollars for a single one.
The town awoke that Saturday morning to find
itself in the grip of such a crowd as it had never
before seen. The flood had begun at midnight and
continued until the moment of the game. The day
broke wet and chill with a northeast wind that soon
brought on a heavy rain. As from the very earth
242 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
there sprang up a corps of fakirs laden with gaudy
umbrellas and parti-coloured oilskins, who offered also
for sale every sort of ware that might conceivably
tempt the mobs of spectators. Through all the
streets from the largest hotel to Yale Field there
stretched a continuous line of men crying to passersby
to purchase flags, streamers, badges, feathers, brooms,
of crimson and of blue; cigarettes, cigars, coffee,
flasks of whiskey ; sandwiches and frankfurters ; mega-
phones and seat-cushions. There were enough to
patronise them. The whole field would be packed
and, most enthusiastic of all, there too was the real
football girl wearing violets or American beauties,
she to whom victory meant nearly as much as to the
swarms of men who were placing their money with
the " bookies " in the bar-rooms, enlarged for the
occasion.
The spectators started for the arena afoot, in
carriages or in the swarming cars, as early as twelve-
thirty, there to sit and sing and shiver and cheer until
the teams appeared. First on the field was Yale's
mascot, a white bulldog clad in blue. But John the
the Orangeman followed shortly, without his cart, yet
splendid in the possession of a beribboned plug hat
and a heavy cane.
The Harvard team had risen betimes that morning.
Dick Jarvis, indeed, felt as if he had not slept a wink.
There was a short run before breakfast, a cold bath
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 243
and a " rub down." On the train somebody handed
out copies of the " Crimson " with its portraits of the
two teams and its non-committal editorial. Dick saw
his own name in the list of the players :
"R. Jarvis, '03, r. e., 21, 6.00, 155."
He read what the paper had to say of the game
he had seen no other journal for a month and was
surprised at its tone. He knew that some of his
companions had lately fallen off in weight and strength,
but he was himself still certain of their victory and
could afford to smile.
When the special had pulled into New Haven they
were driven to the hotel. There the police fought a
way for them, through the crowd and they had a light
lunch which most of them, despite the urging of the
coaches, would hardly touch. Then they were put
into open coaches and made for the field.
" I 'm glad it 's cleared," said Jarvis as he looked
out upon the dreary gray and purple hills dotted
with cold houses strangely yellow and white.
" Hope the field '11 be all right," replied the man at
his elbow.
" Oh," said a third man laughing nervously, " it is ;
they Ve had it under straw and Tom says it 's as dry
as tinder."
Jarvis leaned back in his corner and waited, trem-
bling. He was sure, yet terribly, as the phrase goes,
" on edge." The truth is, he was " stale," though he
244 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
little thought it, and so fell into a kind of waking-
dream, from which he emerged only when, with thirty
others, he trotted out from the Harvard tent, under
the stands, and into the howling amphitheatre of Yale
Field.
On all sides of the greensward rose the black
stands, restlessly tossing and relieved by the flutter-
ing flags of the rival armies. To Jarvis it seemed as
if they were the parted waves of the Eastern sea and
he the Pharaoh upon whom they were waiting to sweep
down. He felt as if those thousands upon thousands
of eyes were fixed upon his nakedness. Then he
realised that the West Stand, where flew the Harvard
colours, had risen en masse and that " Three long
Harvards and three times three ! " were again thun-
dering over the field and echoing back.
A little scurrying about the gridiron, and then he
took his seat on the side-lines while the regular team
" limbered up " by punting, " snapping," and passing.
As a rubber wrapped him in a great gray blanket, the
East Stand, where the main body of Yale " rooters,"
were seated, burst into a shout, and he saw the New
Haven men run out as he had done. They were
splendid fellows, every one a giant in weight and
height, and their ruddy cheeks brought out signifi-
cantly the peaked, pale faces of nearly all the Har-
vard men. Few of them wore any armour save the
usual pads and shin-guards, whereas nearly all the
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 245
Cambridge eleven had black leather head pieces and
ear-protectors.
All this while the spectators were keeping up a
constant pandemonium of cheering and singing, led by
men who waved their hats in time along the side lines.
" Boola, boola, boola, boola ! "
sang the Yale legions.
" Brek-ek-kek-kex, koax, koax ! " they shouted
their version of the old Greek chorus, and then,
" O-o-o-h !
More work for the undertaker,
A good little job for the casket-maker!
In the local cemetery they Ve
Been very, very busy on a new-made grave,
No hope for Harvard ! "
The lungs of the whole Blue force would toss the
notes across the arena, and they were hardly silent
before the Harvard stand at Jarvis' back would shout
in answer the old song to the tune of John Brown's
Body.
" Glory, glory to the Crimson,
Glory, glory to the Crimson,
Glory, glory to the Crimson,
For this is Harvard's day 1 "
In front of Dick, across the field, he saw silhouetted
against the gray sky on the top of the East Stand the
telegraph poles over which were to pass to New York,
to half the country, and, above all, to the expectant
crowds left behind in Cambridge, the bulletins of the
game. At the other end of the oblong a band was
246 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
playing, in pantomime, an air not one note of which
could be heard twenty yards away. Into the boxes
at the foot of the tiers of seats New York and Boston
society had swept at an early hour. Dick dared not
turn his head, and yet he knew and it steeled his
nerve and raised his courage to know it that some-
where there Peggy had found a place. Never had
knight at tourney a better reason to fight well than
had he. And he would fight well. The chance
would come ; he would do his best and then, after the
game, he would somehow seek her out and tell her
all, and she would forgive him, and the realisation of
the dream would have begun.
In the midst of the teams now going through their
signals at opposite ends of the gridiron there appeared
two men, one a little fellow in gray business clothes
and cap, the other in a golf suit. The coaches came
hurrying back among the substitutes and then the
umpire and referee, each bringing with him the cap-
tain of one of the teams, met in the centre of the field.
A coin gleamed in the air.
" Heads ! " Jarvis heard his commander shout.
And then Harvard had won the toss, had chosen,
because of a slight wind, to defend the north goal and
had given Yale the ball.
Vail was preparing to kick. The teams scattered
over the field to catch and advance, or to rush forward
and check.
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 247
" Are you ready, Yale ? Are you ready, Harvard ? "
Jarvis clenched his hands and half rose to his feet.
There is a terrible catching of the breath before that
kick-off. So much may depend upon the result and
anything may directly follow. For twenty-seven
thousand excited men and women the sun was stand-
ing still upon Gibeon.
" P-z-z-z ! " went the whistle.
Up flashed Vail's leg. There was a loud thud ; the
whole Yale team dashed down the field ; the whole
Harvard eleven ran forward to meet them, and the
bit of inflated pig-skin careened down toward the
Harvard goal, and fell straight into Haley's waiting
arms.
The little captain ran lightly forward a few steps
and then, with the Yale forwards nearly upon him,
paused and returned the punt.
Dick gasped. He saw the Blue team wheel about
as one man ; he saw Kniff of Yale catch the ball ; he
saw him fumble it and at once he saw Howell fall
upon the New Haven man and down him crashing
where he had stood. Then the referee's whistle
sounded. Kay had been off-side, and the Yale team,
forced to retreat to its thirty-five yard line, kicked
again.
Dick heard another cheer behind him, but, from
that instant until the end of the first half, was lost to
all save the sight immediately before his eyes.
248 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
The next attempt at a kick was an improvement ;
the ball sailed slowly, and seemed to hang for a mo-
ment suspended in mid-air before it descended at
Harvard's ten-yard line. Gaswin caught it and kicked
back to Kean, who was about to run forward when
Howell came upon him like a flash and threw him
hard, forty-five yards from the Blue's posts. The
teams lined up on the instant, and the game had
fairly begun.
In a moment Yale had started its new method of
play, the "tackles-back." Broelom, the left tackle,
plunged through the opposite side of the Harvard
line. In the twinkling of an eye, Gaswin had thrown
him violently upon his back, but Yale had gained
four yards. In a second the play was repeated, and
Yale's right half-back went through almost the same
place for two yards more.
The New Haven men were playing with terrible
force and lightning-like rapidity. Their left-half shot
around the end behind splendid interference for
twenty-five yards before Gaswin had broken through
and downed him on Harvard's thirty-yard line. He
had hardly called " Down ! " and the Crimson men
were not yet all in the line before Broelom had been
shot into their centre. Then a Yale man passed
Cleblamp at Harvard's left, and Chawdick and Kean
plunged their way through to the six yard mark.
Even to the sanguine Dick it was already evident
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY 249
that this was to be no repetition of the Pennsylvania
game. He had hoped that they might " get the jump
on Yale," but the tables had been turned. Neverthe-
less, the contest was still young and though the New
Haven team, with its marvellous speed and the won-
derful nature of its " team-work " the whole eleven
acting as one man seemed terrible with the irre-
sistible (t tackles-back " formation, yet Harvard was
thus far lasting with a fine endurance and doing its
best, by brilliant and sensational tackles to force an
" open game."
For Jarvis and his companions the struggle was one
thing; to the spectators at their backs it was quite
another. To the former every play was clear and
reasonable, but the latter saw only a double line of
men suddenly resolved, like the figures in a kaleido-
scope, into a great pile of twisted squirming human-
ity from which, now and again, one desperate, dis-
hevelled figure would shoot forth, hugging the ball
close to its breast.
To neither sort of spectator, however, was there
any uncertainty about the immediate tide of battle.
That swept straight toward Harvard's goal. With
the highest perfection of manoeuvre Yale had fought
its way down the field. The "tackles-back" was
working to perfection and had hammered ahead for
rarely less than five yards at a time. Now another
crash through the centre and a touchdown appeared
250 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
inevitable. The Harvard eleven was lined up two
yards directly in front of its goal-posts. Haley
was at the back imploring his men to hold. And
just then Kean fumbled and Cleblamp fell on the
ball.
A more intense reaction it is impossible to imagine.
Dick sprang to his feet, hugged tight by the substitute
at his elbow, and neither of them heard the great
shout that was led off by Leverett Kendall, once
Harvard's famous runner, just behind them.
The Crimson naturally tried to punt out of danger,
but the kick fell short and the ball went out of bounds
at the twenty-five yard line. Jarvis could see that
his team was " rattled." Yale gathered herself to-
gether and, although a mob of Harvard tackles
were on every Blue man who carried the ball, it was
hammer and smash down the field again until the
New Haven eleven was but five yards from Harvard's
final line.
" Oh, you dare n't let 'em ! You dare n't let 'em ! "
screamed Haley, white as a ghost and wet from head
to foot.
Was the former drama to be repeated? If any-
thing on earth could have stopped the Yale backs,
the Crimson line would have done so, but every
Harvard effort seemed predestined to futility. The
hearts of the Cambridge supporters stood still.
Again, but foot by foot now, the enemy was pushing
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 251
its way toward victory. Vail banged through right
guard and brought the ball to within ten inches of the
line. The Crimson men almost gripped the goal
posts. The Yale stand was yelling like mad. Down
an aisle, late in arriving, the Harvard band marched
playing " Up the Street." " Hold 'em ! Hold 'em ! "
screamed the Harvard crowd. " Touchdown ! " de-
manded the men of Yale. Jarvis bit his lips until
they bled. The coaches were acting like maniacs.
Willis, the old centre, who had scarcely missed a
day on Soldiers' Field, was walking nervously down
the lines with quick, short strides, his head thrust
forward, intent not to lose one movement of the play.
Macy, the former guard, was kneeling with Worth-
ington at the extreme corner of the field.
Then Broelom was thrown into the Crimson line
and when the heap was separated he was found
safely beyond the posts. An easy goal was kicked
and Yale had scored her first six points.
" Well, it 's early yet," gasped Jarvis, as he sank
back upon the bench. "They've only played ten
minutes and we have n't had a chance to show them
what we can do with the ball."
That chance, such as it was, came soon enough.
Stendhal, the Harvard right half-back, kicked and the
Yale team raced down the field, bowling over the Crim-
son players as if with no effort whatever. The
runner had made twenty yards when Bardnar, the
252 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
heavy Harvard guard, threw him so cleanly over his
head that Jarvis thought he would never rise again.
He did, but a double pass failed and there was a
" throw for loss." Then Harvard " braced ; " held
like a breakwater. Yale punted and Haley caught
only to be downed in his tracks as hd stood on the
Blue's fifty-three yard line.
Here was the chance. The Crimson's interference
formed and was off like a rocket around the end.
But Gaswin wa*s crowded and forced to run to the
side so that when he was downed he had gained only
two yards. Jarvis, who could plainly hear the signals
and thus knew the play before it was in operation,
listened spellbound. Again Gaswin was tried and
this time made three yards. Then the order was
given Dick could not guess why for an attempt
at the centre. The best " line bucker " made the
charge, but it was against a stone wall. The Harvard
backs were pushing, the guards were all tugging, yet
in vain.
" Fourth down ; three yards to gain ! "
There was a kick, of course. Kean almost muffed
the ball on the catch, but he got it fast just as Howell
plunged for it on the six yard line.
Harvard expected a return punt and the backs ran
out, but Yale went right at the line as before. There
was a series of slight gains. Then again it appeared
to Jarvis that his comrades were " bracing," but finally
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 253
the story already old was once more begun and the
tackles' play with a delayed pass or two worked the
ball back beyond the centre of the field.
A Harvard crowd never cheered as on that day
not even when on this very field they had seen their
eleven beat the Blue seventeen to nothing and had
chanted the score from the Yale Fence. It was a
splendid exhibition of loyalty. They began before
the game and kept it up until the last train left. But
just now, though they were at it as heartily as ever,
they were plainly desperate.
Down the field went Yale, a few yards at a time.
They had to fight for every inch, but the Harvard
line was like a fort that crumbles before a withering
cannonade. Jarvis was wild to help. He knew the
superiority of the men on the field, yet he could not
but feel that he must be with them.
Finally Harvard got the ball for holding, after their
rivals had carried it continuously for seventy-two
yards. There was an immediate kick a puzzle.
The Harvard ends were down upon Chawdick, who
should have caught it. The leather swept untouched
between his arms and before anybody knew what had
happened Kniff, the Yale quarter, scooped it in and
was off like a fox for cover.
He had scarcely any interference, but he dashed
and ducked and dodged and plunged, now this way
and now that, yet ever ahead, in one of the most re-
254 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
markable exhibitions of individual playing ever seen
on a football field. One Harvard man after another
clutched or dived wildly at him, missed and fell.
Only Haley came near to him, but the handicap was
far too great and, after a brilliant run of sixty yards,
Yale had scored once more.
All the regular leaders of Harvard's cheering were
crying that this was a " fluke " and that the yells
should keep on. They did keep on. They would
have done so on that day even without the urging of
Key and Doyen who had each saved a day at Spring-
field, or of Dr. Ruisseaux who had captained his
'Varsity eleven in the long ago.
But their shouting did small good. After the goal
and kick-off Yale gained a little and then Harvard
held and got the ball on downs for the first and only
time. Cell was taken out and Beetnurt took his place
at guard. There was an exchange of punts and then
Harvard was again stopped and the half ended with
Yale's ball on her thirty-five yard line.
Blankets were thrown about the players and the
whole Crimson squad hurried to its tent. There
not a voice was raised for a time, and only the
laboured breathing of the men mingled with the cries
of the crowds outside.
The rubbers were hard at their work when one
bleeding giant asked hoarsely for a knife and solemnly
ripped the big H from his sweater.
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY.
" What are you doing there ? " shouted an irate
coach, and the player burst into tears.
To those who do not understand this class of men
the importance it attaches to a symbol actually so
trivial is impossible of explanation ; to those who do
understand it explanation is unnecessary. Suffice it
that in this case the incident was one of those coups
de thedtre which never fail of their effect and in the
reaction the men were readier to listen to the hopeful
instructions of their directors.
The truth is that had Harvard been in the pink
of condition and got the " jump " that had been hoped
for, Yale would still have been victorious for the
simple reason that it had one of the best teams that
ever played football. As things were, defeat was
bound to be almost extermination. By being per-
fectly trained and by using a new formation, though
very like one much in vogue at Cambridge a few
years before, Yale completely outwitted and outplayed
the Harvard team. But between halves it is the
whole duty of coaches to cheer their worsted men and
the Crimson ones did this so well that many of the
substitutes at least resolved, with Jarvis, not to count
the game lost until Yale scored again.
That did not take long. The teams lined up as
they had been before. Harvard kicked beyond Yale's
goal and Yale punted out. Little Haley made a
pretty run, but it was clear that he was, physically,
256 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
fast going to pieces. Harvard was quick but weak
The ball was lost and again the " tackles-back " began
its dreadful work.
For Jarvis that formation had all the fascination
that a snake has for the bird it is about to devour.
He looked for a while spellbound. Then there was an
open play and break for Harvard's goal. He put his
head in his hands and hid his eyes. He heard the
increased Yale yell as the touchdown was made ; he
heard the thump of the punting that followed. An-
other series of rapid plays and again Yale neared the
Harvard line. Then came a little pause.
Somebody was hurt. A small knot gathered
around the fallen man. Dr. Sewell, of the " Hospital
Brigade," ran out with his satchel; some one else
brought a bucket, and one of the exhausted players
took the head of the wounded man into his lap, while
others, apparently regardless of their fallen comrade
and certainly careless of themselves, dropped panting
on the chilly turf.
Jarvis looked again. It was a Harvard man, sure
enough. A glad, selfish hope burst up in him. The
next moment his name was called and, slipping off*
his sweater as he ran, he made for the centre of the
field to take the disabled Howell's place.
He heard the nine " Rahs " ending with his name
and glowed with pride. He heard the whistle blow
and stooped low in his place. Then he was knocked
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 257
down, his head striking the frozen ground. There
was a hideous roar of passing feet, one of which
kicked him in the face as it passed over him.
He picked himself up, dazed and bewildered. The
air was slowly rocking to and fro with the shouts of
the onlookers. He saw his comrades in arms strug-
gling toward the goal-posts. Yale had scored and
around his end.
The lesson had been well learned. A great rage
boiled in him, but left his head clear and his sight
keen, while it banished all fear and redoubled his
strength. For a few minutes after the line-up and
the desultory punting that followed it, he missed the
signals when Harvard had the ball and once failed to
assist in opening a way at tackle so that Haley could
not get through with the ball and his direct opponent
gave him an ugly elbow-blow that nearly closed his
eye. After that, however, he had himself completely
in hand and when the signal came for Haley to try
again, this time around Jarvis' end, Dick easily
tumbled his man upon the ground with a force cal-
culated to leave him there for a while and, rushing
ahead, helped to gain Harvard a hard three yards.
But that was the last of Haley. He had literally
to be dragged from the field, weeping and protesting
that he was fit to play, but palpably in a state
verging upon nervous collapse. " Now is the end,"
thought Jarvis. Yet Enckiff, who took Haley's place,
17
2$8 JARVIS OF .HARVARD.
put, for a few moments, a new life into the team.
Still the men were rapidly giving out. Indeed, the
Crimson casualties were appalling, and in a few min-
utes there were only three men on the eleven who
had been there at the start of the game, while three
changes had been made in one position.
None the less, Harvard was taking her final " brace."
There was a return of punts which left the Crimson
with the ball near their fifty-yard line. Then came
a signal that gladdened Jarvis' heart. He flung his
opponent toward the centre. The Harvard inter-
ference rushed to the left, attracting thither all the
Yale forwards. Enckiff, one of the fleetest runners
of the Harvard eleven, skirted Jarvis' end at the
opposite extremity and was off like a frightened
deer.
It was an old piece of strategy and one that the
Blue had itself often used with more or less effect
against other teams, but so far as the forwards were
concerned, it had worked beautifully. Yet the run-
ner was now quite without assistance, three Yale
backs were close at his heels, and just ahead of him
Vail, the surest tackle on the opposing team, had
somehow appeared and was crouching for a spring.
Jarvis followed fiercely in the rear. He pushed
one pursuer violently aside; he tripped another in
full course. He saw Enckiff dodge Kay, Nalsit,
Broelom, and Captain Smith. He saw him distancing
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 259
the rest. He saw Vail leap. He saw the runner
dodge nimbly to the side. Then there was a flash
from the right and a Yale back had saved the goal.
But it was a clear gain of sixteen yards and far
away somewhere the Harvard stand was going mad
again.
EnckifT was hurt, but Tom McCuen, the trainer,
had him on his feet in a few seconds and to such
good purpose that Yale, when it finally got the ball,
was forced to kick.
That, however, was indeed the end. Again the
Blue got the pigskin and again the " tackles-back "
was mercilessly hurled against the Crimson line.
Time after time the Harvard ranks gave way before
it. Resistance seemed impossible. Nothing could
stop that cannonade of humanity that was poured
against the centre time after time with the unvarying
shock and irresistible force of round-shot.
Jarvis, in a white rage, was playing with all the
brilliance of desperation and the crowds were signi-
fying their approval of him. On top or underneath
he was in every play. His quick eye caught the
direction of every attack and his body obeyed on the
instant. He was doing half the tackling and tossing
down his victims with a fierceness that was warranted
only by the utter abrogation of his reason.
It was all in vain. He was driven nearly wild by
the sense that, if he could strain his strength just one
260 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
hair's breadth more, something might still be done.
But the line was driven slowly back; the tense,
drawn faces, some purple, some white, with staring
eyes half blinded by blood and sweat, gradually
assumed the look that must have shone from those of
the five hundred Persians in the last stand at the cita-
del of Petra.
Yet to Jarvis fate was not altogether unkind, for in
the midst of all this he made a dive at the heels of
a runner and, though he stopped his man, paid for
his success by a few minutes of unconsciousness pro-
duced by a blow from a leather clamped heel that left
him in a semi-dazed condition in which he was at last
led from the field, fighting to remain.
Twenty-eight to nothing. Five minutes later the
game was over. The Harvard crowd was still cheer-
ing ; the Yale players were being carried away on the
shoulders of their friends ; the New Haven men were
dancing over the field behind their band ; the
greatest tragedy in College athletics was at an end.
Yale men marched all the way to town, hundreds of
them. They counted the score; they yelled; they
sang; they tore the scaffolding from Fayerweather
Hall and around the bonfire they recited their ancient
liturgy :
"Who lit that fire?"
" Whichkiss, he lit that fire ! "
"Who is Whichkiss?"
AN ATHLETIC TRAGEDY. 261
" Whichkiss, he is the King of Glory ! "
But what of the plucky men who had gone down so
bravely to defeat? They felt now all that their Penn-
sylvania rivals had felt but a couple of weeks before.
Philosophy can harden us to the death of those we
love ; it may even, in certain contingencies, assist us
to bear the loss of fortune, but there is no moral
courage that can stiffen a man's backbone under the
most certainly anticipated defeat at football, especi-
ally if that defeat comes at the end of a season. As
the final whistle had blown, Jarvis for a moment
stood upon the side-lines perfectly still. He was
himself again, but unable to grasp what had hap-
pened. The howling of the black mass that was surg-
ing from the stands like a receding tide on a stormy
night seemed far away and dreamy. He could not
understand that the last chance was forever gone.
He only knew that he wanted to get away ; to hide,
and above all not to face Peggy for days and days.
The sod slowly rose and fell before him, like the deck
of a ship in a heavy ground-swell. Then some one,
in consolation, put an arm over his shoulder, and he
broke into convulsive, childish sobs.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT.
JARVIS was to have a few days in which to recover
from the effects of the game, and he had elected to
spend this time with his family in Philadelphia. So
sure had he been of his eleven's success and the con-
sequent result upon himself, that he had no fear of the
city in which Mary Braddock lived. When the farce
was over, when the hazard was lost, he hurried to his
train in a state of mental collapse that put voluntary
action out of the question. He remained in the same
condition all the way home, and spent the first day
lounging about the house, sore in body and broken
in spirit.
It is impossible to make clear, save to those who
have so suffered, just how keen a football defeat may
prove. The game is only a game and its loss or gain
a thing that will be forgotten within the year. But to
the average Undergraduate, and to every player, it is
the one thing of momentary and paramount impor-
tance. The latter has been taught to look forward to
it as such, and he has been carefully trained to reach
the height of physical condition on just that final day.
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 263
Then comes the unexpected, and the sudden revolution
in all manners and forms of life. The player is
generally himself again in a week or less, but for that
period he is a broken creature, as weak as he was
formerly strong.
Jarvis came from a dinner at which he had eaten
nothing, and sat moodily at the library fire. So much,
it seemed had gone from him. In a way that he
could not summon his faculties to explain or refute
he felt that he would have to begin his whole course
of life. He was thanking his stars that he had at
least nothing to take him away from the morbid con-
templation of this prospect, and was commencing to
lay down new plans, when the man brought in a
message which had just been left at the door.
Some informal invitation, of course. But he would
not accept it. He tore open the envelope, signed the
paper with a stump of pencil in a hand that he would
never have recognized for his own, and, absently, tore
open the missive and read :
" 1 8 WALNUT STREET.
" DEAR, DEAR DICK, What did you think of me after
our last meeting ? You must forgive me and be kind, as you
have always been. And you must come to me now, for,
Dick, I am very ill. Just how ill I don't know, but I was
never sick in my life before and I suppose I think I 'm worse
now than I really am. I thought I was dying. The doctor
says I 'm not. But I love you and I want to see you. You
264 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
will believe me now. I did n't want to be a weight about
your neck, but that last time I did n't want anybody else to
be one, either. Do you blame me, then, when I thought I
saw my sacrifice gone for nothing? Don't be hard on me,
Dick. I feel so badly. Come to me for just one moment,
to hold the hand and kiss the lips, for old love's sake, of her
who will, perhaps, soon be unable to work you any more
harm. M. B.
November 30, 1900."
Not until he had quite finished reading the note
did Jarvis fully grasp its purport. There was no time
for debate. The dictates of common humanity per-
mitted of only one course of action. Slow as he was
when propelled by some outside force in arriving at a
determination, he was yet quick enough to obey the
commands of anybody whom he considered to have a
claim upon him.
And Mary Braddock had the claim. He had loved
this woman, had loved her before any other, and that
only a short year ago. Moreover, however disastrous
had been the results of that primal passion to him, he
now realised for the first time since he broke with her
that they were possibly, if not indeed actually, even
more disastrous to her. She loved him ! The vision
of Saul of Tarsus at Damascus could scarcely have
been more tremendous to the eyes of the embryo
apostle to the Gentiles than was this hasty confused
letter to the self-righteous reprobate.
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 265
It was a walk of only a couple of blocks, but the
night had already fallen when he set out. His mind
was almost a blank at the start, but in the sharp
evening air it soon began to act with that lightning
speed that characterises it in moments of intense
excitement. She was dying. She was no hysterical
fool to deceive herself, and there was a calm chord in
her note that, in spite of her words, seemed to speak
of a medical assurance of the fact. It would be a
terrible thing to go through with, but he must do it,
he must obey the wish that was to be her last.
Without any loss of sympathy for her he could
hardly help but give some thought to the effect of her
death upon himself. He was young and had life before
him. He had already up to the time of the game
carried out successfully, as he thought, the prelim-
inary and most difficult portion of his plans for reha-
bilitation. He had leaped at once into the furnace of
action. He had even he assuredly recalled -
thought of electing mathematics after the " Mid-
Years." That was a sufficient proof of his honesty
of purpose. He had told himself, that with fresh
blood in his veins, with hard muscles, rigid train-
ing, and constant physical exertion, moral weakness
would be impossible.
He had found this true. He was no longer, he said,
that Richard Jarvis who had first listened to the
" Traume " twelve months before. Nevertheless
266 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
he had to admit it now he had, since their last
meeting, feared the woman. He had not allowed
himself to think of it; he had perfect reliance upon
himself; and yet the very terror of that ridiculous
doctrine she had then broached lent to it something
of a tangible nature. He did think how terrible it
was to wish her dead. It was like murder, and yet
he could not help wishing it. With that hope con-
summated he would be absolutely free, he thought,
with his life in his own hands to make or mar again.
The past must die with her. But if she lived, what
then?
What we are is generally the antithesis of what we
imagine ourselves to be. The god who, in the nether
realms, can show us ourselves as others see us, or as,
psychically, we are, remains yet to be found. The
world sees one man ; the man himself another ; and the
devils of the air, who see all things, know him to be
in reality a third. As a matter of fact, Jarvis, hurry-
ing along Rittenhouse Square, was weaker than he
had ever been before. He was still suffering from the
results of the game. Like all hard-trained athletes,
he was good only until the climax and, that climax
once passed, and the game lost, he was very close to
positive hysteria.
By overestimating the effect of the body on the
mind, he had confused, well-nigh hopelessly, the idea
of a spiritual and mental with that of a physical re-
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 267
formation. Completely unstrung, he needed but little
to make him carry his confused sophistry to its logical
conclusion, and confound the defeat at football with
a defeat of that higher endeavour for which its pre-
paration had been but a means. Although he did
not guess it, he was very close to feeling that every-
thing was lost. It required only a slight shock to
convince him of the uselessness of effort. He was in
a bad condition. His training had been far too long
and too severe. In the language of the game, he was
" stale." Already, unknown to him, the pent-up
desires that he had for so long permitted to master
him, were filing at their chains. The period of absti-
nence had served only to sharpen the appetite and
weaken the power to resist. It had not yet been long
enough supreme to establish itself as a habit. The
dam was ready to burst.
His father and mother had gone out, heaven
knows where, for it was Sunday and his first night at
home, and he had oddly begun to wish them with
him. Had it been so this story need probably never
have been written. One chance caress from his
mother ; one trace of the real though awkward affec-
tion that his father certainly felt for him ; some little
reminiscence of his childhood, a boyish trait recalled
or a baby phrase repeated, might have changed the
whole course of his life. But Fate had not so decreed.
The thing which we are is too powerful for us, and
268 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
weakness ruling has a strength herculean. The
na*neless forces that make for our destruction were
at work against Jarvis. Already the current had set
in strong for the rocks, and no ship of rescue, even
no warning though useless buoy, was at hand.
In a few minutes he stood before the house.
Would there be any sign of death? he had almost
breathlessly wondered. The place appeared so very
still and solemn.
His hand shook as he rang the bell, and it seemed
an hour before the man came to the door. To his
excited imagination, the servant was speaking in those
low tones that the presence of the Great White King
demands.
" Can I see Miss Braddock?"
He never thought of sending up a card. But the
man knew him.
"I'll see, Mr. * Jarvis. Walk into the reception
room."
" I '11 wait in the library," said Dick, in an awed
tone, that made the servant stare at him strangely.
A queer, half morbid impulse drove him into that
room, already indelibly imprinted on his memory for
all time. He knew every corner of it, every picture
on the wall, every figure of the rugs. But the dim
lighted actuality called up even more strongly sou-
venirs that were in no wise pleasant.
As on that other night, only the syren piano lamp
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 269
was lighted, and, as then, a soft twilight, now full of
strange memories, enveloped everything. The heavy
curtains in the doorway, the golden sconces bearing
their extinguished tapers, the black blotches that were
paintings in cumbersome gilt frames, all receded into
the general gloom, or had their elaborate outlines
softened by the pervading shade. Instead of seeing,
one was rather merely conscious of the hybrid fur-
niture of the room, the misshapen tete-a-tetes ; the
deformed ottomans; the frail, misbegotten gilded
chairs, the pale silk coverings which pictured libellous
reproductions of Kneller; and the square, comfort-
able fauteuils formed after the fashion of the First
Empire. Dark shadows stretched long arms to em-
brace the rugs of tiger and bear skin with their snarl-
ing muzzles and vitreous, artificial eyes, that seemed
to spring out from the shades of their native forests,
while the carpets of old Persian weaving lay colour-
less, their glowing patterns lost in the enfolding dark-
ness.
He waited, he thought, a long time, but the man
did not return. He became painfully aware of every
sound in the street, but on the house itself there
seemed to rest the even more painful silence of death.
Then there was a slight rustle and swish on the stairs,
followed by a light footfall he knew only too well.
His heart dashed against his ribs. He could not
draw his breath.
2/0 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
The portieres were drawn back. Mary Braddock
stood in the red light at the doorway.
He sprang to his feet.
" You ! " he cried.
He fixed his startled, angry gaze upon her, but she
was unmoved. For seconds they stood there, he grip-
ping the back of his chair; she a motionless figure in
the dim light, one arm holding back the curtain.
Finally she laughed a little contritely.
"Yes, it is I. Didn't you ask for me?"
And she came forward with extended hands.
" Don't be afraid, I 'm no ghost," she said, smiling.
He kept his hand by his side ; then his glance
met hers and slowly, irresistibly he raised his own to
meet her hand.
The next moment he cursed his weakness and rallied
a little.
" You Ve recovered rapidly," he said, blightingly.
"Thank you, yes. Sit down."
He could not but obey her. He sank into a low
chair. She sat negligently by him on a heavily up-
holstered divan, which placed her a little higher than
he was. At his other hand his right, he remem-
bered afterwards was a small table, curiously inlaid
with mother-of-pearl, so small indeed that the top
was half hidden by an open magazine, the leaves of
which were held in place by a paper-cutter, a keen
miniature dagger, gleaming in the red lamplight.
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 2/1
His amazement was giving place to fear. He was
beset by his old alarm. He could look at her only
from beneath his lowered lids, fringed with their long
curling lashes.
She was beautiful. He had never seen a gown so
wonderfully as this black one, enhance the statuesque,
almost heavy shoulders, or the symmetrical white
neck that, rising so straight from the low-cut bodice,
appeared quite too slight to hold the great knot of
black hair that fell along and upon it. Her arms
were covered, but not concealed, by a filmy, trans-
parent sleeve, crimped and puckered in a thousand
alluring dimples. Her figure he had never seen to
better advantage, and the red lips and big dark eyes
shone in brilliant contrast to a complexion of the
purest white rose and pink.
Upon her story of her solitude in the house, he cut
in with a rudeness whereby alone he was able to mask
his weakness.
"Well, what do you want with me?"
"Don't you know?" she asked, bending forward
until he felt her breath upon his face. " I love
you "
" So you said in your note."
" I had to see you when you were so near, and I
knew you would n't come unless I gave some extra-
ordinary reason. Dick
"Then the whole thing was, of course, a lie?"
2/2 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
He dared not meet her gaze, but he looked at her
again. She was indeed splendid.
" If you want to call it that," she admitted.
"The whole thing?"
" If you want to call it that. But, Dick, I surely
don't ask too much." She put her hand upon his.
"Dick "
He drew back hastily.
" Go 'way from me ! " he cried.
She understood his anger. She had been prepared
for that. But his extreme fear maddened her, and
she did not withdraw the fingers that had caught his
sleeve.
" Have n't you any blood in your veins ? " she
asked. " Don't you know what it is to love as I
love you?"
" I had imagined your affections were only as in-
tense as they were permanent."
" Chivalry, evidently, does n't attract me, anyhow.
Put yourself in my place. But no, you can't do that.
Yet I should think you'd know that if it had been
true what I said in that note I 'd have behaved
exactly as I said I did."
To her mind this was ample justification.
Jarvis, however, could not see. it that way.
" If I Ve no blood in my veins, you Ve no reason in
your head ! " he cried. " No woman has much, I
suppose, but you have less than any woman I ever
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 273
knew. You Ve got me here by a lie, and now you
attempt such a defense as that ! "
She had completely regained her composure.
" No, I 'm not different from other women. On the
contrary, I 'm typical almost commonplace, indeed.
It's depressing. I wish I wasn't, but I am."
" That 's encouraging for a young man just forming
his views of life."
Just as in their last interview, he was trying desper-
ately to be sarcastic, but he felt his terror growing mo-
mentarily.
"Isn't it?" she replied. " But at any rate, I'm
not a pervert. You are. Not in the vulgar sense,
but in the opposite extreme of sentimentality you 're
just as absolutely so. I 'm natural at all events."
" As the rest of the lower animals yes."
She laughed again, a low, wise laugh.
"Thank you. However, you are wrong, as usual.
I 'm natural only as a selfish woman who loves you.
Yes, I do. All love is selfish, but mine is not so much
so as your cousin's is, or would be
"Don't name her ! How dare you?"
" How dare you ? Oh, throw away your chances,
bury your talent, damn opportunities, if you like !
After all, I Ve nothing to say to that But I have
one claim upon you ; I do own a little of you, as I
explained the last time we met, and what is mine I
mean to have no more."
18
2/4 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
She was looking at him as Semiramis must have
looked on a comely, new-bought slave.
He shivered.
" Throw away my talents ! " he said. " You 'd have
me throw away my soul ! "
" That 's a matter of opinion, and I know your
opinion is mine unless you Ve changed yours very
radically of late. You don't believe you have a soul
any more than you believe I have."
" I hope you have."
"And that all the traditions of hell are correct?
I comprehend. Unfortunately, we are still in the
body and likely to remain so for some time. Mean-
while, we have to consult it."
"Well?"
" You know you 're not the one to marry."
" You mean I 'm inconstant? "
" Yes."
" That comes well from you ! How do you de-
scribe yourself ? "
" On the contrary, I speak as one having authority
and not as the scribes, from experience, perhaps,
but with authority anyhow. You can't bear restraint.
The moment any restraint is put upon you, you begin
to rebel. So do I. You 're doing it now. You can't
help it any more than you can help the colour of
your hair, or, by thought, add a cubit to your
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 2/5
He had to admit to himself the real truth of what
she said, and he began to tremble more and more at
the way this woman read him.
" You 'd get tired of your wife if she were an angel
or a Venus," she continued. "You might keep on
being kind to her although I can't say that from
experience but you would cease to love her, and
the woman who is not loved by her husband is sure
to be loved by some one else. And I need n't repeat
what would become of your ambitions if you were to
marry before you left College."
" Ambition is insatiable," he answered, avoiding the
first of her objections and taking refuge in grandi-
loquent commonplace. " It drives us to the garner-
ing and then tells us that what we get is only Dead
Sea fruit."
" Now you 're merely talking platitudes."
" The term is a synonym for truth."
He felt he could not maintain this front much
longer. He knew that she saw through it and, more-
over, conviction was slowly stealing over him. The
woman's doctrine was something very much nearer
the truth than his own.
" Nonsense," she said. " Besides, I am what I am,
and, as I said, we can no more help being what we
are than we can help being at all."
A short silence followed her words, interrupted by
the hum of life, the clang and rattle of passing cars,
2/6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
even the shouts and cries of distant Chestnut Street.
He recalled how in New Haven all the riff-raff of the
town must even still be celebrating and making
capital out of his defeat. He had, with eyes of
innocence, seen the like often enough to know what
it was. A good-natured crowd sweeping up and
down, hurried yet aimless; the extra policemen
charging an unusually obstreperous gang of roughs
who, without authority, wore the blue ; hawkers selling
fish-horns and flags of the winning colours ; women
of the town ; store-clerks ; all the young life of the
city, except probably the student life, was there.
The screaming whistles, the cries of the paper mega-
phones, the shouts and yells and songs they seemed
to be in this very city, as he had known them of old,
and at this very moment to steal into the quiet room
in attenuated echoes, there to flutter about for a
while, as out of place as bats.
Jarvis laughed unpleasantly.
"What is it amuses you?" she asked, almost
sharply, for she did not like his mirth.
" I 'm thinking that, whipped though we were, to
many people I am still a sort of hero ; that some of
them envy me."
" As a football-player ? Or otherwise ? Why
not? Your face is not your misfortune."
Simonides has said that God made ten kinds of
women, one kind of which the Greek proceeds to
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 2/7
find fairly good. Mary Braddock was not of that
exceptional class. But she was, after all, little worse
than selfish. She was perfectly logical and that, at
any rate, is exceptional and was therefore resolved
to take herself as she found herself. She believed
every one of her pernicious precepts and could do no
less than stand by them. But, knowing him as she
did, she did not attempt to jeer at him.
" After all," she added, " they 're right. I don't
care for your ability. Properly cultivated and with
several years of hard labour, you might be able to
get a living out of it if you had to ; but I doubt it.
What I 'm in love with is that peculiar combination
of protoplasm which, instead of making a fungus or
an anthropoid ape, produced Richard Jarvis."
But he was in no mood to bear it. He was, in fact,
at bay. He felt that there was pursuing him a fate
more inexorable than the traditional woman scorned.
There was no running away. He could not run far
enough to escape it. He was bound to her by the
strongest tie which can bind a man to a woman
that of common sin. He had become a portion of
her, a part more integral than her very body. He
was married to her not only in the flesh but in the
spirit. He could not blame her. To the immutable
power of an ever present fact she was as much a slave
as he. She might in like manner be another's, but he
was forever hers. He felt that she did not cross his
278 JARVIS OF HARVARD
path of her own volition, but that theirs was a com-
mon road laid out by an unwavering hand. They
were insignificant pawns played by the unswerving
monster for whose being they were responsible.
Yet there was one escape. He looked at her and
saw in her only the gorgeous Nemesis of his life. He
had come there expecting to be free and quit of
her and had succeeded only in discovering that
ruin was inherent in him through her; that all was
lost ; that destruction was unavoidable and complete,
unless
His roving eye was arrested by a glint of light from
the table at his right hand. It was the little paper-
cutter, keen and deadly and fascinating. His brain
was in a turmoil, seething to the boiling point.
He could not have told what were his thoughts after
his eye caught the gleam of that slim tongue of steel.
But stealthily, silently, he reached out his hand
toward it.
His fingers closed about the jewelled hilt and he
glanced furtively up at her.
She was looking at him.
" Don't be silly," she said, in a strange voice. This
is real life. We 're not children ' making believe/
Dickie."
She rose to her feet, but remained perfectly calm.
Among the most creditable of his numerous anti-
pathies was that for all names except one ending
THE PRICE OF DEFEAT. 2/9
in y or ie. It is strange how such small things will
serve to put the finishing touch to our wrath and how
what, in all other circumstances, has been but a poor
farce, will suffice to turn the balance in a great tragedy.
Jarvis thought she was jeering at him again and that
in so doing she was flaunting her power for evil in
his face. A mad mist half blinded him, but through
the mist he seized her arm below the elbow ; brand-
ished the knife above his head.
He felt the black gauze tear in his hands. His
fingers sank into the soft flesh. He marked on the
heaving white breast the very spot for the blow.
Then he looked into her face, and saw not fear,
not hate, not rage nothing but beauty passionate.
Her hands stole about his neck. They touched
his face.
The next instant the knife fell clanging into the
grate and with one wild inarticulate cry he took her
in his arms.
Outside, the happy crowds were pouring from the
churches; mothers were leading little children to
their beds ; white love and painted lust were waging
their old battle ; crime and virtue, pride and shame,
purity and vice, were jostling each other in the intri-
cate intermingling of the currents of life. Inside,
behind rich walls and heavy curtains, amid soft lights
and sounds, two persons of the same clay with the
best and worst elsewhere were taking their involuntary
280 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and indispensable little parts in the terrible great
game, moved by the same Hand that governs the other
pieces and, sooner or later, sweeps them all from the
board. And from above the silent stars were shining
and the kindly night enfolding every one.
CHAPTER XIX.
RETROGRESSION.
" THAT 's a gorgeous sunset," said Hardy as, a few
weeks after the Yale game, he was walking down
Cambridge Street with Stannard and Lippincott.
The picture merited, indeed, a less conventional
laudation. The whole western horizon was aglow,
blending from the palest pink nearly in the zenith,
down to an angry royal crimson behind the silhouetted
firs and gaunt bare elms of Cambridge Common.
The entire sky was like an inverted shell, and against
it even the roof of Memorial assumed an unwonted
dignity.
" Yes, it is gorgeous," assented Lippincott. " Looks
like the pictures in public school physiologies of a
drunkard's stomach."
" Oh," said Stannard, " if he sleeps on the other
side of the Square, you won't recognise even the Sun
God."
" That 's where Dick would have been, I suppose,
if he had kept on in the way of righteousness," said
Lippincott.
" 1 'm glad he apostatised then," remarked Stannard.
"Besides, it's such a relief; although he was right."
282 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" He was like too many of them," said Lippincott.
" He disappears for a week after the game and then
shows up worn, cynical and preternaturally boisterous."
" Not most of them. Besides, it might have been
all right, if we 'd beaten Yale," mused Hardy.
" Oh, lots of things would have been different then,"
said Lippincott.
" If he 'd only been on the debating team against
'em," suggested Stannard. " He 'd have had an easy
victory to encourage him."
" Now somebody please say something new about
Harvard brains and Yale brawn," growled Lippincott.
" That game was enough to drive any man mad. I
have n't talked of it till now."
" Well, we won't try to condone Jarvis' former
offenses," Stannard objected. " It suffices that we
should be more joyous here on earth over one repen-
tant who sinneth again, than over ninety-and-nine
bad men who never did go right."
u He was getting quite impossible."
" Well, I suppose there is room and work even for
the impossibles. Now, I like you, Lippincott, because
you are trying, in a lowly way, to imitate me, and so
serve as a kind of imperfect mirror or a physic, making
me disgusted with myself. Otherwise I could n't
hope to pass my ' Mid-Years.' "
" I suppose Dick was really in love after all," said
Hardy.
RETROGRESSION. 283
" And was thrown down," added Lippincott.
" Not at all was accepted," Stannard corrected.
" He is now suffering from the discovery that a bird
in the hand is not worth two in the bush."
" And that all is not gold that catches the early
bird," suggested Lippincott.
But Hardy would hear no more.
" Rot ! " he cried. " What 's the use of your talking
this way when you don't mean a word of it? You 're
as bad as the Major, and he's the cheapest boy-cynic
I know. We 're all sorry for Jarvis, so why don't we
say so ? "
" Oh, well," grumbled Lippincott, " we could n't do
anything."
"Why not?" asked Hardy. "It's too absurd to
pretend we 're just the same lot. We were, and cut
loose, so why can't he ? "
" He did for a while."
" Well he's back again now, all right," said Stannard.
" I don't think I 'd laugh about it," said Hardy,
"You know as well as I do that the College won't
stand it forever. We Ve all dropped it."
" Oh, yes," said Lippincott with a short guffaw,
" we Ve all made the Institute, after having to play
newsboys in Harvard Square if that's what you
mean but then Dick got in too."
" Oh, that's not all. Jarvis has some good stuff in
him. He's got some good things into the ' Advocate/
284 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and the * Monthly/ too, and he might have got on the
board of one of them if he 'd only tried. Even you,
Stannard, slowed up and you know it."
" Yes," suggested Lippincott, " you stand in well
with the ' Advocate ' crowd ; why don't you try to get
him on? "
" He won't do anything to get on."
" I found some tiptop verses on his desk the other
day," said Lippincott.
" But he would n't give up, you know."
" Then swipe them," urged Hardy. " You can do
it, and once he was on it might work wonders. He
just has n't anything decent to think about, that 's all.
Then there 'd be the Signet ahead, and all that sort
of thing."
They turned into the yard through the new gate
and there they met the subject of their conversation.
" Hello, Jarvis," cried Stannard, " we were just
talking about you."
" I Ve often noticed," said Dick easily, " that my
coming in puts others out ! "
" We can't take that either literally or metaphoric-
ally here."
" Then let it alone," growled Jarvis suddenly.
He was, indeed, not without some external evidence
of deserving the fears that were being so liberally
expressed for him. He was changed physically as
well as mentally. He was hurried and nervous in his
RETROGRESSION. 285
movements. He was even beginning to be careless
in his dress.
It was the principle of reversion to a type morally
applied to an individual. He had retrograded into
all his former licence. He had cut loose and his soul
was drifting whither it would. He did not object; he
did not struggle ; he simply allowed the tide to bear
him wherever it listed, and he asked that it bring him
to one thing only forgetfulness. He had fallen
lower than before. Then his aesthetic tastes had been
something of a safeguard ; more so, in truth, than any
moral code could have been. He had not been able
to bear any sordidness, any too apparent vulgarity,
any too mercenary glimpse behind the scenes. But
his artistic nature had suffered sorely at the start of
his Freshman year, and, now that he had returned to
his former mode of existence, he found the edge com-
pletely worn off. He was willing to accept life exactly
as it was, and without any gloss of reservation.
On this particular night two new acquaintances
whom in better circumstances he would scarcely have
known, but who were proud to be seen spending the
money of one who had been something of a figure in
the athletic world took him into town to nothing
new or startling. From the theatre they went to the
Smoking Parlours where, in a setting of tawdry Ori-
ental hangings, Moorish arches and grille-work, amid a
cloud of smoke and a clatter of laughter, the Egyptian
286 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
waiters were serving chocolate to the few men and
many women seated on the hard divans that ran along
the walls. The " men " were usually callow youths.
Some of the women were pretty, but most of them
were not. The more popular had two or three
cavaliers and the others sat quite alone. They were
mostly quietly dressed, frail-looking creatures on the
face of one or two of whom the finger of death had
already set its unmistakable mark. One and all wore
big Leghorn hats that were generally shabby, but
cast a grateful shade over their faces, although unable
to hide the bright, tired eyes, ringed with the royal
purple of suffering.
In spite of his commanding figure and handsome
face, Jarvis was not a favourite with the frequenters of
the place, many of whom were women of the town,
but most of whom came there nightly after working
for ten hours over the typewriter in some Milk Street
office. Dick's cynicism had not served to open his
eyes completely, and he had acquired an unfortunate
habit of complimenting these women on the one point
of their beauty that happened to be notoriously un-
real. In perfect innocence and sincerity he would be
sure to admire Ida's hair or Ada's teeth, or he would
remark upon the delicacy of Madge Powell's complex-
ion, all to the unconcealed amusement of his male com-
panions and the scarcely better hidden chagrin of the
lady in question.
RETROGRESSION. 287
From the Smoking Parlours Jarvis and his friends
would generally go with some of these companions to
Jay's or the Kolombienne, where, as a rule, they
preferred to drink in the public room amid boisterous
tables appropriated to the use of parties like their
own. At other times they would go down to " Little
Italy " or, closer by, to a hotel commonly known as
the " Damn-if-I-know," because its proper name was
supposed to resemble that statement, and because the
quality of the wine served there was calculated to
depress the bump of locality.
Again they would loiter about the Omega or walk
as far as the Windsor Square Hotel which combined
a respectable theatre with a lodging-house, and a
cafe where a Hungarian band played for five minutes
in every hour and from which Jarvis was once forcibly
ejected because he refused to allow his casual sweet-
heart to smother her raw oysters in catsup and flirt
with a commercial traveller across the way. Wher-
ever they went, however, the night usually ended
in the same way a drive back to Cambridge for
breakfast with the windows of the cab to pay for on
arriving.
Some of the men made themselves distasteful
because they had one girl or another in love with
them and because they usually boasted of that fact.
Jarvis was often silent and the burden of the talk fell
upon the younger ones, cheap pessimists at whose
288 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
sayings the women laughed because, bright chaffers
as they were, they did not understand them.
When Jarvis was alone, as was sometimes the case,
he would walk up and down Tremont and Washington
Streets talking a little to first one and then the other
of the girls he chanced to meet. These women were
of another class from that of those who frequented the
Smoking Parlours. Some of them were lower, but the
majority had only started on the down-hill path and
he was interested to know their stories. The tales
they told were generally similar and palpably false.
They were all of good families and would not for any-
thing have it known what their life was, especially
those who had a husband in New York. Poor little
outcasts ! There was not much of the Delilah about
them ! Once, in fact, he would certainly have pitied
them. But not now. Now he was past pitying him-
self, whose plight appeared quite as desperate as
theirs.
He would go back to Cambridge, if at all, by night,
just in time to catch the last cup of coffee from the
" owl " lunch-cart in Harvard Square. The proctors
who exist only after nine in the evening knew
him now no more than did the back streets that he
for a while had walked to the Polo Club and, indeed
most of the friends of his Freshman year saw almost
as little of him. The Major was still sometimes his
companion and Stannard he liked because the fellow
RETROGRESSION. 289
was yet, in spite of a general quieting, so splendidly
a boy. But the others he now scarcely ever met,
except occasionally at a club.
Thus their deep plans nearly all fell short. The
verses were published and attracted considerable
attention. The " Crimson " condescended to call
them " an interesting bit " and Jarvis' acquaintances
all applauded. But Jarvis himself was rooted in his
way. He would have no editorship and if they
bothered him any more they might all go the devil.
This attitude brought Hardy to speech.
" Look here," he said, holding up Jarvis one mid-
night at a club. " If there ever was a damned fool
you 're it."
" Thank you," said Jarvis, quietly.
" Oh, I mean it. They tell me you Ve declined an
election to the ' Advocate.' "
" You ought to know."
" Don't you call it uncivil? "
" I did n't seek it. I did n't send them that verse.
You did or one of your gang. I wrote it, but you
ragged it like a Freshman stealing a doctor's sign."
" Come now, Dick, you know what we did it for.
You 're a known man and everybody 's watching you.
You Ve got an example to set. And besides, think of
yourself. You 're a figure in the Yard, or in lectures
whenever you go or even at Leavitt's. What do
you want to kill yourself for or be dropped ?
19
JARVIS OF HARVARD.
You Ve been through it all in your Freshman year
we most of us have and no harm done. But you 're
not a Freshman now. You Ve made one kind of a
' rep ' on the team, now you Ve only got to brace up
and do the same thing on the ' Advocate.' "
Jarvis stood by, hands in pockets, swaying a trifle
and letting the young chap run on.
" You know we don't generally talk this way to any
fellow here. If he wants to be an ass, we let him get
himself fired. But you 're different. The ' Advo-
cate ' means a lot. Why, you Ve everything ahead
of you no man in College has more. You '11 be
taken into the Signet with the first seven on Straw-
berry Night and " he was trying to laugh it off
" and having Booth Ledweln and all the English
Department drop in to read Catulle Mendes to you."
" Is that all you Ve got to say ? "
Hardy grew desperate. He used his last card as a
Harvard Undergraduate. " No, I Ve just got this
much more, if you keep this up you '11 never have a
smell at the Dickie, and you know it."
Jarvis was softened a bit by the fellow's evident
desire to help, and he put an unsteady but kindly
hand upon his shoulder.
"Affreux, affreux" he said. "The Med. Facs.
would be more in my style, I imagine and they
wouldn't have me. I'm much obliged, old boy, but
it's it's no use."
RETROGRESSION. 29 1
So the days sped on, very much alike in that they
were hard indeed on one of those over whom they
passed. At last even the Major began to remon-
strate, mildly it is true, but still to remonstrate. Yet
he fared no better than Hardy had done.
" You 're going the pace faster than any of us ever
did," he said one day. " You ought to slow up just
a bit, you know. You are getting to be one of those
who live not wisely but too well."
He had had a real feeling of friendship for the
morose Sophomore although he would not own it
and knew that he had liked the lad from the
moment Jarvis had first knocked him down that
" Bloody Monday " night. Friendship was a sentiment
which the Major refused to believe indigenous to the
human heart, but he did not want to see the fellow
utterly wrecked, and he knew the channel so well that
he would willingly have acted as pilot.
Dick, however, continued to refuse all advice. He
knew what he was doing, he said. He was no babe
in arms. He would please himself.
And he did.
About this time he began to frequent only the
cheaper theatres, because he did not have to change
his clothes before going there. At one of these per-
formances he met a woman who engrossed the larger
part of his leisure Vinnie Dooner, once the chief
figure in a cause cetebre that grew from an attempt to
JARVIS OF HARVARD.
give an imperial Roman banquet in republican New
York. This girl was, upon the whole, good for him,
and served to restore in a measure his confidence
in human nature. She was pretty, cheerful, liberal,
good-hearted, Bohemian. She had no ends to serve
but to amuse herself, and when his money ran out,
her own full purse was always ready. When he was
cynical she laughed at him ; when he was morose she
sang negro songs until he was merry again. Above
all, she was careful of his money and, in a subtle way,
served to prepare his heart for what was even then
waiting to enter it.
" She 's such a relief," Jarvis one day explained
her to the Major. " There 's nothing mercenary
about her. I quite admire her, don't you ? "
"Admire her?" replied his friend, "I should say
I did, even more than I do Lola Varnard. Why, I Ve
known her for years and she 's the only woman I
have never loved."
She left town and Jarvis' life after a short stay, and
the latter, though not, it is true, morally improved,
was at least inclined to take a more cheerful view
of the world.
Yet if he was no longer febrile, he was lethargic
and rather content with his mode of life. Everything
was very much the same to him. Goodness and
vice came to be looked at as of a common piece.
Both were delicately relative. Some persons were
RETROGRESSION. 2Q3
what was called good because they preferred the
sensations consequent upon that state. For the
same excellent reason others, and himself among
them, were bad. He thus came to have for many of
the generally accepted facts of life no more eyes
than the protei of the Madalena Grotto. He no
longer argued, no longer reasoned with himself. He
had found his reason in an unexpected way and he
rather enjoyed it.
The Major was explaining to him just what he did
feel when one day Hardy came into the room.
" What's the matter with you?" he was asked.
" Nothing. Just been to ' U-4,' and they have
been telling me how to study."
" Here, have a pipe. There 's nothing like a pipe
to teach the Christian virtue of forgiveness. I've
just been telling Jarvis what he thinks."
" Um, have you? Well, what does he think? "
"What I do."
" Naturally, and what 's that? "
"That you won't be the only man to flunk his
' Mid-Years.' "
" That 's just what I Ve been telling Mr. Shamm
over at the Office. Oh, by the way Dick, I just got
a letter from Miss Bartol."
"Miss Bartol? " asked Jarvis, unable for the instant
to recognise his relative under that appellation.
" Yes. Your cousin, you know."
294 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Oh, you did ? I did n't know you wrote to her."
" I don't. Only sent her a Harvard pin the other
day. Bet her on the Yale fiasco, and forgot it till last
week."
" Well, did she surprise you by having anything
interesting to say?" asked the Major.
" She always surprises one. You can count on her
for that."
"She does, does she?" grumbled Jarvis. "Well,
what was it this time ? "
" I believe she is going to favour the Hub with
another visit. She sent her regards to you."
" Thank her, when you write again."
Jarvis was displeased and when he was so he could
not help showing it. In this case he was ridiculous,
of course, look at it how he would. But no amount
of ridicule would alter matters. He had never had
more than a chance for Peggy, and he had lost that
chance, resigning himself to the fact with consider-
able ease. To expect that no one else should win
her was absurd. To be angry with a friend for
merely writing to her was ludicrous. He tried to
think that this man, leading the seemingly insipid life
he did, was not suited to her. But he remembered
that he had been no better and was now much worse.
Nevertheless, he was as much disturbed as it was
possible for one in his condition to be.
When, however, his cousin finally made her tri-
RETROGRESSION. 295
umphant entry into the city, Christmas had come
and gone, and Jarvis, having failed in his "Mid-Years,"
was again on probation. Forced then to pay his re-
spects to Peggy and her mother, he found, as he
expected, that matters were only made worse by her
proximity. Landor says that " the really beautiful,
rarely love at all," and certain it is that even pretty
women have no pity for the terror that they inspire
in their less favoured admirers. After the manner
of lovers, who are proverbially exacting, Jarvis had
taken it for granted that Peggy, by some instinct that
he did not stop to name, would understand his feel-
ings and adopt a bearing in accordance with them.
Either from choice or ignorance, she did nothing of
the sort. She seemed very naturally to regard him
less as a possible suitor and more as a necessary
relative than ever before. Added to this, he was
surprised to find Hardy there and with him Mallard.
His cousin complimented him on his playing in the
Yale game ; condoled with him on his defeat ; asked
him a few conventional questions about the health of
his parents, and, without waiting for reply, proceeded
to occupy herself with his friends. As a result, his
self-conceit received a healthy blow that drove him
from the hotel, before either of the other callers had
left, with a sense of how fatuous any attempt at
winning this woman had ever been.
He pursued thereafter the uneven tenour of his
2Q6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
ways, but it was more extreme and broken than before.
His dissipations were lower and more riotous and
were followed by intense days of bitter repentance
and remorse. At times the blood, of which Mary
Braddock had spoken so skeptically, was fire in his
veins, and again it was cold as lead. He did go to
see Peggy occasionally, but these brief visits resulted
only in the feeling that he must be a sort of Jekyll-
Hyde, harmful to himself alone ; a man like Heine's
Prince Israel, for six days of the week " a dog with
the desires of a dog " who " wallows all day long in
the filth and refuse of life, amidst the jeers of the
boys in the street," but who, at least one day in
seven, is (( a man with the feelings of a man, with
head and heart raised aloft, in festal garb, in almost
clean garb," entering the halls of his inheritance and
meeting the Princess Sabbath, " the tranquil Princess "
whom he loved.
For he did love her. Beaten and broken, de-
bauched and sacrificed, he could not tear all rem-
nants of that hopeless passion from his heart. His
aesthetic side was irritated bi}t not roused. Nothing,
it appeared, could restore it to its old vigorous life.
He could no longer bear to be alone. Most of his
time he slept in the Major's quarters with the pro-
prietor, to whom he became closer and closer allied.
There was no more wandering about the streets, or
looking, without any other companion, into the bright
RETROGRESSION. 297
eyes of Jessie, dying of consumption ; no more laugh-
ing with Lola and, for the time, forgetting all else
while he laughed. Apart in his own room, he could
not stay. There the Voltaire grinned at him in
demoniacal triumph and the Christ, a picture of
Jarvis' own mind, writhed and twisted upon its cross.
Finally he had broken them both. Slow-working
nervous degeneration had made him sensitive to an
unbearable degree. But he could nowhere hide him-
self. Always there were in his ears the words of his
Cassandra :
" Whenever she crosses your path, this woman,
sooner or later, will cast you down deeper than ever
you were before. ' Your own iniquities shall take
you, and you shall be holden by the cords of your
sins.'"
His religious sentiments, if he had any, could not
be appealed to by those phases of existence that for
him, at this time, made up the whole round of life.
To admit a logical explanation of the universe did
away, to his mind, with the necessity of revelation.
He had no use for the old anthropomorphic idea of
God and was unable to substitute for it anything but
a mere metaphysical abstraction.
He came to take an altogether morbid view of
things. Was he at the theatre? He looked around
him. Each one of these laughing men, women, and
children there represented a mother's birth-agony;
298 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
every one was under sentence of death. Was he at
some low dance? Each of those flesh-clothed, silk-
clothed skeletons prancing about the room and keep-
ing time to certain sounds produced by scraping cat-
gut, every one, he smiled to think of it, was made in
the image, or one of the images of God. So was it
everywhere. The petty merchant cheating his cus-
tomer; the broker cheating his friend ; the thief ; the
liar ; the prostitute ; the perpetrators of all the un-
named, unspeakable, unimaginable crimes that defile
the soul of man were themselves the owners of souls
immortal; were his brothers and his sisters; were
moulded by the same hand, of the same clay, that
made and moulded him.
So the sense of evil was slowly vanishing, the last
trace of sentiment was gradually wearing away, when
the final reaction came from an unexpected quarter.
CHAPTER XX.
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE.
A SPARROW left in a bell-glass will live, breathing
the same air over and over again, about three hours,
although a second bird, introduced at the end of the
second hour, would die almost at once. On some
such principle, no doubt, Jarvis was bearing what no
healthy man could have borne. But he was nearing
the end of his string when the Easter vacation ap-
proached. He never went near a doctor until there
was no alternative left him, but then his few visits
ended first with ominous prophecies, and later with
positive declarations. He had not gone home for the
brief Christmas or Mid-Year holidays. The com-
pany of respectable people was becoming unendur-
able to him. Accustomed to the vitiated and feculent
air of his bell-glass, he was unfit to breathe anything
more healthy and vigorous. So he had visited New
York, and spent the time carousing there.
His diseased views had slowly extended themselves
from the general to the particular, so that it was not
long before he had begun to consider everybody as
little better than himself. His cousin alone escaped.
3OO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
She was the one saint whose shrine remained undese-
crated and inviolable. Yet he began to persuade
himself that even his dream of her could never have
been realised. Mary was right. In the end he would
have been unhappy and, what Was even now more to
him, he would have made his cousin so. Thus, while
confessing that he loved her, and still at times bitterly
regretting that he had so irretrievably lost her, he yet
comforted himself with the base solace that he was
better off as he was.
He could not have been happy with her, he thought.
The loosest man in his own conduct is the severest in
regard to that of his future wife. Dick was no ex-
ception. Not that he thought ill of her. Low as he
had fallen, he could not have come to that. It was
the immaculate sacredness, the inapproachable deifi-
cation of her purity that made his despair of her un-
bearable. But for the puzzle of her ingenuousness,
he had found only one answer: she was hopelessly
indiscreet. Unspeakably holy as she was in fact and
to him, he yet argued, and with some show of reason,
that this one trait, small as it superficially appeared,
would have proved shortly fatal to all content and
peace of mind.
He reflected that their manner of meeting in the
Public Gardens had been far from conventional ; and
that Peggy played a little too gracefully with a style
of repartee of which he should have preferred that she
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 301
stand In complete ignorance. She said that she had
recognised him from the first. But had she? The
recognition would have been better received had it
been announced at the outset. And, anyhow, Was her
conduct quite wise ? Was she, even at her own esti-
mate, altogether unreprehensible?
Of course, taken at its very worst, it could all have
been but a silly piece of innocent girlishness. Still
though as her lover he did not hesitate to explain all
this by the correct supposition that they were speaking
at cross-purposes and that he had misunderstood or
umvittingly misinterpreted her yet, as her husband,
with their world necessarily made up of men less
kindly in the constructions they would put upon such
passages, he would sooner or later have had to sub-
mit to the truth that though modesty too easily
offended is a very doubtful virtue, there is still an
obvious converse to the proposition. He would,
supposing he had won her, inevitably have recoiled
from the sting of common tongues, and have attempted
to enslave her and to rob her of her chief charm. It
was a poor comfort, but it was the only one at
hand.
Meanwhile, letting himself drift, he did little to
regain his academic position. He was in an exagger-
ated form of the condition that had marked the period
following his desertion from the Freshman class team
the year before. Fortunately, none of his studies
3O2 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
were affected by the new 7.45 recitation rule, but he
slept through his " Nine O'Clocks," and, as two of
his courses were given in " Lower Mass," to which
he had taken a particular dislike, he was not over-
burdened with College work. Moreover, he had long
since ceased to take notes in any course.
Yet, under the Harvard system, even if one does no
more, so long as one attends some lectures and does
not pay small boys to sit in one's place, a certain
modicum of necessary knowledge is bound to perco-
late into one's head ; and so, by the aid of that Provi-
dence which cares for the careless, or by force of the
real ability that, though stunted and untended, was
yet in him, he managed, though he remained on pro-
bation, to graze through " Sprung Exams " in the
studies he detested, and to keep up with considerable
tclat in those which he had liked.
Hardy, who had worked more or less systematically
from the first of his Sophomore year, and who had
studied hard during the second term, was coming out
of the trial with a fair average. Mallard was always
able to escape by dint of certain methods known to
himself alone, methods reinforced by weighty argu-
ments and vehement pleadings with his instructors.
Of the four, however, Jarvis and the Major, who cared
the least, came out, as is usually the case, well in the
lead about Easter time. After one examination that
had been suddenly spread before him, Jarvis, knowing
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 303
he had done wonders, and since he had really not
worried at all about it, was naturally the most delighted,
and started in to celebrate accordingly.
Mirth, however, is essentially a short-lived sensa-
tion. It requires a great deal of fuel to keep the
dying spark aglow ; and though Jarvis fed and fanned
it with praiseworthy diligence it soon went out, leav-
ing him only ashes for a souvenir. Thus the season
of Lent wore to its close. He was quite degenerated
and disgusted. There were times when he even
thought of leaving College and volunteering, as one
or two men he knew, for service in the Philippines.
He had begun by spending a good deal of his time
at his club, but he soon found its membership too
healthy for his taste. It was a pleasant place and
required no intellectual effort, but its soft leather and
hard wood, its dark walls and deep chairs, its maga-
zines and the convenient lights to read them by, soon
got on his nerves. The games of cards, the sight of
the comic papers, and the young fellows dozing on the
divans, all annoyed him, and he preferred that little
set of men who were unknown within those walls, but
who, glad to spend his money and to be seen in his
company, were always ready to applaud his perform-
ances in town.
Even Stannard appeared to Jarvis to have become
one of the general type. He was a member of three
dubs and the B. A. A. and, beside that, appeared
304 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
merely the sort of fellow one meets everywhere irt the
places where everybody one likes always goes. He
ate regularly at the club just as, for example, Innez,
the former Freshman captain, ate at Memorial, though
declaring that if he were elected a director of that last
named institution he would do dire things in the re-
vision of the food. But Jarvis picked up his meals
wherever he happened to be, at the " Holly Tree,"
even at the lunch wagon in the Square.
With the considerably quieted Major he meanwhile
managed, however, to get on very well. This friend
played the piano with consummate skill and brilliance
and the rarer element of real poetic feeling. Jarvis'
quietest hours were spent listening to him. Yet he
was not happy anywhere and awaited gloomily the
approach of final academic catastrophe.
" You ought to draw the line somewhere," the
Major once again remarked. " You 're beginning to
make a spectacle of yourself in public on the rare
occasions that you appear there."
"How so?"
" Well you were certainly the centre of attraction
in the indoor games at Mechanics' Hall the other
night, just as we beat Penn, in the quarter. Besides,
here 's this affair of the old pump. Some ass blows
it up with dynamite. Well, as soon as the faculty
gets tired of the old Med. Fac. myth, they '11 look
among just such men as you for the culprit."
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 305
" You don't mean to intimate that I 'd do such a
rotten trick?"
" Not at all. I know that nobody in College would,
and that it was the work of muckers. I am certain
you would n't do it, because I know you. But there
are those at the head of things who don't know you.
Remember that."
This was one night in March. Some weeks later,
one Tuesday morning about eight o'clock he was
driving back to Cambridge from a ball at which most
of the women had preferred to dance alone. He had
been intensely bored and, since he was fast losing his
taste for good reading, was wondering what he could
turn to next, what thing was left for him, when he
noticed that his herdic was passing the old Tower
Lyceum. Impelled by he knew not what, he stopped,
dragged himself out and, without ever looking at the
bills of the play, bought a ticket for that night's per-
formance.
He went home and slept until six o'clock when he
woke asking himself how, after dinner, he should put
in the evening. While he was dressing his eye was
caught by the yellow piece of cardboard that he had
purchased nine hours before and thrown upon his
dressing-table when he went to bed. He did not
want to go to the place now, but, after all, as there
was nothing else offering, he decided to drop in.
When he entered the box of which he found him-
20
306 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
self the sole occupant, the " first part " was already
well on. The company was new to him, but as he
ran a cursory eye over the chorus he thought he
noticed something familiar about one of the girls.
She was standing near the middle of the line, and was
conspicuous for the absence of artificial aids to a
figure short and slim, but trim and shapely. She
wore a white silk jacket edged with black braid, and
her legs were encased in a pair of delicate pink tights.
" ' Too narrow in the hips,' O Caesar ! " he quoted.
The next moment he remembered her as the girl
who had attracted his eye the first night he had been
in the house; the girl he had failed to meet, and
whom, after falling in with Maggie Du Mar, he had
forgotten a month later. A flood of memories rushed
back upon him and he shrank a little behind the
curtain of the box, instinctively hiding his face from
the rest of the house.
That first visit to the Tower ; that first glimpse of
what he thought was " the world," the romantic
thrill that had shot through him when their eyes first
met, this woman's and his, how long ago it all
seemed ! And how old and withered he felt now !
For now the glamour had fled ; romance had slowly
crumbled away and left him to see that then, when he
considered himself disillusioned, he was still utterly
and pleasantly deceived. Was the game to go on like
this forever? At the end of every year was he to find
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 307
himself more skeptical, sadder, and wiser than at its
beginning? Was every month to strip another rag
from the tattered cloak of life? At the end of each
succeeding retrospect was he to say that he had been
a virgin then compared to what he had since become?
The thought that there had been a chance then, when
he imagined himself lost, suggested for a while that in
a few months he might be saying the same thing of
this moment; but he banished the idea with the re-
flection that though it might be possible to grow
worse, it was out of the question now or ever to grow
better. Nay, he could not even stand still, he could
not remain as he was. He was ridden by his Master,
and the rowels were sharp in his side. The hot tears
sprang up into his eyes and blinded him. Sin had
been so young and so beautiful ; it had become so
hideous and tyrannical.
For a few days after he had seen her that first time
at the Tower, Jarvis had elevated this girl on a little
stage in his own heart. He had never disassociated
her from the kindly, deceiving glare of the footlights
until Memory had rung down the curtain and the scene
had permanently changed. How much had happened
since then ! How different he was and yet how much
the same ! The illusion had gone forever from the
picture ; the tinsel to his tired eyes was only tinsel
now. He saw beneath the powder and the paint, and
thought merely of the unpleasant realities there. And
308 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
yet this was the work of but one year. What the others
would do he dared not farther guess. He had risen
and fought and failed and fallen again since then, and
here he was once more, the same but changed, pur-
suing pleasures which had ceased to please, grasping
at phantoms which he knew would vanish in his hand.
What a terrible thing was life, even at its best, and
how ordinary and commonplace his life had been !
It was simply a tiresome iteration of the old story
of sin and repentance and sin again, the old tale of
shame and grief.
He was recalled from these disturbing introspections
by the ending of the first part and got up and went
out until he thought it time for the chorus to " come
on" again. For awhile he was tempted not to return
ajt all, but the sensation, though unpleasant to a
degree, had nevertheless the charm of novelty and,
like Francis Saltus, he would have roasted his hand
for the sake of that. When he did get back it was to
find the girl again on the stage and to make a signal
to meet her at the close of the performance. Shortly
after, he got up and went out once more without wait-
ing to see the end of the burlesque or more of her,
except to nod an assurance that he would be at the
stage door when the time came.
He put in the remaining half-hour by a walk down
Tremont Street, returning by way of an old hotel off
the Square from the management of which a woman
THE LAW OF COINCIDENCE. 309
rose to be the dictator of what New York is pleased
to admire as its " Society." When he returned to
the theatre the crowd was already coming out and he
had not long to wait.
The girl came upon the street alone, among the
first to pass the stage door. She was defended from
the damp east winds by only a small shoulder cape of
thin material and was dressed in almost shabby black.
But her face was not much changed by the total
banishment of what little rouge there had been on it
and she stood the test of the lamp-light very well.
" Of course you don't remember me," said Jarvis,
as they walked down toward the Omega.
" Yes, I do," she replied, laughing. " It's funny,
but I do. You were here in September or October
last year when I was with Ribbie's company. You
were Maggie Du Mar's friend."
" Because you would n't let me be yours yes."
" Oh, you were too slow ! I wanted you bad
enough, but I could n't stand there on the curb and
yell across to you."
This being manifestly true, he had to make the best
of it, and so rejoined,
" Well, I'm not so slow now/'
" You bet you 're not ! "
"Which way do you like better?"
" I don't know but I like the other way. It 's
3IO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
"Thank you. Then you'd prefer to be without
me?"
" Oh, I don't mean that, you know. Only somehow
I did kind of like it. I guess that 's why I remembered
you. I don't generally remember fellows I see at the
show."
They went into one of the booths of the cafe.
Shortly after, for some reason which he did not
analyse perhaps because of what she had said on
meeting him he left her, making a similar engage-
ment for the next night.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE GOOD FAIRY.
PEGGY BARTOL had not made her second visit to
Boston a long one. Her mother had determined to
take her to Philadelphia, presumably because she con-
sidered a course of the Extempore Club and the Well-
view teas a fitter penance for the close of the Lenten
season than the company of Harvard Undergraduates
and the not altogether surreptitious trips to the Boston
theatres. Accordingly, the day after his meeting with
the concert girl, Dick received a demure and fragrant
little note announcing that his cousin was to depart
on the following afternoon. It said that, since she
had heard almost nothing of him during her stay in
New England, he might wish to tell her whether or no
he was still extant, in case his parents inquired after
the fact. " As you evidently were not glad to have
me come," it concluded, " I naturally suppose that
you will be glad to see me go. If you are, be at the
Terminal to-morrow at five."
He did not go. Up to the last moment he vacil-
lated. Then his courage quite failed. He put the
note in his inside pocket and stayed in Cambridge.
312 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
It would hardly have comforted his soul to know
that his cousin did not, to all appearances, miss him.
Hardy was there and Mallard, and they performed the
requisite duties by carrying wraps and bags quite as
well as he could have done. Peggy did ask where he
was, but received in reply little that was definite.
" Dick 's been curing himself of a bad case of love
at first sight for the past few months," said Hardy,
continuing with commendable mendacity, " He 's not
been fit for some time. Stays in his room, you know,
and that sort of thing all the time."
" Really?" said Peggy, with a scarcely perceptible
toss of her head and settling back in the Pullman
chair wherein they had seen her safely ensconced.
" Oh yes," broke in the loquacious Mallard, " when
he came back from that trip to your uncle's country-
place last fall, he made a terrible guy of himself.
Went in for reformation and other similar ideas, but
he 's got over it famously."
Mrs. Bartol began to show signs of nascent
interest, but her daughter, upon noting this, was
apparently not so much concerned.
" I 'm sure the train 's going to start," she said.
" You had better get off right away, or you '11 have
to go along with us." And the two men, exceedingly
loath, obeyed.
Jarvis was not, however, exactly where Mallard had
pictured him. Indeed, had they been but a little
THE GOOD FAIRY. 313
slower in their return, the two men would have passed
him on the street on his way to meet Lily Forrest.
He did not go into the theatre, however. On the
contrary, he was at a loss how to kill time until the
play was over. He found the solitude hard to bear.
Even when with most women he felt the need of the
Major's company, and perhaps it was because she
proved an exception to this rule that he took pleasure
in his new acquaintance. It added to the piquancy
of a situation otherwise novel enough. At all events,
on this second night he merely repeated the scenes
of the one preceding.
So was it continuously during her two weeks' stay.
She made charmingly awkward little attempts to
accommodate herself and her language to it all, as if
used to nothing else : indeed, as if that poor effort
which it was her business nightly to make, that
farcical imitation of ladyhood which was her trade,
was also her natural self. He said to himself that he
kept up his show of courtesy only because it amused
him to treat this waif as if he were talking to a lady,
to some woman of his own set at home. Or, per-
haps, he simply liked to watch the effect upon her of
the exaggerated style of Chesterfieldian courtesy he
saw fit to adopt. Perhaps it was only that He did not
know. But more likely it was educible from a finer
feeling than he would ever have attributed to any one
else, much less to himself. She was so slight and
314 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
prettily frail. He was never consciously ungallant to
any woman before whom he saw fit to drop the royal
kerchief, and it is possible that in this case there was
a real pity in his heart for her, some trace of better
sentiment otherwise lost in the maelstrom of his other
and more tumultuous sensations, some bit of sub-
conscious recognition of a good woman that was hid-
den in her, almost washed out, it might be, in her
troublous little existence. Certain it was that he
could not change his bearing and that she unquestion-
ingly accepted it as the ordinary manner of a gentle-
man to his equals in that gilded world which she
knew nothing of.
The outward woman it did not take him long to
learn. His bearing soon brought from her, in spite
of her assumed manner, an account of herself, the
sordidness of which did not permit a doubt of its
veracity; and when he had heard it and taken into
consideration the mode of life it suggested, his feeling
toward her whole class was considerably softened.
In the language of a child of the New York streets
Lily Forrest told, a bit at a time, the brief history of
her life. She was really little more than twenty,
though hard work, rough life, late hours, and dissi-
pation had made her look ten years older. She had
been brought up in a tenement house and married at
sixteen to money in the shape of a half share in a
Bowery " oyster bay." Her husband was fifty and
THE GOOD FAIRY. 315
drunken. He beat her, but she put up with that as
a natural portion of the marital contract. At last he
knocked her senseless with an oyster knife and,
before she could plead in his behalf, was arrested by
a passing policeman. As a witness in the case she
was afraid to swear falsely in his favour, and because
she would not do so he was sent to the Island. Her
father refused to take her back with him. The busi-
ness went to ruin and, to put in the time until her
husband returned, she had joined her first burlesque
troupe. Hard as the life was, she had found it pre-
ferable to that she had formerly known, and she never
again bothered about affairs domestic. She got but
ten dollars a week and had to pay her own hotel bills
and clothe herself on the stage as well as off.
In his half satirical, half good-humoured way, Jarvis
enjoyed and felt for her in these confidences, was
amused by them, in fact, almost as much as he was
by the posing which elicited them. It was something
new, too, and valuable as that, if as nothing else.
Besides, his money, once much more than abundant,
was low at last. He was in debt and the amusement
was cheap and first class of its kind.
He would take off her miserable cape as if it had
been some gorgeous ermine opera cloak; he would
offer her beer and fill her glass with it as if it were
at least Norman champagne, if not indeed delicate
Chateau Margaux or exquisite St. Emilion. A thou-
316 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
sand little attentions he paid her with all the chivalry
of a trained carpet-knight. His manners in the
New England sense of the word had grown rusty,
and it entertained him to exercise them where their
shortcomings would pass unnoticed. In all this time,
as the nights sped on, he never approached anything
that could have offended the delicacy of a saint or
been disrespectful to the holiness of a vestal virgin.
But while he was thus amusing himself, he did not
notice the change that was taking place in her. He
did not see that the tired eyes were growing strangely
big and wistful, or that a new strain had come into
her clear voice.
He was not cruel by nature, and would never have
dreamed of playing with a human heart for the plea-
sure of the sport ; only he had seen so much baseness
that all higher feeling was blurred and out of focus
for him. The wide eyes that followed his every
motion, the open mouth with pouting, miniature lips
that drank in his every word, the face that always
wondered and admired, all were hidden from him or
noticed only to be misconstrued.
At last the night before the Easter holiday arrived.
She was to go to Worcester the next day. For him
there had been an uncomfortable interview with his
physician, who had first pronounced him to be in a
serious condition and then ordered him abroad.
" If you would behave yourself, you 'd be all right,"
THE GOOD FAIRY. 317
the man of medicine had grimly concluded. " But I
suppose that 's too much to ask."
The words had been unpalatable, but were hardly
unexpected, yet he had not formed any plans for the
future beyond that, feeling he could not face Phila-
delphia again, he had, contrary to medical advice,
bought his ticket for New York.
His parting scene with Lily began, in all essentials,
strongly like another crucial one in the drama of the
past months. Neither spoke much as they sat in the
narrow booth smoking their cigarettes over beer and
a Welsh rabbit. Jarvis was thinking that it was
about time this foolish make-believe was brought
to an end, and the thoughts of the girl, though un-
intelligible to him, were written plainly upon her
face.
" My vacation begins to-morrow," he said, breaking
a silence which was fast becoming unendurable.
"I suppose you'll go to Philadelphia?" she in-
quired, looking first away from him and then quickly
up into his face.
But he did not catch her glance.
" No," he replied. " I shall go to New York and
enjoy myself."
" Don't do that."
"Why not?"
" You Ve just said the doctor told you you must n't."
" Doctors are generally liars."
3l8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
By a sudden movement she flung herself forward
and caught his hand in both of hers.
" Take me with you ! " she cried.
" Great Heavens, what do you mean?"
" Oh, you know ! You know ! " she sobbed.
There were tears in her voice, yet in her eyes, as
she looked up at him, there was but love and pleading.
" I Ve never had anybody treat me like you have,"
she went on hurriedly, holding fast to his cold hand.
" I never knew a real gentleman before, an' I love you
so ! Oh, I love you so ! I can't go back to this hell
again. I can't do it an' I won't ! You don't know
what it is ! Just let me live with you, please, or
get me a place where I can see you once in a
while ! "
Jarvis turned away his face. He had not guessed
at this. He was touched and, for the moment,
tempted too. Then he laid his other hand on hers
and said kindly enough,
" It can't be done, dear, it really can't."
She leaned over toward him, her pink face flushed
to rose red, and her violet eyes gleaming at last with
the diamonds of the unshed tears between the tumbled
black locks that were falling over them.
" Don't say that," she pleaded, " why can't you? "
"Well in the first place, I have n't got the money.
I 'm head over ears in debt as it is."
" But it won't cost nothing. Just get me a job
THE GOOD FAIRY. 319
som 'eres please, please. You can do that. An' then
I '11 keep myself. I 'd want to. I '11 work so hard !
An' you need n't ever be afraid o' my ever tellin' on
you. I just want to be near you always an' see you
sometimes nothing more 'n that."
He shifted uneasily in his seat.
" But I shall not be here for long myself," he said
at last. " I 'm only at College here, you know, and I
hardly think I shall come back next year. The doc-
tor says I ought to go abroad. And then when I
come back to this country I should probably go into
business in Philadelphia with my father."
The plan shaped itself only as he spoke, but for
the moment it seemed the natural solution of his
problem.
"And I couldn't very well, we could n't very well
arrange it there," he added gently.
"You're struck on some swell there. That's it,
isn't it?"
Her tone was half fierce and she had sprung to her
feet glaring across at him with both clenched little
fists resting in the beer suds on the table. It was
useless to temporise further, and yet if he told the
plain truth she would hardly be likely to understand
it. However, there appeared to be no other way out
of the difficulty so though if he had to be killed,
Jarvis did not care to be killed in such a place he
yet determined to try it. Though he feared for his
320 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
moral courage in so doing, he looked up at her, wait
ing his answer. She was, he thought, more beautiful
in her wrath than in her sorrow.
Then he began placidly making rings on the table
with the base of his wet tumbler. Half the truth he
would at least confess. His heart was strangely full
as he began.
" Yes," he said, slowly and not at all certainly, " I
am in love with a Philadelphia girl."
He need not have feared. She sank back into her
chair and for a minute covered her face with her
hands.
He had grown very white of late and there were
heavy lines about his handsome eyes. He was too
broken to stand this. His conscience, which he had
so long flattered himself was quite dead, rose up and
smote him. He could not bear to witness pain in
any form, much less to inflict it. Yet the thing was
impossible. He simply could not, in any sense afford
it. There was still one means of consolation and he
decided to try that.
He came round the table and sat beside her.
"Lily," he said, trying to take her fingers from
before her face.
She resisted a moment and then flung back her
head and shook the curls out of her eyes. She was
laughing.
"Did I fool you?" she asked. "You're easy!
THE GOOD FAIRY. 321
You must take me for a soft thing. Ring for some
more drinks. You 're still slow, after all."
He was not altogether pleased to find that in just
this manner he had not broken her heart. He hated
to be tricked and dreaded being laughed at. But he
rang the bell and when she asked for a whiskey and
soda, he instead ordered a flask, and joined her in the
drink.
" I see your finish," she said as she tossed off the
first glass.
He was silent, and, watching her, he soon realised
that her bravado was assumed. By the time the
supply of liquor had begun to diminish, he noticed
that she, poor girl, was not yet actress enough to
carry out her part.
He went across to her cheap hotel and up to her
room with her.
It was a miserable little place under the roof.
There was one bed, a shabby trunk, and a bureau the
drawers of which stood open and nearly empty ex-
cept for a few soiled collars and a broken box of
powder that had strewn its contents in little white
mounds all over the pine boards.
A few months before all this would have disgusted
Jarvis; now he expected nothing different and was
no more surprised than he was to find that through
the window the stars were shining in the purple
sky.
21
322 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
For a few moments he looked out at that small
patch of heaven vouchsafed him through the filthy
maze of city roofs, and tried hard to fathom the mess-
age of the pale radiance that dimly struggled toward
him there. He was sober enough now. In his heart
a great pity was slowly rising ; a new sense was born
in him, the great sixth sense for sacrifice that alone
completes the human organism.
What, after all, was he, to scorn this poor soiled
daisy struggling up between the rough cobbles of a
busy street? Was it not far better than he? By what
right then did he now withhold from it its one small
gleam of sunshine ? By what right did he deny it the
one inalienable right of every life the right to love?
He could give her, it was true, at best but poor sun-
light and but little. Yet it was his chance as much as
hers. What light there was in him was meant to be
given, -and to whom else could he give it now?
Here was one who at least loved him and whom he
could always cherish. Spoiled flower and spoiled
sunlight, it was meet.
" Lily," he said with sudden resolution, moving
toward the door, " I must be getting back to Cam-
bridge. But look here, here 's a ticket to New York.
You take it and meet me at the station and we '11
try to make things go the way you want them."
She took - the ticket slowly ; looked at it an instant
uncertainly ; took a cigarette from the bureau and.
THE GOOD FAIRY. 323
thrusting the ticket into the flaring gas, proceeded to
use it as a spill.
" Good Lord, girl ! What are you doing that for? "
he cried.
" So you can get through passage to Philadelphia
and go home where you belong. Good night."
She was blowing, leisurely, smoke from between her
lips and smiling at him as she spoke.
But as their glances met, the smile gradually died
away from the small, round face ; the corners of the
puckered mouth drooped lower ; the big eyes winked
and filled and twitched, and her slight frame was
shaken with convulsive sobs.
Dick tried to quiet her, but in vain.
" No, no ! " she sobbed. " Go away ! Go home !
Don't stay here, or I can't stand it. Only go home ! "
" And why should I do that? "
She lifted her tear-stained face and looked straight
into his as she put his hand gently to her lips.
" Why?" she cried, in sudden violence. " Because
you Ve got to make something of yourself. Go home
an' fix it all up and then come back to College and
finish like a man. What 're you wastin' yourself for?
Cut those smart kids that are runnin' 'round with you.
Do you think they care anything about you ? They 're
not the gang you were with last year. I know that.
You 're just a bigger man than they are an' they want
to be called your friends, that 's all. You don't think
324 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
they 'd care a snap of their fingers for you if you
weren't anybody, or had no money, do you? My
God, you 'd be better off with me than with them ! "
An actress? As she lay there, risen now upon one
arm, her face flushed, her voice choked, her whole body
on fire, she was something far more subtle than that
She was superbly her real self; she was perfectly a
woman.
" Go back," she continued, with a sweeping gesture.
" Go back to Philadelphia. Try for the girl, anyhow.
No man can tell what he can do till he 's got the girl
he wants. Remember that. Try ! Don't give up till
you Ve tried. No woman on God's earth would want
a man till he did, and no man would be worth her. If
you get her, College '11 be easy. It'll all be easy
then. It 's right an' an' try just once more
for me ! "
He stood there, arrested in the flood of action and
the whole truth burst upon him and shook him like a
sapling in a storm. But he was still willing to pursue
that course that had come to him as he looked from
her window.
"Are you sure?" he asked at last. "Do
you advise this ? "
" Yes," she said, calmly now. " Because because
you belong to a better woman than I am."
For a moment more he hesitated. Then he
smoothed back from the white forehead those tangled,
THE GOOD FAIRY. 325
troublesome black curls and gravely kissed the place
that they had covered.
" A better woman than you ? " he repeated, as he
opened the door to close it upon her forever, " in
all the world I know of only one."
CHAPTER XXII.
HALF GODS GO.
IN Philadelphia Peggy had been undergoing her
penance with commendable endurance, Some of its
forms she seemed even to enjoy. Few places can be
duller than is this particular city at this particular
season its Midwinter Ball is not so bad as its Lent
yet Mistress Bartol was one of those happy, one
would say almost typical, American girls, who could
find amusement even in Kansas City.
Taking luncheon at the Wellview, when it was sud-
denly announced that a visiting heir-apparent was
drinking beer in the next room, she preferred watch-
ing two well-known society women leave their tables
to look at him, even to looking at him herself. She
went, always with her mother and generally with Mrs.
Jarvis, to a sale of hats and bonnets in a Walnut Street
drawing room. She even attended that threatened
meeting of the Extempore Club, where her mother
assisted in fixing, once and for all time, the sun in his
proper place in the solar system. She had formerly
been vaguely impressed that this assignment to his
station of the eye of day had been accomplished some
HALF GODS GO. 327
few aeons before. But under the sway of much elo-
quence her erroneous ideas were softly dispersed and
she found solace in a tranquil nap.
Indeed, Mrs. Bartol was one of the good souls who
are secure in the thought that their daughters Jill will
not break their crowns except in the company of a
Jack predestined. Yet it is unfortunately a fact that
every Jill is most apt to have two or even more casual
Jacks in attendance and that, at any rate, was Peggy's
case. Among her admirers Bert Hardy, who had got
away from Cambridge a trifle in advance of his friends,
took a high place. Just at this time he was, in truth,
seeing as much of her as, for instance, Jarvis should
have seen. Not that he was at first very definite.
Somehow his heart was too young for that. But, al-
though on her side she did little that the most critical
could call conscious encouragement, he found that he
was entertaining for her that boy's love which is the
most beautiful of all our transient passions.
Yet, as was characteristic of the lad, he would not
tell her. Once or twice they drove together in the
Park; they met and chatted at a quiet tea, and on
the rare occasions when the season permitted of the
theatre, he had always tried to get a chair close to
hers. But that was all. He wanted to be near her
and to hear her talk. In a strange, pure way he
worshipped her as some new deity and to the fact
that others should so worship her he attached no
328 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
more significance than that they should kneel in
church.
Once only did he approach words. They were far
out Broad Street in an automobile which Hardy was
himself driving, and she had said, innocently enough,
that she " could go on this way forever."
" You could ? " he breathlessly took her up.
" I could indeed."
"Forever?"
" And a day," she laughed.
" Well," he hesitated, " do you mean in the way
of Browning's ' Last Ride Together?"'
It was an ingenious way of putting it. But unluck-
ily for him, Peggy did not know Browning at all,
except perhaps as a name to symbolise the unknow-
able, and so, as she had thus far imagined that he
was, like so many men she had met, merely a " talker,"
she gave him a thoughtless " Yes."
The result to him was something of an emotional
tragedy. At the moment he could speak no further,
but his whole attitude was so far changed as to make
him resolve to grasp the very next opportunity that
offered.
Meanwhile Peggy had small chance of forgetting
Dick. There was, of course, constant reference to
him and when Mrs. Jarvis managed to ask about him,
as she occasionally managed to do, Peggy succeeded
in suppressing her mother's too truthful statements of
HALF GODS GO. 329
that young man's sins of omission, until she finally
came to like the strategy which this manoeuvring
required.
It is, however, a question whether she would have
continued her good offices had she known just what
was the cause that made them necessary ; but Jarvis,
at all events, soon arrived on the scene of action, and
proved quite able to take his defence into his own
hands. Emotional both from instinct and training,
few things could have so acted upon his temperament
and so forced him into other paths as just that inci-
dent of Lily Forrest. Had the adventure occurred
to any one else, he would have treated it very differ-
ently. Generally the affections of such unfortunates
as the pretty chorus girl are, as he had said of Mary
Braddock's, as notoriously transient as they are con-
spicuously violent. That the good will of such a per-
son should serve as a gospel of redemption or that her
admonition should enforce a change of conduct in any
of his friends Jarvis would have been the last to grant.
But the thing had not happened to anybody else. It
had happened to Richard Jarvis, and that just at a time
when, little as he dreamed it, this young man was
most ready to receive and obey without question any
promise of rescue or command to hope. Lily For-
rest's life was not, then, lived in vain. She whom
Jarvis did not love had triumphed where all that he
had loved had failed. Why? Because she had loved
330 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
him. Because, through that power of loving which
-since it can create love can do more than any-
thing else in all life, she had given him the will for
sacrifice and, denying the offering to her desecrated
altar, had bade him take his own burned desires to a
shrine worthy of their death. For she, alas, knew
how terrible a sacrifice it was knew it as, to our
sorrow, no pure woman can ever know and she
knew also that, once the goddess was revealed, there
would be no other in all the heaven for Dick.
He had been sated and disgusted with his life, will-
ing that it should end or change in any way, though
hopeless that it should change for the better. He
had become so thoroughly skeptical of everything
human that, had there been leisure to reflect, it is
probable he would even still have hesitated and
doubted until both the courage and the desire to
obey had been lost. But his trunks were packed and
everything in readiness for departure. His money
was short, too, and he settled the matter by securing
a through ticket for home immediately upon leaving
his good angel of the concert-hall.
By the time he had seated himself in the train next
morning and was watching the racing telegraph posts,
between half-hearted perusals of contradictory Chinese
war news, this change had actually taken place ; but
it had taken place too late, and he congratulated
himself on having escaped that otherwise inevitable
HALF GODS GO. 331
period of wavering which, much more than the com-
parative relief of action, is, above all things, torturing
to the naturally indecisive. He did laugh at himself
a little and reflect that he must be still very young,
being still so very hopeful; yet he could not but
admit that the new idea suggested to him on the
night previous was far more tenable than that which
had prompted his former attempt toward freedom.
It must, patently, be easier to reform having won a
pure woman, than to do so in the hope that, once the
reformation was accomplished, the woman might be
won. He forgot that on the former occasion he had
been as absolutely certain of success as if the battle
had been his from the outset. It sufficed now that
there would be a change which, just because it was a
change, would be more than acceptable.
That alteration had by no means come as yet. He
had grown so nervously self-conscious, so preternatur-
ally introspective, that it seemed as if his only reflex
actions were those necessary merely for the continu-
ance of existence. Noting the pulse of his tempera-
ment and waiting for that change to come, he failed
to understand that the only way to make it possible
was to cease looking for it. Instead, he sat there
analysing his impressions, connotating, indorsing, and
docketing them, balancing his mental ledgers to see
how he stood. For instance, he was disturbed to find
that the chief impression left by the coloured porter
332 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
was that the palms of his hands resembled the bellies
of dead fish. He had, then, to grant that very little of
his morbidness had vanished over night. But, on the
credit side, he found himself taking pleasure in the
field and sky, both fresh with the new life of spring,
and he began to hope that something of that new life
and strength and sweetness would sooner or later be
imparted to him. It had not been imparted yet, it
was true, but there was, as the Wolf observed to Red
Riding Hood, plenty of time.
Gradually, however, he ceased to take note of the
faces around or the country through which he sped.
The stuffy air of the parlour-car, the women with dis-
ordered hair, asleep in every variety of uncomfortable
positions; the men reading through their stacks of
newspapers for the third time, or trying to interest
themselves in the cheap story of the newsboy, and
slowly and apathetically becoming resigned to the
discovery that they were below even that grade of
intellectual enjoyment, these things were lost upon
him. When the waiter came up and hesitatingly
placed a bill of fare before him, Jarvis remained
wrapped in his own thoughts for a moment or two
and then awoke only to stare blankly first at the
negro, then at the card. The rest of the time his
eyes were fixed steadily on the chair-back before him
as if he found the study of its pattern of unusual
human interest and importance, and yet he received
HALF GODS GO. 333
absolutely no impression of the figure, colour, or
texture.
They steamed past the endless streets of Providence
and on to the coast. The crimson sunlight on the
seas streamed in upon him and he turned to draw the
curtain. The dancing waters were blue and green
and gold, silver-ribbed and happy ; white sails were
scudding before the stiff noon breeze; and Long
Island in dim purple outline was lying like a sleeping
whale at rest upon the surface. The stone-fenced
farms of Connecticut grew less and less barren as they
made for the south and finally the dirty " yards " of
Harlem filled the train with coal-dust.
All the while they were being jolted on to the boat
and when the other passengers, with the exception of
a pair of timid lovers, went on deck to watch the
panorama of the city's water-front, Jarvis remained in
the darkened car with the thumping of the engines
for company. He caught a departing glimpse of
dazzling white New York beside its sparkling river
and then, at last, worn out by his reflections, he fell
into a troubled, restless sleep as the green meadow-
lands and hopelessly commonplace towns of New
Jersey gave place to the suburban monstrosities of
Philadelphia. He awoke only as they came roaring
into Broad Street Station.
In his prevailing state of mind he was not inclined
to quarrel with the town on any grounds whatever.
334 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Yet Peggy he discovered even less gracious than when
last he saw her. She had been ready enough to con-
done his offenses before others, but appeared deter-
mined that he should pay the last penalty to her.
His parents, however, were really rejoiced to see him.
His father was proud of his football and his mother
of his looks, so that both were glad to forgive short-
comings that, to say the truth, they had either
overlooked at the time or long since forgotten.
Accordingly, the fattened calf was slain and Dick
began to find everything very bearable except, of
course, the person on whose account he had come.
She was entirely too severe and there was evident
in her a certain new aloofness which he did not like.
Formerly she had always been too militant, but now
she appeared to avoid even battling with him, so that
when a rencontre did occur, Dick adopted the policy
of the Spaniards in the last Cuban rebellion and acted
entirely on the defensive. The result was nil and,
after one daring and equally unsatisfactory attempt at
a change of tactics, Jarvis sought council of the Major,
who was then spending a part of the brief vacation in
Philadelphia.
The fellow, as Dick knew, was, in spite of his dis-
gusting affectations, all right at bottom, and was will-
ing enough to give practical advice. Not that Jarvis
was his friend, as he was careful to explain. He was
neither strong enough nor poor enough to be able to
HALF GODS GO. 335
afford the luxury of friends, but he considered Dick
an amusing study, he said, and he would be willing
to sacrifice a few of his precious thoughts upon this
desert air.
" I don't care why you came, so you 're here," said
Jarvis as, after the play, they sat in the cafe of a
South Broad Street hotel. " I want the advice of
somebody who's disinterested and knows the world."
" Knowing the world," replied the Major, " always
means knowing women. I don't."
" Yes, you do. I might as well tell you the truth
at once. I 'm in love."
" That's no new thing. I know whom you mean,
and I know you Ve been in love with her since the
first time you met her a year ago last fall. Any
idiot could see that."
" Perhaps it 's because I 'm not an idiot that I
couldn't"
" Not likely. Most probably you did n't take the
trouble to look properly."
" Well, at any rate, I 'm in love with her and she
has turned me down so regularly that I don't know
what to make of it"
" Make the best of it."
" Oh, don't laugh at me."
" I never laugh at any one. The object of it is too
apt to notice it and cease to be amusing."
" Well, don't behave in this way, whatever you call
336 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
it. You would n't if you were in my place. All
women are wonderful, but this woman is the most
wonderful I have ever met."
" Cheer up. There still remain in the world a few
million you have n't met. How did this one turn you
down ? That 's the point."
" Oh, every way ! "
" Let me hear one way."
"I'll let you hear the latest. But make no mis-
take. She is a good girl and I love her."
" I Ve neither doubt nor objection for I noticed
that she did n't call the Yard a campus, did n't ex-
press the slightest curiosity to see Lowell's place or
Longfellow's, and did n't once inquire after the
Washington Elm. She did n't take to your cheap
sports and has no use for boy cynics like myself or
at least what I used to be the most nauseating form
of youth imaginable. I Ve no doubt she '11 allow you
to continue smoking in bed and while you dress and
let you kick your clothes about the floor as of old.
Go on."
" Well, it was in putting on her coat."
"What was? Oh yes, I recollect. You prob-
ably did n't know the art. It is one. I thought of
writing an exposition on it for 22. There was one
on the English stroke the other day and that 's a
complicated thing, of course, but it does n't need
explanation half as much."
HALF GODS GO. 337
"Well, I dare say you're a past master. How-
ever"
"And no one else in the course is? I suppose
that 's why nobody else tried it. Or else everybody
was afraid to show his shortcomings in that line
before the handsome and experienced instructors."
Evidently the man was bound to have his way, so
Jarvis resignedly asked,
"Well, explain it."
" I'm going to. There are two leading methods;
the right way and the safe way. By the right I
mean the technically correct, not the more morally
defensible method. I don't propose to enter into the
morals of the question."
" No, please don't."
" Because I Ve found the devil '11 generally claim his
own. Only, I want you to discriminate between the
right way as I have defined it and the safe way as I
shall propound it It's only necessary to bear in
mind that the right way is not the safe way and that
the safe way is not the right."
" Well, to speak of the right."
" Then, the girl will generally pick up her coat and
hold it so, dangling helpless."
" She did ! "
" If she is an expert she can so arrange it that there
will be a certain imploring expression in the very
hang of the coat At this stage don't offer to help.
22
338 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
So far as I have been able to discover, the highest
authorities agree that it is better to be occupied with
your own gloves and quite oblivious to the petition
implied in the droop of the coat."
" My experience bears out your theory."
" There then follow a few moments of silence."
" There did."
" During which you feel the girl's eyes are fixed
upon you. I say you feel it, because your own
gaze is bent intently upon your glove which you
are regarding with a steady, unwavering kind of
admiration."
" That 's all very well, but what if she "
" Ask you to help ? Of course she will not. She
will begin to put the coat on for herself. You here-
upon look up, exclaim, ' Oh, I beg your pardon ! '
' How foolish of me ! ' ' Do let me help you ! ' - or
some equally original and striking phrase, adding
perhaps that those gloves are ' such a bore.' The
girl replies, ' Never mind, she can do it perfectly well
herself.' If there is an element of sarcasm in her
tone, it is perhaps well to let her struggle with the
task for a while before you insist upon helping. If,
however, the words show a proper humility, you may
set to at once. Authorities differ as to whether you
had better or not draw off your gloves before assist-
ing. I think myself that the lover of art for art's sake
generally handles art without gloves."
HALF GODS GO. 339
The Major was rapidly warming to the subject and
Jarvis hopelessly allowed him to proceed.
" Now, step gracefully behind the girl ; grip the
collar firmly with both hands about two inches from
the centre, holding the coat far enough back from the
girl to necessitate her taking a step backward to get
into it. How close to your own coat you may hold
hers depends on the girl. As in the making of bread,
judgment and experience are the only guides. Be
sure that you hold the jacket tight. There is con-
siderable struggling and the jacket will get away
from you if you don't hold firmly.
" It is not necessary to warn against any attempt
at conversation at this point. You will find it impos-
sible to talk. The girl grasps the left sleeve of her
waist by her left fingers and the right sleeve with
the right fingers, having the respective thumbs pro-
jecting at right angles. She then makes two or three
abortive attempts with her left to hit the opening to
the coat-sleeve, succeeding the fourth or fifth time,
the right arm meanwhile pointing directly ahead of
her. The same process is then repeated with that
arm, there is a ' general convulsion ' of the shoulders
and the thing is done. There remains only the tuck-
ing in of the sleeves which every man can do best
for himself.
" After describing all this in my exposition, I shall
then proceed to the safe method, which is the simpler
340 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and the one I generally myself pursue. It is, to pick
up the girl's coat ; hand it graciously to her, and then
retreat the length of the room. In most cases it is
best to place a table between yourself and the girl.
Within this tower of strength occupy yourself with
your own coat and let the girl take care of hers. If
you know any prayers, it might be well to recite them.
If she asks you to help her, refuse calmly but firmly.
It is the only way with some girls. That is the safe
way of helping a girl on with her coat."
" Well," said Jarvis, breathlessly grasping his oppor-
tunity, " you can use my case for exemplification.
The other evening I helped my cousin on with her
coat, as I was telling you. By instinct I followed
pretty much the rules of your first method "
" I should have added that to occupy your mind
you might have gone over the fifteenth and sixteenth
stanzas of ' The Scholar Gipsey ' while you were
doing it."
" Oh, I got along fairly well as it was, thank you,
until the coat was really on. Then I turned to look
'round for my hat and she said, 'Well?' I wheeled
about again and there she was standing as I had left
her, the picture of discomfort."
" I know," said the Major, " Head thrust forward
and arms extended from the sides at an angle of forty-
five degrees."
" She said, ' Well ' again, and I said ' I beg your
HALF GODS GO. 341
pardon ? ' and she asked me if I was n't going to tuck
in the sleeves."
" There you were ! "
" Of course I had to do it. I was behind her and a
little to her right. As I was quite inexperienced, it
did n't occur to me to step over to the other side, so I
had to lean over the right shoulder to tuck in the left
sleeve. She submitted. Then she said, ' You might
have done that from the other side, don't you think?'
Of course, I said, ' Very well,' and stepping accord-
ingly to the left shoulder leaned over to tuck in the
right sleeve. Just then Peggy lifted her face, I sup-
pose to arraign my awkwardness "
" Do you think you ought to tell me this?" cried
the Major in well-feigned horror.
" I want to get your opinion, I want her to accept
me as a husband. I know you 're a stone wall and
I 'm in love."
" Well, you should n't have done it, you know."
" Oh, I know it, but it was all the fault of those
sleeves that bag at the bottom. They catch so easily
in the coat lining."
" Ahem ! " said the Major.
" She has n't spoken to me since, until last night at
the Sirron dinner a very quiet and small affair
she was next me and had to. Then, apropos of
nothing, she observed that rumor had it those big
sleeves would n't last in fashion much longer. I said
342 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
fervently and truly that I was glad of it, and what
do you think? she just turned up her nose, you
know that nose and said, ' You 're not very com-
plimentary to-night.' Now, what the deuce does she
mean by that sort of thing? "
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE NEW DISPENSATION.
JARVIS' question was exactly the kind the Major
most delighted in answering.
" What does her conduct mean? " he repeated- " It
may mean any one of a thousand things or it may
mean precisely nothing at all. You must ask her to
find out."
" It means something," persisted Jarvis. " I 'd
begun" and there was this time no doubt in his
tone, " I 'd begun to make the mistake of judging
this girl by those we came across in Boston not in
a bad sense, you know, but concluding that I could n't
have put up with the frivolousness as a regular thing,
supposing she 'd have had me. Well, though I 'm
still bothered by that criterion some times, I Ve
since I Ve seen her again, and hardly think I can ever
get her, I just don't care about anything. I only
know I love her whatever she may be."
" They say that 's the best symptom. I don't know.
I 'm honestly no judge in these matters."
It had cost Jarvis something more than an ordinary
effort to get himself thus far in his confession to the
344 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Major, but for the first time in his life he was realf/
sensible of his weakness in such affairs and felt
that he must have some one to talk to and to help
him, as on that other evening when he had turned to
Hardy. That his companion should appear as re-
ticent as the principal, was, at this stage, provoking,
and he saw that he must be perfectly frank if he would
expect in return the frankness which he required.
The old sense that he must confide in somebody
in anybody, almost had commanded him to seek
the Major, who had of late been his closest intimate
among his former friends. He could not now afford
to let slip the chance of partial comfort, the aid to
resolution thus held out to him. With a final effort,
he therefore plunged headlong into a description full
nearly to tediousness.
" You see," he at last concluded, " I do hesitate
to tell her that I love her, because it seems queer
for me* to talk in this way, but it 's the only way I
can talk because I think I ought to tell her just
what I am and all about myself if I 'm going to
marry her* There 's no excuse for the double moral
standard."
" You want me to speak plainly, don't you, Dick? "
" Of course."
"And to call things by their right names? Very
well." And the Major ran his thin nervous fingers
through his red hair. " Very well, I will. In the first
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 345
place, then, to generalise a little. Taken alone and as
individuals, there is, of course, no excuse for the
double moral standard between husband and wife.
But you can't in the wife's case look at the individual
alone. You must judge the crime by the scope of the
evil it effects. Now, I don't mean to say there is any
danger of accident in the matter at hand God for-
bid that I should even suggest it but I'm just
giving you one of the answers to your little theory of
the single standard. And then it has this bearing on
the present question : Your cousin 's nothing for-
give me if not strong-headed. So far as I can
make out it 's her chief charm. Well, by telling her
about your little peccadillos, you 're just giving her
an excuse for future ones of her own. Harmless
ones of course and not bad, but merely annoying."
" Stop ! " cried Dick in agony. " You don't under-
stand it at all. How can you talk so? It's mon-
strous, horrible ! "
" I said not bad but merely annoying."
" Yes, yes, I know. But hang it, you 've missed
the whole point ! How can you talk so, whatever you
may mean, in connection with a good woman ? Don't
you know what one is? I can't have you go on this
way, if it costs me your friendship. I really can't.
The girl 's an angel."
The Major smiled and carefully brushed some ashes
from his coat.
346 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" My dear chap/' he calmly continued, " if I were
a woman and a man called me an angel, I would
never marry him. The other thing one could forgive,
but an angel ! Now, you Ve started me and must
just sit still and let me finish. You can blacken my
eye or commit any vulgarity you please afterwards.
Only, I must talk first.
" If you tell a woman all your sins, she may if
she cares for you she undoubtedly will forgive you
now and the confession might even lend you a sort of
melancholy glory. But glory and forgiveness are
transient things and marriages, unfortunately, stable.
Sooner or later there 'd come a day when the pardon
would change into condemnation and the glory be-
come a reproach. She could n't always feel edified
at having saved you. She must some times feel regret
for the necessity of such an act of salvation. And at
that time the sins of your youth would become the
excuse for those of her maturity small ones and
mere annoyances in this case as I observed before.
I don't say hers would be real sins, you see, they 'd
probably be mere thorns among the roses, but,
between real sins and annoyances, the former, for
pure peace of mind, are, in another, infinitely to be
preferred. You don't want to be continually reminded
of former shortcomings. You don't at all want to be
reminded of them. You want to forget them and, if
ever you tell a woman, that 's impossible. Even if
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 347
she never opens her lips about them, you '11 find it
impossible."
" Now, are you done ? "
" Very nearly."
" But you Ve missed the point, I tell you ! "
" I don't want to do anything but keep you from a
foolish veracity. It is n't even that. These things
are understood by every woman of the world."
" But, I 'm glad to say, she is n't a woman of the
world not of your world, at least."
" No doubt, but I don't think she 'd thank you for
saying so. It 's curious how the best of women
always like it to be thought '
" Oh, rot ! As a mere matter of policy, I think I
ought to let my cousin know everything. I don't
want anybody to come back at me in four or five
years with some disgraceful tale, some miserable,
vulgar scandal."
" The best way to avoid that is passed. It was at
hand only a year ago last summer. Stuff! Who
could do it, or would do it if they could ? You Ve
given me to understand that you Ve had a little affair
of the heart with some presumably respectable girl
here in Philadelphia well, she 's the only one
you Ve ever written letters to, is n't she ? "
Jarvis nodded.
" Very well, then, the others would n't have any-
thing to show for it if they would come, if they even
348 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
knew who you were or got trace of you which is
most unlikely would they? "
" No, they would n't."
" Exactly. Well, this one girl would n't try to
expose you if she 's sane, as I suppose she is. Why
should she expose you ? She 'd have everything to
lose and nothing to gain."
" Oh, I don't think she 'd do anything silly. She 's
terribly level-headed. Besides, there 's nothing com-
promising in what I wrote her, if I recollect
rightly."
The Major laughed.
" You 'd recollect all right if there was ! But for
heaven's sake, then, what are you hesitating about?"
he asked. " You Ve got the deadest past of any man
I know. What do you want, anyhow? There 's not
one witness against you."
" Yes, there is one you have n't counted on."
"Your conscience?"
" Exactly. I can't altogether, I 'm glad to say, get
away from that."
" I thought that would be at the bottom of this.
You men in love are all alike and all commonplace.
You 're a fool. Do you suppose there 's one man in
the world who does not conceal some little thing at
least from his wife ? Well, no matter how small
that something originally was, it will assume tremen-
dous proportions just because it is concealed. Yet,
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 349
do you think that prevents the man from being a
good citizen, a good husband, or a good father?
Quite the contrary. It makes him a better one,
because he must be continually sacrificing to propiti-
ate that skeleton in his closet. Every time his con-
science pricks him he regards it as a fresh sin and he
has to be even more patriotic, more constant, more
tender, to overbalance it. And that state 's much
better than the alternative I told you of a few minutes
ago."
Jarvis' whole nature revolted against the man's
tone, but he was quiet enough in his answer, because
he now readily discerned his friend's sincerity.
" I can't have it, Major," he said, " I really can't.
Don't talk this way. You can go to the devil, if you
like, but I don't want to."
" Why, Dick, I Ve nothing to say against your
cousin and, if I were addicted to such things, I 'd
probably love you as a very dear friend. I think
Miss Bartol 's a splendid example of her class
strong-headed, as I said, and so full of life as to lean
toward innocent indiscretion, nothing more. You Ve
got so blamed morbid lately that you exaggerate every-
thing in the wrong way."
" No I don't and I won't. And she is n't indiscreet.
I don't like indiscretion in a girl."
" Because you yourself want to monopolise that
quality of the firm. Exactly. But do you know?
350 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
I think it's that in her more than anything else
that has caught your heart."
" Well, perhaps. Yes, I dare say you 're right."
" And I think she 'd suit you very well. Once I
told you that one married a companion, not a woman.
That 's true, but I did n't mean that the companion
must be like one. In fact, the reverse is often better.
That 's a commonplace, so I hurry away from it. As
to your early marriage, I don't see why it should n't be
a go, provided you first finish up your four years at
Cambridge. You Ve got plenty of money and after
a short engagement the public one, I mean you
could settle down very comfortably. As for your
talents, you need n't be afraid of burying them
that 's been done long ago. Seriously, though, you
could do good work yet. The important thing is to
fix this up and then to go back to College and keep
your head."
" Well, I 'm glad you agree with me in that, any-
way, and I think, of course, that I Ve got the right
girl. The truth is, I 'd love her anyhow."
" I 'in glad to hear you adopting that unreasonable
sentimental tone. It shows that your affection is real,
anyway. I 'm sure you 're right. In spite of your
philanderings, you Ve returned to this ideal and that
goes far toward proving that ideal true and your
worship of it sufficiently sincere. It 's different with
me. I never stop long in one place, never retrace
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 351
my steps and rarely look behind me. Anything that
catches my eye will catch my fancy and hold it until
my eye is caught by something else. The daring
tilt of a hat, the challenge of a flower in careless hair,
the way a skirt is held or the colour of a glove
anything suffices to do the business for me and
nothing can do it for long."
" Major," said Jarvis, softening at last. "I I
wish it was n't so. There 's no peace to that. It 's
' a burning forehead and a parching tongue ' as long
as you live. Don't you mean to hit it off some day?
It 'd be the best thing for you. I really think it
would."
" Probably. But it's no use to suppose, is it?
This is a chaotic world, and it amuses me to stand off
and watch it spin. You 're in the midst of it and I 'm
outside. We can't really touch each other any more.
We can only call out as you whirl by. I can no
more be a part of the world than we rich men can
enter the Kingdom of Heaven. We 're both happy,
but on the whole I guess you 're the happier of the
two. Meanwhile, don't worry. You want my help.
Well, such as it is, you shall have it. You Ve got the
right stuff in you, anyhow, and even Fate can't make
a sow's ear out of a silk purse. But you must take
my advice."
"What's that, besides what you Ve given me?"
" Win this girl and proceed to deserve her. Good
352 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
heavens, I Ve toned down and I 'm sure you could,
then. Go back to College for the rest of your time
and behave yourself. You '11 get in everywhere if
you do and if you don't, why you '11 still get the main
thing that Harvard has to give. The College lets you
make your choice and always allows you to change
your mind. Good Lord, I 'm no preacher, but I
mean this ! You Ve only got to be decent and do a
fair share of work and that thing about the old place
that isn't to be had anywhere else in the world is
yours and success and happiness through life along
with it."
" And you think this affair would help instead of
hinder? For my own part, of course, I am sure it
would."
" And so am I. Naturally, you '11 do as you please,
anyhow, I would n't give a damn for the chap that
did n't but this is n't as if you had a touch of that
recent plague among us the marriage of chorus-
girls. And you can both wait. Meanwhile, I don't
mean you '11 have to go in for the Prospect Union and
teach all you don't know to labourers who don't need
it. But I do mean that you 're one of the men as
sure though for no wordable reason of making
the Dickey, if you only behave, as we are of playing
Penn again next year, recent difficulties to the con-
trary notwithstanding. There 's the ' Advocate ' din-
ner at Ramevail's just waiting for you, not to mention
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 353
the Pudding and the place of Class Day poet, and
good work of that sort after you 're out of College,
good just because, as I told you, you won't have to do
it if you don't want to."
" That's a little too flattering," Jarvis protested,
smiling none the less, " but I know what you mean,
and I 'd made up my mind anyway to stick it out.
There 's something about the old place, we 're
always saying that are n't we ? but there is some-
thing about it that nobody quite understands who
is n't in some way one of us ; yet It 's something more
than what people call ' college life ' or education, or,"
he obscurely concluded, " or anything of that kind.
It's just Harvard, just the place its very self, I guess,
the true inwardness of it, that 's even more than beau-
tiful and that makes it worth while if you starve
through the whole four years of it, I suppose, or die,
or never know a soul."
" Yes, you 're right," said the Major, somewhat
shortly. " Only, you .know, we don't mostly talk about
it, even among ourselves. But it is true. There 's
Memorial, for instance. It seems easy enough to say
what it stands for, yet ever since it was put up the
smartest men in the country have been trying to and
have failed, mostly with miserable bathos."
" Perhaps," suggested Jarvis, " the commonplace
buildings and class rooms stand for even more, but
\ve fellows who know it best find it, I think too
23
354 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
somehow too awful and fine and sacred, almost, to
say."
" And because we sensibly keep our mouth respect-
ably shut," replied the Major, " and because we don't
vote on the handsomest man in the class and can't
point to So-and-So as the most popular, silly persons
talk of ' Harvard indifference.' No, we will leave
Philistines to mouth about what they call ' Old
Harvard.' They are disgusting. But, Dick, you
must n't lose your chance there. You '11 do as you 've
a mind to about this affair, of course. Only in the
way you go about it, for heaven's sake take the
advice I offered first ! "
The Major's conclusions in that matter may not
have been precisely exact, but he believed in them,
and the result of his conversation, so far as he was
concerned, was another, scarcely so satisfactory, with
Miss Bartol. He would never have admitted to any
one, and to himself especially that he had un-
dertaken to plead Jarvis' cause for him ; but the angel
of the ledgers could scarcely enter the act under any
other head.
This talk took place the very next afternoon on
Walnut Street when Peggy, according to her new
custom, insisted upon walking with her cousin's
friend and leaving her mother to the care of Dick.
The Major was clumsy in such a presence and found
that he had at last met a Roland for his Oliver.
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 355
" Jarvis is a pretty good sort of a fellow, don't you
think?" he asked with the customary irrelevance of
the embarrassed.
" If you doubt your own judgment, how can I
say?" replied Peggy, smiling serenely. "You know
him well, you see, and I scarcely know him at all."
" We all think a great deal of him at Cambridge."
"Indeed?"
" Yes," and to the Major for a moment there
seemed nothing else to be said.
But he was not to be bewildered by any of the
blind alleys of conversation and so, after a pause, he
continued : " We all so want to see him marry."
" Goodness, how ridiculous ! Why, he 's a mere
boy ! "
" No he is n't, neither in age nor experience. And
he 's so awfully in love with some one. Anybody
can see that."
"Who'd have thought it! There's the Baroness
De Gooseback. How funny she does look ! They
say she 's been dressing like a girl of sixteen for the
last forty years ! "
" Yes. Of course we can't guess who it is, Miss
Bartol, who the girl is that Dick 's in love with, I
mean, you know. But she seems to have treated him
pretty shabbily."
"Pretty shabbily?" echoed Miss Bartol. She
was all attention now.
356 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
The Major thought he had struck a good lead at
last, and resolved to follow it to the end.
" I should say so," he stoutly asserted. " Here 's
a young fellow with more ability than any one in the
class ; a rich chap and a handsome one ; half the
girls in Boston are crazy over him, and he simply
shuts himself up in his room and thinks about some
little chit who 's too stupid to appreciate him."
There came an added colour into Peggy's cheeks,
but she said nothing.
"It's too bad," the Major ran on, "too bad. How-
ever, we think he '11 now change his mind soon."
"Why's that?"
Was it possible that there was a sharp note in that
flute-like voice?
" Well, we Ve simply conspired to end it. We 're
not going to see him ruined and we have a scheme
to put a stop to it. I think it '11 work. There are
others as I said before."
She was silent for a while. Then she said,
" Here we are at home."
They had still half a block to walk, but that was
enough for the Major, and he concluded the journey
in silence.
When, however, they had reached the entrance of
the Netherlands, Peggy turned about and got in one
last laughing aside to the Major.
" I have always understood," she said sweetly, " that
THE NEW DISPENSATION. 357
you were, first of all, epigrammatical. I have n't
found you so this afternoon. You Ve been so un-
interesting that I 'd really advise you to stick to your
specialty and let your friends speak always for them-
selves."
CHAPTER XXIV.
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO.
JARVIS' brief vacation was nearly at an end when
the evening for the Easter Dance arrived.
This is a comparatively recent affair, a subscription
exotic of Philadelphia's younger set, where most of
the girls who are to come out next season are sup-
posed to gather in order that they may learn from the
debutantes present what it is all like. The men are
of every age, but " the committee in charge " is, as
a rule, composed of beardless youths who are for the
first time feeling their importance in the universe and
are beginning to see in themselves the dictators of
future Assembly lists. They are, indeed, so busy and
so important as to be in a continual bath of perspi-
ration and officiousness the whole evening long.
The scheme is only a half dozen years old, which
is new for Philadelphia, and is consequently regarded
askance, as something of an innovation, by a few of the
more correct families ; but its years agree very nearly
with those of its perpetrators and these cling to it
with all the affection of a young lioness for a weakling
cub. Moreover, it is old enough to have assumed
a definite form quite as immutable as the laws of
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 359
Persia, and that is going far toward its accepted
establishment.
Men may come and men may go, but a Phila-
delphia annual dance is the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever. As Dick and the Major the latter it
had taken a whole day to persuade climbed the
three toilsome flights of stairs in Natatorium Hall, the
former could have described with perfect exactness
what they would see when they reached the top.
The frugality of Quaker City minds is never better
exemplified than in their arrangement of these yearly
affairs social. For each of six seasons before, the
scene had been the same, and sixty years hence there
will be, probably even as regards the patronesses, no
material change. To his comrade the picture was
doubtless pretty enough, but to Jarvis who had seen
it so often, it had lost a considerable portion of its
appeal.
The newspapers of the city keep their descriptions
of these dances set up for use and marked, year after
year, " Hold for orders." " An exuberance of youth
and riot of beauty characterised," they say, " the
assemblage of several hundred members of the
younger element of Philadelphia society, at the an-
nual Easter dance last evening. The Natatorium,
on South Broad Street, where the dance was held, was
adorned throughout with blossoms and blooms of
variegated tints, relieving a background of deep green.
360 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
Huge banks of lilies, palms, bay trees, white, pink,
and red azaleas and acacia were made at either end.
Southern smilax was draped and festooned over the
walls and a tasteful (sic) arrangement of red and blue
bunting gave an exquisite touch of colour to the
floral decorations. The polished dancing floor re-
flected in its surface four large chandeliers, which
were daintily decked with sprays of orange begonia.
Around the sides of the hall were columns, sur-
mounted by palms, while at one corner of the room
the orchestra was concealed in masses of plants."
All of which means that the orchestra was hid
supposititiously behind some artificial palms in one
corner ; that along the walls at regular intervals stood
a few sickly imitation bay trees with benches running
beneath them, and that mirrors at the far end of the
hall helped to make it appear as large as it should have
been. Beneath a mantlepiece, near the musicians,
was arrayed that equally necessary commodity, a
group of patronesses. Over their heads were hung
the eternal red and blue bunting, covered shields and
flags, colours without which any Philadelphia dance
is altogether incomplete.
" The first thing for a stranger to ask at a dance,"
said the Major after they had done their homage to
the group of stout dowagers, " The first thing for a
stranger to ask at a dance is who to avoid. Consider
yourself asked, Dick."
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 361
" Avoid the strugglers," replied Jarvis. " This
matron who picks our pockets by painting our minia-
tures from photographs and that one from whom
* youth the dream ' has n't taken the fondness for the
company of our sex, both have something to recom-
mend them. They could n't be successfully disreput-
able unless they had some cleverness."
"But the strugglers?"
" They are so uncertain of their position, that, for
fear of losing their social balance, they dare n't lean
either to the right or left. They must always be
smiling and suave. As a consequence, they are
always good and boring."
He had hardly finished speaking when one of the
extremes of this latter class bore down upon the two
Harvard men. She introduced her daughter, a supple
blonde in lavender and nile green who had come out
two years before, and Jarvis was forced to whirl away
with her before he had a chance to look for Peggy
among the huddling groups of rustling dresses.
The Major had been caught up by one of the
younger girls in high necked white gowns and had
refused to dance. That is, he had opened the con-
versation by saying that it was entirely too warm for
such violent exercise and had then proceeded to watch
the couples that shot in kaleidoscopic flashes before
him.
There was very little for the two to talk about, so
362 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
he had small difficulty in persuading her that he
wanted to have certain of the dancers pointed out to
him. What he really wanted was only to hear her
voice as a foreigner unacquainted with the language
might hear it. He did not want to be bothered with
having to attend to her words, which were, by com-
parison, utterly unimportant. His companion, how-
ever, took him literally and entered upon a catalogue
that, had he really listened, would have scarcely proved
so entertaining as the mere sound of the deftly in-
flected phrases appeared to indicate. The women
were mostly poorly dressed. But they were certainly
the prettiest of their sex in all the world, and as the
Major's companion was one of them, and as she
added to the beauty that is only as deep as the cuticle
that quality of voice which is, after all, the best thing
in the best woman, he found the situation tolerably
pleasant. Indeed, as the music was, of its kind, very
fair, he became so enamoured of his scheme that by
the time the evening was over he had had half the
girls in the place pointing out the other half to
him, silent, or at best only monosyllabic, at their
side.
On his part, Jarvis was delighted to find himself
enjoying the dancing for its own sake. He had re-
covered the love of movement in perfect rhythm with
a delicately timed accompaniment. He was happy
in the simple sense of having turned back the page
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 363
of time, of having snatched his heart from the dev6ur-
ing maw of the years.
When they met again, however, the Major, if only to
sustain his reputation, felt bound to enter some form
of protest.
" See here, Dick," he complained. " I submitted
to come to a dance, but I did n't say anything about
a kindergarten."
But Jarvis' attention was elsewhere. Down at the
other end of the room, a trim little figure in blue was
bowing before the patronesses. He had been watch-
ing for it since his own entrance.
" There she is ! " he cried and made off toward his
approaching cousin.
Peggy had evaded the deepest schemes to get her
to the dance in the Jarvis carriage. The best laid
plans had all failed and Dick had feared the worst.
But now she carried the American Beauties he had
sent her and was accompanied only by his harmless
uncle, Harry Freeze. The relief was a little too
extreme.
" Is n't this my dance?" he asked with the as-
surance of his years.
" Don't you count your uncle at all? " she answered.
" Age first, you know."
" That 's a trifle hard on me," said Freeze, who was
slight and florid and had really done wonders in the
way of making a small brain serve for a large head.
364 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" Not half so hard as it is on me," Dick objected.
" But you '11 have the anticipation of the next
dance to help you out, while the realisation is all I '11
come in for."
" I ask nothing more than the realisation," replied
Jarvis, glancing at Peggy.
But his cousin's eyes were fixed on the whirling
forms about her. She had obviously come there to
dance and considered that the paramount object of
the moment.
Dick made the best of it and watched her slip into
the stream of dancers so easily that she seemed at once
to become an irresponsible part of it. But she was
by no means a lost factor. On the contrary, he could
not have lost sight of her had he wished to. For the
first few times she passed him, he watched the blue dress
float by in the hope that he would get a passing
glance, but he might as well have spared himself the
pains. She was looking up at Freeze and talking
faster than ordinary waltz-time.
Jarvis did not like it. He did not like it at all.
He had looked forward to this ball with a good deal
of pleasure, because here he would dance with Peggy,
but he had failed to calculate upon her dancing with
other men as well. The discovery, in fact, startled
him. It appeared somehow to make her commoner,
to lower her, and to make her in a measure and for
the moment the property of whatever arm happened
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 365
to be about her waist. The Methodists were not,
then, so far wrong after all. The sensation was
scarcely a pleasant one and he was, therefore, not in
the gayest of humours when he again crossed the hall
to meet his cousin.
" Now comes the realisation, Dick," said Freeze.
" I envy you after all," replied Jarvis. " Yours is
the sorrow's crown of sorrow."
His hurt was severe, but it could not long be proof
against the balm of the situation that now presented
itself. In a few moments he was gliding away he
knew not whither, without effort, without thought.
The happy present extended itself to an ecstatic infin-
ity that swallowed up both past and future. The low,
slow waltz throbbed in his ears with long delicious
minor notes, and his whole body, his complete being,
was resolved into a unison with it. His very muscle
was a part of a perfect poem, every tissue of his body
responding to the minutest chord of the flood of
melody, while resting upon him, looking up at him,
with her breath upon his face and her whole figure
swaying like a part of his own, was the one woman
who comprised all life for him.
Only twice did his eyes wander from hers ; once
when, for no sufficient cause, it suddenly occurred to
him that Mary Braddock might, by some ill and unus-
ual chance, be in the room, and again when the Major
for once, by unimaginable wiles, inveigled into the
366 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
waltz bumped heavily against his shoulder. He
rapidly assured himself that his fear was ungrounded.
His brush with his collegiate friend permitted of
neither explanation nor apology, for the good reason
that the Major's efforts at gracefulness occupied that
gentleman's whole attention. He was dancing as if
it hurt him.
The waltz proved as short as all such things invari-
ably do. Its immeasurable present came to a sud-
den end and entered into the irrevocable past. The
music stopped and Dick and his partner brought up
under the bay trees just as Hardy dashed down
upon them to claim the next dance.
Jarvis kept his seat. He did not care to dance
with anybody but Peggy, and he felt hurt that Peggy
should care to dance with anybody but him.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the room, his
cousin was telling Hardy how much she was enjoying
herself. It was a mere conventionality, but he an-
swered it with,
" And do you feel toward this dance just as you
did, you remember, toward the automobiling? "
" Oh," she laughed, " I could dance even longer."
That Hardy was as happy as Jarvis had been was
evident to the latter from the manner in which the
envied swain had taken the girl away, his head
thrown back and his eyes turned up as if drawing in-
spiration from on high.
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 367
The Major sauntered up on a mission of consolation.
" So the ' beamish boy ' got her, did he? " he asked.
" Well, she might be in worse company, and you can't
expect to have her all the time just yet."
" Ridiculous ! " Jams replied, angry as we all are
at being detected in our secret faults. " Of course, I
don't mind. Don't be a fool. Why should I mind,
even if I had any right to? "
" Because you 're human and in love. That's why
you should mind. If you were n't offended, I 'd take
it as the worst possible sign."
Jarvis laughed good naturedly again.
" Perhaps you 're right," he assented. " Anyhow,
the next one 's mine."
" And the next, if you can get it. That 's right.
It 's a thing that can't be overdone ; don't be
afraid."
Jarvis was not. W T hen he was again drifting upon
that swaying stream he and she one and a part of it,
he could find no words to say but those that asked
for still another dance.
" Can't you spare me one more just one more?"
he asked.
" After supper, perhaps."
" Oh ! Then of course I can have one, or two.
But mayn't I have the next but one now? The
Major wants the very next."
" Does he indeed ? He has n't taken the trouble
368 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
to ask for it. Do men always ask favours for each
other?"
"I don't know I don't care. Just tell me if I
may have it. May n't I, please? "
His words were asking for a trifle ; his tone, low and
trembling, was begging all that she had to give.
Their eyes met again and then hers slowly fell.
" Perhaps," she said in a tone as tremulous as his.
" Come to me when it 's time and I '11 see."
" There he goes," the Major was saying to Hardy,
he thought it just as well to warn him; "she has
feathers on her head and nothing in it. Just the girl
for him. He '11 find himself an intellectual giant by
comparison, and the discovery '11 keep him in a good
humour all his days."
Jarvis got the dance he asked for he had felt sure
he would, though when he came for it Peggy vowed
she was cutting one promised to another man.
"But then," she added, "you dance much better
than anyone else here, so it's no great compliment."
Dick was satisfied to take it without asking questions
and, on her part, his cousin must have felt something of
the witchery in the scene, for when he asked her to sit
out the succeeding dance she seemed willing enough
to be with him and loath only to miss the dancing.
" When I go to one of these things," she explained,
" I like to dance every dance. I never get tired till
next day and then I 'm asleep and don't mind it
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 369
And then at a dance * to-morrow ' sounds farther
away than ever."
" But you don't really object to sitting out this one
dance in the other room?"
" No-o." She had a way of saying it slowly,
through pursed lips. " Not just this one. But it 's
honestly the last one you may have before supper."
He had thought it was too early for the " other
room " to be filled and when they pushed back the
curtain to enter it he found that his conjecture was
correct. The place was empty. There were one or
two lamps burning dimly, but their radiance was
scarcely illuminative. Here and there were scattered
tete-a-tetes and a few odd chairs with wide, vain arms
petitioning occupancy.
Jarvis was ill at ease. He had determined nothing
relative to the Major's advice. He had fixed upon
one thing only. The rest could be adjusted as the
occasion arose.
Peggy sank upon a rude sort of half lounge and
rested her head on its high back. Dick took up a
position close by her, looking out of a window on to
Broad Street. But he did not let the thoroughfare
engage his attention for any length of time. He had
far too much to say and might at any moment be
interrupted.
She was looking up at him, half smiling half serious
yet wholly saucy. The blue light from an electjV
34
370 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
lamp in the street played over her face as if with a
caress and lost itself in the folds of her lighter blue
dress. A supple arm, that the rumpled glove seemed
loath to hide, was stretched out along the dark back
of the seat; her hair, a little disarranged, had let loose
one frolicking lock that trembled on her forehead ;
her breast still heaved with the glad exertion of the
dance. From without the notes of a low, minor
waltz, pathetically sweet, stole softly into the room
and seemed to play in mystic waves of melody about
her. Yet happiness shone in the tell-tale eyes
ambushed by the arch little nose, and in the pink,
shell-like ears, the tumbled hair, the mocking chin.
She was so full of life, so much the incarnation of
some wild primrose !
" And this is absolutely the last dance ? " asked
Jarvis, almost whispering the words, lest he should
break the charm and see the dryad flee.
"Absolutely until after supper," she laughed.
" Well, you Ve been very kind. I 'm surprised that
you should have given me any."
" Why? Be careful or you '11 make me sorry that
I did."
" Because, then, I was so rude the last time you
were in Boston."
" I suppose I should n't have let on that I even
noticed that, but I did," she said, trying to laugh
again, yet with a slight catch in her voice.
WHAT A DANCE MAY DO. 371
"You 'd never guess why I did n't see more of you."
" Don't let 's try to guess. Suppose we forgive
and forget."
She was busy now turning up the collar of her
ermine cape and then turning it down again.
Jarvis moved behind her and leaned over on the
back of the seat. He was trembling painfully.
"No," he said "Let us talk of it. I want to
apologise."
" But you have."
" I was n't always rude."
" No unless it was the other night when when
you were putting on my coat, you know and per-
haps but no, I guess you were n't then."
" Perhaps when? "
" Never mind."
" Oh, please tell me," he pleaded.
" Is this what they call Harvard indifference? " she
asked laughing.
" It 's downright anxiety," he assured her.
" Well, then, I meant that night we were driving
and were lost in the dark."
" We 're all of us lost in the dark most of the time
except you, may be. But surely, I was n't rude
then? Why, do you know, Peggy, at that time I
imagined I was in love with you ? "
He could not see her face now, but the collar was
turned up violently.
3/2 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" You were very foolish," she replied, in a changed
voice.
He took her nervous hands in his and held them
fast above her head.
" Was I, Peggy? Was I, Peggy, dear? I won't let
you go till you say that I was n't."
"Why not? Oh! Don't be foolish again, Dick!
There ! The music 's stopped and the next dance
belongs to "
"To me, Peggy. I love you. You must know it
you must have known it long ago. I don't amount
to much. I know that " It was at the tip of his
tongue to say more, but he only added "Yet I love
you, with my whole heart I do. Tell me that you do
care a little for me."
She ceased struggling. Then,
" One moment," she laughed. " Did what-d' you-
call 'em the Major? tell you to do this? "
" Why no," he gasped in amazement. " What on
earth ?"
" Then yes, I do Oh ! Dick ! Not here ! "
But Dick was disobedient.
" Sweetheart ! " he cried, " And I never guessed it ! "
By a sudden movement she wrenched herself free
and darted toward the doorway.
" It did take you rather long to find out," she said
And the dryad had disappeared.
CHAPTER XXV.
GOKURAKF.
THEY planned with all the sanguine certainty of
youth. " Ricardum Jarvis, alumnum ad gradum Bac-
calaurei in Artibus admisimus, atque dedimus et
concessimus omnia insignia et jura ad hunc honorem
spectantia : Dick was to finish out his course at
Harvard ; he was to arrange for going into business
with his father, for spending his final summer abroad,
and, upon his return after graduation, he was to
inform Mrs. Bartol and his own parents of what had
come about at that Easter dance. Jarvis chafed at
the delay, but Peggy put it, " It is so that we may
have a chance to know our minds."
" I know mine quite too well for my own comfort,"
he answered her, " but if you still doubt yours "
She stopped him in the one effective way, and had
her will ; conceding, however, a generous two or
three days addition to his vacation before his return
to Cambridge.
The Major was to go north at once. He had
graduated cum laude from his study of Jarvis and
felt that he had nothing more to do with an affair so
foreign to his traditions.
3/4 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" It 's all very pretty, Dick," he said ; " it 's as beauti-
ful as transubstantiation and the immaculate concep-
tion; but poetic myths have nothing for me."
Jarvis went with him, of course, to Broad Street
Station to see him off, too happy to feel much pity
for those who could not share his happiness.
" I Ve only one more piece of advice to give," said
the Major as he shook Dick's hand : " Keep the
thing a secret from everybody we must hide our
shame except from Hardy. Tell him at once."
As the train pulled away Dick noticed a man lean-
ing far out of a window and looking toward the gate.
He was big and strong, and was crying. He waved
his handkerchief and threw kisses again and again
with great, labour-stained hands to some one behind
Jarvis who had passed the barrier and was standing
well within the car shed. Dick turned. Some
twenty paces back stood a thin, delicate-looking
woman, coarsely and rather shabbily dressed, and by
no means pretty. She had dropped the hand of a
sobbing girl of five or six, held a baby with arms out-
stretched toward the retreating train, whilst her whole
body shook with unrestrained emotion, and the tears
ran unheeded down her face.
The sight dampened his spirits and, momentarily,
saddened him. He was angry that any one should
know sorrow when he was so happy. He had
imagined the whole world glad as he. Buoyantly he
GOKURAKF. 375
repelled the omen. He slipped a bill into the wo-
man's hand and hurried away, giving no chance for
refusal. Yet the Major's parting words seemed to
conspire with this tearful family separation to presage
ill. He did not understand them, and liked them
none the better for that.
On the steps he met Hardy.
" Hullo ! " he cried, " are n't you going back to-
day?"
"Are n't you?"
" No, the fact is, I Ve something important which
will detain me for a day or two."
" So have I. I meant to see you fellows off I
understood you were to leave by this train and as
usual I am too late."
" Not too late to see me. Come over and we will
drink bon voyage to the Major."
They crossed the street and sat down in the rear
room of a saloon.
" So you Ve something to keep you here?" asked
Jarvis, filled with his own momentous secret.
" Yes a little thing a a "
"Come, Hardy! You are taken at last? I know
the symptoms."
" Well, yes, I suppose you may say so," ad-
mitted Hardy, blushing intensely.
" Bert Hardy ! A stricken deer ! Break it gently.
Of the knowable universe, the last man I This is too
3/6 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
much. My poor boy, what a dance she'll lead
you ! "
" I dare say she won't get the chance."
"Uh?"
" I mean I 'm not worthy of her and sha' n't ever
propose to a girl till I am. Besides," he added smil-
ing, " you know Stannard's opinions on the duties of
Sophomores. I have three or four years before me
yet."
" Take my advice and don't wait. Women don't
keep well. As for being worthy, that 's a worn-out
fad. You 're worthy enough if you love them."
" That 's a matter of opinion. At any rate, I 've
been foolish to tell you. I just had to tell somebody,
though. I suppose you '11 guy me now. It 's your
turn."
"Stuff! Why, you have n't told me anything and
I 'm in the same box. Hardy I did n't mean to tell
you, only the Major says I 'd better. I suppose he
thinks I ought to tell the crowd, so you can all help
keep me straight, as if there 'd be any need of
trying, but I 'm engaged."
" To be married ? " gasped the other man.
" Certainly, did you think I was going on the
boards? Yes, we've fixed it all up. I'm going to
keep it a dead secret until I come back from Europe
after my finish at Cambridge. Then we 're to an-
nounce it, you know, and the governor 's going to let
GOKURAKF. 377
me into a corner of his business, anyhow, and we '11
settle down in this place."
The confidant of these assurances was silent for
a while, carefully breaking a pretzel into small bits,
regardless of the crumbs that showered on his lap.
Then he said
" What f s who 's the girl ? "
" Good Lord ! " cried Dick. " There 's only one
possible ! "
That was exactly what Hardy had thought. Never-
theless, he managed to reply,
"Yes? And who's that?"
" Peggy Bartol, my cousin, of course. You idiot !
Who would you imagine? Now tell me about your
girl."
Hardy smiled, and gathering together the bits of
pretzel, let them fall slowly through his ringers to the
floor.
" No, not now," he said. " It 's four-thirty and I
should have been at the club by four. Some other
time, perhaps. Good-bye."
And he stood up, brushing his clothes.
" Well, here, are n't you going to congratulate me ? "
asked Dick.
" Oh, I beg pardon ! I thought I had. You know
I do congratulate you with all my heart. I 'm sure
she's the nicest girl in all the world except mine,
of course."
3/8 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
He was smiling again as he went toward the door.
" You 're civil, I must say ! " Dick called after him.
"Well, I shall expect to hear all about your case
when we meet again."
Poor Hardy ! He did not care to have that meet-
ing take place very soon. He had worshipped Peggy
in silent awe and from a distance far below her, as the
devotees of the Fire God bow low in the shadowy
valley before the sun that rises over far-off white
mountain peaks. It could scarcely have been called
love, after all. In those early days of his affection he
would no more have touched her with earthy hand
than would the kneeling Catholic pour in praise of
Dionysus the last drops from the eucharistic chalice.
And now the sanctuary where he had not dared to
pry was to be violated ; the veil of the temple rent
from top to bottom, and the holy of holies ravished
by his friend. He would go around and say good-
bye to her that evening and then take a night train
back to Cambridge where he belonged.
Left behind, the unconscious Jarvis finished his
beer at his leisure, supremely content. Heaven had
indeed been opened to him at last. He did not de-
serve it he well knew that he did not but what
man could have refused it then? What man having,
however unsuccessfully, laboured to gain it, could
throw it aside once it had become unexpectedly his?
Certainly that man was not Richard Jarvis. It was
GOKURAKF. 379
his and he would be content in that fact to enjoy it,
He had forgotten the soiled angel who was the direc-
tress of his happiness; he had forgotten even Mary
Braddock. His conscience never troubled him for a
moment now. When he last sought advice he had in
a manner shifted conscience off on to the shoulders
of another and, moreover, he now really believed that
the Major was right. Few of us could be happy if we
knew the pain that our joy is giving others, but Fate,
not wholly unkind, has hidden from most of us the
law that for every thrill of joy there must be, either in
ourselves or in others, a corresponding twinge of an-
guish, and Dick could not see into Hardy's heart.
He sat there for some time alone, sipping from his
glass and puffing slowly at a cigar. The place was
hot and close; the ceiling was low and the floor
covered with beer-stains. But these things were not
for Dick. For him the damp walls receded indefi-
nitely, the blackened ceiling disappeared; the real
picture vanished and the dream-picture took its place.
Who dares to say what that dream-picture was?
Banal perhaps, but sacred certainly. Painted it was
by love and time, by sorrow and the years. The glass
glowed in his hand, delicate to fragility; the beer
became the rarest Falernian; the cigar was a cool
Manila.
Ah, sweet, impossible, impalpable dreams cloud-
cities that people our narrow horizon, catching stray
380 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
gleams as from some higher plane ! Are you indeed
but hopeful figments of the mind, mere chimeras of
the air-devils who would lead us through expectancy
to disaster and despair? Or are you, as with Jarvis,
like the mirage that tempts the thirsty desert traveller,
the ideal reflections of some real haven that some
day, blindly, we know not how nor when, but some
day, we may still attain?
Dick awoke with a start. The evening had set in
and the waiter had opened a window behind him pre-
paratory to sweeping out the place. Jarvis looked at
the clock through the gathering gloom. It was after
six and he must still dress and dine and be with
Peggy by half-past eight.
When he passed the outer door of the saloon a
drop of rain struck him in the face. Another and
another followed and the early twilight was explained.
He sought refuge in a nearby hotel, resolved to have
his dinner there and thus put in the time until the
rain had ceased. He did not want to go home at any
rate ; in his present frame of mind he much preferred
dining alone.
In the crowded room there was an orchestra that
was playing as he came in. It annoyed him and dis-
turbed the current of his thoughts at first, but it soon
stopped and he forgot it in the continuation of his
day-dream. He forgot his consomme too, and the
waiter took it away untouched. He nibbled at his
GOKURAKF. 381
saddle of mutton ; toyed with a chartreuse punch, and
was fast becoming oblivious to everything over his
coffee when the music began again. He did not
notice it at once. Then gradually the familiar air stole
in upon his consciousness and he dropped his spoon
with a sharp clatter. It was the " Traume."
The tremendous tidal wave of memory swept down
upon him and engulfed him. It was vain to struggle,
vain to battle against it. Blind chaos had come
again in that remembered form and while the notes
continued, pleading, sobbing, imploring, resumed its
old empire. And in the throbbing of the violins
there came to him these words,
" Whenever she crosses your path, this woman,
sooner or later, will cast you down deeper than you
ever were before. ' Your own iniquities shall take
you, and you shall be holden by the cords of your
sins.' "
So this was " the deadest past " the Major had ever
heard of!
When at last the orchestra was silent, and when the
tide of melody that had so tossed him about, swept
back sobbing into silence, he was left broken, ex-
hausted, half-drowned, but safe upon the shore. He
must tell her all, must tell her at once. It was impos-
sible for him to enter upon a new life of deception.
After all, if there was a sensible woman in the world,
that woman was his fiancee. This was the twentieth
382 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
century. Men and women were no longer the victims
of distorted theories, of mad ideals; they were the
victims of themselves only, and mankind had learned
to be indulgent and to forgive. At any rate, he must
take his chances. Lying he would have no more of,
come what might. He would tell her that very
evening. He remembered the once unmeaning text
that he had learned as a boy and this he went out re-
peating as he started home to change his clothes,
"When the wicked man turneth away from his
wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that
which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MAN.
SlCK at heart and heavy at head, Hardy was yet
unable to deny himself one more word with his god-
dess before he left the shrine forevermore. He was
rebellious at first and inclined to take his fate bitterly.
To give her up would not have been so hard had the
suitor been the ideal man for his ideal woman. But
to have her go to Dick Jarvis, with whose dissipations
he was so familiar and for whose mental miseries he
could make no allowance, that was difficult indeed.
The man was his friend and as his friend he loved
him ; but the woman was an idol to whom even he,
purer at heart than any of his companions, had not
dared to approach, and he instinctively revolted from
the slightest suggestion of her desecration.
At one moment he felt impelled to rush to her
and expose this roue to whom she was about to plight
herself for life. At the next, the horrid doubt sug-
gested itself that perhaps Jarvis had made no secret
of the shortcomings and that she, a mere woman after
all, had taken him at his own frank valuation. But
the first of these ideas he soon repudiated as visionary
384 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and the second he banished as impious. The one was
impracticable, the other hurt only himself. What
right had he to dictate the gift of her affection? What
would she say to him if he attempted it? He was
convinced that, for whatever reason she had come to
do so, she must love her fiance". This being so, she
would refuse to believe the most overwhelming proofs,
while he had only his bare word and the strongest
possible motive for slander. Yet, to believe the other
proposition was to destroy his own idol, to deprive
himself of the poor solace of a dream. No, he must
take the middle course. She could not know the real
Dick Jarvis and he must see to it, as best he might,
that she should never know him. It would be the
most inhuman cruelty to dispel her illusion either
then or now. Yet the waves seemed to be meeting
above his head. He could only see her once more
and say good-bye.
Peggy received him easily and graciously enough,
though she expected Dick and was eager for his
arrival. For some time she talked only conven-
tionalities, but at last the subject that was uppermost
in Hardy's heart came bluntly to his lips.
" It 's very rude of me, Miss Bartol," he said, " but
I came here to congratulate you, and I have n't done
so yet."
"Congratulate me?" she asked. "Upon what?"
For a moment Hardy half hoped that Jarvis, per-
THE MAN. 385
ceiving his devotion, had been chaffing him. Of all
delicate situations, the most exquisite is probably that
of wishing a girl joy upon an engagement of which
she is guiltless. Hardy got out of it a little better
than might have been expected of him.
" Dick hinted at a very good piece of news this
afternoon."
Peggy was decidedly nettled. She had kept her
part of the bargain of secrecy, and she was very angry
that Dick had so flagrantly broken his. An affianced
man is by no means a social impossibility, but a
woman in the same position is avoided by the sterner
sex with a consistency that proves the honour that is
among thieves. For the time that was to follow Dick
would be able to enjoy himself, whatever happened ;
but she would be alone and, liking the company of
men, she did not propose to throw it aside too rashly.
If Dick saw fit to lie for his pleasure, she saw no
reason why she was not privileged to do the same for
her own convenience. Perhaps it was this mere
pique that urged her to begin a harmless flirtation
with the man readiest to hand so long as that man
was another than her accepted suitor.
"Oh, Mr. Hardy, Dick 's been joking," she said
with a genuine gasp. " Don't you know it 's very
terrible to congratulate the woman anyhow? But
there 's no need of any congratulations in this case."
" What? " cried Hardy open mouthed and hopeful.
25
386 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
" We Ve both been made game of, that 's all."
"Is is that all?"
She knew what he meant, and hesitated a minute
before replying, but she was chagrined that Dick
should have done this thing and so she answered,
"Yes."
He looked suddenly into her eyes, his own full of
hope. And then he paused. What it was he had
seen he could not tell. He could not even then have
dreamed her capable of the most venial deception.
And yet a certain subtle something in her face told
him plainly that his ideal had vanished. He remained
but a little while longer, talking of nothings, and
then went his way, saddened he scarcely knew why.
Jarvis, delayed in hurrying toward Peggy's hotel,
almost met him on the steps. He was a trifle dis-
turbed, of course, but decidedly hopeful. He thought
he knew womenkind pretty well and had come to the
conclusion that unless a woman hates you there will
be some mercy in her soul. Unfortunately, this young
philosopher failed to recognise the fallacy of his
premise. When a man says he knows women he gen-
erally means that his relations have been chiefly with
one woman and he has found out that he did not
know her.
Peggy, moreover, was not in a favourable mood.
She was still angry at Dick's loquacity and bewildered
at the sudden departure of the man with whom she
THE MAN. 387
had been trying to amuse herself. When Jarvis came
in she was seated alone in the little reception-room of
their suite, dressed in a virginal white that became
her well and showed to advantage her heightened
colour. She did not offer to kiss him as he advanced
to her, but gave him a little push aside, drawing back
the supple neck clasped by a single string of pearls.
" What's the trouble?" he asked, laughing.
"None," she replied. "Only I didn't know be-
fore that you were in the habit of boasting of your
conquests at the sacrifice of your promises."
" I don't think I understand," he said, a little
coldly.
"Don't you really? If you don't, I don't know
who does. I mean that you Ve been telling our
engagement all about town before you tell either my
mother or your own parents, and when we 'd agreed
to tell nobody."
4< Oh, come now. I Ve told nobody but Hardy,
and I know he would n't tell anybody else."
His voice weakened a little as he spoke, for, upon
reflection, he could not be quite sure of the latter
statement.
" Nobody but Mr. Hardy?" she asked, ironically.
" Well, yes. You see, I thought I 'd better tell the
fellows at Cambridge. The fact is, they '11 be easier
on me that way. You can't understand it ; but, unless
a fellow has a good excuse for not going into all sorts
388 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
of things, he '11 be turned right down for a ninny, as
he ought to be."
" It would have been well if you had told me all
this before and made that provision at the time of
our agreement. As it is, it sounds more like an
excuse than an explanation. And, besides, it's too
late I 've told Mr. Hardy that we were not
engaged."
" But you don't mean it? "
" Mean what? I think it was, to say the least,
very inconsiderate of you. Can't you stand a few
College set-backs for my sake ? I told you, you know,
that you were n't acquainted with your own mind."
Forgetting that he had come to beg for mercy, he
was inconsequently angry. But he had grown to
love her too much to risk an open rupture by giving
vent to his displeasure. Manlike, he put himself at
once in the wrong.
" No, no ! " he cried, " I do love you and I 'd give
up anything for you. You know that, so forgive me
just this once ! I '11 stop Hardy's tongue and the
Major's and the matter shall end there just as you
want it."
And finally she did forgive him with all the gentle
mercy that a woman can display when she is herself
the offender.
For a few minutes after this reconciliation he sat
beside her ready yet fearful to begin his own con-
THE MAN. 389
fession. Looking down at the head that rested on
his shoulder, stroking tremulously the yellow locks
that tossed upon his coat, every line and tint and
feature was stamped, a perfect picture indelible,
upon the tablets of his memory. It was one of those
moments that, for no apparent reason, engrave them-
selves upon our hearts and, after they have assumed
an unforeseen importance, accompany us to our grave.
Through undreamed years of sunshine and shadow
that picture will never quite vanish from Jarvis'
memory, never quite die away. Before that night he
never knew how much he loved her. A wild sorrow,
a passionate tenderness, passed over him, so that his
lips scarce dared to touch her cheek ever so lightly,
and as he stroked again the gold-smitten hair it was
with a vague dread now that he was doing so for the
last time upon earth.
" Peggy," he said at last, true to his new resolve,
whatever its consequences, " do you believe, dear,
that when a woman loves a man she loves him what-
ever he may be or do ? "
To his own ears his voice was the hateful Judas of
his soul, but to hers it was nothing more than tender.
" You foolish boy ! " she cried, laughing. " Have
you a sin to confess? Out with it ! "
" No, I Ve none exactly. But do you think so,
dear?"
" That depends on the woman/'
390 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
"Well, suppose she was the best and grandest
woman in the world ? "
" Now I 'm sure you have ! "
He was smiling himself now.
" Would she? " he repeated.
" She could n't love anybody but the man she saw
in him, but if you mean something he 'd done before
why, yes, of course she would, that is, if it was be-
fore she came to love him, you know."
" Do you really mean it? Are you sure?"
She had raised her head and was gazing intently
at him, the little white satin foot beating a troublous
tattoo on the rug.
" Yes," she said again.
" Don't be scared," he continued. " It 's only
a story I 'm writing. The one that's to get me
a name before I marry you. It 's a problem novel,
you see, and I want you to solve the problem."
The face cleared and a smile, like the sun among
storm clouds, lit it up.
" I '11 not promise to do that. But I '11 be a most
attentive listener."
Yet his heart failed him.
" I don't know that I ought to tell ; it 's bad luck
for one to tell one's plot," he said, repenting.
"Oh, I don't count !"
" Don't you, though ? And do you really want to
hear?"
THE MAN. 391
" Of course I do. Don't be a tease, Dick."
He took a long breath and began. He would see
the thing through.
" It's the story the story of a chap with a rich
father ; a handy thing to have in real life even, who
loved him, but only showed it in indulgence. He was
tutored at home ; they 'd never let him go to board-
ing school ; it was the one thing they denied him,
and he grew up with no knowledge of the real world
except what he 'd got from books, - a false and twisted
one, somehow. With that knowledge, with these
ideas of things, he was suddenly turned loose upon
real life. He he imagined that he'd fallen in love
with the first beautiful woman whom he met. She
did n't love him. She was good-natured and bad.
But she was beautiful, too, of his own position in life
or nearly so and above all she was sophisticated.
She took a passing fancy to him and ruined him."
As he proceeded, overcome with a great self-pity,
he was living every scene over again, embellishing
unconsciously with the instinct of the real artist, but
at heart sincerely true. His breath came short and
hot, his voice was hoarse and low and monotonous,
but binding, intense, convincing.
" He had to go right to Harvard," he continued. -
" I want to write about things I know and have seen,
you understand and up there, even as soon as he
left her, indeed, he realised what he had done, what
392 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
he had lost. Of a sudden he had been brought from
a world of lies face to face with the truth, and he
could n't bear it. He went from bad to worse, from
hell to hell, deeper and deeper, faster and faster, until
he got as low in the gutter as a man can, and yet his
eyes were fixed on heaven all the time, for all the
time he was looking for what he could n't find. And
then, all of a sudden again, he met a girl, a pure,
good girl, and he he loved her. He could n't
save himself except through her, and she would not
have touched him if he 'd told her what he was. So
he did n't tell her until until after he 'd made love
to her. And her answer that's the problem,"
Jarvis lamely concluded.
He drew a long breath of suspense.
Peggy had grown ashy pale again and now with-
drew the hand he had thus far managed to retain.
Her face was turned away. When she spoke at last
it was in a tone the very reproduction of his.
" What do you mean? " she asked, scarcely above
a whisper, yet enunciating every word as if it hurt
her but must be spoken.
" Can't you guess ? Have n't you guessed already ? "
He was almost sobbing. He tried to take her
hand again, but again she drew it away.
" I think I can," she said.
" And what 's the woman's answer when he asks her
if she loves him still? What 's your answer, Peggy? "
THE MAN. 393
"Was was that all?"
Yes except the details."
" Spare me them ! "
" Then you do forgive me ? "
She answered very slowly, her face turned from
him.
" If that was all yes."
He must tell her all. A half lie would now be
worse than the whole truth.
ft Well," he went on, trying hard to appear at his
ease. " Of course, I did n't. You see, it 's hard for
you to understand these things. But after I 'd made
up my mind to tell you that I loved you, after that
drive last fall, and even after the football game, or
until I came down here I did n't break off right
away."
" Dick ! "
There was a long pause. The rain had come on
again and he could distinctly hear the drops plashing
dismally against the window-pane. Then all at once
he flung himself upon her and folded her tight in his
arms.
"Peggy! Peggy! What's the matter?" he cried,
his whole soul pouring out at his lips. " Sweetheart !
Won't you answer? Won't you speak to me? Oh,
I can't lose you now ! You said you 'd forgive me.
Forgive me ! I 'm bad, oh, I know I 'm bad ! "
She wrenched herself away and stood with blazing
394 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
eyes looking down at him cowering with tear-stained
face and arms stretched out to her.
" And you you dared offer yourself to a pure
woman ! " she said.
Light, happy, thoughtless often to extremes, she
now suddenly found herself the subject of seemingly
immutable principles she had never guessed extant
before.
" Other men are the same," he basely protested.
" I was only frank enough to confess. I could n't
live a lie with you. That was all my crime."
" Other men may sin, but they can repent too,"
she answered, in a dry, hard voice, giving easy vent to
truths she found ready within her, truths to which
she had never formerly given a thought. " You
don't know what repentance is. You tell me you
loved me and in the same breath confess that
you were . Oh ! Why, you would go back to it all
to-night if it offered ! "
His excuse was the old one, the last resource of a
weak man.
"You don't understand. Women never can.
They are so different from men."
" Then I thank God for it that they are."
In vain he tried to plead, to argue. There can be
nothing so adamantine, nothing so cruel as a pure
woman. For one moment she appeared broken; but
she never really wavered, and soon regained her self-
THE MAN. 395
command. She spoke in a voice at times low and
calm, and again high and tremulous, supercharged
with emotion, but quite without expression.
" You are frank," she said. " I suppose I must
thank you for that, yes, I must thank you for that,
but do you suppose I can love you ? do you think
I could ever trust you after this ? "
" But I did n't know you loved me then ! "
" You knew you loved me as well as you ever can
love, I suppose. It 's not that you were wrong. It 's
that you can't love; you're spiritually, mentally,
incapable of it."
" But I was a mere boy then, an irresponsible child,
a madman ! "
" You were ready enough to disclaim your youth a
day or two ago."
The most truthful of men will unconsciously try to
appear what he wishes himself to be. It is easier
than being it. So Jarvis had perfect faith in his own
words when he replied.
" Oh, can't you see how it was?" he cried. " You
were my ideal from the start I did n't know what I
wanted, but you were. It was you I was hunting for
through the whole mad dream, blindly perhaps, but
still hunting for you through it all. That 's why I
grew tired of them all so soon. It was a constant
pursuit upon false scents and the capture always
proved my disillusioning. Through it all the worst
396 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
and the blackest part of it my heart was true to you
all the time ! "
" I can't see it that way. I may be doing you a
wrong oh, I wish I knew ! but I can't see it that
way. I hope for your sake that you believe it so."
" Then what shall I do? What shall I do? "
" You have only one duty. Go back to this first
woman - you belong to her. It is she you mean, of
course) when you talk about not ' breaking off.' Go
back to her. Give her the best that's in you. Give
her your whole life, your whole work. Only by sav-
ing her can you ever hope to save yourself."
" It's impossible to go back to her in the way
you mean. I may belong to her, in a sense, but she
does n't belong to me. She was bad when I met her. I
left her as I found her, no worse, no better. If I
return to her, it only means to go back to hell to
amuse her for a day and then be turned away into the
old rut. She 'd no more dream of marrying me than
of marrying the moon."
" Then I see nothing for you to do. Don't ask me,
anyhow. You Ve been cruel enough and I 'm not fit
to give advice."
" I might go to the Philippines and die of the fever,
of course," he said bitterly.
" It would be the best thing for your parents and
for me."
" Then you do love me still a little, oh, ever
THE MAN. 397
so little?" Hope blazed in his face once more for
the last time. In a voice that was high and piping he
rallied all the shattered forces of his passion and
reason for a last assault It was a brave charge. He
called upon her love, her pity ; with all the eloquence
of despair he entreated her; his gesticulating hands
making fearful attempts to caress her, his face dis-
torted almost beyond human semblance.
But the attempt was futile. She listened, her
brow contracted in pain, the furrows deepening at
every fresh endearing epithet and weird new shadows
of age stealing into her fresh young face. When,
panting wildly, he had stopped from pure exhaustion,
" Is that all? " she asked again.
He stretched out his arms to her once more.
" Don't touch me, I say ! " she cried, gathering
back her skirt.
"Then have you nothing to say?" he asked, ab-
sently twisting a ring upon his finger.
" Nothing," she replied.
" Then I suppose that 's all. Good-night "
And without raising his eyes he crossed the room
and went out.
She waited until the door had closed upon him and
then in that place, with its tawdry gilt and white furni-
ture making so incongruous a setting for a tragedy,
she threw herself at length upon a lounge.
She buried her head in the cushions. She dug her
398 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
small white fingers with their angrily gleaming jewels
into the satin coverings. Her whole body was torn
and rent with convulsive sobs.
" Oh, Dick, Dick ! Come back ! " she cried. " My
God, is nothing pure ? "
CHAPTER XXVII.
MAN AND WOMAN.
OUTSIDE Jarvis stood for a moment in the rain,
asking himself where he was and whither he was go-
ing. He turned up Walnut Street, the wet drops in
his face gradually restoring him to consciousness.
His whole life swam before him : babyhood, boyhood,
manhood but there was no youth ; he had never
known what that was. He remembered it all as the
drowning man is said to remember. Even Lily
Forrest was there. Poor Lily, he thought; how
quickly he had forgotten her ! He was being punished
for that now for everything.
Endowed with whatever a man might desire, with
nothing to do but sit still and let joy come to him, he
had missed it all. He had plunged into the weary
search for happiness, going no farther astray after
corpse-lights than most other men were doing, and
now, like Moses, he must die on the Mountain of
Nebo, in sight of the Promised Land. " All Naphthali
and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the
land of Judah unto the utmost sea and the south to
4OO JARVIS OF HARVARD.
the plain of the valley of Jericho, and the city of palm
trees unto Zoar : " he had gained for his pains but a
sight of these.
He had but tasted a little honey and lo, he must die.
The awful monotony of life, the terrible sordidness of
death, were clear to him at this moment as they had
never been before. Yet he had tried ! If there were
gods above they knew that he had tried ! And what
had it all proven? Out through the years he must
send his soul alone, alone, to sin again and swear to
sin no more, to hope and yet to fall again. After the
multitude of his bitter struggles, his crime and his
repentance, his laughter and his tears, he was to-day
just where he had been eighteen months eighteen
centuries ! before it all began.
The inconclusiveness of the human tragedy, that
was it ! Nothing substantial to be obtained ; nothing
actual to be won. Along the weary pilgrimage of life
we seek the incomplete ; we live for threescore years
and ten and prove nothing, find nothing, die empty-
handed. Was this all that we were made for, to do
life-long battle with mighty forces in unequal war ?
The tremendous progress of mankind works on
through slow, unending seons to its consummation;
the progress of the individual is swallowed up and
lost in its process.
And he had been so near the goal at last ! He had
had the glimpse of heaven that showed him the one
MAN AND WOMAN. 4OI
certainty of his life, that made clear, beyond doubt or
peradventure how glad he could have been how
easily he would have been true and strong forever
had he but been allowed to pass the sacred portals.
How bravely he should then have returned to College
and learned there the real lesson of Harvard, a lesson
he should have carried thence throughout a happy
life !
He was interrupted by the sound of music, by the
"Traume" of Wagner. He looked up and found
himself before the house of Mary Braddock. Perhaps
it was all an illusion and yet, through those cold stone
walls, the subtle pianissimo stole out and a low voice
the voice of the syren wooed and wrapped him
warmly round and drew him forward.
He hesitated, but thought that he saw the finger of
Fate. He loathed her, and somehow the insidious,
sobbing strains, rising and falling in weird overtones,
seemed to have a new meaning that he could not at
once distinguish. Yet he felt that she was somewhere
there thinking of him as she sang. Was it not the
cords of his sins? Must he again return to the old
wallowing in the mire?
He went up the steps and put his hand upon the
bell-knob.
No!
There was yet something to be done much to be
done. He had balanced his moral ledgers and found
402 JARVIS OF HARVARD.
the grand total of his loss, but there rushed upon
him the abiding sense of it there still was left one
thing, one thing that he would never throw away.
Whatever his faith or unfaith in God and man, he
could at last believe in himself. He had, in the past
few days won his own first skirmish and assured the
end. Because that victory was uncrowned, was he to
be coward enough to retreat at such a time? He
would never now give up all that he had gained,
never ! In the great fight with Destiny the individual
might be doomed to defeat, but it was the individual's
glory to have and to wield a power that should turn
defeat to triumph, to be unperturbed in suffering
and implacable in endurance ; to do his work in spite
of Fate ; to fall in harness and to die with smiting
sword in hand. Crowns ! What a crown was there !
Love was lost, hope was lost, joy was lost. But
Richard Jarvis remained.
Resolutely he turned away, his shoulders squared
for the long conflict, his young head high, never to
bow again.
But before he had left the steps, while yet the
music fell harmlessly upon his ears, there came an-
other sound, a sound that made him instantly all
attention, the patter of light, unsteady footsteps run-
ning up behind him.
He wheeled about and, under the unregarded glare
of the electric lights, the hatless, cloakless form of
MAN AND WOMAN. 403
Peggy Bartol flung itself, between hysterical laughter
and joyful tears, straight into his waiting arms.
They said no word what need was there of
words? but, as they stood a moment so, the sing-
ing voice within the house died away and the
music of the piano continued alone continued alone
and rose once more to that true meaning of the
" Traume," that high love which, since it first held
sway, has mocked at all laws of custom and systems of
philosophy and shall mock them to the end.
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" Brimming with incident and action." Los Angeles Herald.
20. The Knight of King's Guard. By CAPTAIN EWAN MARTIN.
"A most admirable novel." Church Progress.
21. The Mate of the Good Ship York. By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
" A story filled with the savor of the sea." Portland Press.
22. The Road to Paris. By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS.
" The reader will find it hard to lay down the book." The
Pittsburg Times.
23. The Triumph of Death. By GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO.
" The writer of the greatest promise to-day in Italy." The
Bookman.
24. Vivian of Virginia. By HULBERT FULLER.
" A well-conceived, well-plotted romance, full of life and
adventure." Chicago Inter-Ocean.
GENERAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
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Period
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
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