Lantern Marsh

“And having done so, Professor,” asked Mauney, “what remains? What is the future of man?”

“Endless labor,” he immediately replied. “All he can do is to study his past mistakes, profit by them, and attempt, ever and anon, to improve his social state. New moralities will crop up from time to time, for moral standards are evolutionary and are merely suited to existing states. Man’s fate is solely to move through shifting phases, through various new codes of ethics and to dream of a happiness which is always out of sight.”

Mauney refrained from continuing the argument, for he noticed that Mrs. Freeman was flushed as she ate her dinner in preoccupied silence. They tried to change the subject, but the meal ended in awkward stiffness. Mauney continued to think of that happiness, which was always out of sight and that struggle which was always won by the strong. The thoughts really disturbed him, for he was thinking indefinitely of Maxwell Lee. Could it be possible that Freeman was right?

The historian finished his meal in silence. Mauney, with queer biological insight, imagined the man to be secretly glorying over the victory suggested by the meat on his plate. It had once been alive. Man was subjecting it to the service of his pilgrimage of being.

A subtle chill had entered by the window from the outside world, rendering this compact family group no longer intimate friends. They were now selfish animals, eating other animals, by the light of burning tallow. And it seemed fitting that the light was so dim and flickering—all was mystery, cold, impenetrable, and the great happiness was out of sight.

The two men smoked anon in the familiar study upstairs. Mauney conversed with his professor in a mood of semi-detachment, unable to pull from his eyes a screen that was changing the apparent world to new interpretations. Even the study was permeated with the chill atmosphere that existed only in the imagination. Little currents of cool air played upon his spine like horrid fears. The volumes that filled Freeman’s capacious shelves stood like dangerous enemies against whom he felt he must be on guard. In the chair before him sat and smoked a puny man whom Merlton and a continent acclaimed as great. But the screen was drawing across him too—a dangerous menace grew mysteriously out of the perennial smile that played upon his lips. He would smile life out, this dangerous man who had conquered existence, and reduced existence to its bare biological structure. While Mauney sat beside him the historian’s words affected him more deeply than they had ever done before. The hot spot burned in Mauney’s breast, as it had burned at Christmas with Maxwell Lee. He suffered from its heat; he struggled inwardly, knowing that even seated in a quiet upstairs study, his own fate, hinging on the direction of his tempted thoughts, was in danger of change.

At last it was ended. It was time for him to leave the scholar with his books. He rose from his chair and went downstairs, glad to be away from him. He carried confusion of mind with him to the drawing room where Lorna sat at the piano, playing. He was puzzled. He did not interrupt her, but stood near the instrument watching her. He wanted to leave the house, for the burning, the unexplained, but painful burning continued in his breast, and he coveted solitude.

“Did you like that?” she said, as she finished, and her blue eyes turned to his. In them she saw no conscious response. “You’re moody to-night, aren’t you Mauney?” she asked indifferently.

“Oh, play some more, Lorna,” he said, trying to smile. “Please do.”

He sank thoughtfully into a chair as she continued, but he heard not a note of her music. A sadness such as had never possessed him had settled upon his being. It was as if he had already gone to the professor and said:

“I am leaving. I am going far away. I appreciate all your kindness. But I’ve got to go.”

It was as if he had already gone to Mrs. Freeman and said: “Good-bye. You have been decent to me, but something takes me away for ever from your sad home.”

And it was exactly as if he had interrupted the girl at the piano to say:

“Lorna, it was all a sad mistake. Forgive me, I’ve been inconsiderate. I thought I loved you, but now I know that it was the challenge of your mind that attracted me. I am going. Think of me as a foolish boy who did not understand himself.”

In the keen stress of his present mood he had mentally said these things as he sat near her. Some challenge of this home had awakened him to a confused realization of the vital quality of life. What was it? He could not understand. But he knew that he had a great account to settle with things. His deepest convictions had been touched at their source. He wanted to be up in arms to protect them.

The most absurd thing that he could possibly bring himself to imagine was the fact that he had asked this woman at the piano to become his wife. Still more absurd was his present obligation of chivalry to enquire now as to her final decision. With a sense of playing with sacred things, he wound up his courage and spoke to her, when she finished her music.

“Lorna, please come and sit near me,” he said, automatically rising. “I want to say something to you.”

She turned slowly on the piano stool and hesitated, while she looked in a surprised way from his face to the chair and then at his face again. She had never seen the commanding features before. His blue eyes were severely direct, his brow puckered with seriousness, his mouth determined. He was not to be denied, as she could divine from his manner.

He turned the chair for her to sit down and then when she was seated he quickly resumed his own chair.

“Matters have hung fire long enough between us, Lorna,” he said. “I want to know what you have decided to do about me?”

“Mauney!” she replied, in a tone of anger, that brought a flush to her face. “I thought you had forgotten all about that.... And I have been so humiliated!”

“Naturally you would be,” he admitted. “I apologize for what seemed my indifference. You have had a long time to consider what I asked you, and I am here to enquire as to your decision.”

“Why on earth be so wretchedly business-like about it?” she blurted angrily. “One would imagine you were trying to sell me a house?”

“Again, Lorna, you must pardon me,” he said slowly, and paused, while he shifted in his chair. “I really did not mean to give that impression.”

“You’ve hardly come near me since that night when you—when you kissed me!” She was beside herself with anger, although she spoke in almost a whisper. “Do you think I am the kind of girl you can kiss when you please, and then, after acting coldly for several months resume operations once more at your own whimsical choice? Do you imagine that I relish such treatment?”

“No doubt you don’t, Lorna,” he said. “But do you, on the other hand, realize that you are a girl whom I find it very hard to know how to treat? When I asked you to marry me you replied quite calmly that you would have to consider the business very cautiously. Well, then, I’ve given you time to be about as cautious as you wish. What have you decided to do?”

“I haven’t decided to do anything, Mauney,” she replied in a tone of complete exasperation. “How do I know whether I want to marry you or not? I think it’s totally absurd. I scarcely know you. I know nothing about your family—you’ve never mentioned them.”

“Why should I? The girl I marry isn’t going to marry my family—am I to take your answer as ‘No’?”

“I’m afraid you are,” she replied tensely. “How could you possibly expect any other answer?”

“Well,” he said, hotly, “there are several reasons why I might expect another kind of answer.”

“Oh, please don’t!” she half gasped, raising her hand as if his mood greatly disturbed her.

“I’m going to tell you one or two of those reasons, Lorna. I don’t think I have an exaggerated opinion of myself by any means, but, at the same time, I believe my family were just as good as yours and—”

“Oh, Mauney, don’t, please!” she implored, rising, and burying her face in her hands. While he paused he was surprised to observe her shoulders twitching. In a moment she wept.

“I can’t stand this,” she said, sobbing. “I’ve never quarrelled with anyone before.”

Mauney walked to the piano and leaned thoughtfully against it.

“I’ll say no more, Lorna,” he said at length. “I’m really sorry to have upset you this way and ask your pardon most humbly.”

“All right, Mauney,” she said, gradually gaining control of herself. “You are pardoned, but please don’t ever mention marriage to me again. Will you promise?”

“I promise that,” he said simply.

“You know we are both so young,” she continued. “We were childish to mention it. Don’t you think so?”

“I do indeed.”

She came close to him and did a very unexpected thing. She put one hand on each of his shoulders and looked up seriously into his eyes.

“I don’t know anything about men,” she said with all the simplicity of a child. “I hope I haven’t hurt your feelings. I wouldn’t want to do that. I’ve always liked you. Why can’t we be friends?”

“That will suit me, perfectly,” he said. “As a matter of fact, Lorna, that’s all we can be.”

“I know it,” she replied, turning away. “Let’s not be foolish again. Dad told me something to-day and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to mention it—your appointment on the history staff.” Her voice had resumed its customary tone. “You’re awfully lucky, Mauney. Dad has unbounded faith in your ability. I just thought I’d mention it. Aren’t you terribly happy about it?”

“I can’t tell,” he said slowly. “I’m not in a mood to lie just now. I’m not happy just now. I’m most unreasonably sad.”

CHAPTER IV.
Mauney and Freda Have a Talk.

Mauney could not sleep that night when he had returned to his room. For two hours he tossed restlessly on his bed when, finding sleep utterly impossible, he got up, put on his slippers and dressing gown to descend to the dining room, where the hostess and Stalton and two strangers, one a man the other a woman, were seated at cards around the table. Mrs. Manton looked up at the sound of his slippered step.

“Well, look what God has sent us,” she softly exclaimed. “If you have any money you’d better get into the game, Mauney.”

She introduced the strangers.

“Mr. Wright and Miss Wanly have dropped in for a few hands. Nobody seems to be winning,” she went on. “Maybe you are the man with the rats. What do you say?”

“Why, I say ‘yes’ of course,” Mauney quickly responded. “I don’t know how to play, but I’m sure I could learn it in five minutes. Will you show me how?”

He drew up a chair while she quickly explained the principles of the game.

“All right,” he said, picking up his first hand. “I’m on. I’ve got it cold. Give me one card, please.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Stalton, “That sounds interesting. Give me one, Gert.”

“Well here’s where I drop out,” she soon proclaimed as the betting continued. “Go on, Mauney, raise him.”

“I will, indeed,” he replied: “I’ll raise you a dollar, Freddie.”

“A dollar, eh?” soliloquized Stalton, glancing sharply at Mauney’s face. “I’ll see you and bump her up two more.”

Both the others put down their hands and settled forward in their seats to watch the game.

“Good,” said Mauney. “I’ll see you and raise you two. What do you say to that?”

“Ho! ho! The boy is right there!” said Stalton, placing a chip on the table. “I’ll just call you, Mauney. What have you got?”

Mauney placed his cards on the table.

“For heaven’s sake,” exclaimed Mrs. Manton, examining them. “A royal flush! Rather nice, too, Freddie!”

She brushed the pile of money toward the winner and gathering up the cards handed them to Mauney to deal.

“No,” he said, getting up from the table. “I’m not going to play any longer.”

“What’s the matter?” she enquired, curiously.

“You tell me. I’m all out of gear. I’ve been trying vainly to sleep for two hours. Go on with the game. Here, Gertrude, you take this pot and play with it. I don’t want it. I’ll lounge over here for a while.”

He lay down on the sofa and lit a cigarette.

“Maybe you’ve been working too hard, Mauney,” she said, going over to his side and touching his brow with her soft, jewelled hand. “You’re hot.”

She turned for a moment to excuse herself temporarily from the game and sat on the edge of the sofa.

“You’ll be all right, boy,” she said in her deep tone. “I guess you’re tired out after your long term of work. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I’m afraid not, Gertrude. It’s just a cranky mood I’m in.”

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“No thanks. I’m not having any. I’m just fidgety and disagreeable.”

“I never saw you like this before. I’m afraid you’ve been taking life too seriously. I know you don’t mind me talking. Excuse me a minute. I’m just going upstairs to see if your room’s properly aired and made up.”

“It’s fine, Gertrude,” he said. “Don’t bother. The room’s got nothing to do with it.”

However, she was not to be dissuaded.

In a few moments she returned with a folded newspaper in her hand.

“Did you see the literary supplement of the Globe, Mauney?” she asked. “Well, here’s a half column that ought to cheer you up a little. Read it.”

Taking the proffered journal he read the portion indicated under the Book Review section:

The critical article closed with an optimistic forecast of the book’s popularity, “especially in non-technical circles.”

Mauney had been so engrossed in reading that he did not notice until he finished that Freda MacDowell was standing beside the sofa.

“Hello, there,” he said, quickly casting the journal aside. “I didn’t see you.”

“What do you think about the review?” she asked eagerly.

“Well,” he replied, crossing his legs and lighting his cigarette which had gone out. “If you’ll sit down a minute I’ll tell you.”

She accepted his invitation and leaned towards him.

“Isn’t it just the dandiest review you ever saw?” she asked. “I’ve been up in my room just glorying over it.”

“It’s good,” he admitted. “I appreciate the reviewer’s decency and I feel like calling you my sister in adventure. You’ve stuck to me like an Indian, Miss MacDowell. You seemed to—believe in it.”

“How could I help it?” she replied. “You managed to express a number of things that had always lain dormant in my own mind. I wanted to say them. But you said them for me.”

For a moment or two they sat in silence, half listening to the progress of the game at the table which was now being played with renewed enthusiasm.

“Gertrude told me you got a royal flush,” she said at length. “What’s that?”

“All kings and queens,” he answered, carelessly, then asked: “Did Gertrude wake you up?”

“No. I wasn’t asleep.”

“She must be a mind-reader.”

“Why so?”

“Because, to be frank, I was wishing I could have a little chat with you, but I was afraid you’d gone to bed long ago.”

“And I was just simply aching to see you,” she answered. “I brought home the literary supplement about eleven o’clock and wanted to show it to you, but she said you had gone to bed. Just how I was going to wait till morning I didn’t know.”

Another silence fell upon them during which they both watched the intent faces at the table. Mauney was stealing occasional sidelong glimpses of Freda’s beautiful profile, and wondering what might be occupying her thoughts. To-night he had more difficulty than ever before in repressing the strong attraction she unconsciously inspired.

“If I had known you’d be here,” he said. “I’d have worn—not this dressing gown.”

She shook her head and laughed.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” she said. “I’m enjoying you in your robes. That’s one reason I like this place. You don’t even have to dress up your thoughts, here.”

He was reflecting upon how little personal he had ever been with her. Together they had spent many hours working on the manuscript, in strict detachment, with minds focused on the work in hand. Many times he had felt the urge to break through the delicate shell of reserve, but had refrained, partly because he had wanted to preserve his concentration for literary effort, but mostly because the figure of Max Lee was constantly in the background. He knew that his chum loved Freda MacDowell. He had always taken her reciprocation of Lee’s affection for granted until recently, when he began looking for signs of it.

“But I’m afraid,” she said, “that our dear old boarding-house is soon going to become a thing of the past. Everybody seems to be leaving.”

Mauney turned in surprise.

“I haven’t heard a word about it,” he said.

“You knew that Max wasn’t so well, didn’t you?”

“He looks poorly, but he has never said a word about health to me, lately.”

“He’s really pretty well all in, I guess. He’s leaving in a day or so for Rookland Sanatorium—”

“What! Throwing up his work?”

She nodded.

“The doctor insists on his going at once. It’s too bad. Max is such a bright boy. But there’s only one thing for him to do.”

“You know, Miss MacDowell,” Mauney said in a low tone, “Max has never been the same to me since that day when he came home and found you and me starting the book. I’ve always felt that he was jealous. But we’ve never mentioned your name.”

“It was very foolish of him to feel that way,” she replied, with an independent toss of her dark head. “Surely he had no reason or right to be jealous. Max and I have just been friends, nothing more. And even if we had been in love, I would have still had the same interest in your book. Some people weary me. But as I was saying, Max will be leaving. And Freddie and Sadie are going to start housekeeping up in the North End. She’s raving about their bungalow and says this boarding house is no place to raise a family.”

Mauney laughed.

“It looks as though Gertrude would be left pretty lonely,” he remarked.

“Oh, no,” corrected Freda, lowering her voice to a whisper, “I haven’t told you all yet. This is naturally confidential. But Gertrude and I have become great pals. She seems to like to tell me things. The big joke is that she really isn’t a widow.”

Mauney’s eyes opened in tremendous surprise.

“Where is her husband?”

“He’s been living in hotels in Europe,” she said, with evident enjoyment of Mauney’s astonishment. “He left her because she insisted on keeping up a friendship with another man. Just separated—no divorce. Well, I think seven years of running a boarding-house has more or less broken Gertrude’s proud spirit. Manton has been writing her for the past year, trying to resume married relations with her, and she has finally given in. She expects him home in a couple of weeks and I imagine that will be the end of seventy-three. She cried up in my room the other night, real Magdalen tears, and I believe she has learned her lesson.”

“I hope she’ll be happy,” Mauney said. “It’s plainly another case of false rebellion. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.”

“I know just what you mean,” Freda replied. “There’s some sort of uppishness about her. She wasn’t strong enough to endure the bonds of marriage life—”

“That’s it—so she rebelled,” interjected Mauney. “But her rebellion was merely the hysterical reaction of an inadequate personality to its environment. Sooner or later with such people there comes some sort of circumstance that proves the falseness of their rebellion. They wilt.”

“But on the other hand,” continued Freda, with an aspect of some inspiration in her eyes, “there are others who are true rebels. Some of us were made to be perpetually out of gear with things. Our rebellion is genuine. We never turn back. We can’t, that’s all. I wish you could understand me—”

“I do,” he said eagerly, smiling into her eyes. “I understand completely. I can’t help feeling that we are in the same boat. I’ve never yet found any kind of life which completely satisfied me. Take this book of mine. The fun was all in writing it, Freda.”

She blushed at the sound of her first name. It had slipped past Mauney’s lips, but he saw no reason to apologize.

“Nothing suits me,” he continued. “The first part of my life I lived on a farm. Nothing would suit me, but an education. Now I’ve got it—and—well, it does not satisfy.”

He felt great comfort in Freda’s presence, greater, more mysterious comfort, than he had ever known before. Most women existed in an unreal atmosphere outside his own immediate consciousness. Most women were elusive phantasies of pure appearance, without content or meaning. But it had so happened that Freda’s dark eyes were able to pierce the zone of unreality and stab consciously into his being, even during the first hour of their acquaintance. It had so happened that the seeds of that first encounter found exceedingly fertile soil. His effort to exclude her from his mind had been just as futile as he considered it successful. He was indeed master of his conscious thoughts, but in the reservoirs of his being, this unusual girl had been living an unmolested life, free to come and go, to commune with him in mysterious, unheard conversations, to mingle her nature with his in hours when his subconscious self had fled with her beyond the limits of recognized experience. It was because this knowledge of her had been entirely buried that he now wondered at the comfort of her actual presence.

They talked on and on, forgetting the others in the room, and forgetting also the late hour. Together they described their common feelings of rebellion against university education. It was not ordained that either of them should realize, just then, how vast a principle underlay their sentiments. Neither of them was to play the role of interpreter to the other, to explain that rebellion was the necessary element of progress, that no man or woman ever changed through the successive metamorphoses of being who did not rebel against existing states. They were far from understanding it all. Mauney, burning with the pent-up indignation of the present hour, and Freda MacDowell, beautiful and vivid with the flush of full-hearted reciprocation. The hours sped. At last the game of poker broke up. At last the true rebels said good-night to each other and retired to sleepless beds.

CHAPTER V.
In Which Mauney Calls on the Professor.

Youth is liable to misconstrue the world and its heterogeneous motives. Being inordinately eager to fulfil its own pressing missions, it is prone to belittle the halting advice of more sedate age, and to battle against every influence seemingly hostile. Youth, with its mental astigmatisms, is certain to misjudge situations until it gains the corrective lenses of experience. It is bound to clothe with over-zealous colors all that touches its fate, and to defend itself heroically against encroachment.

Mauney was no exception.

He rose next morning in vast determination to assert the rights of his own personality, feeling that he had been spoon-fed long enough, that the hour had arrived when, not only should he think for himself, but throw out his formative impressions upon a moulding society.

No one will quarrel with him for this, since, even if his impressions were mistaken, a matter for opinion, naturally, his mood upon this spring morning, the twentieth of May, to be exact—was evidently the mood of progress. His pain was the pain of growth. It was the pain of birth. And birth is the moment of discontinuous growth.

“All my ideas are due for a great heart-searching, a great sifting, a great consolidation. From now no gloom can be injected into the atmosphere without my consent. Nothing is true because some one so states. Truth is what I personally feel, and I feel that, in spite of the disheartening narrowness of logic, in spite of the misanthropic outlook of fossilized intelligence, in spite of all that a university has raised up to alarm my mind, there does exist a cheerful future for my kind, and a great happiness that, far away as it may be, is not quite out of sight.”

At ten o’clock Mrs. Manton came to his room to inform him that Freda had telephoned from the university to the effect that he was wanted by Professor Freeman in the history department. He went directly, knowing that now with the term ended and the business of the year settled the department was picking up the threads of its autumn work. He was to be initiated into his new duties as a lecturer in history. It was for this professorial interview that he had been patiently waiting. He went quickly, with light steps, down Franklin Street, with eager steps through the great university square where, as he reflected, he had stood five years ago, a raw, country boy, overcome by the aspect of the seat of learning. Much had taken place. Patiently he had sat beneath the illumination of the immortal lamp of knowledge, charmed by its radiations, lulled into a mood of mental delectation. How often during these years he had crossed these cinder paths, going eagerly to his history classes, in the fanciful delusion that God had created a tremendously interesting world for no other purpose than that students might glory in their investigations thereof. It had been a necessary part of life perhaps, but it was all passed now. “What an innocent dream!” he pondered. “How unrecking of the dire forces of good and ill that rule the world, how delightfully blind to actual existence, how elysian, how stupidly brilliant, how sagely detached!”

But here before him was life. Here was his Alma Mater—the great stone house, that like a mother took her children to her breast. Within this mysterious edifice, what quiet whispers of the restful mother did they hear and cherish! To-day they came in, children with plastic minds. To-morrow they went out, citizens of the world, living men and women who must change the world. Ah, this was life! He almost paused as he entered the Gothic portal, with fear of his new responsibilities, with reverence for his high calling, with fear of life.

The rotunda was dusky with filtered light from the stained-glass window above the landing of the dignified walnut staircase, and duskier with its high, dark-panelled walls. No one was there—the customary spring desertion. But, in imagination, there were innumerable hushed whispers, thick in the atmosphere, like an overflow from the dead years of lecturing, which, even now, came back to life once more.

He passed down the dark corridor, lighted by old-fashioned, carbon lamps, with its dull-green mosaic floor, its huge walnut doors closed upon empty lecture rooms. From the open transoms came the imaginary whispers again. He shivered with thoughts of their poignant symbolism. At the end of the long hall, where he turned toward the wing, stood a marble bust of Homer, with heavy, sightless eyes. Above him hung a cracked oil painting of some particularly emaciated celebrity, who had the appearance of peeking timidly above the rim of his high, white collar, to see who, in this quiet, deserted hour, might be disturbing the century-old solitude with his echoing footsteps.

Up the few, worn, stone steps he climbed to the office door of the department of history. Inside he found only Freda, seated as usual, behind her flat-topped-desk. He glanced about to make sure they were alone. Two mullioned windows on either side let in the dull daylight. There were chairs, and shelves of documents, and the broom of a janitor whose labors had been interrupted. A door on the inner wall stood ajar, but there was no sound.

He came quickly toward her and covered her right hand with his own as it lay upon the desk.

“It’s good to see you, to-day, Freda,” he said. “I—”

“S-sh!” she said softly, putting her finger against her lips and nodding her head towards the door behind her.

“Professor Freeman has sent for you, Mr. Bard,” she said aloud, in a most formal tone, the meanwhile returning the ardent pressure of his hand, and acquiring a sudden complexion. “If you will be seated, please, I will see if he is ready for you.”

“Oh, I say, Miss MacDowell,” came a voice from the inner room, “Dr. Freeman has gone over to his house. I imagine he’ll be back soon.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hennigar,” she said politely, but with a grimace toward the crack in the door.

“Not at all,” he replied, in his English accent, in his unforgettable voice of harsh, bubbling overtones. “I say, Miss MacDowell, did you see anything of those dashed first year exam. books?”

“They’re all here,” she replied indifferently. “Any time you want them.”

Nutbrown Hennigar opened the door and gave Mauney a quick, direct stare from his intensely black eyes. He had never lectured to Mauney and had forgotten meeting him at the de Freville dinner.

“May I introduce Mr. Bard—Mr. Hennigar,” said Freda politely.

Hennigar advanced suddenly, in his characteristic abrupt and shuffling way.

“How d’juh do!” he said briefly, taking Mauney’s hand, and then dropping it as if it were hot. “Mr. Bard? Why, of course, how stupid of me!” he said, pushing his bone-rimmed, nose spectacles further down toward the point of his nose, and pulling at a black ribbon that tethered them around the base of his collar. “I understand you are joining our staff.”

“Yes,” smiled Mauney. “I have been given the opportunity and naturally consider it a good one.”

“Oh, rather!” coughed Hennigar, with emphasis, as he took a blue, silk handkerchief from its concealed position in his coat sleeve. “It’s really awfully good. By the way, I have the honor to be conversing with an author, if I’m not mistaken. I have read your book, Mr. Bard.”

“You did me an honor, Mr. Hennigar.”

“Oh no, not that,” he said. “It was really awfully well done. Accept my congratulations. Well, I hope you like it here, and all that. It’s not a bad place, you know. I needn’t express how glad we are to have you with us. That goes without saying, of course.”

He swung his left arm up in front of his face and glanced at his wrist watch.

“And now,” he said, backing slowly toward the door, “I have an engagement with a beastly dentist and know you’ll excuse me.”

With a very full, but evanescent exposure of his very white teeth he nodded his head and disappeared, slamming the door.

“The miserable little dog,” whispered Freda, her face flushed. “Just cur enough to fawn. He hates you, Mauney, like sin. He asked me this morning if I had read your book. I told him I had and that I considered it a young masterpiece. He didn’t like me to say that. He’s one of the poorest sports in Merlton. I’d just love to push my finger right into his eyes.”

“Freda!”

“You’re shocked! Well, I’ll bet you’ll feel the same way after you’ve been here a year or so. Sit down and rest your bones. Professor Freeman will be along soon.”

Before he could accept her invitation a heavy, energetic step was heard outside the office. The door opened and Dr. Alfred K. Tanner’s familiar form bustled in. He was, as usual, entirely occupied with his busy thoughts and proceeded straight to Freda’s desk without noticing Mauney.

“Miss MacDowell,” he said, in a low, intense tone, leaning over the desk and pointing his plump forefinger toward the window as if he was about to refer to the dust that adhered to the panes of glass. “Have you had time to make out that list yet?”

“Which list, Dr. Tanner?”

“The pass marks in ancient history. The pass marks, I mentioned yesterday. The pass marks, Miss MacDowell.”

“No, not yet.”

“I see—not yet,” he repeated, straightening up and pressing his little finger nail between his lips. For a moment he seemed on the verge of decision. Then, bending forward again he pointed toward the window.

“Listen, Miss MacDowell,” he said in a very loud tone. “Delay it. Delay it. I may not want them, you see? I may not want them. No. I may amalgamate the pass marks in one lump, Miss MacDowell.”

Then he lowered his voice again.

“You can keep them here, can’t you?”

“Yes, Dr. Tanner.”

“Bully! You keep them here, Miss MacDowell, I may amalgamate them.”

As he turned to leave the office, he noticed Mauney. “Hello, there, Mauney Bard,” he said, pausing. “How are you?”

“Fine, Professor, thank you,” he smiled.

“Did you beat Lorna on the spring exams?”

“No, sir, she defeated me as usual.”

Tanner laughed whole-heartedly.

“Oh—ha! She defeated you as usual. Of course, she did. Very clever girl, Lorna. Of course, she defeated you.”

His expression changed.

“Oh yes!” he reminded himself, “I want to see you, Mauney Bard. Have you got say five minutes to spare?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“Bully! Come with me.”

He led Mauney to his office upstairs. Indicating a chair for Mauney he sat down behind his own desk and leaned forward.

“Now, look,” he said, “I want you to understand that I’m in a most friendly mood. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mauney, intensely curious.

“Good! I’m really in a most friendly mood. The professor has already told me that you have joined the staff. I would congratulate you on joining the staff except that I consider it unnecessary. I am glad you have come to us. You are, now, more or less, one of us. I don’t congratulate you, but I welcome you. You are one of us, more or less.”

He sat back in his chair and preserved a short silence.

“Now this isn’t any too pleasant a mission,” he declared, shaking his head, as if Mauney had said it was pleasant. “I—I feel that, as a senior member of the staff I should take you under my wing, more or less. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now here’s what I’m coming to,” he continued. “You must regard what I say as confidential, unusually confidential. Yes, I know you will. I don’t need to ask. Very confidential. It would seem that Professor Freeman is considerably offended with you.”

“Me!” exclaimed Mauney. “Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes—I’m sure—I’m very uncomfortably sure, Mr. Bard. Now, possess yourself in quietness and I shall try to make it clear to you—as it is clear to me—why the professor should be so offended. I, of course, would not bother telling you, unless, as you may haply surmise, I am moderately interested in your welfare in our department. I imagine he will send for you in a few days.”

“He sent for me this morning!” Mauney interjected.

“Indeed—and did he? Well, I’m not astonished. I was talking with him this morning and I may say that considering everything, such, for example, as your pleasant relationship to the family, if I may refer to that, in passing, and considering, too, that your record has been a good one, I say I was taken somewhat by surprise at his attitude. It has reference, of course, to your book on the teaching of history.”

“My book—why!” stammered Mauney, quite pale. “You mean he objects to what I said in it?”

“More or less, Mr. Bard. He feels that, as a member of the staff, you were ill-advised in publishing a book which criticizes the methods of the staff.”

“But I wrote it and published it before I became a member of the staff,” Mauney objected.

“No doubt about that,” Tanner agreed. “I reminded the professor of that. The fact, in itself, excuses you. But no fact, as it would seem, can excuse the result. Now, I am most friendly, Mr. Bard, and am merely trying to give you the situation. I am not stating any personal convictions. In one sense, my position denies me the right to do so. In such an instance, I really think that criticism is helpful, from whatever source it may come. I really think that the university, while doubtlessly far from perfect, has, at least, attained a degree of dignity where it does not need to fear, but should welcome criticism. I have read your book and I am quite frank in saying that it has many splendid points. But here’s the great difficulty. We have been trying to run the university under grave disadvantages. Public sentiment is not always as helpful and kindly as we might wish. Hence, we deprecate criticism which is open and militant. However, from your standpoint, Mr. Bard, the problem is to face the professor, with as good a grace as you can command, and, now that you know the situation, I think you will be better prepared.”

Mauney sat staring at the mullioned windows with the unpleasant feeling of a criminal being prepared by a minister for the death sentence. This room was the death-cell, Freeman’s office was to be the death-chamber. He had committed a heinous offence. He could not put off the superimposed sense of guilt that breathed to him from Tanner’s manner and from the ominous quietness of the room. He told Tanner that he appreciated his confidential talk and that he was now “quite prepared” for the interview with the professor, while Tanner seemed to be struck by a defiant note in his reply.

A few minutes later Mauney knocked on the professor’s door, having learned from Freda that he had returned.

“Come,” said the well-known and pleasant voice.

Mauney found him seated in a Morris chair with a book on his knee, a pipe in his hand—picture of unruffled serenity. It was the first time Mauney had been in the dignified official precincts of the departmental head, but he could have described the room, so characteristic was it of the occupant. A simple desk bereft of all paraphernalia save a ruler, a blotter and an ash-tray. A wall with two cases of monotonously colored volumes, and between the cases, an empty grate. It was severely simple, just like Freeman, whose smile to-day was as hospitable as ever, as kindly as ever, as cruel as ever.

“Well, Mauney!” he said, as if no atmosphere of displeasure were being contemplated. “Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you, Professor.”

He accepted the only other chair in the room and avoided Freeman’s keen, grey eyes. He noticed that the historian’s long dextrous hand was playing with the ornaments of his chair-arm and that his eyes, whenever he glanced at them, seemed full of racing plans.

“I sent for you, Mauney, for two reasons,” he said, gently, so gently that Mauney, for a moment, thought Tanner had made a mistake. “In the first place I wanted to mention your book, which I have here in my hand and which I am reading with interest. Are you in a hurry?”

“I have nothing to do, Professor,” said Mauney, more at ease by reason of Freeman’s polite deference.

“You say here, somewhere—oh yes, here’s the place,” continued Freeman, fondling the pages and quoting a passage. “‘History must cease to be a subject for the five-finger exercises of defunct mentalities, and become rather the earnest objective of men who are in tune with the issues of current society. It must cease to be the property of an elite academic dispensing agency, and become the property of those, who, valuing form less than substance, will not so much dispense it as interpret it. It must be rescued from fossilization, as every branch of learning requires, at times, to be rescued.’”

Freeman closed the book gently and laid it on the arm of his chair.

“Do you really believe what you have written, Mauney?” he asked.

“I really do, Professor,” the young man replied, determinedly.

“Then we can better discuss it, knowing that you are sincere. In the first place, why do you feel as you do?”

“Because, since the first day I came to college, I have been confronted by this cut-and-dried, academic spirit which, to me at least, acts like poison.”

“You mean that, here in our department, there is a spirit, on the part of the tutors, which is disagreeable to you?”

“Yes, sir. But, of course, I made no reference to any university in particular.”

“I know. But, nevertheless, you gained the impression here?”

“Yes.”

“That is extremely unfortunate,” said Freeman, in a tone of real sincerity. “Of course, as you must realize, your book, in places, assumes an attitude of frank rebellion, and, whether or not you would have written it had you known you were coming on the staff, the appearance is nevertheless equally as ridiculous. You see what I’m driving at?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, I don’t want you to be jeered at by the public. I want you to preserve your dignity as much as you can. I dare say your book will not actually have much practical effect on teaching, since it was written rather as a semi-philosophical treatise. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes.”

“But at the same time, Mauney, having written it, you will see how illogical your appearance on a history staff becomes.”

Enmeshed in Freeman’s subtle argument, with its pretence of deferential consideration, Mauney burned with sudden indignation.

“There’s just one solution,” he said rising, and now facing the professor frankly. “I’ve put my foot in it. I’ve criticized the university. I’ve committed the unpardonable sin and must abide by the consequences. I reiterate, without any bluff, sir, that I have suffered from the dampening influence which kills youthful enthusiasm. I’ve dared to believe in what I might term a bright human future. I’ve dared to contradict and defy the cold, pessimistic viewpoint to which I have been exposed. Many a boy comes to college full of ardent belief in the fundamental goodness of things, but few are strong enough to wade through the marsh of brilliant tutoring which believes in nothing. I have been strong enough to wade through, Professor, and I am strong enough now to offer you, most respectfully, my resignation from your staff.”

Mauney started toward the door.

“A moment, please,” said Freeman, turning in his chair. “I think your resignation is the most logical thing you could give me, because, otherwise, your own position—”

“Please, Professor,” he interrupted, “don’t let us befog the situation. You wanted my resignation. You have it, sir. And let me assure you that I hold no personal spite. On the contrary I appreciate to the very limit your many kindnesses to me. There is nothing personal, Dr. Freeman, in all this. It’s principle, and I regret that even a principle should separate us. Was there anything further, sir?”

“No,” said Freeman softly, with a gentle smile on his lips. “I think that’s all.”

CHAPTER VI.
The Fool.

At noon, Mauney was too upset to eat dinner. He wanted to talk to Freda and went upstairs to wait in the alcove, until she should come up. While he sat stolidly in one of the chairs behind the little desk, he occupied himself with turning through the pages of a book whose title or contents he did not so much as notice, and in gazing through the window at the street, busy with noontide pedestrians. He had come straight home from his meeting with Freeman, sad and angry and totally impatient. He knew that only one sedative existed, that only one friend remained to hear his story of personal woe. He would wait for her.

And while he waited he tried to think, in the distracted mood of the moment, what he would do. He had been building upon a foundation, now suddenly gone. There was nothing—nothing.

Maxwell Lee came out of his room and paused at the sight of him.

“Hello, Mauney,” he said, a little more affably than had been his recent wont.

“Hello, Max.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Lee.

“I’m worried a little. I’ve got into the habit lately. Sit down and have a smoke. What the devil’s come over you, Max?”

“Why, nothing, you poor fish,” said Lee, taking the other chair. “What’s come over you?”

“Nothing much. Only I’m just in a mood to get this settled.”

“Get what settled?”

“Well, confound it, Max, don’t profess such ignorance. You know we haven’t been on our old terms for months and months. I’m going away soon—somewhere, and I don’t see why we should not part good friends.”

“There’s no reason in the world, Mauney.”

Neither of them thought of smoking, however.

“Yes there is, Max. Let’s be frank.”

“All right. Let’s.”

“I hate to talk this way to you, Max. I know you’re not well.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed as his glance shifted from the window to Mauney’s face, but he said nothing.

“I could never talk this way,” Mauney continued, “except that I could talk to anybody, just now. We used to be pretty good pals, but that’s apparently over. We both know why, but neither of us will admit it. There’s a woman behind it. No need to mention names. You told me you loved her.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Lee.

“Just this—that I love her, too.”

“I knew that,” he said simply, playing a tattoo on the top of the desk. “I knew that long ago. It’s no secret and, well, I suppose she knows you love her, eh?”

“Not yet. But she’s going to be told. I hate doing anything underhanded.” Mauney paused to look searchingly at the thin, wistful face of his friend. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“Why, nothing at all. What did you think I would do—try to murder you?”

Lee rose slowly and put his foot on the chair to tie his shoe-string. Mauney saw his thin, white hands, thinner and whiter than a month ago, tremble as he fumbled the knot.

“Why, no,” he said, straightening himself up. “I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m the loser, that’s all. I’m not morbid about it. It’s a losing game all along the line with me. But I have no fear—none whatever. That’s what I can’t understand.”

Mauney knew that Lee was thinking of death. There was death written on his pale face, whose cheeks had become more concave than before. His eyes burned with a fire too bright for normal fuel to have kindled. And Mauney’s bosom burned with pity that he could not have mentioned for worlds, for he felt that he must treat Lee as if he were strong. He would have given anything to be delivered from the necessity.

“Well, Max, old fellow,” he made himself say. “I’m glad I told you this. I feel better now.”

For an instant the old whimsical smile played on Lee’s lips.

“That’s all right,” he said. “That’s all right, Mauney, my son, I—I guess I’ll have to be going along.”

When Lee had descended the stairs, Mauney buried his face in his hands. It hurt. He knew that life was wringing the last drop of courage from Lee’s heart. From the window he saw him walking slowly up the street—Lee, the frail body, the heroic mind.

“Am I going to win?” he asked himself. “How it will hurt to win! Is victory always to the strong?”

Presently, Freda came up the stairs, and walked quickly along the hall.

“Oh, here you are!” she exclaimed, stopping. “Did you get through with Freeman?”

“I did indeed,” he replied seriously. “I’m through with the history department.”

“What!”

“Don’t ask me to explain now. I resigned, and I’m glad I did. Please don’t hurry away. I want to talk with you.”

He pulled the chair out for her.

“You must excuse my abruptness, Freda,” he continued. “But I’ve got to talk with you.”

“What is wrong?” she enquired seriously.

“Just everything. I’m all up in arms against the universe, I think.”

Life looked dark. He had thrown over, in his rebellion, the helpfulness of Freeman’s friendship. Vaguely he knew that the solution of his troubles lay in getting down to work, some sort of helpful work. But this was not the only ray of light that began to penetrate.

He had no idea how he should broach the subject that was torturing him. He loved her dark eyes and her lips that tenderly tried to understand his mood. She had been in his deep heart for months. He was at a loss to know how to begin. He glanced at the window as if the bald light of the dull May noon were an intruder. He listened to laughter from downstairs as if it conspired to hinder him.

“Freda,” he said, pressing her hand as it lay on the desk. “I love you. I’ve been wanting to tell you this for a long time.”

Her serious face did not disappoint him. It quivered into exquisite understanding that brought fine rims of moisture to her eyes. Mauney could not continue, for the memory of Lee was making him sad.

“I’m going away somewhere, Freda,” he said presently. “I don’t know where, but I’m through with Merlton. I’ve got to find my niche. I’ve got to go away from you, too. Please, try to understand how hard it is to go.”

Her eyes softened.

“I think I understand,” she answered, quietly.

“Perhaps,” he said, with a far-away look in his eyes, “perhaps I’m a fool. You can’t know how I feel about you. But Lee—he loves you and needs you—and I can’t help caring. Why am I such a fool?”

Freda gently released her hand from Mauney’s, and, rising, walked slowly down the hall towards her room. On entering it, she closed the door and sank down upon her knees beside a big chair and deliberately rested her face upon her arms. She was not weeping or praying. Seldom did she do either. Her intense mind was engaged with Mauney Bard. He did not know that he was being pierced with arrows of shrewd analysis, that he was being tried in the fires of a woman’s relentless gauging. Nor did he see her serene face presently lifted to the warm sunlight that flooded from her window. Her features wore a new restfulness, for she had found the beautiful answer to her thoughts. Delicately the balances of her justice had tipped, to find Mauney not a fool.

CHAPTER VII.
The Last Days at Franklin Street.

Freda MacDowell was one of the most remarked women who had attended the University of Merlton in recent years. First as a student, then as a departmental secretary, she had left behind her a definite impression on the unchanging portion of the college—the faculty. Occasionally a student does this, but never by academic prowess. The brilliant scholar passes through his four years with lustre of a kind, but is soon swallowed up in the oblivion of the graduate status. The remembered student betrays, even in those budding years, a definite mould of mind, illustrates a definite viewpoint and adheres to the peculiar details of conduct that mark a distinct personality.

Freda possessed some unaccountable leverage on life that bestowed this distinction. She was just a little mysterious. No one knew why she had come upon the college world, from the very start, as a rebel, fortified capably against the acknowledged virtues of a university. Books were proclaimed a burden, lectures and classes were boring. Girl associates freely disagreed with her and disliked her. But on attempting to engage her in altercation they discovered a handful of unanswerable arguments. Freda’s tenets were never flippant. On the surface they sometimes appeared even affected yet were found to be based on carefully-digested opinion.

She never ventured on speculative problems. She followed her own injunction: “Open your eyes and look at life.” In so doing she ran the risk of the realist. Life, too closely inspected, often seems monstrous.

Beneath Freda’s animation and apparent flippancy, reposed a silent and very solemn tribunal before which everything of importance had to be arraigned. Themes of elemental justice, of human motives, and of the obscured relation of cause and effect—these she dwelt upon. Few people knew what a sage she was, in secret. Few were permitted to see past her bright face.

At Merlton, no university student, caring so little for the customary rewards of education, had received as much interest from the teachers. Most of the professors had a tender spot in their hearts for her. This may have depended, in no little measure, upon her personal beauty, for decades of mental acquisition do not alter a man’s response, and a good-looking woman maintains her authority even in the sedate courts of learning. Then, too, a realist who has smashed her way through the brambles wins a sharp simplicity that is bound to attract all enemies of delusion. Professor Freeman pendulated between admiration of her mental courage and curiosity about her flippancy. François de Freville gloried in his “Oiseau,” without stint. Alfred K. Tanner loved her, but the great-hearted gentleman loved nearly everybody, so that it was never noticeable. Nutbrown Hennigar had started with the emotionless, but level-headed idea that Freda was sufficiently ornamental to grace his distinguished presence on most social occasions and had arrived at a point where he believed that she should be a permanent ornament in his home. All these people composed the fringe of her existence. She took none of them seriously, but derived a paltry pleasure from the flattery to her vanity.

A little nearer was Maxwell Lee—so much like her in many ways, a good chum, clever, sincere and respected. But he did not awake any amorous response in Freda.

Thus she had continued to play with life, superficially gay, but actually discontented. The only man who had ever believed in her was Mauney Bard. He saw beneath the surface. This, at least, was how she felt on the day following his ardent declarations.

Another college term was finished. Spring and the vacation were at hand. But she knew no eagerness, as in other years, to be off to her home in Lockwood. The morning was occupied in arranging her secretarial desk for the summer’s absence and the afternoon in quiet day-dreams in her room on Franklin Street.

Her opened window, beside which she lounged in her big Morris chair, let in a heterogeneous clatter of carts and horses’ hoofs, the constant, shrill voices of romping children and the distant melodies of an organ-grinder from a neighboring block, the brisk movements of the Rigoletto, and the long, rolling chords of the Aloha. It was a very satisfactory occupation to sit passively by her window. Beyond and beneath the noise and the music there was a sweet silence of new happiness within her. And her eyes were not seeing the familiar objects of the room, but feasting upon the fresh, open face of Mauney Bard. Out of the air, his clear blue eyes looked into hers. She heard his voice laughing. She saw his eyes, boyish and eager, light with their happy laughter.

After a time she glanced toward her wardrobe and rose impulsively to dress for dinner. While she was finishing the ceremony of donning a new evening dress of rose silk the door opened quietly to admit Gertrude who, after a glance at her bowed smilingly.

“Ah-ha!” she said, very softly, “Doing it a la grande, are you?”

“Gertrude,” said Freda, “see if you can get this fastened, will you?”

“I shall be pleased, my dear,” responded the landlady, coming close, “to help you with so charming a frock. Why a dome-fastener should be placed in such an inaccessible position puzzles me considerably. Don’t you want your hair waved a little?”

“Have you really got time to do it up for me?” Freda eagerly asked.

“Sit down, my dear,” purred Mrs. Manton as she placed a towel over Freda’s shoulders and began extracting hairpins. “What a respectable wad you really have. One could do wonders with half of it. Shall I give you that Paris touch I used once before?”

Freda nodded, “Uh, huh! Won’t it be grand?”

“Doubtless,” said Mrs. Manton. “But in the words of Shakespeare, What’s the big idea? Going out for dinner?”

“No.”

“Expecting Mr. Nutbrown Hennigar?”

“No.”

“Pure vanity, I suppose, then.”

“You haven’t guessed yet, Gertrude.”

“You’re a poor person to risk guesses about,” admitted Mrs. Manton, “So you may have the fun of telling me.”

“Well, then,” said Freda, “I’m in love.”

“In love, my dear!” exclaimed the landlady, “With what?”

“A man, Gertrude.”

“Never!” Mrs. Manton shook her head slowly as she stepped in front of Freda to inspect the results of her handicraft. “Do tell me what it’s like,” she implored.

“Well,” said Freda, “you admire the man’s style from the first—his voice, his looks. His boots are polished. His fingernails are clean, and not polished. His tie is carefully knotted, his trousers well in press. You like him, but you’re not in love yet.”

“I should say, not yet,” Gertrude agreed, half cynically.

“Then, whenever you talk with him he has a faculty of understanding you. You don’t have to repeat or explain, Gertrude. You’ve always wanted to talk with people who get you. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s as sure as mud.”

“And then,” continued Freda enthusiastically. “It works the other way, too. You find it easy to understand him. His broadcasting machine is in the same wave-length as your radio-receiver. But even then you’re not in love.”

“Are you quite sure?” enquired Mrs. Manton, teasingly.

“Yes. Listen, Gertrude, to me!” Freda said, as she rose to look down into the sombre face before her. “There are all kinds of attractions and fascinations and mesmerisms that pass for love. But when you have known your man for a long time and feel you can hang on him, trust him, let him steer you, and just want to be right with him all the time—isn’t that love?”