§ 21
Frank Shirley came to call that afternoon, and revealed the fact that the gossip had reached even him. “Sylvia, you witch,” he exclaimed, and pinched her ear—“what in the world have you been doing to Douglas van Tuiver?”
She caught his hand and held it in both hers. “What has happened, Frank?”
“A miracle, my dear—simply a miracle! Van Tuiver has been to call on Tom Firmin!”
“Oh, how interesting!” cried Sylvia. “How was he received?”
“Tell me first—did you suggest it to him?”
“I’m a woman—my curiosity is much less endurable than yours. Tell me instantly.”
“Oh, he came—very much subdued and ill at ease. Said he’d realized the split in the class, and how very unfortunate it was, and he wanted to help mend matters.”
“What did Mr. Firmin say?”
“He asked why van Tuiver had begun with him. ‘Because I’d heard you didn’t like me,’ said van Tuiver, ‘and I wanted to try to put matters on a better footing. I’d like to be a friend of yours if I might.’ Tom—you know him—said that friendship wasn’t to be had for the asking—he’d have to look van Tuiver over and see how he panned out. First of all, they must understand each other on one point—that he, Tom, wouldn’t be patronized, and that anybody who tried it would be ordered out.” Frank paused, and laughed his slow, good-natured laugh. “Poor van Tuiver!” he said. “I feel sorry for him. Imagine him having to say he’d be willing to take the risk! It’s about the funniest thing I ever heard of. What I want to know is, is it true that you did it?”
“Would you be very angry if I said ‘Yes’?”
“Why, no,” he answered—“only I suppose you know you’re getting a lot of publicity?”
Sylvia paused for a while. “I suppose it was a mistake all through,” she said, “but I was ignorant when I started, and since then I’ve been dragged along. Mr. van Tuiver has kept at me to tell him why I didn’t like him—and I’ve told him, that’s about all. I thought that your friend Mr. Firmin was one who’d do the same.”
“He’s that, all right,” laughed Frank.
There was a pause, then suddenly Sylvia exclaimed, “By the way, there’s something I meant to ask you. Is it true that Mr. Firmin’s father is a butler?”
“It is, Sylvia.”
“And did you know that when you introduced him to me?”
It was Frank’s turn to counter. “Would you be very angry if I said I did?”
“Why—not angry, Frank. But you must realize that it was a new experience.”
“Did you find him ill-bred?”
“Why, no—not that; but——”
“I thought you might as well see all sides of college life. I knew you’d meet the club-men. And there’s a particular reason why you’ll have to be nice to Tom—he wants to make me president of the class just now.”
“President of the class!”
“Yes. Politics, you see!”
“But,” she exclaimed, “why haven’t you told me about it?”
“I didn’t know until yesterday. Things have been shaping themselves. You see, the feeling in the ‘Yard’ has grown more bitter, and yesterday a committee came to me and asked if I’d stand against Shackleford, who’s been picked by the Auburn Street crowd, and was expected to go in without opposition. I said I’d have to think it over. I might accept the position if I was elected, but of course, I wouldn’t do any wire-pulling—wouldn’t seek any man’s vote. They said that was all they wanted. But I don’t know; it’s a difficult question for me.”
“But why?”
“Well, you see, they’ll rake up the story of my father.”
Sylvia gave a cry of horror. “Frank!”
“If there’s a contest, it’ll be war and no quarter.”
“But would they do such a thing as that?”
“They would do it,” said Frank, grimly. “So my first impulse was to refuse. But I rather thought you’d want me to run. For you see, I’ll have that old scandal all my life, whatever I try to do; and I suppose you won’t let me keep out of everything.”
“But, Frank, how will they know about your father?”
“Lord, Sylvia, don’t you suppose with all the social climbing there is in this place, they’ve had that morsel long ago? There are fellows here from the South—your cousin, for one. It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m a nobody; but if I set out to beat the ‘Gold Coast crowd’—then you’d see!”
It was amusing to Frank to see how her eyes blazed. “Oh, I ought to stay to help you!” she exclaimed. “If it only weren’t for father!”
“Don’t worry, Sylvia. I wouldn’t let you stay for anything. I don’t want you mixed up in such affairs.”
“But, Frank, think what it would mean! What a blow to the system you hate! And I could pull you through—you needn’t laugh, I really could! There are so many men I could manage!”
But Frank went on laughing. “Honey,” he said, “you’ve done quite enough—too much—already. How are you going to pay van Tuiver for what he’s done?”
“Pay him, Frank?”
“Of course. Do you imagine, dear, that van Tuiver’s a man to do anything without being paid? He’ll hand in his bill for services rendered, and he’ll put a high value on his services! And what will you do?”
She sat, deep in thought. “Frank,” she exclaimed, “you’ve been so good—not to worry about me and that man!”
He smiled. “Don’t I know what a proud lady you are?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Honey, if I had been afraid about van Tuiver, do you suppose I’d have dared let you know it?”
She looked at him, her eyes shining. “How nicely you put it!” she said. “You’re the dearest fellow in the world, a regular haven of refuge to fly to!” Then suddenly her mood became grave, and she said, “Let me tell you the truth; I’m glad I’m going away from the man and his money! It isn’t that it’s a temptation—I don’t know how to say it, but it’s a nightmare, a load on my mind. I think, ‘Oh, how much good I could do with that money!’ I think, ‘So much power, and he hasn’t an idea how to use it!’ It’s monstrous that a man should have so much, and no ideas to go with it. It’s all very well to turn your back on it, to say that you despise it—but still it’s there, it’s working all the time, day and night—and working for evil! Isn’t that true?”
He was watching her with a quizzical smile. “You’re talking just like Tom!” he said. “They’ll call you an Anarchist at home!”
She was interested in the idea of being an Anarchist, and would have got Frank started upon a lecture on economics. But there came an interruption in the form of a knock on the door and a boy with a card. Sylvia glanced at it, and then, without a word, passed it to Frank. He read it and they looked at each other.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to see him?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you say?”
“I can stand it if you can,” laughed Frank; and so Sylvia ordered Mr. van Tuiver shown up.
§ 22
He stood in the doorway, clad in his faultless afternoon attire. Somehow he had recovered the hard brilliance, the look of the man of the world, which Sylvia had noticed the first evening. He gazed at Frank, not hiding very well his annoyance at finding a third party.
“Mr. van Tuiver, Mr. Shirley,” said Sylvia. “You do not know each other, I believe.”
“I know Mr. Shirley by sight,” said van Tuiver, graciously. He seated himself on a spindle-legged Louis Quinze chair—so stiffly that Sylvia thought of a purple domino. She beamed from one to the other, and then remarked, “What a curious commentary on the Harvard system! Two men studying side by side for three years, and not knowing each other!”
She was aware that this remark was not of the most tactful order. She made it on purpose, thinking to force the two into a discussion. But van Tuiver was not minded that way. “Er—yes,” he said, and relapsed into silence.
“Miss Castleman’s notions of courtesy are derived from a pastoral civilization,” said Frank, by way of filling in the breach. “You don’t realize the size of Harvard classes, Sylvia.”
The girl was watching the other man, and she saw that he had instantly noted Frank’s form of address. He looked sharply, first at his rival, and then at her. “Mr. Shirley is also from the South?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sylvia, “we are near neighbors.”
“Oh, I see,” said van Tuiver. “Old friends, then, I presume.”
“Quite,” said Sylvia, and again there was a pause. She was willing to let the two men worry through without help, finding it fascinating to watch them and study them. What a curious contrast they made! She found herself wondering how far van Tuiver would have got in college life if he had had the handicaps of her lover!
Frank was talking about the prospects of the baseball team. He was pleasant and friendly, and of course quite unmoved by the presence of Royalty. He seemed to be wholly unaware of the tension in the air, the restlessness and impatience of the man he was talking to. But Sylvia knew and was thrilled.
It was a moment full of possibilities of drama. She asked some question of Frank, and he answered, casually, “Of course, honey.” He went on, unconcerned and unperceiving; but Sylvia saw the other man wince as if he had been touched by something red hot. He looked at her, but found that she was looking away. She stole a glance at him again, and saw that he was watching his rival with strained attention, his countenance several shades paler in hue.
That was the end of conversation, so far as van Tuiver was concerned. He answered in monosyllables, and his eyes went from Frank to Sylvia like those of a hunted animal in a corner. The girl got a new and sharp realization of his condition. She had gone into this affair as a joke, but now, for a moment, she was frightened. The man was terrible; every minute, as he watched Frank, his brow grew darker, he was like a thundercloud in the room. And this the arbiter of Harvard’s best society!
At last, she took pity on him. It was really preposterous of Frank to go on gossiping about the prospects of a truce with the Princeton “tiger,” and the resumption of football contests. So, smiling cheerfully at him, she remarked, “You’ll be missing the lecture, won’t you?” And Frank, realizing that he was a third party, made his excuses and withdrew.
Van Tuiver barely waited until Frank had closed the door. Then, with a poor effort at nonchalance, he remarked, “You know Mr. Shirley quite intimately.”
“Oh, yes,” said Sylvia.
“You—you like him very much, Miss Castleman?”
“He’s a splendid fellow,” she replied. “He’s one of the men you ought to have been cultivating.”
But the other would not be diverted for a moment. “I—I wish—pardon me, Miss Castleman, but I want you to tell me—what is your relation to him?”
“Why, really, Mr. van Tuiver——”
“I know I’ve no right—but I’m desperate!”
“But—suppose I don’t care to discuss the matter?” She was decided in her tone, for she saw that stern measures were necessary if he was to be checked.
But nothing could stop him—he was beyond mere convention. “Miss Castleman,” he rushed on, “I must tell you—I’ve tried my best, but I can’t help it! I love you—as I’ve never dreamed that a man could love. I want to marry you!”
He stopped, breathing hard; and Sylvia, off her guard, exclaimed, “No!”
“I mean it!” he declared. “I’m in earnest—I want to marry you!”
She caught herself together. She had not meant this to happen. She answered, with a tone of hauteur, “Mr. van Tuiver, you have no right to say that to me.”
“But why not? I am making you an offer of marriage. You must understand. I mean it.”
“I am able to believe that you mean it; but that is not the point. You have no right to ask me to marry you, when I have refused you my friendship.”
There was a pause. He sat staring at her in pitiful bewilderment. “I thought,” he said, “this was more serious.” And then he stopped, reading in her face that something was wrong. “Isn’t an offer of marriage more serious than one of friendship?” he inquired.
“More serious?” repeated Sylvia. “More important, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“More attractive, that is?” she suggested.
“Why—yes.”
“In other words, Mr. van Tuiver, you thought that a man with so much money might be accepted as a husband when he’d been rejected as a friend?”
“Why—not exactly that, Miss Castleman——”
But Sylvia hardly heard his denial. A wave of annoyance, of disgust, had swept over her. She rose to her feet. “You have justified my worst opinion of you!” she exclaimed.
“What have I done?” he cried, miserably.
“It isn’t what you’ve done, as I’ve told you before—it’s what you are, Mr. van Tuiver. You are utterly, utterly impossible, and I’m furious with myself for having heard what you have just said to me.”
“Miss Castleman! I beseech you——”
But she would not hear him further. She could not endure his presence. “There is no use saying another word,” she declared. “I will not talk to you. I will not know you!”
The madness of love was upon him; he held out his hands imploringly. But she repelled him with blazing eyes. “You must go!” she said. “Go at once! I will not see you again—I positively forbid you to come near me.”
He tried twice to speak, but each time she stopped him, crying, “Go, Mr. van Tuiver!” And so at last he went, almost crying with humiliation and distress, in his agitation forgetting his hat and gloves. So furious was Sylvia that she shut the door, and fell on the sofa weeping.
When she came to look back on it, she was amazed by her vehemence. It could not have been the manner of the proposal, for he had been insufferable many times before, and she had managed to take a humorous view of it. Had it perhaps been seeing him in opposition to Frank which had fired the powder mine of her rage? Was it that jealousy of his power, of which she had spoken? Or was it the protective instinct with which Nature had endowed her maidenhood—that she could jest with him while he was seeking her friendship, but was convulsed with anger when he spoke to her of love?
§ 23
That evening there was an entertainment of the “Hasty Pudding” Club, and the next afternoon Sylvia was to take her departure. All the morning she held an informal levee of those who came to bid her good-bye, and to make their comments on the amazing events which were transpiring. For one thing, the candidacy of Frank Shirley for class-president was formally announced; and for another, Douglas van Tuiver had declared his intention to move from his house into one of the cheaper dormitories, and to take his seat at the common dining-tables in Memorial Hall.
Earliest of all came Harley, in a terrible state. “What can have got into you? You’ve ruined everything—you’ve undone all the good you did for me!”
“As bad as that, Harley?” she asked. She was gentle with him, realizing suddenly how completely she had overlooked him and his interests in the last few crowded days.
“What does it all mean?” he went on. “What has made you want to smash things like this?”
She knew, of course, that there was no use trying to explain to him. She contented herself with saying that things could not be as bad as he thought.
“They couldn’t be worse!” he exclaimed. “Van Tuiver’s gone over to the ‘Yard,’ bag and baggage, and the club-men are simply furious. They’re denouncing you, because you made him do it, and when they can’t get at you, they’ll take it out on me. Sooner or later they are bound to learn that you’re engaged to Frank Shirley; and then they’ll say you did it all to help him—that you fooled van Tuiver and made a cat’s paw of him for the sake of Frank.”
That was a new aspect of the matter, and a serious one; but Sylvia realized that there was no remedying it now. She was glad when other callers arrived, so that she might send her cousin away.
There came Thurlow, who, as a chum of Shackleford, wished to protest to Sylvia against the harm she was doing to the latter’s candidacy, and to all that was best in Harvard’s social life. There came Jackson, who, as van Tuiver’s best friend, painted a distressful picture of the collapse of his prestige. There came Harmon, also pledged to plead the cause of “Auburn Street,” but proving a poor ambassador on account of his selfish weakness. He spoke of van Tuiver’s pitiful state, but a very little contriving on Sylvia’s part sufficed to bring him to his knees, beseeching her to make him the happiest man in the world.
Sylvia rather liked Harmon; she was grateful to him for having been the first man at Harvard to fall in love with her, thus helping her over a time of great self-distrust. He made his offer with more eloquence than one would have expected from a reserved upper-class club man; and Sylvia gently parried his advances, and wiped away one or two tears of genuine sympathy, and promised to be a sister to him in the most orthodox old Southern style.
And then came “Tubby” Bates. “Tubby” did not ask her to marry him, but he made her several speeches which were even more pleasant to hear. She had finished her packing, and had on her gray traveling dress when he called. He stood in the middle of the floor, gazing at her approvingly, his round face beaming and his eyes twinkling with fun. “Oh, what a stir in the frog-pond we’ve made!” he exclaimed. “And now you’re running off and leaving me to face the racket alone!”
“What in the world have you to do with it?” she asked.
“Me? Doesn’t everybody know that it was I who set you on van Tuiver? Didn’t I bring you together at that fatal dance? And now all the big guns in the college are aiming murder at me!”
The other laughed. “Surely, Mr. Bates, your social position can stand a strain!”
He laughed in return, but suddenly became serious. He said: “I wouldn’t care anyhow. Honest to God, Miss Castleman! There’s something I wanted to say to you—I have to thank you for teaching me a lesson.”
“A lesson?”
“You know, we don’t live in such a lovely world—and I’m afraid I’ve got to be cynical. But you’ve made me ashamed of myself, and I want to tell you. It’s something I shall never forget; it may sound melodramatic—but I shall always think better of women for what you’ve done.”
She looked at him and grew serious. “Tell me, just what have I done that seems so extraordinary to you? I haven’t felt a bit heroic.”
“I’ll answer you straight. You turned down van Tuiver and his money!”
“And does that really surprise you so?” she asked.
“I can only tell you that I didn’t believe there was a woman in America who’d do it. I can tell you also that van Tuiver didn’t believe it!”
Sylvia could not help laughing. “But, really, Mr. Bates, how could you expect so badly of me—that I’d sell my soul for luxury?”
“It isn’t luxury, Miss Castleman. That’s nothing. You can buy a whole lot of luxury with no more money than I’ve got. But with van Tuiver it would be something else—something that not one woman in a million has offered to her. It’s power, its supremacy—it’s really what you called Royalty.”
“And you thought that would buy me?”
He sat watching her intently; he did not answer.
“Tell me truly,” she said. “I won’t mind.”
“No,” he said, “there’s something beyond that. I’ve read you, Miss Castleman, and I thought he’d get you this way—you’d think of all that could be done with his money. How many people you knew that you could help! How much good you could do in the world! You’d think of starving children to be fed, of sick children to be healed. You’d say, ‘I could make him do good with that money, and nobody else in the world could!’ That’s the way he’d get you, Miss Castleman!”
Sylvia was gazing at him, fascinated. He saw a strange look in her eyes, and he felt, rather than saw, that she drew a long breath. “You see!” he said. “You did have to be heroic!”
So, when “Tubby” Bates took his departure, he held her hand longer than any of her other callers had been permitted to. “Dear Miss Castleman,” he said, “I’ll never forget you; and if you need a friend, count on me!”
He went away, and Sylvia sat in her chair, gazing before her, deep in thought. There came a knock, and a note was brought in. She frowned before she looked at it—she had come to know where these notes came from.
“My dear Miss Castleman,” it read, “I have just learned that you are going away. I implore you to give me one word. I stand ready to do all that you have asked me, and I throw myself on your mercy. I must see you once again.”
For a moment Sylvia was frightened, wondering if she had a madman to deal with. Then she crumpled the paper in her hand, and going to the desk, seized a pen and wrote, with the swiftness of one enraged:
“Mr. van Tuiver, I have asked you to do nothing. I wish you to do nothing. All you can accomplish is to inflict disagreeable notoriety upon me. I demand that you give up all thought of me. I am engaged to marry another man, and I will under no circumstances consent to see you again.”
This note she sent down by the boy, and when Frank came for her with a motor-car, she kept him in the room and sent Aunt Varina down into the lobby to make sure that van Tuiver was not waiting there. Some instinct made her feel that she must not let the two men meet again.
Also this gave her a little interval with Frank. She put her hands in his, exclaiming, “I’m so glad I’ve got you, Frank! Hurry up—get through with this place and come home!”
“You didn’t like it here?” he smiled.
“I’m glad I came,” she answered. “It’ll be good for me—I’ll be happier at home with you!”
He took her gently in his arms, and she let him kiss her. “You really do love me!” he whispered. “I can’t understand it, but you really do!”
And she looked at him with her shining eyes. “I love you,” she said—“even more than I did when I came. The happiest moment of my life will be when I can walk out of the church with you, and have nothing more to do with the world!”
“Good-bye, Lady Sunshine!” he said. “Good-bye, Lady Sunshine!”