As she passed from the room the weight of the world seemed on her shoulders and her face bore lines of tragedy. She knew that to oppose her will to the will of a young girl in love was but to aggravate and drive the girl more quickly into the arms of her lover. Such is the perverseness of young people; has been and always will be. She decided that such a course would not do. Miss Gregory decided that the best thing to do was to find out who the young man was, try to prevail upon him to give up the girl and that failing, to seek some other means of breaking up the match. That there should be no match she was determined. She would not allow her protege to throw her life away. She had just reached her room and fallen weakly into her study chair by the little table at which she did most of her work when she had a sudden inspiration. On the instant she touched the bell near the base of the study lamp. A maid responded.
"Ask Miss Comstock to come to me immediately, if possible, please."
The maid departed and in a few minutes Louise Comstock stood wonderingly before the head of the school.
"Sit down, please, Miss Comstock. I wish to talk with you. How's your headache? Better, child?" she inquired.
"Yes, Miss Gregory, thank you." Miss Comstock replied.
"What made you ill, dear? You didn't attend the reception at the college the other night. That's unusual for you. What was the trouble?"
Miss Gregory was watching the expression on the girl's face keenly. She noted immediately upon asking the question, the spasm of pain that swept over the countenance, saw the eyelids flutter and droop and the lips twitch nervously. She also thought she detected a tear. Immediately she surmised the trouble and asked:
"Had a spat with your escort? she asked shrewdly. "Too bad," she continued kindly and philosophically. "I hope the differences are all mended or soon will be."
When Louise remained silent, Miss Gregory continued. "I did not ask you here to hurt you. I want to know something about a young man. What sort of a man is Truman Bennet? The young man who rescued you and Miss Lauriston?"
At mention of the name the girl looked up with a gasp of surprise. She gazed at the elder woman intently as if to read the reason of the question. Miss Gregory returned the look and waited. For a moment Louise wondered whether to speak truly or not. Finally she seemed to detect a flicker of a friendly smile about Miss Gregory's lips that invited confidence. Without a word she arose, stepped over to the chair at which the teacher sat, rested on the arm with her own arm about the shoulders of the elder woman, then bent over and tenderly kissed Miss Gregory's forehead. With that she burst out, "Oh, Miss Gregory, how did you know? How did you know?" Her tone was joyful, believing that the older woman, whose duty it was to know all the secrets of her girls in some way, divined the fact that Louise was in love with Truman Bennet.
Miss Gregory, thinking of Lida, preferred to preserve silence, and wait.
With a sigh of contentment and consolation at the thought that she had a friend in whom she could confide, Louise spoke tenderly and softly. There is no solace for a troubled soul so welcomed as the ear of sympathetic friend. It was the first time Louise had had opportunity for unburdening her heart to anyone and she was glad of the chance. With a voice softened almost to a whisper by the emotion which moved her, she said:
"Truman Bennet, Miss Gregory, is—is—," the girl hesitated, seeking words for describing him, while Miss Gregory waited. Suddenly she burst out with, "Oh, Miss Gregory, I can't describe him. He's my ideal."
Miss Gregory turned to look at the girl, saw the rapt tenderness of her face, guessed at the emotions which moved her and made a mental notation, then asked:
"What does he look like?"
"He's tall, swarthy, like a Spaniard or a Moor, with brown eyes."
"Where does he come from? Who are his parents?"
"He's in the graduating class at college—He's a senior. From one of the little towns of the State. I don't know his family, except that they say they are—" Louise hesitated as she remembered the nationality of Bennet. "He's a perfect man and a gentleman, however," she hastily added as if in defense.
From the emotion detected in the girl at the beginning of the conversation, Miss Gregory had expected a rapturous description of the young man. When she found the girl loathed to speak of Bennet, and then only in terms of quiet praise and defense, she realized that Louise, too, entertained a deep emotion for Bennet. With this realization she asked:
"Have you seen him often?"
"Yes, when at games and at other times the boys give. He's very popular. I've never been in his company much. He's the young man who saved me during the strike riot last fall."
"Oh, I see." She turned to the girl with: "Would you marry him?"
The two looked straight into each other's souls at the question, Louise hesitated a moment, then dropped her head as she answered.
"Yes, Miss Gregory. I would if he asked me. But he won't—he won't."
Miss Gregory arose, stroked the girl's head then walked to her window and gazed to the street. "Maybe he will," she said—"Maybe he will. That is all dear."
Louise, hesitated, still seated on the arm of the chair from which Miss Gregory had risen. She wanted to speak her heart but maidenly emotions prevented. Slowly she left the room, half cheered, half disheartened, and full of wonder.
For some minutes after Louise had departed Miss Gregory continued to gaze from the window down the street far into the past to where the romance of her own life had begun and ended. Despite the promptings of what she considered her duty, the picture of a youth and girl crossing a meadow in a rich coloring of spring sunset, smiling happily at each other and planning the many things they would do, now that they had pledged their lives and had promised to love each other. She was the girl and the youth a young man, son of humble parents whose fewacre farm adjoined the country estate of her parents. The picture of this romance conjured again from the past pleaded with her in the case of Lida and Bennet. Stern reality of the present, the duty she felt to her school, to herself and to the father who had entrusted the girl to her care and training, all argued against romance. The argument was too strong and romance lost. With tears in her eyes, reminders of her own bitterness, she turned away from the window determined upon a course of action. She would interview Bennet and convince him of the futility of pursuing the course he was on.
While summoning a messenger she penned a polite note asking "Would Mr. Truman Bennet be kind enough to call at the office of Miss Gregory, of Miss Gregory's finishing school at 4.30 o'clock or as soon thereafter as was convenient."
With the note dispatched she sat at her desk to await an answer. With a feeling that she was trespassing guiltily where she had no right, she waited, wondering whether the note would bring the young man or whether her effort would fail. The trepidation of her heart increased as the minutes passed and the messenger failed to return, with an answer. The college and school were so near each other that they were almost like a New England co-educational institution. In fact some of the instructors from the college eked out their salary by instructing some of the classes at the finishing school. As she waited, Miss Gregory began to grow nervous and, able to remain sitting no longer, began to pace the room. She was just on the point of giving up hope of the young man's coming when the messenger returned with word that Bennet would be pleased to obey the summons.
Bitter thoughts so traced themselves across the brain of Truman Bennet, following the night of the Promenade that thoughts, locking his room and barring all companions who he was unable to study. He gave himself up to his gloomy sought to talk with him about the success of the affair. When at last they became alarmed and insisted in seeing him, he announced that he was ill and wished to remain undisturbed. After his classmates and friends had experienced some of his irritation they became fully convinced that he was truly ill. They ministered to him as best they could with his consent so far as he would give it, then departed. Left to himself Truman became feverish from worry. He turned his room into a miniature drug store in his efforts to relieve himself of the headache from which he suffered. Try as he would, however, no relief came since he could not shake off his misery.
When the messenger reached his room with the note from Miss Gregory, he seemed on the verge of insanity from his suffering. At the first knocking at his door he resolved not to answer. When the knocking was repeated, determinedly, however, he shouted, petulantly, "Go away. Get away from that door and don't bother me." He was just about to hurl a handy caraffe of water against the door to emphasize his desire to be left alone, when the voice of the messenger called:
"Mr. Bennet—Mr. Bennet—I've got a note for you."
"Who is it?" Bennet asked.
"Me," came back ungrammatically. "It's me, the messenger boy."
"What messenger boy. I don't want any messenger boy."
"I've got a note from Miss Gregory's school for Mr. Bennet. Is that you?"
At mention of Miss Gregory's school, Bennet leaped from the couch on which he had been reclining. He leaped so quickly as to jump out of the bedroom slippers in which his feet were encased. He was across the room in an instant with the door opened. In his pajamas and dressing robe, with his hair dishevelled, and a white bandage about his head he presented such a ghostly wild appearance that the boy was on the point of bolting. Bennet grabbed the missive from the outstretched hand, tore the envelope open and read the formal scented note Miss Gregory had sent him. In puzzlement over the signature he lifted his hand to his forehead and unconsciously pushed the bandage from his forehead, pressing his hand there instead.
For a few seconds he failed to comprehend the note. Visions of Lida came to him; fear that she was ill, or that something had happened to her almost had him frantic. Suddenly he recalled their parting and realized that this could not be so when she had not the feeling for him that he had for her. The boy waited patiently. Finally he said:
"There's an answer. She said I was to wait for it."
"Oh," gasped Bennet. "Yes,—yes—Oh, there's an answer.—Tell her I'll be there. Tell her I'll—I'll—be there."
With that he closed the door and began to prepare for the visit. Youth quickly reacts against emotions and by the time Bennet had finished a cold shower with a brisk rubdown, his mood of gloom had almost left him and he found his headache gone. He was once more looking sanely at life and wondering what could be the meaning of the invitation to call. His toilet was deliberate and careful as was always his way. When he left his room, his mates across the hall were so surprised at his immaculateness of dress and his quick recovery from tormenting illness that they believed he had suddenly gone insane and watched him intently. Fear that, in his madness he planned to harm himself, several of them followed down the stairs and halfway across the campus, at a discreet distance, however.
When he turned into Prospect Street and started in the direction of Miss Gregory's school, they decided he was on his way to call on Lida and, with the wisdom of college youth, concluded that Bennet's illness was due to a love quarrel and that he was on the way to a peace conference. For a few moments longer, after they had paused in their pursuit, they gazed steadily at Bennet, watched his steady, firm, though hurried stride, clapped each other on the back as they chuckled, hooked feet, with hands resting on shoulders, then did a one-foot dance.