III
Happily for her peace of mind the day opened briskly. She had disposed of a rapid succession of customers before Irene, who had arrived late, passed her in the salesroom with a careless nod and smile. At half-past nine Grace espied John Moore, the unwitting cause of the exposure of her truancy from the French class, standing in the entrance. So many other thoughts had filled her mind since she left the breakfast table that she had forgotten about Moore and the football game. She was carrying a gown she had just sold flung over her arm when the sight of the young man, who was clearly dismayed by the unfamiliar scene, brought a smile to her face. He sprang forward beaming when he caught sight of her.
“I was just about to run; I’m scared to death!” he exclaimed.
In his joy at finding her he dropped his hat as he grasped her hand. He was big of frame but trained fine, and the deep tan of his summer on a Kansas farm had not yet worn off. His gray suit was only saved from shabbiness by a recent careful pressing. His lean cheeks were neatly shaven and his thick brown hair was evenly parted and smoothly brushed, though a wisp of it persisted in slipping down over his forehead. Twenty-seven or thereabouts, John Barton Moore—as he was written on the university books—seemed older with the maturity of one who begins early to plan and fashion his life.
“I’m awfully glad to see you, John!” she cried. “Up for the game, of course! I was terribly sorry not to be home when you called. The trouble was that I cut my French lesson at the last minute to go to a party.”
“Perfectly all right, Grace. I ought to have written you a note to say I was coming up.”
He glanced about anxiously. “Am I blocking the wheels of commerce?” he asked with the drawl that proclaimed him one of those children of Indiana whose ancestors reached the Wabash country by way of North Carolina and Kentucky.
“Nothing like that! Just a minute till I send this dress to be packed.”
She motioned him to a chair but he remained standing like a soldier at attention till she came back.
“Now then! Let’s proceed to business.”
“Well, I. U. needs all her children to root this afternoon, though I think we’re going to win. And you’ve got to go. Got good seats and everything’s all set.”
“Why, John, I’m afraid I can’t go. Saturdays are busy days here. I don’t like to ask to get off.”
“Oh, you can fix it somehow. And besides I want to talk. I’ve got about a million things to tell you. You left in such a hurry I didn’t know you were gone till Roy told me the next day. I’ve certainly missed our talks.”
“Well, we’ll have some more; I’m starving for a talk with you!”
“Well, this is a fearsome place and I mustn’t keep you. So please see your boss and tell him or her this is a matter of life and death.”
At this moment Irene swept by with a valued customer and Grace appealed to her.
“Miss Kirby, Mr. Moore. Irene, Mr. Moore is an old friend of mine from I. U. and he wants me to go to the game. Would I be shot if I asked to get off?”
Irene surveyed Moore carefully and weighed the question for an instant.
“What do I get if I fix it?” she asked, giving the young man the benefit of her handsome eyes.
“I might offer a bushel of hickory-nuts,” said Moore. “I counted a lot on seeing the game with Grace.”
“I think,” said Irene with mock gravity, “I think it can be arranged. Miss Boardman sent word this morning that she’s ill and won’t be down, so I’m in charge. We’re likely to have a busy afternoon, but you run along, Grace.”
“Well, that’s mighty nice of you, Miss Kirby”; and Moore thrust out his hand. It was evidently his habit to express all manner of emotion with a handshake. He was regarding Irene with a frank curiosity manifest in his steady gray eyes. The grand manner of the Irenes of the world, one would have assumed, was new to him.
“I wish you could go along too,” he said. “It’s likely to be a lively scrap. If you say the word, Miss Kirby, I’ll get another seat right away.”
“Oh, thank you so much! But with Miss Boardman away it can’t be done. It’s nice of you to ask me though.”
If she was to him a puzzling type, alien to all his experience, he was equally of an unfamiliar species to her. Grace noted with secret amusement the interest they apparently awakened in each other.
“Excuse me; I must run along,” said Irene. “Have a good time!” She left them with her queenliest air.
“I told you it could be fixed all right,” said Moore. “Fine girl; Miss Kirby.”
“It was mighty nice of her to do it. I’d hardly have had the nerve to tackle Miss Boardman.”
“Well, I mustn’t keep you. There’s lots of folks on the streets. Looks like the whole of the grand old Hoosier State was in town. Where can I meet you?”
“At the main entrance of this emporium at one o’clock. You get your lunch first and I’ll snatch something in the tea room. We’ll want to get out early to see the crowd gather. I’m that thrilled, John!”
Grace greeted her next customer with a smile that was not wholly inspired by the hope of making a substantial sale. John had been one of her best friends at the university, where every one knew and liked him. Even the governor of the State knew Moore and referred to him indirectly in public addresses as a justification for taxing the people to place higher education within reach of the humblest.
Moore was born on a farm and his parents dying just as he finished the common schools, he had worked his way through college, doing chores during the school terms and spending his vacations on farms wherever employment offered. In like fashion he was now plodding his way through the law school. His good humor was unfailing and his drolleries were much quoted in the university town. When urged in his undergraduate days to take up football he pleaded important engagements, not scrupling to explain that they were the most solemn pledges to saw wood or cut grass for his clients or drive the truck on Saturdays for a grocer. He called his employers his noble patrons and praised them for their consideration and generosity. He enjoyed music, and possessing a good baritone voice he had been enrolled in the glee club. He never had danced until, in his senior year, a number of co-eds conspired to instruct him. He was the star performer of the debating society and had several times represented the university in the contests of the Inter-State Association.
Though she had so quickly overcome her disappointment at leaving the University, Grace found that the sight of Moore awoke in her a keen regret that her college days were over. She was far less sure of herself than she had been before her evening at The Shack. She clutched at memories of her happy care-free yesterdays. A band in the street was playing the air of the college song, which was punctuated by the familiar yell from the throats of a mighty phalanx of undergraduates. Young women from all the state colleges were coming into the store for hurried purchases. Two members of her sorority, girls she had lived with for two years, dropped in to see her—cheery, hopeful young women, eagerly flinging at her scraps of college news and giving a sharper edge to her homesickness for the campus and all it connoted. She was beset with serious doubts as to her fitness to meet the problems of life; the conceit was gone out of her. She recalled what a lecturer had once said at a student’s convocation, that the great commonwealth of Indiana stood behind them, eager to serve them, to put them in the way of realizing the abundant promise of life. In her mood of contrition she reflected that not only had the arm of the State been withdrawn, but that she had gone far toward estranging those to whom she was bound by the closest ties, who had every right to expect the best of her. If it had been in her power she would have elected to join the throng of young men and women who, victor or vanquished, would go back to the university that night singing songs which echoed in her memory now and made a continuing little ache in her heart.
Moore’s pride in her was manifest as he hung to a strap and bent over her in the crowded street-car on the way to the battlefield. Grace was a pretty girl, and John was not unmindful of the fact that she attracted attention. He talked steadily—of university affairs, of their friends among the students.
“Did Roy come up?” she asked.
“I haven’t seen him. He may have come up with the bunch this morning. But you might overlook the king of England in this crowd.”
“Roy’s not terribly enthusiastic about the law,” she suggested leadingly.
“Well, maybe not just what you’ll call crazy about it; but he’ll come along all right. There’s good stuff in Roy.”
Moore was usually so candid that his equivocal answer did not escape her. Grace had the greatest misgivings as to her brother’s future. He had wanted to leave the university when she was summoned home. He had won his A. B. by the narrowest margin and had gone into the law school only because of his mother’s obsession that he was destined to a career similar to that of her father and grandfather, whose attainments at the bar and services to the State provided what Mrs. Durland called a background for her children.