§ 10
News spread rapidly in Cambridge, Sylvia found. The next afternoon she received a call from Mr. “Tubby” Bates, and one glimpse of his features told her that he was moved by some compelling impulse.
“May I sit down, Miss Castleman?” he asked. “I’ve something to ask you about. But I’m not sure, Miss Castleman—that is—whether I’ve a right to talk about it. You may think that I’m gossiping——”
“Oh, but I adore gossiping,” put in the girl; whereat the other stopped stammering and beamed with relief. He was more like a Southern man than anyone Sylvia had met here; she knew just how to deal with him.
“Thank you ever so much!” he exclaimed. “It’s really very good of you.” He drew his chair an inch or two nearer, and in a confidential voice began, “It’s about Douglas van Tuiver.”
“Yes, I supposed so,” said Sylvia, with a smile.
“Oh, then something did happen!”
“Now, Mr. Bates,” she laughed, “tell your story.”
“This noon,” he said, “van Tuiver called me on the ’phone—or at least his secretary did—and asked me if I’d lunch at the club. When we sat down, there were two other chaps, both wondering what was up. Pretty soon he got to a subject—” Bates stopped uneasily. “I’m afraid that perhaps I won’t express myself in the right way, Miss Castleman—that I may say something you don’t like——”
“Go on,” smiled Sylvia. “I’m possessed by curiosity.”
“Well, it came out that he’d had an adventure. He was walking last evening, and he met a lady. She was tall and rather pale, he said—a Southern girl. She was dressed in white and had golden hair. ‘Have any of you met such a girl?’ he asked. I kept silent and let the rest do the answering. They hadn’t. ‘It was a lady in distress,’ van Tuiver went on, ‘and I offered my assistance and she accepted’——”
“Oh, I did not!” cried Sylvia.
“Oho!” exclaimed Bates, “I knew it! Tell me, what did you do?”
“This is your story,” she laughed.
“Well, he said it was a novel rôle for him—that of Sir Galahad, or St. George, or Don Quixote. He found it embarrassing. I said, ‘Was it the novelty of the rôle—or perhaps the novelty of the lady?’ ‘Well,’ said van Tuiver, ‘that’s just it. She was one of the most bewildering people I ever met. She talked’—you won’t mind my telling this, Miss Castleman?”
“Not a bit—go on.”
“Some of it isn’t very complimentary——”
“I’m wild with suspense, Mr. Bates!”
“‘Well,’ he said, ‘she looked like a lady, but she talked like an actress in a comedy. I never heard anybody rattle so—I never knew a girl so pert. She talked just—amazingly.’ That was his word. I asked him just what he meant, but that was all I could get him to say. Finally he asked, ‘Do you know the lady?’ and of course I had to answer that I thought I did; I could be sure if he’d give me a sample of her conversation. ‘She has a cousin named Harley,’ he said, and I said, ‘Yes—he’s Chilton, a Freshman. Her name is Miss Castleman.’ Then he wanted to know all about you. I said, ‘I met her at a tea at Thurlow’s, and about all I know of her is that she talks amazingly.’ I thought that was paying him back.”
“And then?” laughed Sylvia.
“Well, he wanted to know what I thought of you; and I said I thought you were the loveliest, and the cleverest, and the sweetest person that I’d ever met in my life. I really think that, you know. And then van Tuiver said—” But here Bates stopped himself suddenly. “That’s all,” he said.
“No, surely not, Mr. Bates!”
“But really it is. You see, we were interrupted——”
“But not until Mr. van Tuiver had said that he thought I was horrid, and he thought I was shallow, and he thought I was vain.”
The other flushed slightly. Sylvia went on, “I don’t mind it, because the truth is, I’d been thinking it myself. You see, I really was mean to him, Mr. Bates. I said things to hurt him, without his knowing I meant them; but after he went off, he must have understood. Why should we want to hurt people?”
“I don’t know,” said Tubby, bewildered by this unexpected new turn. He wanted Sylvia to tell him the story of what had happened that evening; but she refused. Then he went on to a new proposition—he wished to bring van Tuiver to call. But she refused again and begged him not to think about the matter any further. He pleaded with her, in semi-comic distress; he was so anxious to see what would happen—everyone was anxious to see what would happen! He implored her, in the name of good society; it was cruel, wicked of her to refuse! But Sylvia was obdurate, and in the end he took his departure lamenting, but vowing that he would not give up.
Just as he was leaving, Harley arrived. He came to get his scolding for his conduct of the previous night. But the scolding was more serious than he had expected. To his dismay Sylvia declared that she was sincere in her refusal to meet van Tuiver again.
“The truth is,” she said, “I’ve changed my mind about the whole matter. I don’t care to have anything to do with the man.”
“But why not?” asked Harley, in amazement.
“Because—I don’t think that poor people like us have any right to. We can’t meet him and keep our self-respect.”
“Great God, girl! Aren’t we van Tuiver’s social equals.”
“We think we are, but he doesn’t; and his view prevails. When you came up here and fell in love with a girl in his set, you found that his view prevailed. And look what you did last night! Don’t you see the degradation—simply to be near such a man?”
“That’s all very well,” objected Harley, “but can I keep van Tuiver from coming to Harvard?”
“No, you can’t; but you can help to keep him from having his way after he has got here. You can stand out against him and all that he represents.”
There was a pause. Harley had nothing to say to that. Sylvia stood with her brows knitted in thought. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said, “there’s something very wrong about it all. The man has too much money. He has no right to have so much—certainly not unless he’s earned it.”
Whereat her cousin exclaimed, “For God’s sake, Sylvia, you talk like an Anarchist!”