§ 5
Half an hour or so later, when they were passing tea and cake, the flame of her fun burned less brightly for a few minutes, and she had time to remember a purpose which was stored away in the back of her mind. All her faculties now became centered upon it; and those who wish may follow the winding serpent of her cunning.
She had been telling them about the negro boy who had bitten a piece out of the baby. Thurlow remarked, “Yours must be an interesting part of the world.”
“We love it,” she said. “But you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’d miss too many things you are used to. Our college boys have no such luxury as this.” She looked about her.
“You think this so very luxurious?”
“I do indeed. I’m not sure that I think it’s good taste for young fellows.”
“But why not?”
“It gets you out of touch with life,” replied Sylvia, with charming gravity. (“Don’t play too long on one string!” had been a maxim of Lady Dee.) “I think it’s demoralizing. This place might be a sanatorium instead of a dormitory—if only you had elevators to take the invalids upstairs.”
Somebody remarked, “We have elevators in many of the dormitories.”
“Is that really so?” asked Sylvia. “I don’t see how you can go beyond that—unless some of you take to having private houses.”
There was a laugh. “We’ve come to that, too,” said Bates.
“What?” cried the girl. “Surely not!”
“Douglas van Tuiver has a house,” replied Bates.
“Surely you are jesting!”
“No! I’ll show it to you, Miss Castleman.”
“Who is Douglas van Tuiver?”
The men glanced at one another. “Haven’t you ever heard of the van Tuivers?” asked one.
“Who are they?” countered Sylvia, who never lied when she could avoid it.
“They are one of our oldest families,” said Shackleford—who came from New York. “Also one of the best known.”
“Well,” said Sylvia, duly rebuked, “you see how very provincial I am.”
“He’s a nephew of Mrs. Harold Cliveden,” ventured Harmon.
“Cliveden?” repeated Sylvia. “I think I’ve heard that name.” She kept a straight face—though the lady was the reigning queen of Newport, and a theme of the society gossip of all American newspapers. Then, not to embarrass her friends by too great ignorance, she hurried on, “But you surely don’t mean that this man has a house all to himself?”
“He has,” said Thurlow.
“He has more than that,” said Jackson. “He has a castle in Scotland.”
“I don’t mind castles so much. One can inherit them——”
“No, he bought this one.”
“Well, even so—castles are romantic and interesting. One might have a dream of founding a family. But for a man to come to college and occupy a whole house—what motive could he have but ostentation?”
No one answered—though she waited for an answer. At last, with a grave face, she pronounced the judgment, “I would expect to find such a man a degenerate.”
They were evidently shocked, but covered it by laughing. “Lord!” said Bates, “I’d like to have van Tuiver hear that!”
“Probably it would be good for him,” replied Sylvia, coldly.
Everybody grinned. “Wish you’d tell him!” said the man.
“I’d be delighted.”
“Would you really?”
“Why certainly.”
“By Jove, I believe you’d do it!” declared Bates.
“But why shouldn’t I do it?”
“I don’t know. When people meet van Tuiver they sometimes lose their nerve.”
“Is he so very terrible?”
“Well, he’s rather imposing.”
Then Sylvia took a new line. “Of course,” she said, hesitatingly, “I wouldn’t want to be irreverent——”
“May I go and bring him here?” inquired Bates, eagerly.
To which she replied, “Perhaps one owes more deference to Royalty. Shouldn’t you take me to him?”
“We’ll keep you on a throne of your own,” said Thurlow—“at least, while you are here.” (It was quite as if he had been a Southern man.)
But Bates was not to be diverted from his idea. “Won’t you let me go and get him?” he inquired.
“Does he visit in dormitories?”
“Really, Miss Castleman, I’m not joking. Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”
“Why should I?”
“Because—we’d all like to see what would happen.”
“From what you say about him,” remarked Sylvia, “he sounds to me like a bore. Or at any rate, a young man who is in need of chastening.”
“Exactly!” cried Bates. “And we’d like to see you attend to it!”
The time had come, Sylvia thought, to play upon a new string. She looked about her with a slightly distrait air. “Don’t you think,” she inquired, “that we are giving him too large a portion of this charming afternoon?”
The men appreciated the compliment; but the other theme still enticed them. Said Jackson, “We can’t give up the idea of the chastening, Miss Castleman.”
“Of course, if you are afraid of him—” added Bates, slyly.
There was a momentary flash in Sylvia’s eyes. But then she laughed—“You can’t play a game like that on me!”
“We would so like,” said Jackson, “to see van Tuiver get a drubbing!”
“Please, Miss Castleman!” added Harmon, “give him a drubbing!”
But the girl only held out her white-gloved hands. “Look at these,” she said, “how pure and spotless!”
Said “Tubby”: “I hereby register a vow, I will never partake of food again until you two have met!”
Sylvia rose, looking bored. “I’m going to run away,” she said, “if you don’t find something interesting to talk about.” And strolling towards a cabinet, “Mr. Thurlow, come and introduce me to this charming little Billikin!”