I
It was the day of the Harvard-Pennsylvania boat race. Madelaine Theddon had come from Boston to cheer for the crimson. Gordon met her and after the races off Court Square they went to The Worthy for dinner.
Springfield was holding open house whether it wanted to hold open house or no. Groups of college boys paraded the streets. Banners were rampant; bands played. In early evening large numbers of Harvard undergrads descended upon The Worthy dining room and commandeered the place for their personal mess hall. It was a hilarious, happy, boisterous crowd,—and atmosphere. In another year the grim hand of war would grip the vitals of the nation. Let academic masculinity eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow most of it would be slopping in trench water or dodging shrapnel.
Madelaine and Gordon had entered the room early. They had secured a table beside one of the Worthington Street windows. The day died and evening came. The air was balmy and the windows were open. Madelaine felt light-hearted. The vacation was welcome and she abandoned herself to that carnival spirit.
Gordon had “straightened out.” There was no doubt about it. He had likewise straightened up. He was sleekly barbered at the moment, almost distinguished in his dinner clothes. He acted and talked like a man with a great life purpose. He spoke of the iron works, swollen with munitions orders, as he spoke of his pocket. Yet not in conceit or brag. He had been placed in charge of an important department and was pursuing that business as though it were his own. And the end was not yet. Gordon so contended, and had found the biggest thrill of all in building, creating, producing, doing some great, useful thing, the results from which he could see with his eyes and touch with his hands.
In the interim between race and dinner, Madelaine had hurried home and changed her frock. She was now a dream—a vision—in black tulle lightened with silver, her cheeks flushed, her calm eyes unusually merry, the inverted lights of the big dining room shining on raven hair massed high above a wide, brainy forehead. With Gordon in his new incarnation across the snowy linen and a tiny candle-lamp with a red-mulled shade at her right wrist making the dinner rendezvous cozy, despite the noise going on in the room, Madelaine almost fancied she was in love with Gord and the world a bit nebulous with glorified mist.
Wine flowed freely at the college tables. Glitter went in hand with horseplay. A big tin horn was much in evidence. At intervals, its blare cleft the tumult with nerve-jolting suddenness. Ever and anon, amid the tinkle of tableware and the popping of corks, there was song.
The boys sang “Fair Harvard”, “There’s a Tavern in the Town”, “Little Brown Jug”, and that latter-day classic, “Mary Ann McCarty, She Went Out to Dig Some Clams”, and they kept time to Mary Ann McCarty’s vicissitudes in the clam-digging vocation with cutlery, wine bottles and feet. An especially hilarious group of fat boys off in a corner originated new yells. Colored waiters sweated and hurried and dodged bits of food hurled at them and made themselves as agreeable as possible at the prospect of many bowls filled with tip money to be left behind for distribution when the festivities were over.
The waiter who served Madelaine and her escort asked about wine. Gordon raised an inquiring eyebrow. Madelaine named her preference. Gordon ordered an elaborate dinner but no liquor—for himself.
“What?” the astonished girl exclaimed.
Gordon laughed as he slid the big menu carefully under the base of the lamp.
“I’ve had enough of that stuff in the past—enough to last me all the rest of my life. It’s time I let it alone, Madge. Besides, I don’t feel I can afford it. Oh, I don’t mean the cost in money. I’m swinging a big thing, Madge, and I can’t afford a muddled head.”
A queer thrill burned at the roots of the girl’s fine hair.
“Well, you have changed, Gordon! I’ll give you credit!”
“You’re responsible, Madge. If you hadn’t given me an incentive, I’d still be blowing around western Massachusetts dodging traffic cops and breaking glass. You know that, don’t you, dear?”
He reached his hands across the small table and covered her own.
“Don’t, Gord! Not here!”
“Don’t you, Madge?”
“Don’t I what?”
“Don’t you know it—that you’re responsible?”
“Do you mean by that, if I were suddenly removed from your scheme of things you’d go all to pieces—back to the kind of chap you were a couple of years ago?”
The man’s face fell.
“Perhaps, Madelaine,” he said solemnly.
“That’s weak, Gordon. You must play the man for the sake of playing the man, not because you want to court the favor of a certain woman.”
“I hoped you’d take it as a compliment, Madge.”
“I do take it as a compliment. But the responsibility isn’t reassuring. I don’t want to feel that I’m a man’s—goal. There’s so much worth while in the world as a goal beside the mere winning of a woman.”
“Not when a fellow’s in love, Madge.”
“Let’s not talk about love. Let’s just enjoy ourselves.”
Gordon felt he was annoying her. He changed the subject.
“All Springfield seems to be divided into two camps to-night,” he said. “Those who are college people and those who are not.” The remark was occasioned by the stream of people passing along the walk outside, at shoulder-height below them.
Madelaine turned to watch the crowd. At the riot of hilarity from within the big dining room, many paused and smiled. Others appeared annoyed. Still others looked wistful. Notably among the latter was a young fellow who stood on the edge of the Worthington Street curbing and stared up into the dining room. He was a pale-faced, grim-jawed, plainly clothed chap with hungry eyes. Madelaine was conscious that he had been standing opposite their window, staring up for several minutes.
“What’s that fellow doing?” demanded Gordon. “Is he staring at you and me—or merely trying to snitch a chunk of this room’s boisterousness free of charge?”
“Poor fellow!” returned the girl. “He looks as though he belonged in here but for some reason knew that he’d be ejected if he tried to enter—and what a peculiar ear he has. Mercy, I wish he wouldn’t stare so! His expression will haunt me in sleep to-night.”
“I’ll send some one out to tell him to move on!”
“No! No! Don’t do that! Let’s just ignore him. Maybe he’ll go away.”
The waiter came with iced blue-points. When Madelaine next glanced sideways out the window, the fellow with the wistful face had gone away.