The temptation to exalt some upper-class girl into an ideal and lavish upon her an affection which in society would naturally fall to the lot of some very unideal boy, or man, is one of the greatest ordeals a college girl goes through, and one who successfully resists all inducements to become a “divinity student,” or who gets out of the entanglement without damage to herself, is as successfully “proven” as was Lieutenant Ouless after his little affair with Private Ortheris. Even the least romantic girl is apt to find unexpected possibilities in her nature in the way of romantic devotion, so that it was not surprising that Miss Betty Harmon, unimaginative and unsentimental as she was, should have admired so extravagantly as handsome and interesting a girl as Eva Hungerford. The crude Western girl found something extremely attractive in the senior—grace, a social ease and distinction, and that indefinable magnetism which a wealthy, consciously beautiful girl possesses.
But Miss Hungerford, who had no notion of getting herself talked about, and whose Eastern sensitiveness and prejudices were continually being shocked by the younger girl’s crudities, so persistently frowned down upon and ignored her under-class admirer, that even Miss Harmon’s devotion paled, and the roses and notes and boating excursions ceased. She began to perceive that the faint line of social distinction, so rarely perceptible in the college, had been drawn in her case.
During the last semestre of the year Miss Hungerford, who was very tired and busy, seemed almost oblivious of the young girl’s existence, and even forgot to smile at her when they met on the campus. And when on her Baccalaureate Sunday a box of white roses—the last mute expression of Miss Harmon’s expiring affection—was handed her without any card, she wondered who had sent them and concluded they must have been ordered by a man she knew.
Three years after leaving college Miss Hungerford married, much to her friends’ surprise, and a year after that she and her husband went abroad. Of course they went to Paris, where Mrs. Stanhope, who had spent much time there after leaving college, had a great many friends, and innumerable dinners were given to them and they enjoyed themselves very much, until it got so cold that Mrs. Stanhope said she must go to Cannes. Of course it immediately struck Stanhope, who adored his wife, that it was entirely too cold to stay in Paris, and so they went south, though their friends made a great fuss over their departure.
They stayed away much longer than they had intended, having been enticed into going to Malta by some American acquaintances, and when they got back to Paris hundreds of interesting things seemed to have happened in their absence, and a great many people and events were being talked about of which they knew nothing. But the wife of the American minister, who was an old friend, went to see Mrs. Stanhope immediately to invite her to an informal dinner the next evening, and stayed the entire afternoon, telling her of everything that had happened and who all the new people were—the New American Beauty for instance. She could not believe that her friend had not heard of nor seen the New Beauty.
“Why, haven’t you ever seen her pictures—and the notices of her?”
Mrs. Stanhope was slightly aggrieved. She knew absolutely nothing about her.
“And I am completely astonished that they aren’t talking of her at Cannes.”