“But we have social life here—and masculine society, too,” she concluded with a smile.
“Yes, indeed,” responded Mrs. Gostar, glancing around the room, in which Harvard students were almost as numerous as Radcliffe girls. Standing in corners, seated on divans, walking toward the refreshment tables, were youths and maidens enjoying one another’s society to the same extent as if in a crowded ball-room. The walls were bright with orange and white festoons,—the class colors. A touch of crimson twined across the end of the room where the year of the class was inscribed showed the connection with Harvard. Rugs on the floor, tall palms in the corners, great vases of primroses, and bands of yellow ribbon on the refreshment tables, had transformed the plain recitation room into a bower of beauty. Each class had a room to itself, similarly decorated, and there was one for the Specials. Downstairs the officers of the Idler, the Dean of the college, and the Secretary received the guests, who were introduced individually by ushers. There was a table with refreshments in the parlor; there were refreshments and an orchestra in the Auditorium; there were, as Polly said, “tête-à-têtes unlimited” in the Library and in the recitation rooms; and any one whose knowledge of Radcliffe was obtained first through an “Open Idler” would have pronounced it the most frivolous of institutions.
Tom Hearst, now in the Law School, and one or two other friends of Philip’s accepted the invitations sent them by Ruth and Julia. The latter would have liked to ask some questions about Philip, for not a word had come to her directly since that Class Day evening. He was in her thoughts constantly, but she would not say a word.
XIV
IN DISGUISE
“Learned Sophomores! full of information,
‘Yes, we know it all,’ your manner seems to say.
Learned Sophomores! In each generation,
Sophomores will be Sophomores in the same old way.”
Thus under her breath Clarissa, from her seat in the Auditorium, hummed a strain from a Radcliffe song. Girls were gathering in the room to witness an Idler play.
“Sometime,” said Clarissa, “I’ll be a Senior, and have a front seat. But if you can’t have the first, the fifth row isn’t so very bad.”