In that frame of mind he dropped in on the Leverings. Mrs. Levering and Kate were sewing on the lawn at the rear in the shade of their huge chestnut trees. Gorgas was in town purchasing materials for the “smitty.”
The old familiarity was there in their greetings and something of warmth due to the natural joy in another’s success; but there was also a deferential treatment due to his newspaper fame, which made him uncomfortable.
“My dear Professor Blynn,” Mrs. Levering beamed toward him, “I do wish I could get courage to ask you to glance over the literary program of our little club. We’re not at all satisfied with the plans for next year; of course, we are all amateurs without taste or knowledge. But I’m afraid you are so busy with—”
“Not at all!” Blynn broke in. “Do let me work with you. I should be delighted. I have bushels of time and I’ll dig for you like a good gardener, provided—you don’t call me ‘professor.’”
“Oh, you’re too modest.”
“Not at all; I’m too proud!” he laughed. “In America ‘professor’ and ‘doctor’ are the inferior titles; ‘Mr.’ is really the mark of distinction. I like the way they say ‘Mr.’ Eliot in Cambridge. Fancy saying ‘Professor’ Eliot or even ‘Dr.’ Eliot! It would be like referring to Dr. George Washington! And he was an LL. D., too; both Harvard and U. of P.; but who remembers that? I have been ‘professored’ all my life. You don’t know how I yearn—like a small boy—to be called ‘Mr.’”
“Mr.” was agreed upon by Mrs. Levering, although Kate demurred.
“We always call you ‘Allen Blynn’ when we talk of you here at home,” she remarked thoughtfully. “I always say ‘Allen.’ You call me Kate; perhaps I had better dub you—”
“‘Pete’—for Petruchio,” he joked. “You can’t tell, you know. Fine weather like this, the germ is everywhere.” He was reminding her of his theory that love was a contagion.
“I fear you are immune,” she looked up from her embroidery frame and searched his face comically.