The play netted the dormitory fund over a thousand dollars. Augusta and Doris stepped into the spot light of campus admiration and were fêted by their friends for upwards of a week afterward. Marjorie attended the presentation of the drama with her mother, Jerry, Miss Susanna and Jonas. It was her mother’s last evening at the Arms and this sad knowledge put her in a rather forlorn mood. Then, too, she could not help thinking of Hal. She had suggested the title of the play as a result of seeing the costume of polar knight Hal Macy had worn at the merry-making in Sanford on Christmas Eve. Now she saw Hal as the knight, rather than Gussie.
She wondered vexedly why she always thought of Hal in connection with the sentimental. It was because he had told her he loved her, she supposed. She watched fascinatedly the progress of the play and listened with half impatient sadness to the impassioned words of love which Katherine Langly, who knew nothing about love, had put into the mouth of Godoran.
Following the play and her mother’s departure for Sanford, Marjorie returned with conscientious interest to the work of the biography. Since the love story of Brooke Hamilton had entered into it she had revolutionized her whole idea of the plan. Now she plunged once more into the journal, working at it diligently. She tried to use every sentence of it which did not touch too personally on the side of the great man’s romance which belonged to him and not to the world.
After a time it seemed to her that she knew every line of the journal by heart. She worked steadily on through the bright spring weather until she had arranged the delicate matter to suit her critical mind. Miss Susanna was greatly pleased over Marjorie’s arranging of the sentimental part of her great-uncle’s history. She had taken a notion to edit the garden letters herself, and the two friends worked together in the study at the long library table, each with the same fond spirit toward the man in the portrait.
On the campus Leila Harper in fancy had ceased to be a post graduate. Instead she was living through an exciting period of Irish history as she rehearsed the heroic part of Desmond O’Dowd. As the time drew near for the presentation of the Irish drama she grew more pleased with the work of the cast than she had ever been with that of any other group of actors whom she had formerly used in her plays. Vera, as Mona of Lough Gur, the Irish maid from County Limerick, promised to be the chief attraction.
One thing to perfect her production Leila lacked. She needed a real man, one with an exceptionally sweet tenor voice to sing words to the minuet tune that accompanied the Irish minuet she and Vera were to give in the first act of the play. As the hero it was really Leila’s place to sing the quaint words as she danced. Not being possessed of a tenor voice she could not carry out this part of the program. She decided after much thought to place a singer in the wings to voice the pretty Irish words.
Next difficulty was to obtain the singer. Following a brief season of despairing calculation as to whether a church singer in Hamilton might not undertake the solo, Leila hit upon another plan that brought a true Cheshire cat grin to her keen Celtic features. She hastily mailed a very ragged piece of Irish music to Hal Macy with a short accompanying letter, and buoyantly awaited results.
Leila’s plan to bring Hal from Sanford to sing behind the scenes for her on the night of her play was not entirely one of self-interest. She had often thought Marjorie was nothing less than a sleeping beauty slated to awaken suddenly from a dream of life to reality and a lover’s kiss. She had long guessed for herself that Hal loved Marjorie. She had also been the only one besides Marjorie who had seen Hal’s heart-broken expression as he had stood before Marjorie’s portrait.
Of late Leila had shrewdly thought she had noticed signs of absent-minded dreaming on Marjorie’s part which might or might not have to do with Hal. Miss Susanna had decreed that Marjorie might tell the original Travelers of the journal if she wished. Leila had listened to Marjorie’s sad account of it and her wistful remarks afterward with her head on one side. She had there and then made up her mind to try out an experiment of her own upon Hal and Marjorie.
In due time Hal’s answer returned. Yes, he would be pleased to help her with her play in any way he could. He would make it a point to keep out of sight until after the performance. This Leila had also requested. He had learned the Irish song and thought it very pretty. Leila was tempted more than once to tell Jerry. She triumphantly fought off the desire and cannily kept her own counsel.