So it was that Mary Christmas went to college with Mary and Cynthia Wescott, the presence of her spirit enlightening and coloring their hopes and plans for the future. Once, indeed, she came herself, in gold-laced bodice and red silk handkerchief; for so many of Cynthia’s themes had to do with Armenia, its plains, its saints, its legends, and with Mary Christmas herself, that her teacher, whose one passion in life was folklore, inquired about Mary Christmas and suggested that she be invited to come and sing her songs before a society with a long and learned name. Thereupon, the invitation was sent to Portland and received with much bewildered pride; and Mary Christmas, following Cynthia’s directions to the letter, left her pushcart, her green suit, and her red hat, and journeyed to the college, where she was met by Mary and Cynthia and conducted before the learned society. There, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes haunted by the same flames which had burned and glowed on that day so long ago beneath the orchard trees, she sang her songs, the songs of Vartan, of the Virgin and her festival, and of Artasches and Satenik, upon whom the gracious heavens showered gold and pearls. She told her stories, too—the old, familiar tales of her childhood and of theirs. Mary and Cynthia, sitting with their friends in the front of the room, were conscious of thousands of memories thronging back upon them. It was then, perhaps for the first time, that they realized fully the part that Mary Christmas had played in their lives; but, conscious of the scholastic atmosphere into which they had been suddenly thrust, they strove, in spite of the tears behind their eyes, to appear extremely academic. Meanwhile, the excited professor took notes furiously, and in due time published his “findings” in an article which left out Mary Christmas entirely, and which, since it was printed in the dullest of periodicals, was read only by himself and by other college professors.
In point of fact, Mary Christmas came once more to college, although this second visit was not generally known. She came one evening in the spring of Mary’s and Cynthia’s last year, and she brought Mary Wescott with her, much to the relief of Cynthia and of their house-mother, a tall, gaunt woman who felt her responsibilities. Waiting that afternoon in the Boston station for a train that would take her home after an unusual journey to that city for shopping in the larger markets, Mary Christmas was startled by the familiar face of Mary Wescott, now almost unfamiliar through anxiety and fear. She was sitting on the edge of one of the long waiting-seats, her scanty luggage beside her, her large eyes feverishly watching the unceasing line of people who came and went through the great doors. There was something about her strained, eager face, so intent upon the passing hundreds, that made Mary Christmas check her impulsive steps toward her and sit down at the farther end of the long seat just behind, from which, by rising occasionally, she could see without being seen.
Before a few minutes had passed she had become convinced that her own presence was quite safe from discovery. Mary Wescott had not the slightest interest in those about her. Her anxious gaze never for one moment left the great entrance doors. She was obviously waiting for someone, and, as Mary Christmas studied her face, she was convinced that that someone was no Wescott or chance relative unaccustomed to city ways.
When Mary Christmas heard the big man at the door call her train in his trumpet-like voice, she did not seize her big bundle and go. She waited yet another ten minutes—fifteen—twenty. Then through the station doors, his big suitcase indiscriminately bumping the shins of his fellow men, tore William Howe, with all the anxiety which could not find room on Mary’s face on his own.
Mary Christmas allowed them five hungry minutes for looking at each other before she left her seat behind them. Perhaps she needed that time to swallow something big that had crept into her throat. And when she did approach them, still gazing at each other, the upbraiding words which she had planned quite left her tongue. For all at once, to her who had lived over again the sad passing of so many centuries, Mary and William had become suddenly very young and needy.
Perhaps, as she came with such startling swiftness within their line of vision, they felt a high, classic rage at this retribution-bearing Nemesis; but they looked only like two children, fairly and inextricably caught. Mary Christmas did not say one word as she looked at them, and William felt it again incumbent upon him to manage the conversation, the motif of which, he quickly decided, must be determination at any cost.
“There isn’t a bit of use for you to try to stop us, Mary Christmas,” he began, looking appealingly at Mary, who had suddenly sat down again beside her luggage. “We’re running away together, and we’re going to be married. I’ve got the license, and we’re more than twenty-one. Besides, it’s a necessity. They won’t let us be married this summer—even with all the prospects I’ve got and more than a thousand in the bank. They’ve just told Mary so. It’s an outrage to make us wait! Just as if I couldn’t take care of her! In less than two years I’ll be third vice-president of the company. It’s as good as settled. So we’ve just decided to take matters into our own hands. And I tell you again, Mary Christmas, there isn’t a bit of use for you to interfere.”
Mary Christmas did not interfere. She looked at Mary Wescott, and knew by a prophetic gift of insight that Mary was trying to reconcile romance as she had pictured it with this sinking, frightful feeling in the region of her heart.
“Do you want to run away like this, Mary?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” faltered Mary. “At least—I did—I do—because I think it’s necessary. William needs me. He lives in a terrible boarding-house—and—”