CHAPTER XII.
COMMENCEMENT
It was nearly a year since they had seen Everard, and Bee and Rossie were struck at once with the great change in his personal appearance, while even the judge noticed how thin and pale he was, but attributed it naturally to hard study. Fresh air and exercise at home would soon make that all right, he thought, and so dismissed it from his mind. But Beatrice and Rosamond both saw more than the thin face, which had grown so pale and troubled. They saw that Everard’s hat was the same worn the year before when he was at home; saw that his pants were shining about the knees, and his coat shining and worn about the sleeves, while his boots were carefully patched. Once he had been the best and most fashionably-dressed young man in college, but he was far from that now, though he was scrupulously neat and clean, and looked every whit a gentleman as he walked with the young ladies down the shaded street, and tried to seem natural, and answer gayly to Beatrice’s light badinage and Rossie’s quaint remarks. But it was uphill business, for how could he be happy when he knew that Josey would soon be watching for him, and expecting him to pass a part of the evening, at least, with her? What if she should take it into her head to come to town and hunt him up, and find him there with his friends? What could he say or do, and what would they think of her? It made him faint and sick just to imagine Beatrice weighing Josephine as she would weigh her, and discovering more than the enormity of cotton lace and dollar jewelry, while Rossie,—he could not define to himself why he shrank so nervously from having her clear, honest eyes scan Josephine Fleming, as he knew they would do.
After tea was over, Everard took his father through the town and introduced him to some of the professors, and then, as the twilight began to fall, asked to be excused a short time, as he had an engagement to call upon a friend; so his father returned alone to his lodgings, and Everard started on a rapid walk toward Mrs. Everts’. He did not know the lady personally, but he knew where she lived, and was soon at her gate, where he paused a moment in some surprise at the sounds of talking and laughter which greeted his ears. The parlor was lighted up, and through the open windows he caught a glimpse of Josephine, fair and lovely, in pure white, with only a bit of honeysuckle at her throat and in her hair, which fell like a golden shower upon her neck, and gave her a very youthful appearance. Gathered around her were four young men, juniors and sophomores, each striving for the preference, and each saying some soft thing to her, at which she laughed so prettily and coquettishly that their zeal and admiration were increased tenfold.
“How did these puppies know her?” Everard asked himself, as he leaned against the gate; then he remembered having heard that one of them had spent a little time in Holburton, and probably he was in the habit of going there occasionally, and had taken the others with him.
At all events she seemed to know them well, and they were in the full tide of flattery and mirth when his ring broke the spell, and he was ushered into the parlor.
“Oh, I am so glad to see you!” Josey exclaimed, coming gracefully forward, and giving him both her hands, an act which was noted by the juniors and sophomores, and mentally resented.
What business had that grave, dignified Forrest there, and why should Miss Fleming greet him so cordially, and where did she know him anyway? They had heard he was very wealthy, and that he once was very fast and wild, but something had changed him entirely, and transformed him into a sober, reticent, and, as they believed, very proud and stingy young man, whose perfectly correct behavior was a living rebuke to themselves. He was not popular with their set, and they showed it in their faces, and pulled at their cravats, and fingered the bouquets in their button-holes, and stood round awkwardly, while he talked with Josey, and asked her of her journey, and her mother and Agnes, and answered her questions about the exercises the next day, and the best place for her to sit.
“Oh, we will arrange that; we will see that you have a good seat,” the juniors and sophomores echoed in chorus; and with a slight sneer, perceptible to Josey, on his face, Everard said to her: “I do not see that there is any chance for me to offer you any attention, you seem so well provided for.”
Josey bit her lip with vexation, for though she was delighted to have so many admirers at her side, she would far rather have been cared for particularly by this husband, of whom she was beginning to be a good deal afraid. He was so greatly changed that she could not understand him at all, or guess what was passing in his mind, and when at last he rose to go she said to him almost beseechingly: