Boller said no more that night, but his manner in parting made it clear to me that if he came to New York it was his purpose to be of great service to me, to lift me up with him. His assumption of superiority filled me with a desire to outrun him. Vanity is a great stimulus to action, and the inspiring note of my life was forgotten as I contemplated David Malcolm in his sanctum, at a table littered with pages, every one of which would stab some devil of corruption or brighten some lonely hour, pausing at his labor to blow spires of smoke ceilingward while he gave kindly advice to the man who sat before him, respectfully erect on his chair, regarding him through drooping glasses.
The college lights were out. I moved to the window and stayed there for a long time, looking into the summer night. The street lamps checkered the slope below me, but my eyes went past them; in the depths of the valley the nail-works were glowing, piling up their tale of kegs, but I looked beyond them to the mountain which rose from the river and travelled away like a great shadow, cutting the star-lighted sky. Where mountain and sky mingled, indefinable in the night, my eyes rested, but my mind plunged on. My arms lay folded on the window-sill, and into them my head sank. I crossed mountain after mountain, and they were but shadows to my youthful strength. What a man David Malcolm became that night! He won everything that the world holds worth striving for. He won them all so easily by always doing what was right. He travelled far because he marched so straight. Then he mounted to the highest peak—a feat so rare that even his great modesty could not suppress a cry of exultation. He heard the crunching of a hoe, and, following the sound, saw the Professor battling with the ever-charging weeds. The gaunt man regarded him quietly; then said: "David, you have come far." He raised the hoe and pointed to the sky. "And I suppose they have heard of it off there—in Mars and Saturn." He turned to the ground, to an army of ants working on a pyramid of sand. "And down there—I suppose they have heard of it." David Malcolm looked about him. The world seemed waste as far as his mind could carry. The Professor saw the disappointment clouding his face, for he stepped closer to him and, laying a hand upon his shoulders, said: "Remember, David, sealed orders."
CHAPTER XI
In those last days at college, when in moments of contemplation I sketched with free imagination a long and unbroken career of success, whether I would or not, Gladys Todd was always gliding into my dreams. She had been too long a central figure in them for me to evict her easily. I knew that I had best begin my march unhampered by impedimenta of any kind, but I found it no easy task to get myself into light marching order. While I had never made a serious proposal for her hand, I had in sentimental moments said things which implied that at the proper time I should offer myself formally. That the offer would bring her prompt acquiescence I never for a moment doubted. But more embarrassing was the attitude of Doctor and Mrs. Todd. They treated me as though I were a member of the family. Mrs. Todd's eyes always beamed with a peculiarly motherly light when they rested on me, and now I recalled with something akin to terror an evening when Gladys at the piano was accompanying me as I sang "The Minute Guns at Sea." Her mother entered the parlor. It did her good, she said, to see us, for it brought back the dear days when she and Doctor Todd had sung as we were singing at that very same piano. Doctor Todd never expressed his thoughts with quite such frankness, but now I could remember many times when he had treated me with fatherly consideration. To end abruptly such a friendship seemed not alone a gross abandonment of Gladys Todd, but of Doctor Todd and Mrs. Todd. The sensible thing to do was clear to me in my saner moments. During the few days that remained to me at college I should continue the friendship, but it would be friendship and nothing more. Then I would go away, politely, as hundreds of other young men before me had left Harlansburg, with a formal parting handshake to hundreds of other young women who had played soft accompaniments while they sang "The Minute Guns at Sea"; as for Doctor and Mrs. Todd, another young man would soon be standing by that same piano awakening their cherished memories.
It was in this other hypothetical young man that I found the stumbling-block whenever my mind was settled to do the sensible thing. The trouble was that I loved Gladys Todd. When I fixed my purpose to march to the strife unhampered by any domestic ties, I felt that I was making myself a martyr to duty. I began to compromise. In a few years, when my feet were firmly set in the road and I had grown strong enough to march with impedimenta, I should come back and claim Gladys Todd, and my return would be a triumph like that of Boller of '89, only in a degree far higher, for from her hands I should receive the victor's garland.
I might have struggled on with such confused ideas as these had it not been for the hypothetical other man. He haunted me. The hypothesis became a fact. It found embodiment in Boller of '89. When after three interminable days of self-denial I presented myself one evening at the president's house, a look of annoyance with which Gladys greeted me seemed connected in some way with the presence of Boller. In my state of mind I should have suspected any octogenarian who smiled on Gladys Todd as plotting against my happiness. That she was essential to my happiness I realized as I watched her, in the shaded lamplight, her face turned to him as she listened intently to an account of his recent visit to Washington. They did not treat me as though I made a crowd. That, at least, would have given me some importance. My rôle was a younger brother's. Boller's greeting was kindly, but he made unmistakable his superiority in years and wisdom as he lapsed into an arm-chair and toyed with the broad black ribbon adorning his glasses, while I was condemned to sit upright on a spindly chair. When he addressed me it was to explain things of which he presumed that I was ignorant, and he gave no heed to my vehement protests to the contrary. When Gladys Todd addressed me it was to call attention to some peculiarly interesting feature of Boller's discourse. They did not drive me to despair, though I was sure this to be their aim. They simply aroused my fighting blood. All other thoughts for the future were forgotten, buried under the repeated vow that I would repay Gladys Todd a thousand times for this momentary coldness and would deal a stinging blow to Boller's self-complacency.
Boller announced to us in confidence that, having seen Washington, it was now his intention to go abroad. I could not understand why we were pledged to secrecy as to his plans, for the country would not be entirely upset by his departure; but it was clear to my suspicious mind that his revelations had a twofold purpose—to lift himself to greater heights of superiority over the humble college boy and to make himself a more desirable parti for Gladys Todd. In his words, in the quiet smile with which he was regarding her, I read his secret hope that when he went abroad she would be with him as Mrs. Boller. Restless, uncomfortable, and angry as I was, I had been at the point of leaving, but this disclosure changed my purpose. I realized that I was in no mere skirmish and I dared not give an inch of ground. I stayed. Boller talked on. The clock on the mantel struck the hour, then the half. He looked at me significantly, but I did not move. The clock struck the hour again, and Boller rose with a sigh. He suggested that I go with him, but I shook my head and stood with my hands behind my back, tearing at my fingers. He smiled and stepped to the door, with Gladys Todd following. They paused. He spoke in an undertone, and I caught but two words, "At three." He raised his voice and bade me good-night, calling me "Davy" as though I were a mere boy. Again he said, "At three," jotting the hour indelibly in his mind.
Gladys Todd from the shaded lamplight looked at me with a face clouded with displeasure. I, sitting on my spindly chair, very upright, heard the cryptic number three ringing in my brain. What was going to happen "at three"? At three to-morrow they would walk along the lane which wound around the town and down to the river. I thought of it now as "our lane," a sanctuary that would be desecrated by Boller's mere presence. The plausible theory became a fact. I must act, and act at once. For me to act was to avow my love. I must propose to Gladys Todd. In that purpose all else was forgotten—even Boller. Over and over again I declared to myself that I loved her, but the simple words halted at my lips. A thousand protestations of my undying love pushed and crowded and jostled one another until they were strangling me. Without a tremor in my voice I could have told Gladys Todd that some other man loved her to distraction, and yet, when it was so vital to my happiness that I speak for myself, the simple words halted at my lips and checked the whole onrush of passionate avowal.
Thinking that distance might have some part in my unnerving, I joggled my chair a few feet nearer, grasped a knee in each hand, and leaning forward fixed a determined gaze upon her face. I had abandoned all idea of saying those three words as they should be said for the first time. To say them at all, I must blurt them out, but I believed that with them said the floodgates would be opened and the true lover-like appeal burst forth. Gladys Todd must have thought that I was angry, for she asked me what was the matter. Some inane reply forced its way through the press of unuttered avowals. Now, I said, I will tell her what the matter really is, and I have always believed that I should have done so at that moment had not the front door banged, heralding the coming of Doctor Todd.
He entered the room, and I numbered him with Boller among the enemies of my happiness. He took the very chair which Boller had occupied, and made himself comfortable for the rest of my stay.