A slight delay caused them to miss their train, and they had to spend half an hour in the waiting-room. Miss Hardy found some evening papers. Helen declined the one offered her, and drew a book from her shopping-bag.
"What reading is this, Helen?" Miss Hardy laughingly questioned. Helen blushed a little. "It is really only the third." On the train the book happened to lie for a moment in Lilian's lap. She noted the title. It was Marius, the Epicurean, and at her earliest opportunity she procured the book and read it.
She read it with intense interest. Here were a care for life—for its pleasures—and a consecration of time that found no necessary detail too small for perfection. The charm of the book was upon her—its flawless form, its sanity, its strenuousness. There was something of the old defiance in her attitude toward this epicureanism, though the character of it was so exalted and pure. But at the close, when Marius simply puts himself aside and accepts death that his dear friend may live—happy in a love denied Marius—she put the book down very softly. By the profound stirring of her sympathies she felt how absolute was her acceptance of the whole character—as consistent with itself in sacrifice as in æsthetic enjoyment.
The constantly increasing deference given Lilian because of the quality of her work contributed much to her contentment. The freer play of her intelligence was making itself felt. By the beginning of their senior year Lilian Coles and Edith Dareham were undoubted rivals for the European Fellowship. But the real excitement over the fellowship was not apparent until after the mid-year examinations. Then the strain began to be wearing on the two girls and their friends.
"I wish the Faculty would come to a decision," said Katherine Leonard one evening in Clothilde Barry's room. She was on the window-seat between a big palm and a pile of notebooks. "If they don't very soon, I'll not get a degree in June. I love this place but I don't want to stay here all my life. It would be hard to fix my affections on another class. But I can't study till I know."
"I think that possibility would stimulate them, if they only knew—" began Blanche.
Just then the door was flung open and Alice Warburton came in impetuously—her usual manner, but some dramatic quality in this present haste must have made itself apparent, for the other girls assailed her breathless silence with questions. What she finally said was: "There is a Faculty meeting in Taylor." After a moment of comprehending silence, Blanche went out quickly. Katherine followed her.
"Blanche, if you find out before the doors are locked, won't you come and tell me?"
"I don't know how it will be." Blanche looked anxious and wouldn't stop. Katherine went back to Clothilde's room, and after she had tipped over the palm and broken the jardinière was advised by Clothilde to go home and go to bed. In her own room she took a physics laboratory book and made a feeble attempt to put order into its chaos, but only succeeded in dropping ink over two important calculations. Then she took down a volume of Mazzini's writings in which she had lately become much interested. At the end of half an hour she became aware that she had not turned a page. She left her room and went down to the parlour. All the lights were out, even in the rooms. Over in Taylor there was a dim light in a second floor window. It had no connection with the Faculty meeting, but she chose to consider that it had, and crouched, shivering, in the window until it went out. Then she went stiffly to bed and slept badly. The next morning Blanche came to her soon after breakfast. "Edith wants to see you."