Josephine Chase

“ Jerry waited breathlessly to hear more. It was the first time Marjorie had volunteered her any information on the subject of her own writing. Jerry watched her as she might have a rare song bird, which had poised itself near her and was ready to take flight at the tiniest movement on her part.
“‘Inspiration’ is to be the story of his youth, hopes and dreams. ‘Realization’ is to be the story of the man, Brooke Hamilton, and his achievement.”
“Does Miss Susanna know what you’ve just told me? You have such clam-like tendencies, Bean.” Jerry smirked at her chum. ”

“ It was during this act that Leila and Vera were to dance the Irish minuet of which the Hamilton girls were so fond. The play opened with a number of young men and women of Mona’s acquaintance gathered for a little evening party. The high-waisted, comparatively simple costumes of the young women were dainty foils for the dark knee trousers, square cut coats, silk stockings, fancy low shoes and lace falls of the young men. Shoulder length hair, ribbon-tied, formed a part of the picturesque dressing of the young Irish gentlemen of this period. ”

“ It is three months since Adele’s letter was written. God knows what may have happened to my little girl.”
Marjorie cast a sorrowful upward glance at the portrait. She thought she knew the tragic end of the blue-eyed man’s love idyl. Nothing but the rustle of the notebook’s leaf as she turned it broke the hush pervading the study. Her eyes met that which wrung from her a little cry of gladness.
“I have found love. I know its meaning now. I have come from the other side of the world to learn the wonder of all wonders. It is not the wonder of deeds. ”

“ Leslie’s deep-rooted jealousy of the two girls who were college successes where she had been a rank failure rushed to the surface. “Leila Harper has nerve to ask you to be in a play when she knows you are a friend of mine. I see her game. She knows just how useful you can be to her in her confounded old play. It’s some feather in her theatre bonnet to keep the college beauty at her beck and call. She has planned to break up our friendship by flattering you into believing you are a dramatic wonder. Bean is probably back of Harper’s scheme. She can’t and never could bear to see me enjoy myself.” ”

“ How little a girl understands a man’s high aspirations. My absence from home is merely a necessary part of my great plan. I shall try to make Angela understand. Hers is a fine mind. She should not lend it to such trivial conjectures. My return to America, God sparing my life, is certain.”
Marjorie’s sympathies were now firmly enlisted toward Angela. She marveled that a man possessed of Brooke Hamilton’s fine spirit and high ideals should have so blindly passed by an unswerving devotion like Angela’s. ”

“ The minuet had special music which Leila had brought from Ireland and which was very old.
“Leila can’t sing the words this time,” Marjorie whispered to Jerry. “She was grumbling to me about it not so very long ago. She can’t sing like a man and she doesn’t care to sing them in her own voice.”
The pleading, persuasive voice of Desmond to Mona, saying: “Just one dance, acushla. Tomorrow I’ll be far away across the lakes and with only the thought of you and your love to keep my poor heart from breaking.” ”

“ Marjorie grew inwardly vexed with herself for having permitted her thoughts to run toward love. Because, unfortunately, Hal had fallen in love with her, the thought of Hal must ever bring reminder of the unwelcome fact. She was glad that Brooke Hamilton’s history was one of deeds. In the mass of data she had handled there had been personal mention made of only his mother, Faith Gretney Hamilton, and Miss Susanna. ”

“ How much of Brooke Hamilton’s story have you written?” Jerry came back curiously.
“Not any of it as I intend it shall finally stand,” Marjorie confessed. “I’ve made plenty of notes, but they only complicate matters at present. There is so much material, all intensely interesting. It would make a twelve volume biography. Miss Susanna wishes it to be a one volume story. My head is full of Hamilton history. It is positively maddening sometimes to try to keep track of all I read, and plan how I shall arrange it. I was never intended for a biographer, Jeremiah.” ”

“ This afternoon I gathered quantities of the double, fragrant purple violets for which the Arms has been famed since my grandmother’s day. I took them all to the Vernon vault, my offering to love. Angela was not there, naturally. 159Her radiant spirit had long since transcended earth.
“I, Brooke Hamilton, a strong man, remain here. If only I had earlier understood love. I might have, had I not been so closely wrapped in my own dreams of achievement. What even greater things I might have accomplished with her by my side. Great love is the impetus to noble achievement. I know it now. Dear Angela! ”

“ Leila had approached Doris at the psychological moment. Doris was weary of being rushed by those for whom she entertained hardly more than casual interest. She had not the diversion of Leslie Cairns’ companionship. She had persistently turned “dig” to the extent of putting herself beyond the immediate fear of a condition in mathematics. She was therefore ready to entertain with secret pleasure Leila’s polite request for her appearance in “The Knight of the Northern Sun.” She was actually eager to take the part of Nageda, the Norseland princess. ”

“ They knew a great many other derogatory facts about Leslie Cairns and her methods which they kept strictly sub rosa.
Doris was ready to welcome Leslie with warmth. She sorely lacked companions of interest. She had begun to grow bored to satiety by admiration. The freshies’ and sophs’ adoration for her was too superficial to be satisfying. They enjoyed rushing the college beauty. Each class liked to parade her on the campus and fête her at Baretti’s, the Colonial or at their pet Hamilton tea shops as a triumphant class trophy. She was selfish, but not shallow ”

“ Let my flattering opinion sink deep, and encourage you.”
“I’ll let it go in one ear and out the other,” was Lucy’s derisive retort. “Don’t dare choose me even for a villager in your Irish play, Leila Harper. I’ll be far more useful as a press agent. I’ll get up a handbill about the play, and mimeograph it.”
“Bully idea, Luciferous. Be sure and hit all the high spots. When you have the handbills ready you may stand outside Hamilton Hall and distribute them to the campus dwellers.” Jerry patted Lucy on the shoulder with force. ”

“ I don’t like to go to yours. You and Miss Carter nearly always quarrel. It’s such a bore to listen to you.” She affected a weary expression.
Julia cast a frowning glance about her. She glanced hastily up at the clock tower and said doggedly: “I must go. I’ll meet you at the big green seat near the west side of the campus at five this afternoon. I have your welfare at heart, even though you don’t think so,” she flung this reproachfully at Doris. “I simply must speak to you about Miss Cairns.”
Doris knew nothing of Julia’s unfortunate fall over Leslie’s umbrella. ”

“ She may need a rehearsal every day. Hard on Leila. But think of the good to humanity!”
“Ingenious, you old star worshipper,” laughed Vera. “Do you know she is, I believe, almost the only gossip on the campus. That’s fine for Hamilton, isn’t it? Every day we are growing better and better. Speaking of goodness reminds me of our own Marjorie. She and Jerry are coming over this evening.”
“And I am expecting company; Matchless Muriel and the Ice Queen. Are they not a fine combination?” Leila cast a sly smile of triumph toward Vera. ”

“ While Leslie was engaged in driving slowly toward Hamilton wrapped in her own half sad, half relieved mixture of thoughts, a tall man in a leather motor coat and cap ran down the steps of the Hamilton House and sprang into a rakish-looking racing car parked in front of the hotel. ”

“ She had had no inkling of what Leslie meant until the latter had made pertinent allusion to the gymnasium. Light had then broken upon her acute Irish intelligence. Comprehension threatened to break up her immobile expression.
“That is of course true from—from a certain standpoint,” Marjorie admitted. “If you wish my personal opinion,” she smiled; “I can’t see but that your presence there was an added attraction to the crowd. I have fought for democracy at Hamilton, Miss Cairns. I can only feel my attitude to be democratic now. I believe that you went to the Romp merely to have fun. ”

“ Mrs. Dean courteously excused herself and walked on to the house. She decided that the four she had left would get along better without her. Miss Susanna and Leslie sat on one seat. Marjorie and Peter Cairns on the other.
“Oh, a number of things,” Peter Cairns replied with an odd little duck of the head which Miss Susanna recalled him as a boy.
“You two,” she indicated father and daughter, “are full of pleasant mystery. Your faces give you away.” ”

“ That’s just the trouble with you, Leslie. You are always offering me so much more than I can ever return. I wish you were going to the dance, to stay all evening and have a good time with the others.” Doris sincerely meant the wish.
“You know whose fault it is that I can’t.” Leslie shrugged significantly. “Now I must plan my costume.” She straightened in her chair with a faint sigh. “I’ll sport blue overalls, a brown and red gingham shirt, large plaid, with no collar; a turkey-red cotton hankie, a big floppy hayseed hat and a striped umbrella.” ”

“ It would not reflect to Doris’s credit to be named as the student who had smuggled into the gym a girl who had been expelled from Hamilton.
The sophomore who was to blow the whistle was Jane Everest. Dressed in a befrilled frock of apricot dotted swiss, Jane formed a bright spot of color among the pale blues and pinks which was easily picked out. Julia had little trouble locating her. Marjorie, now not more than three yards behind Julia, reached the pair almost as soon as Julia hailed Jane. The two had met before that evening. Each knew the other’s costume. ”

“ I confess I do not always understand young women. I shall soon be without her comradely company. She is going to Philadelphia to visit the Vernons there and dance at the Assembly Ball. She is very charming. She says she will never marry. Such a statement is not to be taken seriously. I have frequently assured her that she will no doubt wed a man high in the affairs of the United States. She is fitted for diplomatic society.”
Followed other entries of a similar nature. Marjorie could not but marvel at the blindness of young Brooke Hamilton to Angela Vernon’s love for him. ”

“ Suppose I failed to make a get-away and was unmasked by a bunch of smart Alecs. I’d probably not be near you when the signal came to unmask. I’d not bother you after the grand march. There’d be so many hey Rubes in the gym no one would remember our coming in together. That lets you out, doesn’t it? You should falter. Have a heart, Goldie!” Leslie had grown satirically persuasive.
Doris sat studying the situation in silence. She had colored afresh at Leslie’s pointed inference that she was more concerned for her own security from possible mishap at the romp than for that of Leslie herself. ”

“ My father would not object if I were to play in a high class London company.”
“The same old Goldie who cares for nobody but herself.” Leslie gave vent to a sarcastic little snicker. “Why not take up with Bean, too?”
“Oh, Leslie, don’t be hateful,” Doris said with an air of resigned patience. “You know I detest Miss Dean. Nothing could induce me to take up with her. It’s different with Miss Harper. She’s not American, you know. She is so cosmopolitan in manner. She is really more my own style. But, of course, she’s hopelessly devoted to that Sanford crowd of girls.” ”

“ I would like to will her to Hamilton College as a rare dramatist, actor and manager.” Leslie paused. Once fairly started on her proposal she had grown more and more animated.
“You take my breath!” Marjorie gave a little rapturous gasp. “I should say your plan was original. I think it’s the very heart of gracious generosity. I love Leila, Miss Cairns, and wish more than I can say to have her appreciated and honored at Hamilton.”
“She ought to be appreciated. She is going to be. You see a theatre will be of benefit to all the campus folks. It will be a source of amusement and pleasure to all. ”

“ Lucy persisted.
“Prexy has yet to come to one of our shows, Luciferous,” Marjorie said quietly. “We’ve always sent him tickets, and Mrs. Prexy and her friends have come to them. But he never has. He approves of the dormitory enterprise. He has been friendly with me on all occasions, but—” Marjorie smiled—“he never appears at our revues.”
50“It’s the one thorn on Page and Dean’s rosebush,” laughed Robin. “Besides, Luciferous, we’ve never felt like trying to break into the regular college lecture and concert programs with our shows. It’s more a matter of deference than anything else. ”

“ Leila echoed fervently. “Let us take a ride, Beauty, to Orchard Inn. I should be busy with my Irish play this afternoon. I have no thoughts for it. We are both less gifted than we might be.”
“Orchard Inn to luncheon sounds comforting.” Marjorie was settling herself beside Leila in the car. “It’s a glorious day for a drive. I’ve not seen you for more than a few minutes at a time since the Rustic Romp. I’ve only seen Robin once. She came over to the Arms the day after the Romp to tell me we made nearly a thousand dollars from it.” ”

“ She was consequently interested in nothing but herself, her fiancé and an elaborate trousseau of which she was imperiously directing the preparation.
Leslie felt utterly “out of it” at Nat’s playhouse. She lounged in and out of the Weyman’s imposing Long Island palace with the enthusiasm of a wooden Indian. She listened in morose silence to Natalie’s fulsome eulogies upon her fiancé, Lord Kenneth Hawtrey, the Hawtrey ancestral tree, her own trousseau and the two-million dollar settlement her father proposed to make over to her as a bridal gift. ”

“ Leila was impressed in spite of her earlier impulse to be skeptical. “If nothing is brought up against Leslie Cairns now on the campus, nothing will be later. The time of interest for a rumor is just before, at the time, or just after something supposedly happens. The Romp is now almost a memory. Soon along will come something new and amusing to crowd that memory out.”
“There is still the other side of it, Leila.” Marjorie grew grave. “It was against good taste in Leslie Cairns to step into the social side of Hamilton College under cover of a mask. ”