Katharine Brush

“ They opened the door and yanked him in. They surrounded him like bees and buzzed greetings in his ears. They pummeled him joyously. They mentioned Eunice grinning, and elbowed him slyly in the ribs. They thrust at him tall tinkling glasses, and bade him toast the fraternity, the chapter, the college and the world at large.
When the tumult and the shouting had somewhat subsided he separated from the throng one Bones Allen, especially dear to his heart, and together they ascended to the second floor to acquaint themselves anew with the room they were jointly to occupy. ”

“ He was aroused and fascinated.
"And when I do die," she continued, "I want to die the way I've lived. Sensationally." (As the girl on the ferry, thought Jock.) "If I were a man I'd be a racing-driver. I love the way they die. At the wheel. Expecting to, more or less, and not caring. I knew one who was killed a year or two ago. He had one conscious minute and all he said was, 'I think I could have gone a little faster.'"
Yvonne paused again, and traced hieroglyphics on the table cloth with the point of a glistening fingernail. Jock said nothing. ”

“ Just at this moment the bungalow's door swung wide and Bradley Hathaway's figure was silhouetted, black against yellow. He bent to place a milk bottle on the porch, then straightened suddenly as Jock howled, "Hul-lo, Brad!"
"Hello yourself! Who is it, anyway?"
"Jock Hamill, and three of the better eggs."
"Jock—why, come in here this minute, you big bum! We've been wondering when you'd be along!"
"You see," said Bill, sotto voce. "Nobody's invited in but Jock. I do admire a husband with some idea of the fitness of things!" ”

“ Then Jock said, "Where in the world did you learn to sing like that?"
Yvonne disregarded the question. "The only kick I get out of life any more," she said, "is driving seventy miles an hour. You love it, too, don't you?" Then, as Jock nodded, "You would, of course. You're like me. Mad. All the people worth knowing are a little mad."
She thrust a hand down the front of her gown and brought forth a powder puff and an eyebrow pencil wrapped in a scented handkerchief. ”

“ Throughout his sophomore year he had been heckled unmercifully about Eunice Hathaway. She was a provocative brunette from Tennessee who had come to a fraternity houseparty some years before, married Bradley Hathaway on a dare the second day, and treated him rather dreadfully ever since. Their modest bungalow was less than two blocks from Jock's fraternity house, and he had acquired a habit of dropping in there at odd hours. Actually, he went to see Bradley, whom he admired, and to find seclusion from the bedlam created by thirty-seven "brothers" bent perpetually on merry-making. ”

“ The fraternity house was deserted when he reached it—his roadster had beaten pedestrians home from the game. He went on up to his room and there waited. Within five minutes a bang and a thump and a whoop of laughter announced the first arrivals. Within ten, the noise had grown to an uproar. Someone started the Victrola. Girls brought in by their escorts for tea chattered shrilly, all at once, each striving to outchatter the other, as girls will when there are men to hear them. Then there came a stamp of heavy feet on the stairs, and Bones shouted, "Jock! Hey, Jock, are you up there? ”

“ Brad told me you seemed quite broken-hearted."
"Yvonne Mountford, her name is."
"Is she attractive?"
"Wonderful, yes." A desire to annoy Eunice, with whom he was himself more than usually annoyed at the moment, prompted Jock to continue in this strain. "I don't think I've ever seen a more attractive girl in my life. She's unique. She has red hair—sort of a tiger-lily red, if you know what I mean, and a mouth like—like Cleopatra's kiss. And absolutely perfect features. All the men darn near lose an eye when she walks into the room." ”

“ They went, walking slowly along the gravel driveway. Jock knew that Molly was hurt because he had terminated the tête-à-tête, knew without looking that her mouth would be pursed into that pout he had once thought so adorable, which now he longed to smack with the flat of his hand whenever he saw it. He kept his eyes straight ahead, and said nothing. Molly likewise said nothing. Doubtless she was ruminating on the faithlessness of man and the cruelty of life in general.
An arc light on the porte-cochère of the clubhouse picked them out of the darkness as they approached. ”

“ Jock Hamill.' I said, 'Why will I like him?' and Toby said, 'Because all women do.' The minute I saw you I knew you must be the one."
If this had been intended to flatter Jock, it missed fire. He said nothing, and presently Yvonne allowed her head to droop backward so she could look up at him quizzically. "You hate that, don't you," she observed. "I'm glad you hate it. Toby said that men liked you too—does that make you feel any better?"
"Much," Jock told her truthfully. "Fellows that women like and other fellows don't are always—well, I wouldn't want to think I was one of them. ”

“ When you encountered a man with that pin on his vest you knew you could take him home—and introduce him to your family with impunity. When you saw a girl with that pin above her heart you felt that she would beyond a doubt be quite worth meeting, since some brother unknown but trustworthy had seen fit to set the seal of his approbation thus upon her. ”

“ Jock retaliated somewhat pointedly by opening the front—door and awaiting her on the porch, in full view of a dozen passing people.
"Brad's been gone since ten o'clock this mornin'," Eunice remarked as they started for the game in the roadster. "I declare, bein' married to a coach isn't any fun at all durin' football season. He's out most of the day, and when he does get home at night he's too tiahed to take me any place so I just sit at home like a bump on a log." Her voice rasped unpleasantly; a drawl can so easily deteriorate into a whine. ”

“ When God neglected to comply, Jock became a rabid atheist. Into the ears of chosen contemporaries he whispered arguments against the probability of there being such a personage as God, and for a long time maintained a deep conviction that the Supreme Being was just another myth, like Santa, devised by parents for the general befuddlement of the rising generation. ”

“ The fraternity's personnel was apt to include crew captains and baseball pitchers and All-American backs whenever possible; but although predominance in sports was an aid to membership, it was not necessarily a requisite. Save for golf, at which he was extremely proficient, Jock Hamill was no athlete, yet he had been pledged Zeta Kappa speedily and with mutual exultation. He was a gentleman, he had money, he played the banjo, he wrote for Blah-Blah, the college humorous publication, and everyone liked him. ”

“ A grand piano, two cushion-littered divans, many deep chairs, smoking stands, tables of all shapes and sizes heaped high with magazines, a spinet desk that oozed letters—all combined to give an effect of cheerful and luxurious confusion. ”

“ In everything. I abhor rules and conventions. What right has any human being to tell me what I can and cannot do? Who are they, that they should——"
Her voice ceased so abruptly that Jock glanced up in surprise—then turned his head to follow her wide stare. He saw a man approaching, a large man, perfectly groomed, and handsome in a well-kept, careful sort of way, so that you knew in all probability he carried about him that barber shop odor and was immensely fastidious about his collars and his fingernails.
He inclined his head gravely to Yvonne and raked Jock with cold light-blue eyes. ”

“ He was even-tempered and cheerful always, as human beings are who skim the surface of life and hence encounter little to make them sad. You liked to be with him for, although he said nothing you could carry away with you, he gave you a sense that the world was light and delicious, and existence in it a treat to be appreciated. ”

“ The boy, it developed, was in excellent health and spirits. He and Jock shook hands with that weird complication of fingers that betokens a fraternal alliance, then retreated to a divan and called for ginger ale, not because they cared at all for ginger ale but because they cared even less for the acrid taste of bootleg whiskey au naturel. ”

“ Jock stopped the car and got out. "Shut up, Bill," he said good-naturedly, "and drive along down to the house. I'll be there soon—have to see Brad a minute——"
They met on the porch and entered the bungalow arm in arm, both immensely glad of the reunion. Jock's regard for Bradley Hathaway was easily understandable when you looked well at him. He had force and strength. Strength of character, writ plain in his eyes and the line of his chin; strength of body. He was the type of man of whom no one in the world can make sport except just one woman. . . .
"Eunice!" ”

“ He's probably had the money all the time but just didn't want to spen——"
"Don't be silly, Eunice!" Jock interrupted with some heat. "Of course Brad would have bought you the coat the first time you asked him if he'd had the money. He hasn't a selfish bone in his body, and you know it as well as I do."
Eunice's eyes opened very wide, like a hurt child's. "Well, if he didn't have the money then, how come he has it now?" she defended herself. "He hasn't had a raise or anythin'. No rich uncle died and left him a legacy. ”

“ They chose a car from the many standing empty along the driveway and climbed into it. The car was not a limousine; certainly not the limousine. Jock had an instinctive delicacy in such matters. This was a touring car with its top down, so that they were canopied only by stars and a thin blonde eyebrow of moon.
Yvonne slid low in her seat and, locking her fingers behind her head, stared upward thoughtfully. "I'm glad you brought me out," she remarked. "I was tired of being jerked around by twenty or thirty different partners, most of them drunk. It's a hard life for a girl." ”

“ Then the girl: "Good? I should say it is good. That's real mink, and worth more money than Brad Hathaway ever saw! Either he's just struck oil or else——"
Jock looked around. He had no difficulty in identifying the couple. They were in the row behind him, two or three seats to the left, a sophomore named MacLellan and Winifred James, a "college widow" whom Jock knew slightly. Winifred was whispering the rest of her sentence into MacLellan's ear, and the eyes of both were fixed, not on Eunice's coat, but very sharply and sagaciously on Jock himself. ”

“ I'm too fond of men in general." Which was quite true. Her Utopia was a world peopled solely by men, with herself a gorgeous goddess before whom all did obeisance—not too impersonally. She could not bear women and women, of course, could not bear her. She made young ones feel too young, awkward, gauche; and older ones envious and faintly antagonistic.
"When's college start up again, Jock?" ”

“ She wants more money. She can't bear not to have the things more money would buy, and she knows I'll never make much more—this way. She's right, too, of course," he had amended hastily. "I'll have to get more for her, some way." Everything Eunice thought and did was right in Brad's eyes; love had given him an incurable astigmatism.
The pause became over-long, and to end it Jock said, "How's the football team look?"
"Good!" replied Brad, brightening instantly. "Shaping up better than we expected. ”

“ Scarcely had they concluded a pseudo battle as to which should be privileged to tip the bellboy—a battle staged for the bellboy's benefit and rendered somewhat anticlimactical by the tip itself, which proved to be a nickel on sight and a plugged nickel on his attempt to spend it two days later—when the room telephone jangled commandingly. Jock answered. ”

“ He took Eunice home and left her summarily on the bungalow's porch. She implored him to come in. "Why, you must, Jock! Brad will be so disappointed if he gets home and finds you didn't stop! He'll want to talk ovah the game with you—he's always so excited after a victory, and especially today, when he didn't think they'd win. And I've got tea! Please, Jock——"
"Sorry," Jock said firmly, "but I absolutely can't, Eunice. Not this time. I've got to see a man."
There was truth in this, and the man whom he felt he must see was Bones Allen. He wanted to ask Bones many questions. Now. ”

“ But he never attempted to explain this to anyone, realizing the futility of so doing, and it was therefore taken for granted that he was devoted to Eunice—an impression strengthened materially by the behavior of Eunice herself. She was one of those women who want it known that men find them charming. She flaunted Jock in people's faces. ”

“ A line he had read once came back to him: "Where endlessly the dead go up and down——"
The voice of Dopey Lane seized upon him like a rude hand and wrenched him from these reveries. "Ladies and gentlemen," he chanted, "on your right we have the home of Jock Hamill's inamorata, a lady famed far and wide for her shapely legs and for the broadmindedness of her husband——"
"Soft pedal!" warned Jock, grinning. "She'll hear you. ”

“ Say, by the way, I ran into Dopey Lane and Bill Olmstead down in the grill a while ago, eating to beat hell so they could catch the noon train, and I told 'em to wait over and you'd take 'em down too in your bus. Hope you've got room."
"Plenty," said Jock promptly. "It's a roadster, but it's held ten in its day. ”