Part 6 (1/2)
”Say it again,” prompted Anita Flagg ”Sister.”
”I will not!” returned the young man firmly. ”But I'll say this,” he whispered: ”I'll say you're the most wonderful, the most beautiful, and the finest woman who has ever lived!”
Anita Flagg's eyes left his quickly; and, with her head bent, she stared at the ba.s.s drum in the orchestra.
”I don't know,” she said, ”but that sounds just as good.”
When the curtain was about to rise she told him to take her back to her box, so that he could meet her friends and go on with them to supper; but when they reached the rear of the house she halted.
”We can see this act,” she said, ”or--my car's in front of the theatre--we might go to the park and take a turn or two or three. Which would you prefer?”
”Don't make me laugh!” said Sam.
As they sat all together at supper with those of the box party, but paying no attention to them whatsoever, Anita Flagg sighed contentedly.
”There's only one thing,” she said to Sam, ”that is making me unhappy; and because it is such sad news I haven't told you. It is this: I am leaving America. I am going to spend the winter in London. I sail next Wednesday.”
”My business is to gather news,” said Sam, ”but in all my life I never gathered such good news as that.”
”Good news!” exclaimed Anita.
”Because,” explained Sam, ”I am leaving, America--am spending the winter in England. I am sailing on Wednesday. No; I also am unhappy; but that is not what makes me unhappy.”
”Tell me,” begged Anita.
”Some day,” said Sam.
The day he chose to tell her was the first day they were at sea--as they leaned upon the rail, watching Fire Island disappear.
”This is my unhappiness,” said Sam--and he pointed to a name on the pa.s.senger list. It was: ”The Earl of Deptford, and valet.” ”And because he is on board!”
Anita Flagg gazed with interest at a pursuing sea-gull.
”He is not on board,” she said. ”He changed to another boat.”
Sam felt that by a word from her a great weight might be lifted from his soul. He looked at her appealingly--hungrily.
”Why did he change?” he begged.
Anita Flagg shook her head in wonder. She smiled at him with amused despair.
”Is that all that is worrying you?” she said.
Chapter 2. THE GRAND CROSS OF THE CRESCENT
Of some college students it has been said that, in order to pa.s.s their examinations, they will deceive and cheat their kind professors. This may or may not be true. One only can shudder and pa.s.s hurriedly on. But whatever others may have done, when young Peter Hallowell in his senior year came up for those final examinations which, should he pa.s.s them even by a nose, would gain him his degree, he did not cheat. He may have been too honest, too confident, too lazy, but Peter did not cheat. It was the professors who cheated.
At Stillwater College, on each subject on which you are examined you can score a possible hundred. That means perfection, and in, the brief history of Stillwater, which is a very, new college, only one man has attained it. After graduating he ”accepted a position” in an asylum for the insane, from which he was, promoted later to the poor-house, where he died. Many Stillwater undergraduates studied his career and, lest they also should attain perfection, were afraid to study anything else.
Among these Peter was by far the most afraid.
The marking system at Stillwater is as follows: If in all the subjects in which you have been examined your marks added together give you an average of ninety, you are pa.s.sed ”with honors”; if of seventy-five, you pa.s.s ”with distinction”; if Of fifty, You just ”pa.s.s.” It is not unlike the grocer's nice adjustment of fresh eggs, good eggs, and eggs. The whole college knew that if Peter got in among the eggs he would be lucky, but the professors and instructors of Stillwater 'were determined that, no matter what young Hallowell might do to prevent it, they would see that he pa.s.sed his examinations. And they const.i.tuted the jury of awards. Their interest in Peter was not because they loved him so much, but because each loved his own vine-covered cottage, his salary, and his dignified t.i.tle the more. And each knew that that one of the faculty who dared to flunk the son of old man Hallowell, who had endowed Stillwater, who supported Stillwater, and who might be expected to go on supporting Stillwater indefinitely, might also at the same time hand in his official resignation.
Chancellor Black, the head of Stillwater, was an up-to-date college president. If he did not actually run after money he went where money was, and it was not his habit to be downright rude to those who possessed it. And if any three-thousand-dollar-a-year professor, through a too strict respect for Stillwater's standards of learning, should lose to that inst.i.tution a half-million-dollar observatory, swimming-pool, or gymnasium, he was the sort of college president, who would see to it that the college lost also the services of that too conscientious instructor.