Part 20 (1/2)
As she read verse after verse, the music of the wonderful lines soothed her restless mood, and the beauty of the thought that love and forgiveness are stronger than selfishness lifted her to a height of joyous exaltation. The idea of Prometheus suffering all agonies for the sake of men came to her like a revelation. While she pondered over it, suddenly like the s.h.i.+ning of a great light she understood the truth of ”he that loseth his soul shall find it.” The Christ-ideal of self-sacrifice meant the highest self-realization.
”My cup runneth over, my cup runneth over,” sang Lucine in her heart, as she read on and on. ”I have been blind but now I see. It has been always true, always, always. My cup runneth over. Listen:
”'It doth repent me; words are quick and vain; Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine, I wish no living thing to suffer pain.'”
”Laura!” Lucine raised her head dreamily. She was unconscious of how the evening hours had drifted past, leaving only a few lingering students here and there in the library. She could not see the two girls bending over the table on the other side of the bookcase behind which she was nestling. But their voices floated mistily to her ears.
”Laura, remember that you have promised to live with my sister next year.
Don't let Lucine coax or frighten you out of it. You have promised.”
”But if I don't come back?”
”Well, anyway you have promised to room with Harriet if you do. We'll choose a parlor away off at the other end of the campus from Lucine, so that I can protect you from her demands. You've been growing thinner and whiter all the year. Now, remember. Don't you give in to her selfishness.
She is able to take care of her precious self without killing you in the process. Promise.”
Lucine heard a sigh. ”I've promised to be her friend and I do care for her dearly; but I want with all my heart to room with Harriet, if I can manage to get back for next year. I'm almost sure I shan't. Now, see here, does this verb come from vinco or vincio? I'm so sleepy I can't read straight.”
Lucine very white about the lips was sitting erect in her corner. ”My cup runneth over, my cup runneth over,” echoed faintly in her brain. ”My cup runneth over and Laura likes her best and the essay is up-stairs and I wish no living thing to suffer pain--suffer pain. My cup runneth over.
'Pain, pain ever, forever!' I won't, I won't, I can't do it, I can't, I can't, I can't! To sacrifice it all for her and then--and then to be forsaken!”
Lucine glided from the recess, pa.s.sed swiftly from the library, climbed the stairs to her room, moved toward the drawer which held the essay, and felt for the key in her pocket. It was gone. It must have fallen out while she read, doubled up on the low step. In wild haste now, for the minutes were flying and the board of editors might even now have adjourned, she hurried back to search. The green baize doors swung open in her face, and Berta and Laura came loitering out, their arms around each other, their heads bent close together affectionately.
”Lucine, oh, Lucine!” Laura at sight of her slipped away from Berta, ”what is the matter? What has happened? Didn't they accept the essay?”
Brus.h.i.+ng her aside Lucine swept on into the library, turned into the recess, and dropped on her knees beside the step to look for the stray key. Her eyes fell upon the open book which lay face downward where she had forgotten it. Then she remembered. ”I wish no living thing to suffer pain.”
It was long past ten o'clock and the corridors stretched out their dusky deserted length from one dim gas-jet to another flickering in the shadows, when Lucine crept back to her room. Laura raised a wide-eyed anxious face from the white pillow.
”Lucine, I couldn't sleep until I knew.”
The older girl sat down on the bed and drew the little figure close.
”When you are editor, Laura, will you try to like me still? And will you keep on forgiving me and helping--helping me to deserve to have friends?
And will you--will you teach me how to make Harriet like me too?”
”Oh, Lucine!” Laura flung her warm arms around the bowed neck. ”I know what we shall do next year, if I can come back. The idea has just struck me. You and Harriet and I shall room together in a firewall with bedrooms for three!”
CHAPTER XII
AN ORIGINAL IN MATH
When Gertrude's brother turned up at college just before the holidays of their senior year, he boldly asked for Bea in the same breath with his sister's name. When the message was brought to her, that fancy-free young person's first thought was a quick dread that Berta would tease her about the preference. But no. Miss Abbott, chairman of the Annual's editorial board, clasped her inky hands in relief.
”Bless the boy! He couldn't have chosen better if he had looked through the walls and discovered Bea the sole student with time to burn--or to talk, for that matter. Trot along, Beatrice, and tell him that Gertrude is coming the moment she has dug her way out of this avalanche of ma.n.u.script. I can't possibly spare her for half an hour yet. Go and distract his mind from his unnatural sister by means of another story.”
”Tell him about your little original in math, Bea,” called Lila after her, ”that's your best and latest.”