Ann Arbor Tales Part 30

II

In University Hall that Sat.u.r.day night a man with steel-blue eyes, a white imperial and a single set of gestures, lectured on "The Reconstruction of the South." Having been an active and successful carpet-bagger twenty-five years before, he had played a part of some importance in the rehabilitation of the Southland and was qualified to speak with authority on the subject.

The immense hall was but partially filled. The lecture was very dry and very uninteresting, save when, now and again a rolling period crowded with plat.i.tudes and false metaphors, was delivered by the pompous person on the rostrum. Wilma found herself finally attempting to repeat backward the clause from the Ordinance of '37 which stared down at her from the arch of the stage.

"Religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged----"

She tapped her knee with her fan and moved her lips.

"Encouraged be forever shall education of means the and----"

She floundered.

She tried again as so many others have tried and with no more success.

She tapped her knee angrily, and nudged the sleepy Bunny at her side.

"Let's get out," she whispered.

He nodded.

They were sitting on the aisle at the back. It was but a step to the door. He followed her, noiselessly.

In the broad, silent corridor she looked up at him with a smile.

"I simply couldn't stand it another minute," she said.

As they issued into the moonlight she drew in a full, long breath and asked: "Why should any one want to sit indoors on such a night?

It's--it's a _crime_!"

She was very tiny beside him; he was very awkward beside her. "The long and the short of it," they were called by those who knew them best. She was wont to defend their friendship by saying she detested little men, whilst he complained that great, tall, awkward women he abhorred.

"Well, if you're both satisfied," Nibs, her brother, said one day after half an hour of teasing; "I guess the public ought to be."

Their friendship had grown from the chance meeting on the day of the State Street race when Nibsey defeated Billy Shaw and then was so ignominiously defeated by the lank creature who now was his, as well as his sister's, closest friend and constant companion. That day their eyes had met--Bunny's and the girl's--across a carriage seat. Only for an instant though it was, each remembered the instant; Wilma with a certain indefinite anger, Bunny with a very definite desire that one day he might meet the owner of the eyes.

They did not meet formally until a month after and then it was Nibsey who named them to each other with many flourishes and mock heroics. In a very short time that glance across the carriage seat had developed into a close, fine companionship; a companionship so close indeed that it was deemed sufficient by divers of their friends to warrant whispers that Bunny and Wilma were engaged. For in Ann Arbor He has but to play two games of tennis with Her, and take Her on the river once, to have it become known that They are "engaged"--whatever that sadly misused term may signify to the non-elect.

Perhaps, however, in this case there was some reason for the smiles of patronizing acceptance and whispered suggestions on the part of their friends, of an unestablished but imagined relationship. Bunny never was seen with any other girl and Wilma, being out of college and therefore having a wider acquaintance among undergraduates than if she were a college girl, was only now and again beheld in the company of another man.

One winter they had attended the Choral Union concerts together, had driven together, and in the spring they had walked together, rowed together. It was doubly hard for their friends to believe they were not engaged, for did they not, as well, attend all the lectures on the course of the S. L. A.? Would a girl demean herself so far, suffer torture so exquisite, it was asked, as to attend sad lectures with one certain man if she were not very much in love with him? And if a man were not willing to make sacrifice of his happiness to be beside her would he take her to a lecture on a night in June, or even so much as suggest such a proceeding?

In commenting and in speculating upon the "affair" their friends asked these questions, and other equally pertinent; and, as there were no replies forthcoming, they were compelled by the very absence of contradictory evidence to nod and smile in that patronizing and agonizing way that the unengaged have ever smiled upon those whose hearts they believe Dan Cupid has been using for a target.

As for Nibsey, her brother, he said nothing. Perhaps he did not care. Or if he did care his certain knowledge that Bunny was what he was wont to call "a ripper" and his sister "a good fellow," may have carried with it a satisfaction that made the relation between them just and proper.

However, that there may be no misunderstanding at the outset, it is quite safe to affirm so far at least as Bunny was concerned, that he was hard hit. It was realization of this, a realization keen, active, that dismayed him. Of course he believed, as was his right, that Wilma liked him. But he more than liked her. He hardly felt it his privilege yet to tell her just how much he liked her, and doubtless could not even though he deemed the time had arrived to-day. Thus he fretted, and procrastinated. Even now as he walked beside her under the stars of a night in June that was full of fragrance, he felt himself floundering in a sea of uncertainty where edged the sh.o.r.es of which he knew not. So he sighed, then pulled himself together before she could seek to know the reason, and said:

"You ought to have seen me this morning--ought to have seen me with a new acquaintance I made on the fair grounds."

And he told her of Willie Trigger and his exploit. She heard him through in silence.

"Do you know Willie?" he asked.

"No," she said. After a moment she added, "Don't you rather hate to be followed about by the small boys as though you were--as though you were a circus parade?"

He laughed.

It was not the first time she had made fun, as he deemed her att.i.tude to be, of his athletic attainments, and the admiration engendered by them among Ann Arbor youth.

"It's great!" he exclaimed. "Simply great! You have no idea how it seems to know the small boys are gaping at you in wonder as you pa.s.s. I've watched them lots of times from the tail of my eye and seen them nudge their companions. Oh, I tell you it's satisfying!"

Conscious as she was of the a.s.sumed vanity she affected a seriousness when she said:--

"But I should think you would rather grown-ups gaped at you."

"But what can I do to make 'em?" he asked wonderingly. "Just point the way and I'll take it----"

"Oh, there are lots of ways," she went on. "You're in the medical department, why don't you become a great doctor?"

"I shall," he exclaimed, "but that takes time. Meanwhile I am steeling myself, practicing with the little boys, you know, so I shan't be overwhelmed when big people gape at me in wonder a little later----"

"Oh, you can't be serious!" she cried petulantly.

"What's the use?" he asked and laughed. "What's the use on such a night, with the stars overhead, the tree toads sc.r.a.ping, and--and--you here?"

"But I want you to be," she said; and then ran on: "It has always seemed so silly to me when you great men come out in ridiculous clothes and run around and jump and play ball--just like overgrown babies."

"That's what we are," he replied. "Ann Arbor is only a nursery. It's only different from other nurseries in that the nurses don't wear little caps and ap.r.o.ns." He chuckled.

"Well, anyway, I wish you wouldn't," she said plaintively. She lifted her face and looked up at him.

"Really?" He was in earnest now.

"Yes."

"Then I won't--that is not after Sat.u.r.day."

"Oh, I suppose you'll have to then," she said disconsolately. "You're entered."

"But suppose I break the Western Intercollegiate?" he suggested.

"Wouldn't you like that--now, frankly, wouldn't you?"

She did not reply, so he went on.

"I'll tell you what. That race will settle it. If I'm beaten I'll never run again--never. I'll--I'll--give you my running shoes as a souvenir of my Mercurial days!"

She laughed and said: