Ann Arbor Tales Part 5

"Of course," he said, earnestly.

But not once did they go. From week to week the excursion was postponed, always by Houston, save once. Then Florence's mother was ill. He was quite prepared on that occasion and suffered some displeasure.

"Never mind, we'll go in the fall, when you come back," Florence said.

In order that he might work during the scant vacation permitted him he carried to his southern home, in August, a case of books.

"You'll write me, dear, often--awfully often, won't you?" he said to Florence the night before he left.

"Of course," she a.s.sured him.

And she kept her promise though his letters were infrequent and brief during the interval.

He met her in the little round room the first night he was back. He had carried away with him an impression of her in a soft, fluffy blue gown, but now it was autumn, and she was dressed differently. When she came into the room, his senses suffered a shock from which he did not immediately recover.

She seemed much older. He wondered if it might not be her costume. He could not recall ever before having seen her in gray. He caught himself, once or twice, regarding her curiously, somewhat critically, and marveled at the phenomenon.

She did not chide him for his neglect in not having written her oftener during the two months he had been away. He offered no excuses. It was as though, now, each had forgotten in the other's nearness. Leaving her, he felt that, on the whole, he had got through the evening rather miserably.

The weeks sped on fleet wings. He was deep in his work. He perceived that what, a year before, had appeared but a remote chance of winning the coveted scholarship had now resolved itself into a certain possibility; even more, he considered, with a sense of pride--a probability.

The campus saw little of him, the town scarcely a glimpse, save occasionally of a Sat.u.r.day evening when he walked to the post-office for his mail. On such evenings he usually stopped at Florence's home on his way to his rooms. The conversation between them at these times was confined almost wholly to his work. All his efforts were concentrated upon the accomplishment of the task he had set before himself.

For the Christmas vacation he went home.

"Father's coming in June," he told Florence on his return. "Said he'd be here big as life and twice as natural--going to bring a cousin of mine--Susie Henderson--you've heard me speak of her."

"Oh...."

"What is it?" He was startled by her exclamation.

She laughed--"I didn't mean to frighten you," she said--"but I p.r.i.c.ked myself with this pin"--and she flung upon the table the trinket with which she had been toying.

On his way to his rooms that night he reviewed, casually, his college course; he built air-castles for the days ahead. There would be a year in Athens--perhaps two. Should he and Florence marry before--or after?

They had not planned definitely. Of a sudden the idea that they had not smote him forcefully. They had really been living only from day to day; it was wrong; quite wrong, he decided. A settlement should be made at once--at once. He was quite determined. In his room, bent over the books upon the table, he forgot forthwith the resolution he had made. The next day he recalled it--and the next.

Spring came. His winning was now a certainty. The _U. of M. Daily_ accepted his success as a.s.sured and dismissed the matter at once with all the c.o.c.ksureness of collegiate journalism. Now, the hard work done, he could loaf.

Loaf!

The prospect appalled him. Loaf? He had forgotten how! But Florence should teach him all over again, he mused, and smiled.

He went to his dressing-table and picked up her portrait given him two years before. Across the margin at the bottom he read:--"To Jack, from Florence."

After a moment he put the photograph down and searched among the others that littered the table. A little look of puzzlement came into his eyes.

He turned to the front window and gazed out across the maples, their leaves silvered by the moonlight. He stood there some moments watching the face of the night. Then he turned back to his books, doggedly.

"What's the use?" he muttered, sinking into the chair before his study table.

V

He realized fully the significance of the extreme to which his course had brought him. If he might only talk to Crowley; if he might only tell him everything, how like a cad he felt, what a cad he believed himself to be, he must sense a deep relief. But would Crowley understand; could he understand?

He smiled at the thought the question prompted. Poor old Crowley--Meister Dryasdust--he understand a situation so delicate--so exquisitely delicate? It was absurd. Houston laughed aloud; but the laughter died at once and was like ashes on his lips.

He had not deceived Florence; not wilfully; though perhaps in the end it was as though he had. But now the thought that he had not consoled him.

Still she had his promise. He had hers as well, to be sure, and in his present state of mind he only wished that she might be as willing as he to forget--he could not _think_, forgive. At the conjecture his pride suffered a shock. Still, if it were only true--if there were even a remote possibility of truth in the circ.u.mstance he imagined--that she might have undergone a change; that she might have awakened; that she might have--drifted away. He was coldly a.n.a.lytical enough _now_, to turn back a year and hear himself, as he was _then_, being told by her that she had erred, had made a dreadful _faux pas_ of the whole business.

A grim smile curved his lips as the situation presented itself more clearly to his mind. He snapped away his cigarette impatiently.

Leaving his room an hour before he had felt cool-headed enough, but now he experienced a growing nervousness with each step he took. It was just such a day as the one on which they had canoed down the river and the promises had been exchanged. Would it not be well, perhaps, he considered, to propose another little voyage, and, perhaps, on the very shelf of rock where they had spread their luncheon--a dainty luncheon it was, he remembered--tell her? He put the thought away at once as absurdly theatrical.

No, there was but one thing to do--to go to her, to go to her now, and, like a man, _tell_ her. It would be over with in half an hour--no longer, surely, he thought--and then--how good the air would taste, how blue the sky would seem.

He had not noticed where his steps were leading him, but now that a determination to act in the course left open to him had formed, set, and hardened in his mind, he lifted his eyes and looked about him.

He was approaching a corner. It was a very familiar corner. There on the left, ridiculously close to the sidewalk, was the brown house from the lilac bush in the scant front yard of which he and Florence had often, of an evening, stolen armfuls of the fragrant blossoms. A street car dragged along, its one flat wheel thumping, thumping, thumping, with a deadly sort of iteration. Standing there, he lighted another cigarette.

When would he be here again, he mused. Perhaps in five years he might come back to a cla.s.s reunion. Five years would bring many changes, many confusing changes. The lilac bush, for instance, might not be there in the front yard of the brown house. He recalled the changes the four years he had lived in Ann Arbor had brought to the vicinity of his freshman rooming-house. Come to think of it, he could not even now, familiar as he was with the town, remember whether that house stood in Ingalls or Thayer Streets. He could find the place, certainly; that is, he might locate it after a bit, but----

"Houston, you're a fool!"

He upbraided himself aloud, unconsciously. Then, flinging away his half-burned cigarette, he turned the corner and walked briskly down the street.

The maid admitted him and he waited in the little round room. The shades were low and the place was filled with shadows, shadows that made the close walls seem very far apart, and the teak wood bookcase quite remote. To satisfy himself of the illusion Houston thrust one foot forward until it touched the lowest shelf. He settled back among the cushions on the circular seat, then, quite satisfied.

He heard the soft, cool swish of skirts on the stairs and the next instant the _portieres_ parted and framed Florence. In pa.s.sing she had opened the outer door and the light, streaming about her, as for an instant she stood there, filled the little room with a soft, white glow that seemed to radiate from her. He did not move; gazed at her simply before she glided silently to where he sat, and stooping, kissed him.

She held her cheek close to his an instant then drew away, and moving to the window raised one of the shades. Her face was turned from him.

"Jove!" he muttered, "but you're beautiful, Florence--in that--in that blue thing."

She turned, at his exclamation, and a little pale ghost of a smile hovered about her lips. She came to him and sat beside him and took one of his hands in both hers.

"Jack, what is it?" she asked, quietly.

Their eyes met as she spoke, and before his could fall, she said: "Tell me, tell me what it is----"

It seemed to him, that instant, that he ceased to breathe.

He fairly wrenched his eyes from hers. "Flo"--it was not often of late that he called her by this name of his own invention--"Flo, I--I----"

"Tell me," she whispered, leaning toward him.

"Flo, it's all off."

He got up quickly and strode out into the hallway, and back again.