Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer Part 3

"What is the matter, Daffydowndilly?" she asked just above a whisper.

"You don't appear to be quite your usual cheerful self."

"You noticed, then?" counter-questioned Arline in an equally guarded tone. "I'm glad you did. Still, I was going to tell you, anyway. Wait until later. I have arranged for you to room with me to-night. Then I'll tell you all. But not now. No one else must know."

With a soft pressure that betokened loyal sympathy, Grace released Arline's little hand and turned her attention to Kathleen, who was holding her small audience spellbound by a recital of the very audacity of her deeds as a star reporter.

"Won't you miss all that when winter comes and you cease to be Kathleen West?" questioned Anne, a trifle anxiously. She too had had to decide between publicity and love. "You've lived in a whirl of exciting happenings so long that settling down for good will seem rather tame."

"I shall love it." Kathleen's sharp black eyes glowed with intensity.

"Trailing news is all right for a few years, but I'd hate to go on with it forever. There are so many things I'd like to do that I've never had the time to dream of doing. I'm going to keep on writing, just the same as ever. Neither Gerald nor I care to begin making a home just yet. We shall board and write in the evenings together. You see he is the literary editor of _Crawford's Magazine_ now. That means that we can spend our evenings together. We are going to collaborate on a play and, oh, we have planned to do lots of things. I imagine we shall carry out some of our plans in time. We have already collaborated on several magazine stories and worked them out beautifully. You see, neither of us is jealous of the other's work. If we were, then I'd prefer to stay Kathleen West."

"You are fortunate," remarked Arline almost bitterly. Again a shadow crossed her face which Grace alone noted.

"I decline to share my successes with any mere man," a.s.serted Elfreda grandly. "Not that I have been what you might call entirely slighted.

Wait until I tell you the sad story of my one love affair."

"_This_ is vastly interesting," mused Miriam.

"Tell us about it this minute." Arline brightened visibly. Elfreda's promised tale of tragedy was sure to turn out comedy.

"Let me see," began Elfreda with a fine air of reminiscence. "We met last year in a corridor of the law school, I was making a wild rush down and he was making an equally wild rush up. Result, we collided. Just like that," Elfreda brought her hands smartly together to ill.u.s.trate the force of that momentous collision. "I wasn't overcome with joy at this slam-bang introduction. I had seen him often from afar and never admired him. He was at least three inches shorter than yours truly, had a snub nose and freckles. All of which was not romantic.

"That was the beginning; but not the ending. The next time I met him, he claimed beaming acquaintance. After that he pursued me madly. He was always bobbing up in the most unexpected places. It gave me a feeling of being haunted. At first I bore it like a martyr. I hated to hurt his feelings. After a while it began to get on my nerves. About that time he began to make sentimental remarks. I carefully explained that I did not believe in love. That only made matters worse. He rolled his eyes and vowed that he would convince me. Then he began sending me letters and love lyrics. The lyrics were so original they were positively weird.

"But in my darkest hour of oppression I stumbled upon a remedy. I happened to remember a girl who was an art student. I also remembered that she was terribly sentimental. So I dragged my pursuer along with me to a water-color exhibition that I knew she expected to attend. They met. I perpetrated the introduction. It turned out even better than I had dared to hope. The funny part of it was that both of them were afraid I'd be angry. The deeper they fell in love, the harder they tried to keep it from me. After a while Charles, that was my perfidious idol's name, came to me with a long face and confessed. I suppose his conscience troubled him. He told me that he had made a terrible mistake in thinking himself in love with me. I humbly agreed with him that he had. He a.s.sured me that he now knew that he could never have been happy with me. Before he got through explaining, it struck me as being so funny that I laughed in his face. Now he doesn't speak to me. Neither does the girl. She evidently believes that she s.n.a.t.c.hed away my last chance."

The cheerful smile Elfreda turned on her amused listeners as she ended her recital was hardly an indication of deep sorrow for her double loss.

"That reminds me of Emma Dean's one romance," smiled Grace. "I shan't tell you about it. Wait until we have the reunion and I'll ask her to dig up her sentimental past for your benefit."

"I hope I can arrange my vacation so that I can attend the reunion, too," sighed Kathleen. "As Patience Eliot and I have been invited to be the Sempers' guests of honor, naturally I don't care to miss it."

"Can you get away from the paper at any time during August?" asked Anne thoughtfully.

"Yes; but only for a week," Kathleen spoke regretfully.

"Then let us decide upon the time now," proposed Miriam. "I am sorry to be a kill-joy, but one week will have to be my limit this year. I wish I could spare two, but it's impossible."

"I intended to speak of that," nodded Elfreda. "I'd love to have you girls with me longer but I know that most of you are cramped for time.

So I'll be magnanimous and say, 'thank you for small favors.'"

The subject of the reunion thus renewed, it was decided to hold it during the second week in August, and the six friends began an avid planning for it. From that the conversation drifted back to Overton College, always a fruitful topic for discussion. It was truly a heart-to-heart talk. Because of the perfect fellowship that existed among them, they could look back and speak frankly not only of their lighter hours, but also of the graver moments when the struggle to reach their aims had seemed well-nigh impossible.

Half-past eleven o'clock found them still lingering on the veranda, the incessant murmur of their busy voices proclaiming their mutual satisfaction in being together once more. When at last a voluble procession wended its way upstairs to bed, the usual amount of visiting between rooms was carried on with the old-time fervor of college days.

"It's exactly like old times," declared Elfreda to Miriam. "Here we are, you and I, rooming together again just as we did at Overton. Sometimes when I stop to think that those days are gone for good and all, it gives me the blues. I can't realize that you, Miriam Nesbit, and Grace Harlowe, too, are actually grown-up and getting ready to be married. Why it seems only yesterday since I was the verdant freshman who invited herself to room with you and kept you in hot water for a whole year because she didn't know enough to behave like a human being."

"What about the Elfreda Briggs who proved herself the most loyal friend and roommate one could ever hope to have?" demanded Miriam, laying a friendly hand on Elfreda's shoulder.

"Oh, I had to get in line," returned Elfreda with a flashing affectionate glance that belied her brusque words. "I could see that the way I had started out wouldn't take me far. You and Grace made me over."

"Yet, if it hadn't been for Grace I would have stayed a hateful, conceited sn.o.b all my days," returned Miriam soberly. "There isn't one of us who doesn't owe her a debt of grat.i.tude that we can never hope to repay. If happiness is the certain reward of good works, then Grace Harlowe ought never to know an unhappy moment."

Miriam spoke with a certainty born of her deep regard for Grace. To her it seemed that naught save the brightest of futures could come to her friend. Yet happiness is at best a fragile, evanescent thing.

CHAPTER IV

"TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE"

"Well, Daffydowndilly, what is on your mind?" began Grace when the last gay good-night had sounded and Arline had closed the door of her dainty blue and white room.

"Let's get comfy first. I can talk a great deal better." Arline began a listless unfastening of her fluffy lingerie frock, her eyes fixed moodily on Grace.

"All right." Grace had already divested herself of her gown of soft white China silk and was now seated before the dressing table energetically brushing her wealth of golden brown hair.

Nothing more was said until, with a little fluttering sigh, Arline had curled up like a kitten at Grace's feet, her golden head resting against her friend's knee. Smiling tenderly down on her, Grace could not help noting how utterly like a tired child she looked in her baby-blue negligee. "Now is the time for all good Sempers and true to come to the aid of their comrades," she encouraged with a smile.

"Grace," Arline lifted solemn blue eyes, "have you ever for one minute been sorry that you gave up your work for--for--the sake of--love?"

"No." Grace shook a decided head. Inwardly she wondered a little at the question. "It took me a long time to come to a decision, though," she added frankly.

"Would you mind telling me about it?" Arline flushed as she made the request. "Please don't think me prying, but--" She hesitated. "Well, I have a strong reason for asking. It would help me, I think, if you cared to give me your confidence."

For a moment Grace made no response. Aside from her most intimate Oakdale friends and Emma Dean she had never divulged to any one else the story of that last year of struggle against love which had ended in her unconditional surrender to it. To her it was as something bitter-sweet, to be locked in her memory for all time. Yet the wistfulness of Arline's appeal touched her deeply.

"I am willing to tell you about it," she said slowly. "You know, of course, that Tom Gray and I had known each other almost from childhood.

We grew up together as good comrades. We were always together during vacations with our six other friends. His aunt, Mrs. Gray, whom you know, was fond of having us with her. It never entered my head that Tom cared for me in more than a friendly way, until I came home from Overton at the end of my junior year. When I began to understand that he really loved me, I didn't like it at all. As I grew older I liked the idea still less. I wanted to work; not marry Tom. He asked me to marry him the next winter, but I said 'no,' After that I kept on saying 'no,' and last winter we threshed the matter out soon after Anne's wedding.

"I felt very well pleased with myself for a while. Then things went wrong at Overton and Tom joined a naturalist on an expedition to South America. Right then it came to me that I had suddenly met with a dreadful loss. I tried to make myself believe that I didn't care. While I was at home during the Easter vacation I woke up. But it was too late.

I went back to Overton, but I wasn't happy. He had often told me that there would come a time when not even my work could crowd out love. I knew that the time had come. I had had some trouble with Miss Wharton, the dean, and expecting to be asked to resign my position at Harlowe House. I resigned of my own accord. It was Kathleen West who straightened out that tangle for me. She sent for Miss Wilder, who happened to be coming home just at that time. My resignation wasn't accepted, and I would perhaps have gone on for another year at Overton, but--" Grace paused, her fine face grew tender. "Tom came back," she continued, a faint tremor in her even tones, "and so I gladly gave up my work for love. That's the whole story. I never expected to tell it to any one. Somehow it has always been sacred to me. I couldn't bear to talk of it, even to Mother."

"It's a wonderful story. When I asked you about giving up work for love, I never dreamed that you had gone through with any such struggle. I feel as though I've intruded on very private property. But just knowing about it _has_ comforted me." Arline raised her head from Grace's knee with sudden energy. "It's this way, Grace. I have almost decided to break my engagement."

"Why, Arline Thayer!" Amazement was written on Grace's features. "I am sorry to hear that. Until to-night I had thought of you as being absolutely happy."

"I'm not. I'm dreadfully unhappy." Arline drew a quick, almost sobbing breath. "You've never met Stanley Forde, my fiance, so you don't know how handsome he is and how nice he can be--if he chooses. But he's turning out a--a--well, a kind of tyrant. He doesn't like me to do settlement work. I've always thought he wasn't very highly pleased over it, but he never said a word until the other night. Even then he didn't say much. But, as Elfreda says, 'I can see' that if I marry him he's going to say more about it afterward. Then we'll quarrel and that would be dreadful. I could never endure it. You know how I hate quarrels. At college I never had anything to say to or do with the girls who were trouble-makers. What am I to do, Grace? Break my engagement while there is still time or--or--" Arline subsided with a little sob.

"Poor Daffydowndilly." Bending, Grace wound her arms about the dainty, child-like figure. "It's a hard problem--hard because I suppose you must care a great deal for him."

"I think I must love him, or I wouldn't wish to marry him," came the m.u.f.fled reply. "Still I won't give up my work. Those poor settlement children need me. He can't understand that. He knows nothing of what it means to be terribly poor. He doesn't like the idea of my coming into such close contact with them. It doesn't hurt me and it helps them,"

ended Arline piteously.

"One who knows you well should understand that you are doing worthy work," returned Grace gravely. "Still if I were you I would not act too hastily. It seems to me that you ought to come to a frank understanding of the matter with your fiance at once."