Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus Part 7

"Stop pinching my arm, Nora," he protested in a grieved tone. "How can you be so cruel to little me?"

This was too much for the silent four. They looked into each other's eyes and laughed. Then Dave said quietly, "Not this year, old man."

"Perhaps we can promise you one for next fall, Hippy," said Anne, with a sudden temerity which surprised her as well as the others.

"Anne!" David's voice vibrated with newborn hope. For the instant he forgot everything except the fact that Anne had at last approached some degree of definiteness regarding their future.

"I said 'perhaps,'" laughed Anne, but behind her laughter David read the blessed truth that in Anne's secret heart there was no "perhaps," and the little hand which lay so contentedly in his, as they strolled up the walk to the house, made the a.s.surance of his new joy doubly sure.

"Why can't you make me happy too, Grace?" asked Tom in a low, reproachful tone. They had dropped a little to the rear of the others.

"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Grace, "but I can't. I am fonder of you than any other man I know, but it is the fondness of long friendship. I'm not looking forward to marriage. It is my work that interests me most. I don't love you as Anne loves David, and Jessica and Nora love Reddy and Hippy. I don't believe I know what love means. I don't wish to hurt you, but I must be perfectly honest with myself and with you. I can only say that I care for no one else, and that perhaps someday I may care as much as you."

Grace gazed sorrowfully at Tom as she ended. She knew by the tightening of his lips and the nervous squaring of his broad shoulders that she had hurt him sorely.

"All right, Grace," he said with brave finality. "I'll try to be content with your friendship and live in the hope of that 'someday.' I'm going to be selfish enough to dream that there will come a time when even your work won't be able to crowd out love."

Grace made no reply. She felt that there was nothing to be said. The bare idea that there might come a time when her beloved work would fail to fill her life was not to be considered, even for a moment. Love was a vague, far-distant possibility. It might come to her, and again it might not. But her work--that lay directly before her. The glory of life was not love, but achievement. Her eyes grew rapt with purpose, and, as Tom wistfully scanned her changeful face, it fell upon him with a sudden sinking of the heart that for him the longed-for "someday" might never come.

CHAPTER VII

THE RETURN OF EMMA DEAN

"'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!'" chanted a voice in Grace Harlowe's ear.

Grace whirled about, almost dropping the suit case and golf bag she carried.

"Why, Emma, _Emma Dean_!" she exclaimed, her voice rising high in astonishment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Why, Emma Dean!" Exclaimed Grace.]

"Yes, it's Emma, _Emma Dean_," returned Emma humorously. "It is I, me, myself and all the other personally personal p.r.o.nouns that stand for your old friend, Emily Elizabeth Dean."

"Wherever did you come from and--oh, Emma"--as the tall thin young woman pointed significantly to two heavy suit cases and a small leather bag huddled together on the station platform--"you aren't really--are you--"

"I am," interrupted Emma cheerfully. "I couldn't stay away. I knew you'd need a comforter this year, so I applied for the position and you can see for yourself how successful I was. Professor Morton was so grateful to me for applying that he said with tears in his eyes, 'Emma, I can't tell you how happy it makes me--'"

"Emma Dean, stop talking nonsense and tell me how you really happened to be here. It's too good to be true." Grace beamed fondly on her tall, humorous cla.s.smate who had been a never-failing source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the Wayne Hall girls.

"Since you are determined to have facts, here goes. I've come back to Overton, the land of the dig and the home of the sage, to show what four years of unremittent toil have done for me. I am to be a living testimonial, one of the 'after taking the prescribed course I can cheerfully recommend, etc.,' kind. Briefly and explicitly, I dropped off that train from the south that came in just before your train, and I'm going to be Miss Duncan's a.s.sistant in English."

"You aren't really!" Grace's eyes were dancing. "How splendid! Why I didn't know you intended to teach."

"Neither did I," returned Emma, a shadow flitting across her face, "until I went home last June and found that things hadn't been going as smoothly as they might. Mother and Father never gave me the slightest inkling last year that money wasn't plentiful in the Dean family. Dear, unselfish things! They wanted my college life to end in a blaze of glory. You see, Father had put most of his little capital into a real estate boom that didn't boom, and it left him with a lot of vacant lots on his hands that no one, not even himself, wanted. A trolley line was to pa.s.s through the section he owned and it changed its mind, or rather the directors changed theirs, and straggled off in another direction.

So, unless it straggles back again and Father gets rid of his incubus, which isn't at all likely, the eldest daughter of the n.o.ble house of Dean will have to hustle indefinitely for her board and keep.

"To go back a little, as soon as I noticed how worried Father looked, and after I surprised Mother crying one day, I made them tell me all about it. I wrote straight to Professor Morton. He helped me secure the position of a.s.sistant in English, and here I am. I haven't the least idea where I'm going to live either. I'd love to go back to Wayne Hall, but I'm afraid I couldn't preserve a proper att.i.tude of dignity there.

You know my failings. Beverly Place is a house given over to teachers. I thought I'd try there first. I hope it won't be too expensive. I expect to send some money home this year."

Grace had listened attentively to Emma's recital. What a splendid girl Emma was! She had not tried to dodge Life and his inseparable comrades, Trouble and Hard Work. Instead, she had walked out courageously, fearlessly, to meet them with smiling lips and a merry heart. Grace was already enlivened by the prospect of having this free-hearted, jolly cla.s.smate with her during the college year now opening.

"How I wish you could live near me, Emma," she said longingly. Then she stared at her friend with wide-open eyes, the expression of which betokened the birth of an amazing idea. "Why--you can," she declared.

"I've just thought of the nicest way. Will you come, Emma? Will you?"

"It depends on the exact spot where the pleasure of my company is requested," returned Emma waggishly. "If it is to Kamptchatka--no, most decidedly. I have no insane craving for life among the heathen, and that 'no' includes the Malay Archipelago and darkest Africa. It's too cold in Greenland and I couldn't countenance terrible Thibet, but if it's any place nearer home, say Hunter's Rock or Vinton's, I'll be delighted."

Grace laughed happily. "It's a place you haven't guessed or thought of,"

she replied. "I want you to come to Harlowe House and room with me, Emma. I'm going to have lots of room, a whole suite. There's a sitting-room, a bedroom and a bath. I need some one to help me and I'd rather have you than any one else I know. Won't you say 'yes'? Please, please, do."

Emma regarded Grace with a look of one who could not believe the evidence of her own ears. "Oh--I couldn't--it wouldn't be right to impose upon you. I'd love to, but--"

"Wait until you see Harlowe House before you make up your mind not to live there," interposed Grace slyly. "We'll call a taxicab and go over to it at once. I have my own key, so we can leave our luggage and go to Vinton's or any other place we wish for luncheon. You can spend the night at Harlowe House. We won't be alone there, for the cook and both maids are supposed to arrive to-day. After you have enjoyed a few hours of my beneficent society you may refuse to be torn from me and my sheltering home," she ended banteringly.

"I haven't the least doubt of it," averred Emma in a perfectly serious tone. "That's why I feel as though I ought to decide now while I am in my most heroic mood. I never dreamed of any such wonderful good fortune.

Honestly, Grace, I don't know what to say."

"Say 'yes,'" advocated Grace. "You ought to be willing to come if I am willing to have you. If it will make you feel more independent, you may pay for your meals. I'll see that you are not overcharged, but as far as the room is concerned you are welcome to it. Oh, Emma, think how delightful it will be for us! I say 'will' because you simply can't find yourself hard-hearted enough to refuse. I'm not obliged to consult a soul about my plans. Mrs. Gray gave me full permission to do as I think best. I have no set expense limit. I am to be prudent and economical, of course; that's part of my trust. After this year there will be an expense limit. We shall know by next June just what it costs for the up-keep of a house like Harlowe House. This year, however, we are bound to do more or less experimenting."

Grace gazed pleadingly at Emma, who stood in the middle of the station platform, her heavy eyebrows drawn together in deep thought.

"I'm going for that taxicab," said Grace, as Emma still remained silent.

"There's one coming into the station yard now." She signalled to the driver, who drew up directly in front of where they were standing, then sprang out and began loading the girls' luggage in the car.

"Come on, Emma," coaxed Grace. "You can finish making up your mind on the way to Harlowe House."

Emma turned to her friend with a face full of affectionate grat.i.tude.

"I'm going to accept your offer, Grace," she declared. "In fact, I can't resist it. I am sure you want me to come and I don't know of any other place where I'd rather be. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me, and in so many different ways. Are you sure there won't come a time when you'll think, 'Oh, if only I had never asked that noisy, nervous, nosing, messy, meddlesome, moping, miserable, growling, grumbling, grouchy, greedy, galloping, galumphing Emma Dean to room with me?'"

"I don't know any such person," denied Grace, laughing merrily at Emma's remarkable self-arraignment. "It sounds more like a Thesaurus than a category of your failings, Emma. Come along. We mustn't keep this man waiting."

Emma dutifully climbed into the automobile. "One never knows what will happen next," she remarked naively as they seated themselves in the car.

"I feel as Cinderella must have felt when she was suddenly whisked off to the ball by her fairy G.o.dmother. By the way, Grace, how is Mrs. Gray, the fairy G.o.dmother of Harlowe House?"

"I've been so busy coaxing you to come and live with me, I forgot to tell you that she and I were down here in August, and who do you suppose we had as a visitor?"

"Arline Thayer?" asked Emma.

"No; but that wasn't a bad guess. J. Elfreda was with us."

"Bless her!" Emma's exclamation told plainly of her affection for the one-time stout girl. "Was she as funny as ever?"

"Every bit. She kept Mrs. Gray and I in a perpetual state of laughter.

She's going to study law in New York City, and she's promised to come to Overton for Thanksgiving. Arline Thayer and Mabel Ashe are coming too.

We'll have a great celebration."