The Plastic Age Part 33

He called the waiter, paid his bill, and a few minutes later they turned into Fifth Avenue. They had gone about a block down the avenue when Hugh saw some one a few feet ahead of him who looked familiar. Could it be Carl Peters? By the Lord Harry, it was!

"Excuse me a minute, Cynthia, please. There's a fellow I know."

He rushed forward and caught Carl by the arm. Carl cried, "Hugh, by G.o.d!" and shook hands with him violently. "h.e.l.l, Hugh, I'm glad to see you."

Hugh turned to Cynthia, who was a pace behind them. He introduced Carl and Cynthia to each other and then asked Carl why in the devil he hadn't written.

Carl switched his leg with his cane and grinned. "You know darn well, Hugh, that I don't write letters, but I did mean to write to you; I meant to often. I've been traveling. My mother and I have just got back from a trip around the world. Where are you going now?"

"Oh, golly," Hugh exclaimed, "I've got to hurry if I'm going to make that train. Come on, Carl, with us to Grand Central. I've got to get the five-ten back to Haydensville. My folks are coming up to-morrow for commencement." Instantly he hated himself. Why did he have to mention commencement? He might have remembered that it should have been Carl's commencement, too.

Carl, however, did not seem in the least disturbed, and he cheerfully accompanied Hugh and Cynthia to the station. He looked at Cynthia and had an idea.

"Have you checked your bag?"

"Yes," Hugh replied.

"Well, give me the check and I'll get it for you. I'll meet you at the gate."

Hugh surrendered the check and then proceeded to the gate with Cynthia.

He turned to her and asked gently, "May I kiss you, Cynthia?"

For an instant she looked down and said nothing; then she turned her face up to his. He kissed her tenderly, wondering why he felt no pa.s.sion, afraid that he would.

"Good-by, Cynthia dear," he whispered.

Her hands fluttered helplessly about his coat lapels and then fell to her side. She managed a brave little smile. "Good-by--honey."

Carl rushed up with the bag. "Gosh, Hugh, you've got to hurry; they're closing the gate." He gripped his hand for a second. "Visit me at Bar Harbor this summer if you can."

"Sure. Good-by, old man. Good-by Cynthia."

"Good-by--good-by."

Hugh slipped through the gate and, turned to wave at Carl and Cynthia.

They waved back, and then he ran for the train.

On the long trip to Haydensville Hugh relaxed. Now that the strain was over, he felt suddenly weak, but it was sweet weakness. He could graduate in peace now. The visit to New York had been worth while. And what do you know, b.u.mping into old Carl like that I Cynthia and he were friends, too, the best friends in the world, but she no longer wanted to marry him. That was fine.... He remembered the picture she and Carl had made standing on the other side of the gate from him. "What a peach of a pair. Golly, wouldn't it be funny if they hit it off...."

He thought over every word that he and Cynthia had said. She certainly had been square all right. Not many like her, but "by heaven, I knew down in my heart all the time that I didn't want to get married or even engaged. It would have played h.e.l.l with everything."

CHAPTER XXVII

The next morning Hugh's mother and father arrived in the automobile. He was to drive them back to Merrytown the day after commencement. At last he stood in the doorway of the Nu Delta house and welcomed his father, but he had forgotten all about that youthful dream. He was merely aware that he was enormously glad to see the "folks" and that his father seemed to be withering into an old man.

As the under-cla.s.smen departed, the alumni began to arrive. The "five year" cla.s.ses dressed in extraordinary outfits--Indians, Turks, and men in prison garb roamed the campus. There were youngsters just a year out of college, still looking like undergraduates, still full of college talk. The alumni ranged all the way from these one-year men to the fifty-year men, twelve old men who had come back to Sanford fifty years after their graduation, and two of them had come all the way across the continent. There had been only fifty men originally in that cla.s.s; and twelve of them were back.

What brought them back? Hugh wondered. He thought he knew, but he couldn't have given a reason. He watched those old men wandering slowly around the campus, one of them with his grandson who was graduating this year, and he was awed by their age and their devotion to their alma mater. Yes, Henley had been right. Sanford was far from perfect, far from it--a child could see that--but there was something in the college that gripped one's heart. What faults that old college had; but how one loved her!

Thousands of j.a.panese lanterns had been strung around the campus; an electric fountain sparkled and splashed its many-colored waters; a band seemed to be playing every hour of the day and night from the band-stand in front of the Union. It was a gay scene, and everybody seemed superbly happy except, possibly, the seniors. They pretended to be happy, but all of them were a little sad, a little frightened. College had been very beautiful--and the "world outside," what was it? What did it have in store for them?

There were mothers and fathers there to see their sons receive their degrees, there were the wives and children of the alumni, there were sisters and fiancees of the seniors. Nearly two thousand people; and at least half of the alumni drunk most of the time. Very drunk, many of them, and very foolish, but n.o.body minded. Somehow every one seemed to realize that in a few brief days they were trying to recapture a youthful thrill that had gone forever. Some of the drunken ones seemed very silly, some of them seemed almost offensive; all of them were pathetic.

They had come back to Sanford where they had once been so young and exuberant, so tireless in pleasure, so in love with living; and they were trying to pour all that youthful zest into themselves again out of a bottle bought from a bootlegger. Were they having a good time? Who knows? Probably not. A bald-headed man does not particularly enjoy looking at a picture taken in his hirsute youth; and yet there is a certain whimsical pleasure in the memories the picture brings.

For three days there was much gaiety, much singing of cla.s.s songs, constant parading, dances, speech-making, cla.s.s circuses, and endless shaking of hands and exchanging of reminiscences. The seniors moved through all the excitement quietly, keeping close to their relatives and friends. Graduation wasn't so thrilling as they had expected it to be; it was more sad. The alumni seemed to be having a good time; they were ridiculously boyish: only the seniors were grave, strangely and unnaturally dignified.

Most of the alumni left the night before the graduation exercises. The parents and fiancees remained. They stood in the middle of the campus and watched the seniors, clad in caps and gowns, line up before the Union at the orders of the cla.s.s marshal.

Finally, the procession, the grand marshal, a professor, in the lead with a wand in his hand, then President Culver and the governor of the State, then the men who were to receive honorary degrees--a writer, a college president, a philanthropist, a professor, and three politicians--then the faculty in academic robes, their many-colored hoods brilliant against their black gowns. And last the seniors, a long line of them marching in twos headed by their marshal.

The visitors streamed after them into the chapel. The seniors sat in their customary seats, the faculty and the men who were to receive honorary degrees on a platform that had been built at the altar. After they were seated, everything became a blur to Hugh. He hardly knew what was happening. He saw his father and mother sitting in the transept. He thought his mother was crying. He hoped not.... Some one prayed stupidly. There was a hymn.... What was it Cynthia had said? Oh, yes: "I can't marry a stranger." Well, they weren't exactly strangers.... He was darn glad he had gone to New York.... The president seemed to be saying over and over again, "By the power invested in me ..." and every time that he said it, Professor Blake would slip the loop of a colored hood over the head of a writer or a politician--and then it was happening all over again.

Suddenly the cla.s.s marshal motioned to the seniors to rise. They put on their mortar-boards. The president said once more, "By the power invested in me...." The seniors filed by the president, and the grand marshal handed each of them a roll of parchment tied with blue and orange ribbons. Hugh felt a strange thrill as he took his. He was graduated; he was a bachelor of science.... Back again to their seats.

Some one was p.r.o.nouncing benediction.... Music from the organ--marching out of the chapel, the surge of friends--his father shaking his hand, his mother's arms around his neck; she _was_ crying....

Graduation was over, and, with it Hugh's college days. Many of the seniors left at once. Hugh would have liked to go, too, but his father wanted to stay one more day in Haydensville. Besides, there was a final senior dance that night, and he thought that Hugh ought to attend it.

Hugh did go to the dance, but somehow it brought him no pleasure.

Although it was immensely decorous, it reminded him of Cynthia. He thought of her tenderly. The best little girl he'd ever met.... He danced on, religiously steering around the sisters and fiancees of his friends, but he could not enjoy the dance. Shortly after eleven he slipped out of the gymnasium and made one last tour of the campus.

It was a moonlight night, and the campus was mysterious with shadows.

The elms shook their leaves whisperingly; the tower of the chapel looked like magic tracery in the moonlight. He paused before Surrey Hall, now dark and empty. Good old Carl.... Carl and Cynthia? He wondered....

Pudge had roomed there, too. He pa.s.sed on. Keller Hall, Cynthia and Norry.... "G.o.d, what a beast I was that night. How white Norry was--and Cynthia, too," Cynthia again. She'd always be a part of Sanford to him.

On down to the lake to watch the silver path of the moonlight and the heavy reflections near the sh.o.r.e. Swimming, canoeing, skating--he and Cynthia in the woods beyond.... On back to the campus, around the buildings, every one of them filled with memories. Four years--four beautiful, wonderful years.... Good old Sanford....

Midnight struck. Some one turned a switch somewhere. The j.a.panese lanterns suddenly lost their colors and faded to gray balloons in the moonlight. Some men were singing on the Union steps. It was a few seniors, Hugh knew; they had been singing for an hour.

He stood in the center of the campus and listened, his eyes full of tears. Earnestly, religiously, the men sang, their voices rich with emotion:

"Sanford, Sanford, mother of men, Love us, guard us, hold us true.

Let thy arms enfold us; Let thy truth uphold us.

Queen of colleges, mother of men-- Alma mater--Sanford--hail!

Alma-mater--Hail!--Hail!"

Hugh walked slowly across the campus toward the Nu Delta house. He was both happy and sad--happy because the great adventure was before him with all its mystery, sad because he was leaving something beautiful behind....