The Second Violin Part 32

"What a lovely rest it will be for Charlotte!" murmured Celia, thinking at once, as usual, of somebody else. "She won't own it, but she's really had a pretty hard winter."

"So I should imagine, for the first year of one's married life. I'm afraid I couldn't be as hospitable as she and her husband--not all at once, you know. Do you think it's paid?"

"What? Having the three through the winter?" Celia glanced at Evelyn, who at the other end of the long porch with Doctor Forester was gazing with happy eyes out over the sunlit river. "Oh, I'm sure Charlotte and Andy would both say so. In Evelyn's case I think there's no doubt about it. From being a delicate little invalid she's come to be the healthy girl you see there. Not very vigorous yet, of course, but in a fair way to become so, Andy thinks."

"Yes, I can see," admitted Forester, thoughtfully. "But those other youngsters--"

Celia laughed. It was easy to think well of everybody out here in this delicious air and in the company of people she thoroughly liked. Even Lucy Peyton seemed less of an infliction.

"Little Ran has certainly improved very much," she said, warmly. "And even Lucy--"

"Has Lucy improved?" Forester looked at her with a quizzical smile. "The last time I saw her I thought she was rather going backward. I met her by accident in town one day. Charlotte was shopping, and Lucy was waiting. She rushed up to me as to a long lost friend. She practically invited me to invite herself and Charlotte to lunch with me--she somewhat grudgingly included Charlotte. I was rather taken off my feet for an instant. Charlotte heard, and came up. I wish you could have seen the expression on the face of Mrs. Andrew Churchill! I don't know which felt the more crushed, Lucy or I. I a.s.sure you I was anxious to take them both to lunch after that, Mrs. Andrew had made it so clearly impossible."

"The perversity of human desires," laughed Celia. "Poor Lucy! Charlotte won't stand the child's absurd affectations."

"Come here, and listen to my plan!" called Doctor Forester, unable to wait longer to unfold it. So for the next half-hour the plan was discussed in all its bearings.

Celia proposed at once that they keep it a secret from Charlotte until the last possible moment, and this was agreed upon. Then Evelyn suggested, a little shyly, that it also remain unknown to Jeff. He was to be graduated from college about the middle of June, was very busy and hurried, and might appreciate the whole thing better when Commencement was out of the way. It was finally decided that the party should come down to "The Banks" upon the evening of Jeff's Commencement Day, and that to him and Charlotte the whole arrangement should be a complete surprise.

The date was only three weeks ahead, and Celia and Evelyn, Mrs. Birch and the others, found plenty to do in getting ready for the outing, to say nothing of seeing that neither Charlotte nor Jeff made other engagements for the period.

"No, no, let's not get in our camping so early in the season. It'll be all over too soon, then," argued Just with his brother. Upon Just devolved the task of heading Jeff off for those prospective two weeks.

"Besides, I've an idea Lanse may prefer July or August."

"If you'd been boning for examinations the way I have," retorted Jeff, "your one idea would be to get off into the wilderness just as soon as your sheepskin was fairly in your hands. I don't see why you argue against going in June. You were eager enough for it a week ago."

"Oh, not so awfully eager. I----"

"You were in a frenzy to go. And I haven't cooled off, if you have."

"He's hopeless," Just confided to Evelyn. "His granite mind is set on going camping in June, and I can't get him off it. If you've any little tricks of persuasiveness all your own now's your time to try 'em on him.

He'll spoil the whole thing."

"Write your brother Lansing to tell Jeff to put it off on his account,"

suggested Evelyn.

"That won't do, unfortunately, for Lanse has been uncertain about going all the time."

"I'll try to think of something," promised Evelyn.

She had a chance before the day was over. Jeff appeared, late in the afternoon, and invited her to take a walk with him.

"I'll tell you what I want," he said, as they went along. "Let's go down by the old bridge at the pond, and if there's n.o.body about I'd like to have you do me the favour of listening while I spout my cla.s.s-day oration. Would you mind?"

"I shall be delighted," answered Evelyn, and this program was carried out accordingly. Down behind the willows Jeff mounted a prostrate log and gave vent to a vigorous and sincere discourse.

"Splendid!" cried his audience, as he finished. "If you do it half as well as that it will be a great success."

"Glad you think so." Jeff descended from the log with a flushed brow and an air of relief. "I'm not the fellow for cla.s.s orator, I know, but I'm it, and I don't want to disgrace the crowd. Pretty down here, isn't it?"

"Beautiful. It makes me very blue to think of leaving it--as if I oughtn't to be simply thankful I could be here so long. It was lovely of your sister and brother to insist on my staying when my brother Thorne had to go to j.a.pan so suddenly."

"You're not going soon?" Jeff looked dismayed.

"Two weeks after your Commencement," said Evelyn. "My brother's ship should be in port by the last of June, and I want to surprise him by being at home when he reaches there. I shall leave here the minute he gets into San Francisco."

"Oh, that's too bad. I'd forgotten there was any such thing as your going away. You seem--why, you seem one of us, you know!" declared Jeff, as if there could be no stronger bond of union.

"Oh, thank you--it's good of you to say so. You've all been so kind I can't half tell you how I appreciate it. We'll have to make the most of June, I think," said Evelyn, smiling rather wistfully, and looking away across the little pond.

"I should say so. We'll have every sort of lark we can think of the minute Commencement's--Oh, I was going camping after that--but I'll put it off. Just was arguing that way only this morning, but I saw no good reason for waiting, then. Now, I do."

"I'm sorry to have you put it off," protested Evelyn, with art. "Hadn't you better go on with your plans, if they're all made? Of course I should be sorry, but--"

"Oh, I'll put it off!" said Jeff, decidedly, with the very human wish to do the thing he need not do.

So it was settled. Commencement came rapidly on, bringing with it the round of festivals peculiar to that season. Jeff insisted on the presence of his entire family at every event, and for a week, as Charlotte said, it seemed as if they all lived in flowered organdies and white gloves.

"I'm really thankful this is the last," sighed Celia, coming over with her mother and Just to join the party a.s.sembling for the final great occasion on the Churchill's porch. "Evelyn, how dear you look in that forget-me-not frock! And that hat is a dream."

"Well, people, we must be off. When it's all over, let's come out here on the porch in the dark and luxuriate." Charlotte drew a long breath as she spoke.

"That will be a rest," agreed Celia, with a private pinch of Evelyn's arm, and Lucy and Randolph giggled.

The younger two had been let into the secret only within the last twenty-four hours, fears being entertained that they might not be safe repositories of mystery. Celia gave them a warning look as she pa.s.sed them, and kept them away from Charlotte during the car ride into the city.

"How well the dear boy looks!" whispered his family, one to another, as the cla.s.s filed into the University chapel in cap and gown. They were in a front row, where Jeff could look down at them when he should come upon the stage for his diploma.

There was not the slightest possibility of his looking either there or anywhere else. His oration had been delivered on cla.s.s day, and his remaining part in the exercises of graduation was to listen respectfully to the distinguished gentlemen who took part, and to watch with interested eyes the conferring of many higher degrees before it was time for himself and his cla.s.s to receive the sonorous Latin address which ended by bestowing upon them the t.i.tle of Bachelor of Arts.

It was a proud moment, nevertheless, and many hearts beat high when it came. Down in that row near the front father and mother, brothers and sisters and friends, watched a certain erect figure as if there were no others worth looking at--as all over the hall other affectionate eyes watched other youthful, manly forms.

Jeff had worked hard for his degree, being not by nature a student, like his elder brother Lansing, but fonder of active, outdoor life than of books. He had been incited to deeds of valour in the cla.s.sroom only by the grim determination not to disgrace the family traditions or the scholarly ancestors to whom he had often been pointed back.

"Thank heaven it's over!" exulted Jeff, with his cla.s.smates, when, after the last triumphant speech of the evening, the audience was dismissed to the strains of a rejoicing orchestra.

"Say, fellows, I'm going to bolt. Hullo, Just! Ask Evelyn for me if she won't go home flying with me in the Houghton auto--Carolyn's just sent me word."

"That will be just the thing," whispered Celia to Evelyn, when the message came. "Go with him, but don't let him stop at the Houghtons'.

Whisper it to Carolyn, and see that he's safely on the porch with you when we get there."

Evelyn nodded and disappeared with Just, who took her to his brother.

"Now we're off," murmured Jeff, as he and Evelyn followed Carolyn and her brother out through a side entrance. "What a night! What a moon! My, but it feels good to be out in the open air after that pow-wow in there!"

They had half an hour to themselves in the quiet of the moonlit porch before the others, coming by electric car, could reach home.

They filled the time by sitting quietly on the top step, Jeff in the subdued mood of the young graduate who sees, after all, much to regret in the coming to an end of the years of getting ready for his life-work.

He was, besides, not a little wearied by the final examinations, preparation for his part in Commencement, and the closing round of exercises. Evelyn, herself somewhat fatigued, leaned back against the porch pillar and gladly kept silence.