Page:The Masses, Volume 1, Number 3.pdf/14

 14 than a year. But now I'm considering seriously dropping out this June and taking my degree two years from now with the sophomores." It was hard to say what made N o r a O'Riley the most popular girl in college. Perhaps it was the combination in her of New England, which gave her character and balance, with Ireland, which added personality and charm. In other words, she was half Puritan, half Celt. She sheered close to being temperamental, but she was saved from that absurdity by her sense of values and proportions. N o w her long, lean, freckled face seemed almost stern—for the moment, certainly, New England was in the ascendant. Then Ireland broke in a smile that glittered, in whimsical lines and creases, through the freckles. ' O h, Patty-Maud," she wheedled, "where's your sense of humor?" The shot told. In spite of herself, Miss W e l l man smiled. She had plenty of sense of humor. A n d then what girl could resist her babysobriquet as cooed from the lips of the adored Nora? But Patty-Maud conquered her mirth. "There are some things that go beyond a sense of humor, Miss O'Riley," she said sombrely. Perhaps N o r a O'Riley's most wonderful quality was her power to project herself into tht point of view of another. In debate, she had the attitude of one who is on the look-out to see with how many of her antagonist's points she can agree. This only made her own points the more telling. "That's one of the profoundest things that's ever been dropped in this here seat of learning. Patty-Maud," she said soberly ; and she paid her companion the compliment of considering the statement a moment with frowning brows and compressed lips. "I feel as if you were too young to know how important that is. I feel as if I were watching a baby playing with a stick of dynamite. Come, sit down and listen to me for a moment." A l l the Irishness in her birred in her coaxing tone. Miss Wellman hesitated, but in the end she seated herself again. " I ' m not going to talk about Mabel Johnson with you," N o r a began, "only to say that I've known her for years. I met her first in Medwin. M y whole family got interested in her, and I was the one to encourage her to come to Radclifïe. I feel a good deal of responsibility on that account. But I assure you she's an unusual person—is Mabel Johnson—and I'm certain she'll justify all we've believed of her. That's all for that." The briskness dropped out of her tone. She began to go a little more slowly. "I'm not going to discuss the race-question with you, Patty-Maud. I don't think I have the right. I might say, perhaps, that you don't know the northern negro, that I don't know the southern negro and, for that reason, argument would be futile. I don't say that. W h a t I do say is that probably you know the southern negro much better than we know the northern one, that you care much more for your darkies than we do for ours and that, deep down in your hearts, you are much more interested to help them than we to help ours. But let's drop the whole subject." She reached forward and took Patty-Maud's hand. The cajolery had gone out of her voice, the wheedle out of her manner. Patty-Maud did not stir. "Dear Patty-Maud, because you're the ablest girl in your class, I expect you to have the broadest point of view. F o r that reason and partly because I can't bear to let that poor old thing out there go back to Medwin disappointed —I can still find the courage somewhere in my system to ask this favor of you. I don't ask it as northerner to southerner. I ask it simply as girl to girl, as senior to junior." N o r a waited, but no answer came. Patty-Maud kept her look of statuesque calm.

THE

MASSES

But, inside, all kinds of emotions were stirring. O l d prejudices shook her with their violent rage. Myriads of unanalyzable scorns and hatreds seemed to make electric prickles in her blood. But she kept her eyes—only by their increased brilliancy did they betray these inner fires—on Nora's face. It occurred to her that she had never seen that face express so perfectly Nora's peculiar wonderfulness. "I ask you to drop the whole question for the afternoon. I want you to take that funny old man all over Cambridge and show him every living spot that will interest him. I want you to try not to let him see that you're condescending to

him. You're such a big person, Patty-Maud, and such a good actress—." Nora's warm smile again made whimsical beauty along the long lean lines of her colorless face—"that I believe you can do it if you want to. A n d I think you will do it just to help out one of your dear, departing senior friends." There was a long silence. W h e n Patty-Maud spoke again, it was with slowness, with a strange air of detachment. " M y father would kill me," she said simply. Nora's face seemed to catch in a tangle of expressions. "I guess I'm sorry I asked you," she began. "But I reckon I'm going to say, 'yes'," PattyM a u d went on, taking no notice of the interruption. " O n l y if you think for a moment that I've changed or ever w i l l —. " She turned on N o r a with so impetuous a movement that it seemed to strike sparks from her hair, her eyes, her very voice. " A n d don't you fancy for a moment that you ever will realize how—" she added in quite another tone. She did not finish. The two girls shook hands. But after all it was a good deal harder than Patty-Maud anticipated. She bowed stiffly when N o r a introduced the Reverend W i l l i a m Johnson, and she stood in g r i n silence until the president of the Senior Class had left them inexorably alone. It was not easy to talk then. Indeed, she had a sudden fiery impulse to go back on her bargain. But all that noblesse oblige teaches to hot young blood forbade this course. Instead, she ushered the old man out of Fay House and into the glaring sunlight of the early afternoon. Cambridge sees many strange pictures in the course of the month of June. Not least among them, that year, was the combination of a tall

March, 1911 blonde girl who carried her head as if she could look over neighboring roofs and a grotesque old darkey, who, shambling along at her side, examined everything the girl pointed out with a veneration that amounted to awe. There were only two strings to his conversational bow, Patty-Maud very soon discovered— the glories of Cambridge and the excellencies of big granddaughter Mabel. Talk of Cambridge, she could endure. But when they veered to a consideration of his granddaughter's uncountable virtues, she listened with her teeth clenched. For it seemed to Patty-Maud that she had never hated anybody as she hated Mabel Johnson. W i t h N o r a O'Riley, P a t t y - M a u d had been ashamed to touch on this personal element. That Mabel Johnson was conscious of her feeling, Patty-Maud was very well aware. That it troubled and flurried her, P a t t y - M a u d was maliciously conscious. In college, Mabel Johnson always disappeared whenever she saw PattyM a u d approach. The number of elective course offered by the University made it possible for the two girls not to conflict, but P a t t y - M a u d knew perfectly well that their complete separation was the result of careful planning on Mabel's part. In other words, at the beginning of each year Patty-Maud chose her courses from the whole list and Mabel, then, made her selection from what was left. T o do her justice, Patty-Maud said nothing unfavorable about his granddaughter, although she gave the old man the shortest and curtest answers to his questions. But as he rabbled on about Mabel's quickness, her ease and brilliancy in study, she recalled for her own pleasure that Mabel had to work very hard indeed to keep up with the lower middle of her class—that she would certainly graduate without honors and that it might be a long hard pull to graduate at all. One thing troubled her more and more as the afternoon pulled itself out to inter ninable lengths : Mabel Johnson would have to know what she had done. She hated the thought of what this knowledge might entail. Perhaps the next time they met, she would find in Mabel's eyes a look of complacency, as of a definitely established social equality. P a t t y - M a u d had been in the habit of looking through her every time opportunity offered. N o w she decided she would never glance in her direction again. . The first thing she did after she reached her room was to wash her hands—the act took on symbolic virtues to her. She settled herself to her grinding with a perceptible lift in her spirits. Late that evening a maid came to PattyMaud's room with the information that she had a visitor downstairs. "She's on the front steps, Miss Wellman—she wouldn't come in. She told me to tell you that she was from the college. In the lower hall, Patty-Maud stopped short. It was Mabel Johnson. The increased statuesqueness that was PattyMaud's graceful substitute for a stiffening of the figure, made her seem unusually tall. She did not ask her guest into the house. She did not speak. She waited. In contrast, Mabel Johnson looked decidedly humble. She was not a picturesque figure. She was dumpy and shabby. A s she talked, one hand plucked nervously at the vine that dropped over the doorway. H e r voice came in gasps, her words in jerked-out phrases. But she had remarkable eyes, liquid in look, gentle in expression. She kept those eyes fixed steadily on Patty-Maud's face. "I happened to come home earlier than I expected, Miss Wellman," she said, "and I met my grandfather in—in—in the South Station. H e told me how kind you were—and—and—all the things you'd done—I didn't know—I couldn't quite believe—but that he'd made some mistake in the name—and I couldn't get N o r a until—just now on the telephone—and then I thought—I— I must come up—and thank you."